#and ​also the nostalgia. i was way too young and didn’t understand a lot of what was going on but i would sit with my mom and dad

[fitzykreiner]

every time i watch the x files i want to inject the essence of it directly into my veins

[ca-suffit]

I really want to know why book fans get mad and up in arms when people don’t like Marius…a canonical pedophile. When I read the books I didn’t really like him at all so why would I get excited for his AMC debut? Sorry but not all of us fold on sight just because the predator happens to be a pretty white man with yellow hair.

This insistent defense squad for him feels very strange. Especially because they all seem to know what he’s hated for and yet whenever someone expresses any kind of contempt for him they run in to protect him and usually talk down to others like he’s some misunderstood teenager who we’re too stupid to understand. I noticed many Book fans tend to have Anne’s arrogant, know-it-all, “I can never be wrong because I read words” attitude as well which usually hinders any proper discussion or response. No one wants to talk to an arrogant stranger that is heavily implying that they’re stupid. But these fans continue to take that approach and then act superior when they’re not responded to.

(It’s also weird racist that from their perspective book!Louis and even movie!Louis are victims of Lestat but AMC!Louis? Well he deserved it because he was mean, ungrateful and stopped putting out. Never thought I would see people claim that because Louis made empty threats towards Lestat that they were mutually abusive to one another and yet these are common stances that I’ve seen an alarming amount of people accept with no questions or forethought attached. but that’s an issue for an entirely different rant.)

even if ppl want to remove the pedo thing from marius with whatever excuse they have, his personality is ass anyway. I think a lot of ppl who read the books started off thinking he's gonna be likeable and wise and then he's just....some dickhead.

a lot of these ppl are not ppl who can stand critical thinking or have looked at maybe their own trauma in regards to how they perceive these characters (and at what ages they read the books too). a lot of ppl in this fandom have linked characters to themselves somehow, so there's no way to talk about a character without personally insulting ppl. it's rly tiring. that's not unique to this fandom either but the level of harassment u will receive kinda is, cuz it's based on anne rice's behavior (as u noted).

a lot of this racism too stems from the same ppl who can't hear criticisms about characters like marius bcuz the whole book series is nothing but promoting white supremacy. I don't think it's something she did consciously but it's so fucking blatant (the vampires literally get whiter as they get more powerful, for one?????) and shouldn't even be controversial for adults to say out loud. so many ppl bonded to this shit at young ages tho that it's "fun" nostalgia to them and fuck anyone who tries to say otherwise. that's how we're here. ppl cling hard to this notion that something has to be "pure" to be enjoyed or else ur a bad person for liking it. idk how that's become a thing bcuz u can still like things but be critical of them, that's how most things work???

[dressed2k1ll]

Did you watch the Barbie movie when it came out? What were your feelings on it, if so?

I found it was basic and disappointing, and it’s depressing that so many people seem to think it’s deep. I can understand that it was an entertaining movie and it gets props for that, but anything else is like :-| at least for me.

Thanks for having your blog up, it validates my feelings a lot abt gender and society. I lean much more into radical feminism personally

Thank you so much for the compliment and the question!!! Gosh if it weren’t for Tumblr I might go bananas! I need to know there are more out there like me!

So Barbie. First let me start by saying I’m a 43 year old woman. This movie was basically made exactly for my demographic in many ways: features many of my era of dolls and contained enough nostalgia to melt my brain.

I remember when I saw the first teaser, despite any logic or feminism I’ve grown to internalize, the teaser trailer (when she stepped out of her shoe) touched something very nostalgic and formative and pre-logical in my mind. I truly loved my Barbies, I ADORED the fashion and clothing changing (still do for myself lol), and the way that she did allow me and my childhood friend to navigate or play out or experiment with social dynamics, even though we couldn’t appreciate it in that way.

Having said that: ken also was the “object doll” of the Barbie world 😆 and so the promise of demonstrating. the banality of Ken as an inversion of what most people felt was as the banality of BARBIE became something truly new to me. It is a uniquely childhood-barbie-lover feeling.

Also for context: the last “Barbie” spinoff I knew was from the Simpsons Malibu Stacy doll episode, wherein they tried to use Lisa to critique the expectations Barbie seemed to place on girls (although sheesh - compared to social media, looks tame). It didn’t really succeed in moving the needle on trying to make Barbie a “feminist” icon.

Going in, I felt “okay, I realize they’re going to do something feminist with Barbie - it’s gonna go good, or it’s gonna go bad.”

For me? As a Barbie loving girl who grew into a feminist: it was fun, silly, very entertaining, unsubtle, and pretty basic politically.

I cried at the “what was I made for” song - I think this is a really great question every girl and woman should ask. Because 1. It brings attention to girl socialization and 2. It gives me that feeling I had when my feminism “kicked in” - like “what the fuck: I guess this was a lie”

My sense is if the movie DOES this for other women who aren’t as far along their feminist journey, holy shit: worth it.

My niece, who was 3 when she saw it, instinctively got upset when the men tried to put “the real” (she calls it) Barbie in the box. It touches something so unarticulated, so unexpressed - and it’s not sexualized, and it’s not women in captivity for men to be aroused by: it’s transcends that somehow.

And the line that Rhea Pearlman said stood out to me as important too: “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they’ve come” - that CHOKED me. Because my mom WAS a struggling “free spirited” feminist that burned her bra but still wound up being a trad wife for my dad.

I didn’t see anything in the movie that made me ashamed to show it to young girls, which is rare.

So TL:DR, despite its basicness, it is a rare example of a successful feminist film for young girls. And it (I dare say) rehabilitated the doll from a more “sex ideal” image. If fans understand America Ferreras speech and it strikes them as new (and there are many) it’s worth it. It’s pushing the needle forward.

A couple more points (omg can you tell this is something I think about?)

1. Compare it with the other “women is made and not born” companion movie that came out: Poor Things, which was so clearly a male centered fantasy.

2. It’s an example of showing a world where women are empowered. What other movie or show has shown this as a viable alternative to patriarchy?

Thank you again for the question!!!!!

[hi-there-buddies]

So dragon ball and dragon ball z is my childhood I watched half of it without understanding anything because it was not translated to my language (my older brother had to endure my constant questions when we were watching it) and I loved it! I loved the characters, I loved the plot, I loved every outfit Bulma ever had, I wanted to learn how to fly and all that ( I was 7 years old). I also loved that later I got my hands on subtitles in my language.

With time I moved on and started enjoying different fandoms and although db was always in my heart I never wandered into the fandom, never saw what was going on.

This week I got a little sick and suddenly got a lot of free time. Somehow led by nostalgia i revisited dragon ball and (after the initial warm feeling of my childhood) got so irritated. I just kept reading some takes on Goku and thought to myself "man, was I really such a bad judge of character" and decided to rewatch dbz. I'm not finished yet but my views from all those years ago didn't really change and Goku is still my favourite.

Anyway I wrote all of this to tell you that I agree with a lot of your opinions and I'm thankful that you are uploading them on the internet. You don't have to answer this but just know that you are now Defender of my childhood ❤️❤️

I feel the exact same way!!! Dragon Ball was my childhood too, and when I grew up I saw a lot of people saying it was actually bad and that everyone who liked it was blinded by nostalgia. Naturally, as a young teen I thought that I was one of those people, and compared to Naruto and Bleach, it wasn’t good at all. I just went with the most popular opinion because I thought “if this many people are thinking it, it must be true, right? It’s only popular because of nostalgia, the other shonen are much better”

Fast forward a few years later and I decided to rewatch Dragon Ball from OG to Z, and wow, I was so wrong for just going along with the public opinion. Because Dragon Ball is good!! It’s so fun and cool and satisfying, and I know it’s not nostalgia, because I’ve seen people who have never watched Dragon Ball before watch the entire series, and adore it!

I think people say that it pales in comparison to other Shonen because Dragon Ball is very subtle with its emotions. It doesn’t have a lot of flashbacks like Naruto, it doesn’t have a huge character roster like One Piece, and it doesn’t have incredibly thought out story lines like Bleach. But that’s not because Dragon Ball lacks any deeper meaning, it just finds a more natural way to convey feelings and emotions.

A really good example of this subtlety is Gohan’s PTSD. And when I say that, I don’t mean him striking Great Saiyaman poses that he got from the Ginyu force. I mean his PTSD during the Saiyan to Cell saga, and the constant nightmares he had. These aren’t one off things, either. He’s had at least 4 of them throughout the show. But he doesn’t dwell on them, so the audience doesn’t. But these nightmares illustrate one of the Gohan hates about himself: he’s always letting everyone down. This is stated explicitly in his beam struggle with Goku before going SSJ, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. It was just (say it with me) subtle

Not saying DB is better than any other shonen btw. It’s actually not even my favorite one, but I’d say it’s at least on par with the big three.

I’ll always defend Dragon Ball❤️

[beardedmrbean]

Hey it me, zoomer Huey, I saw the post saying about the young gamers retro revival

But how retro because this book..

https://www.tumblr.com/gsirvitor/742534236498804736

Also yes people halo is going to be 23 this fall so it’s a retro game

Yes, don’t have to deal with horrific live service and micro transactions but the thing is….economic reasons

Like I been getting into kingdoms hearts and final fantasy….but I was a Xbox player so they are new ports in the ecosystem

And like I said, AC red will probably be a huge entry point for a lot of new fans. So it very likely they will be curious what the game Easter eggs are about so I will gladly help them get say get the Ezio Collection if the European Templars have dialogue mentioning they don’t want another Borgia fiasco since the game take places in the 1580’s-90’s and during this time many Templars went to the new world or other places to escape the “Dark Age” of the Templars order where it’s was about gaining power for selfish reasons rather further their causes

And about retro games, um…the same way a adult might want to watch old classic movies

Now I watched Fox’s miracle of 34th street a couple of years ago on Disney plus (actually I often use these streaming services to watch old shit like the muppet show) despite being at my depress state, I couldn’t help but smile at the Santa in it

It like for me, I found the Santa that inspired the ones your generation, my generation, and all those in between the Santa we had when we were kids. I’m glad the actor got the Oscar. And I’m more glad Hollywood graveyard help find his lost vase and people came to celebrate the actor new home. With him Unknowingly inspired the Christmas magic we love

Sorry using that as example

Also a lot of young gamers….were often too poor, too young, didn’t have enough resources when these old games came out. So we are interested in what these games that older gamers talk about even if we don’t have the nostalgia for it

Like Xbox Backwards Compatibility library….can someone please make a deal to bring the one transformers or marvel games back on it? Anyways, I’m 24 now, so there a lot of old 360 and og Xbox games I didn’t okay that I use bc for

And modern gaming, ugh feel like it intentionally designed for Twitch streamers and YouTuber gamers. Ugh halo infinite mp made just drop it all together

Oh gaming companies, a lot of modern gamers have JOBS so we might invest in a 1 or 2 live service games. Hell ac red might have a 3-4 live services era (ac Valhalla had 2 years of support) but I’m mostly invested in single player games

Well I’m autistic and I work 10 hour and 4 days a week work schedule. I am not interested dealing with try hards

Like I don’t understand this shock? Ac red is dead ass the only triple a gaming I’m probably going to be paying at launch at full price while the upcoming Star Wars game I’m probably going to get on sale

I feel like people are so focus on young people who refuse to consume pre 2012 media. There are those with a mentality that can stand old shit.

Hey it me, zoomer Huey, I saw the post saying about the young gamers retro revival But how retro because this book. gsirvitor/742534236498804736 Also yes people halo is going to be 23 this fall so it’s a retro game

I think the first post your talking about was one I put up, I go with most anything PS2 on down for consoles, some PS2 aren't really "retro" but the divide for me is mostly based on hotfixes and micro-transactions so like Sims2 is the right age but i shift round on the retro bit since you could buy skins and such still gonna be retro I think.

Online games you could play for free online are retro too, but everyone will define it in their own way too so no hard and fast rules for me.

Like I been getting into kingdoms hearts and final fantasy….but I was a Xbox player so they are new ports in the ecosystem And like I said, AC red will probably be a huge entry point for a lot of new fans. So it very likely they will be curious what the game Easter eggs are about......... And about retro games, um…the same way a adult might want to watch old classic movies

Classic and retro work together in tandem a lot, there is a difference but I don't want to tangent too far into that.

Now I watched Fox’s miracle of 34th street a couple of years ago on Disney plus (actually I often use these streaming services to watch old shit like the muppet show) despite being at my depress state, I couldn’t help but smile at the Santa in it

Watch some Mr Rogers, it's a soothing balm on depression, won't make it go away but at the end of a episode or two you'll feel loved, man you've never met in your life but you know he loved you, just the way you are.

Also a lot of young gamers….were often too poor, too young, didn’t have enough resources when these old games came out. So we are interested in what these games that older gamers talk about even if we don’t have the nostalgia for it

Nostalgia isn't required for retro, good games are good games.

Like Xbox Backwards Compatibility library….can someone please make a deal to bring the one transformers or marvel games back on it? Anyways, I’m 24 now, so there a lot of old 360 and og Xbox games I didn’t okay that I use bc for

If I'd had the money to get one of the first gen PS3's I'd have gotten one since they were built to still run PS1&2 games as well, once they took that away I had no desire to get the thing. Wii was great because you had the Wii shop for the older games and it also played GC games, Wii shop games weren't too pricey either.

And modern gaming, ugh feel like it intentionally designed for Twitch streamers and YouTuber gamers. Ugh halo infinite mp made just drop it all together

I've noticed that with some, they dial back the graphics and all that good stuff so they stream well, or at least leave the option of that. I figure as long as everyone is happy.

Oh gaming companies, a lot of modern gamers have JOBS so we might invest in a 1 or 2 live service games. Hell ac red might have a 3-4 live services era (ac Valhalla had 2 years of support) but I’m mostly invested in single player games

That's really all I do, even when battle net was going strong I still didn't sign up for D2 on there except rarely.

Like I don’t understand this shock? Ac red is dead ass the only triple a gaming I’m probably going to be paying at launch at full price while the upcoming Star Wars game I’m probably going to get on sale

Blizard had it right with World of Warcraft, at least at one point. The were selling the game disc for like $5 with a 2 week subscription make their money in the long game, not sure if anyone is doing that kind of thing anymore but they should be.

I feel like people are so focus on young people who refuse to consume pre 2012 media. There are those with a mentality that can stand old shit.

I love seeing people get into the games and stuff I enjoyed when I was younger, watching through the X-Files with a friend who's never seen it before and it's great seeing it through the eyes of someone who hasn't watched it.

Same with nerding out about games, as you've seen me do with FFVI here previously.

Most people that matter feel the same, so don't worry about any haters, they aren't worth your time or thought.

[edge-oftheworld]

hi! i saw your post about the nostalgia tour and i couldn’t say i know the exact feeling because i didn’t get to go, but i ~kinda~ think i know what you’re talking about from the ep per se. i wouldn’t touch twitter with a ten foot pole and sometimes i don’t know how to articulate these feelings, but i do get the slightly off vibe. i don’t know how to interpret it and that’s so frustrating bc it’s just… a feel. anyway, idk if i said anything or not, but yeah. would love to hear your thoughts bc mine are just ramblings.

hi anon! thanks for this ask. unfortunately I've said just about all I can on here--if you go in my archive of my blog to june 16th you can see my thoughts on my show but i'm not gonna bring them back to the top of my blog.

HOWEVER if you do go off anon I am more than happy to have this conversation more privately, but out of respect for luke there's a line that I'd rather not cross when it comes to speculation somewhere I can't at least do the due diligence of controlling who is able to see what I'm saying.

on a more generalised note, something about being anywhere under the neurodivergent umbrella means often a high correlation with a bunch of chronic health things, it's something i'm watching myself and a lot of my friends in our 20s go through. part of it is down to our brains and bodies/nervous systems being built differently (hence neruroDIVERGENT), part is due to the excess stress of living in a world not built for us. some people in this general demographic of society are gonna become musicians, and some are gonna become actually successful at that, and have to deal with the extra stressors of touring and fame and loss of privacy. I've been saying for years we need to be more accommodating for that.

how much, if any, of this applies to luke I could not say. he's gonna share however much he feels like when he feels like and we're gonna listen and respect that because he doesn't have to and we're lucky to get whatever we do. but I also think listening to and respecting him also has an active component: when he says he was too young to go through what he did, we need to ask ourselves, how can we make this industry have safeguards to be developmentally appropriate for a 16 year old? when he says (at my show) that the last time he was at this venue he wasn't allowed anywhere but the stage and upstairs because he was 17, we need to think to ourselves, how could we (or whoever's in charge) offset the loss of freedom that would feel like?

and when he says that making music is helping him heal and have a better relationship with everything around him we have to believe that. even though we worry, of course we do, this career path is really dangerous for anyone who started young. everyone is gonna struggle with that in different ways and we're gonna be understanding of that instead of judging, because none of us have ever been through what he has or been inside his head. i hope this was a bit of an answer to your question anon even if it wasn't a proper answer!

[nervousdreamtragedy]

Hiii im back to post stupid things

So i was awake at maniatic hours like usual after drinking to many energy drinks and I was thinking about my mom she raised me along with my sister most of my childhood yet I find it quite funny that for her she always says my childhood was her most horrible time since I was a heavy crier according to her yet that’s the thing nobody else says that in fact most people refer to me as a mature child even as a baby and infant

Like I asked my sister and my dad even my aunt who took care of me a lot and they all agreed that just like how I act now when I was young I was silent and rarely even screamed no matter what was happening so I asked my mom who claimed that while yes I was a silent kid when I did cry it was insufferable since I wouldn’t shut up and she even joked about having more than once screaming at me bcs of the cries

I am not an emotional person hell it takes quite a lot to make me even give a reaction and I was always told it was just me being weird yet when I asked my parents they claimed that for them it was good as my sister was difficult thanks to being quite emotional according to them atleast

My sister no longer lives with us just to be clear she moved out as soon as she could so my only way of communicating with her is message and sometimes calls sp I asked her if she remembered how they acted and she told me that as far as she remembers they often mentioned that she was so annoying as an infant and toddler and how I was much nicer to take care of

I started laughing because well I have been told im very well behaved by adults teachers who claimed I was the a great student since I enjoyed trapping myself in studying for weeks and I disliked going out and sure I know its a compliment to my behavior and maturity yet I don’t like that while being well behaved and calm did win me a lot of adult respect I feel sad looking back to my little self who was pretty much raised by the internet because they will never hace the fun they wanted let me be clear sure I didn’t like cartoons and don’t even to this day but that should have been my own choice to make as a kid not a rule that I had to folloe

A kid or a toddler doesn’t need to be mature a kid needs to have fun and be free sure they still need rules but not adult ones yes kids screaming and running around are annoying but im pretty sure its not that horrible to deal with them for sometime and look I get that in moments like restaurant dinner its annoying to have a kid screaming or crying their lungs out behind you and if you are paying a lot of money its even worse and yeah you have a right to be angry but you need to remember that you also were once a child and probably did the same or perhaps even worse

Look I get child free spaces like restaurants and events they are necessary sometimes but things like grocery shopping don’t need to be child free like I get spaces where you are paying to be but grocery is a public space and a mostly free one at that im pretty sure you as an adult can suck it up dealing with a loud kid for the hour or two you spend shopping

No kids don’t need to be mature they don’t need to be aware of social adult etiquette because they aren’t adult they are kids who want to have fun who are developing their skills and abilities they shouldn’t worry about what they wear outside and only wonder what clothes are more comfortable to them and what hames they can play with their friends

I was not allowed to play outside and as such the internet raised me I grew watching gore and weird stuff which while sure I look at it back with rose tinted glasses of nostalgia that doesn’t take away from the fact that I never got the same space to be a kid outside and to this day I don’t understand most of my friends child references and get confused over basic kid moments that I never got because I was told it was too childish for me

Please let kids be kids let them discover what they like and dislike if they enjoy being more mature then sure aid them but still support when they act childish like kids have everyday less spaces to act like kids and social media has not helped at all wth that try to have moments with your kids if they like to stay inside maybe play a board game or play their video-games with them let them be kids and be just as free as kid should be before going into the sad real world

[tgablissortonn]

Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and his depictions, detective fiction genre

Conan Doyle is a British writer and a physician. He was born in 1859 and died in 1930, so he grew up in the victorian era. He was born in Scotland, but he was sent to England at a young age to attend Jesuit preparatory school Holder Place in Lancashire and attended Stonyhurst College until 1875. from 1875 to 1876 he attended a school in Austria at the decision of his parents to perfect his German and broad his academics. Doyle moved around a lot when he was young, and also had a lot of careers. He didn’t stay in one place for too long. He had a career in the medical field, and began writing short stories whilst studying practical botany. His earliest work is “The Haunted Grange of Goeesthorpe” which was unsuccessfully submitted to Blackwood’s Magazine. He continued writing fiction and non fiction, writing academic articles in the British Medical Journal.

Doyle’s first work featuring the character Sherlock Holes along with Dr. Watson was “A Study in Scarlet”. This story gained little public interest when it first released in 1887 for the Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The title is derived from a quote from Sherlock, where he describes their investigation in the novel as his “study in scarlet”. this comes from “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.” This shows that Sherlock as a character is an analytical character. using these kinds of metaphors shows that he has a genuine interest and motivation for detection. "A Study in Scarlet", scarlet is a colour associated with blood, passion and devotion. Sherlock is described to be excitable during an investigation, and his use of more emotive language written by Doyle shows that he has a passion for his career. "A Study in Scarlet" was also the first detective novel to have a magnifying glass shown as a tool for detective work, and the influence of this today is that stereotypical detective characters always have a magnifying glass on hand.

Sherlock Holmes is known for his intelligence in forensics and is very perceptive. he has a great understanding of chemistry, and uses it to his advantage. Forensic science wasn’t as developed as it is today, so he used methods such as analysing handwriting, gunpowder residue, and his general knowledge in chemistry to analyse blood.

Holmes is "disspationate and cold", yet still an eccentric man. he often tried to impress the observers of his investigations by leaving the reveal of his evidence until the end. he had a humour that was sarcastic, ironic and joked incessantly. he seemed to have a very diverse personality, being unemotional, using his head and not his heart, rarely laughed, had narrow habits and was cold. but was also known for having odd habits, such as weird scientific experiments and was considered excitable during investigation. This makes his character quite flexible, and i believe this could have been done on purpose, considering that 56 different short stories were written with Sherlock as the main character, having him being the exactly the same character each time with little depth and interest in hobbies and habits would do very little to attract readers. he had a lot of light moments and had “half humorous and half imp” manners kept his character interesting and unique.

because of this, Sherlock has been interpreted in many different ways along the years.

In “Sherlock Holmes” (1939-1946) Basil Rathbone portrays Sherlock accurately to the original portrayals of him. It is one of the only portrayals that stays accurate to the original portrayal and Rathbone’s performance is what gained the adaptation the highest rating, as it serves as a source of nostalgia for fans. Alan Barnes (a writer and editor) says that “Rathbone WAS Sherlock” and many other people such as the writer David Stuart Davies saying “the actor who had come closest to creating the definite Sherlock Holmes on screen”. telling us that this interpretation is as accurate to the original we have seen thus far. Although it is also argued Jeremy Brett is also one of the most definitive portrayals.

Although, there are portrayals that are different to this that stray from the original, such as "Elementary" (2012-2019). In Elementary, Sherlock is played by Johnny Lee Miller as a Sherlock of New York City. In this version, Sherlock is a recovering drug addict. Whilst in Sherlock Holmes Sherlock was using multiple different drugs, such as cocaine, it wasn't described he had any kind of recovery from drugs. This depiction creates a very different mood for the series, and the attitudes of Sherlock because of his recovery are very different to the original personality of Sherlock. The scenery being in the bustling modern NYC an Sherlock recovering from drugs create a dark and serious tone for the series to come and is different from the short stories portrayed by Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle's originals are set in 19h century Victorian England, whilst Elementary is set in 21st century America. These different time periods and locations contrast one another a lot and having the character belong in their time period means that Sherlock in this series can be quite problematic, with relapses, health problems and family murders. Johnny Lee Miller has the most portrayals of Sherlock done by a singular actor for the 7 season Elementary.

There are also depictions of Sherlock in the past and in the present, such as 'Young Sherlock Holmes' where the scenery falls back in time to Sherlock and Watson being teenagers. This creates a more light hearted tone as Nicholas Rowe shows a more charming take on Sherlock's character. This is different from Ian McKellen's "Mr. Holmes"(2015), where he plays Sherlock as a 93 year old with dementia. these two parallels show the flexibility of the Sherlock series and how his character can be interpreted in many different ways from Conan Doyle's writing. These two show Sherlock at the very start and at he very end of his detective career giving us many more interpretations of Sherlock's character.

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 74

Family Remains

“Family Remains”

Plot Description: Sam and Dean investigate the appearance of a young female ghost in an abandoned house, but things become more complicated when a family moves in

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: I do not live in a home that is haunted, and I have no plans to move. So, I’m good, but if I had a vengeful ghost in my home, I don’t think there’s a thing I could do to stop it

Is…is Dean working as many jobs as he can to try to make up for the ten years in Hell he did torture souls??

Honestly? It’s a bit of a fixer upper but it’s a bad home. It’s the dream of every white family in a horror movie

Do…we think there’s something about the doll head they found in the closet? Like the little hair it had left was either the former owner’s wife or daughter’s??

They are doing EVERYTHING to convince this teenage girl that moving here was the right thing to do. It’s gonna FIX everything? Girl. Are the parents doing this to avoid getting divorced?? The obvious solution is to pack up your whole life and move to a farm in the middle of no where

I’m not saying this kid is Logan Lerman but…maybe it is?? (I checked. It wasn’t, but it IS the main character of 13 Reasons Why, but you can see how I got the two mixed up. Like…he seemed too young to be Logan, but they could play brothers in a movie) he is NOT a good actor lol

Can you take your kids’ concerns seriously now??

What fucking part of “nobody move” does NO ONE understand in these shows??

How…how did you let your kids out of your sight with all that’s going on right now? Y’all are getting SUPER DIVORCED after this

This living in the walls thing was a lot more fanciful and heartbreaking in Encanto. This is just fuckin creepy

Why ARE we splitting up all the time? Wait…who’s Andy??? What happened to Andy??? Ok. I don’t know the details of this car accident but saying your oldest son “got himself killed in a car accident” feels icky. Also thinking that moving all the way out here to start a farm to save your marriage after that?? Do you guys know ANYTHING?? A marriage counselor told them to?? They need a new counselor

This has got to be so traumatizing for poor Danny. I mean, this poor girl is just trying to have a friend and feed him (oh, yeah, the girl isn’t a ghost. She’s the daughter of the home’s previous owner’s daughter…also his daughter, and he kept her locked up in the house, so she has absolutely ZERO, no, she has NEGATIVE social skills). But, uh, she just offered him a live rat which she then…you know that scene with Gollum and, well, I can’t remember if it was a fish or a rabbit, but she too likes them raw and wriggling

THERE’S A BROTHER TOO??? Yikes. Well….she HAD a brother. Poor things. They didn’t deserve this. They weren’t ever given a chance at anything even resembling a normal life

Nah. This marriage is not surviving. There will be a sort of honeymoon period, but they can’t stay in this house and also stay together

Ayo what?? Dean, no, say it ain’t so. It’s one thing to break after 30 years of torture and start doing the torture yourself…but you enjoyed it? Bb. Noooooo. Makes sense that you can’t forgive yourself.

“Been On My Mind…”: Nope. 9

[crepesuzettey]

I agree with a lot of these lol

You know, I’m a newer Smosh fan (2018), but I actually hated EBE for a while. Tbh I was kinda going along with the attitude in my school of looking down on Smosh lol, but I only didn’t really like the state of the main channel. I loved Smosh Pit. I think I just happened to watch the EBEs that weren’t really that funny or something. But I’ve come around to it a little. I got recommended a short from “Every Olive Garden Ever” pretty recently and it actually made me laugh out loud.

Anthony doing a speedrun of unscripted shows on main would have been so great. I understand if ending Let’s Do This had to be done right then (unfortunately) but the other shows probably would have been feasible? Idk. I also understand that they were really trying to play into that initial wave of nostalgia too though, and get old fans to come around to the new cast and stuff.

I personally don’t have that strong of a preference for either Smoshcast or Smosh Mouth, I like both of them. But they’re also different vibes for sure. I feel like Smosh Mouth is more high energy, Smoshcast is so cozy. The difference in set probably also plays into that. I’m fine with just listening to Smoshcast (though I generally prefer to watch *any* podcast that offers video), but I feel like with Smosh Mouth I strongly prefer to watch the video.

And I also used to like Olivia. I know some people don’t really like her random “quirky” sense of humor, but I actually think it’s funny (I was an Odd Squad fan as a young teenager so I think that comedic style just lines up). But I agree that it seems like she’s not really invested in Smosh anymore, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t, like… actually care much about the genocide against Palestine either way and only posted that story because that’s what a lot of other people were doing (especially since she only posted the one story and said nothing else)… really disappointing.

rapid fire list of my smosh-related opinions:

noah grossman needs to have been phased out 3 months ago. people acting like FREELANCER contracts are so fucking ironclad and that's why smosh couldn't do anything are so disingenuous. they phased out saige in 2022, they could've very easily done the same to noah -- they just didn't want to.

eat it or yeet it was fun for the first few episodes, but they ran it to the ground when they realized it was a hit with the locals/casual viewers and they needed those numbers. it's SO absurd that they made 89 episodes and it got really boring, really fast. (i'm glad anthony got to be on it before they got rid of it tho)

i've always found garrett annoying and unfunny for the most part. he's maybe said one or two funny things in all of my time watching smosh and i will never understand how some people stan him or find him attractive.

to be clear even if they replaced garrett as host on eioyi, it would still be boring and stale to me.

i miss kimmy being on camera. she wasn't the funniest and the smiley sunshine persona can be a bit much but she was one of the better sketch actors imo.

i do not want the og smosh games cast back. it's also weird they keep bringing up smosh on their ogsog content. i'm glad they appear to be on good terms with ian and anthony but unless there's ACTUALLY a future collab in the works they need to stop namedropping smosh so much.

i don't necessarily miss saige on smosh but i do miss damien and saige as a couple.

i don't care if people don't like anthony or don't find him funny, but the way a LOT of fans (mostly on twitter and reddit) blatantly disrespect him, the fact that he started smosh, and him literally reuniting with his best friend, just bc they got rid of the unscripted series on main really pisses me off. also he's not to blame for EVERYTHING wrong with smosh today.

HOWEVER, that being said, i do believe there was a better way to transition smosh main. they could've had anthony do a speed run of all of their unscripted series to give them a proper goodbye, and THEN uploaded the sketches.

EBE was a hit or miss, but when they did it well they did it REALLY well.

other than ian, anthony, and finnerty, syd and olivia were their best sketch writers.

people who are genuinely mad that they have memberships now are overreacting. i get that paying for anything sucks but if you're an adult with a job in a first world country $10 USD a month *maximum* really isn't that much. also, they're independent now, that's just the reality of capitalism.

people who act like smosh is above any and all criticism genuinely terrify me. they're a youtube channel and a company, and as audience members we're allowed to critique them.

the old smoshcast was better than smosh mouth, but i might be biased bc ian did host most of them.

agree to disagree was a good series, but they botched it when they started using more serious prompts which caused a lot of viewers to lose respect for some of the cast for problematic opinions.

i used to like olivia but considering she was only in 30 videos last year and she really doesn't seem like she cares anymore, i don't get how they expect any of us to still care about her. also she posted something in support of israel on her story, but hardly anyone knows about it.

i love the guy but shayne doesn't need to be in every video. i get that he brings in the views, but jesus christ.

smosh pit theater is their best pit series, followed closely by beopardy.

i find a lot of their defy era series on pit eg sleepover, show with no name, put it in my mouth, etc to be really boring and i’m glad they got out of defy and sarah whittle was more in charge of pit.

i didn’t like angela at first but i love her now.

[futbolfanficpunk]

Making time

Players: Pedri, Gavi

Word Count: 560+

Theme: Bromance, Platonic love

It was 11:00pm at night and his phone was going off. The girl that Pedri met at Eric’s TikToker girlfriend’s party during the weekend, Ana, finally texted back and they started chatting on Whatsapp. Dating has never been easier or harder. Being well-known is confusing when you're famous, but Ana seemed authentic. The third year in Fc Barcelona has started well and for now, September is looking great. The team is winning, and most of the new guys are fitting in and understanding the Barcelona style. His friendships with his teammates were as bonded as they could get. Ferran and Eric are always texting and when they're not with their girls, they all hang out. Gavi is his best friend at the moment. He is the closest friend he has ever had besides his brother, Fernando. On Thursday’s training, Eric was teasing Pedri about Ana, according to Eric, Pedri had little game but Ana was into him anyway. “Hey, Pedri, are you talking to Anita? It’s been a while since you’ve been on a date, hermanito." said Eric “Yea, you'll start feeling like a virgin soon” Ferran interrupted. “Guys, grow up, there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin. It’s going great for me” said a smiling Gavi as he got into their conversation’s circle. They all laughed. “Yea, I’m talking to Anita, she’s nice and so cute, we’re figuring out when to go out and what to do”. said Pedri “Oh, great! Now I’m gonna lose another friend to a fucking novia” snapped Gavi. “Gavi, I’m too young for a girlfriend! That’s too serious,” said Pedri defensively, “we’re just talking”. “Right, sure!” Gavi said sarcastically. 

Later that day Gavi and Pedri went to Pedri’s house to watch TV, eat a bit, and play FIFA. They both were half sitting, and half laying comfortably on the couch. Gavi was drinking water and had his big light brown eyes wide open while looking at the TV.

Pedri looked at him for a second, while remembering the conversation in training. “Mira, Gavi, even if I get a girlfriend, I won’t disappear. I’ll always make time for us, you know” he said with a bit of nostalgia in his voice.

Pedri didn’t care if he sounded like he cared too much, Gavi had really become a good friend and he wanted to guard him and his feelings. They understood each other, how they both hated the cold and navigated towards the warmth like in their home cities. They are the same in a lot of ways, like how they both could only think of football, being good at it, being in shape, driven to be technically better, and winning, but they’re also family people and trying hard not to be affected by all the attention and money. They both had their parents manage their money, it wasn’t important to them to be flashy. Gavi was important to Pedri.

Gavi looked at him with a shy smile and said “Hermano, I know. I feel the same way” and immediately he side-hugged Pedri while kissing his shoulder at the same time. Gavi always showed his feelings with physical attention. Gavi admired Pedri, deeply, he felt so lucky to have his friendship. “Ok, now when this episode ends. How about we get a snack and play FIFA? I’m out of practice, but I promise to beat your ass." said Gavi “Ni lo sueñes, enano” said Pedri with a side smile “I always have Messi on my FIFA team”.

[brianhanes]

Why Star Wars Attack of the Clones Wasn’t That Bad

A lot of times Attack of the Clones get slack from Star Wars (especially Original Trilogy fans) but it honestly was a decent film even if it wasn’t great for Star Wars standards. 

1. The Prequels faced a very high standard

As previously mentioned, the Original Trilogy is one of the best trilogies of all time. Many consider it to be the best trilogy in cinema history. They were known for having great acting, stunning graphics, and a compelling story. This means people expected to see all the same from the Prequels and anything it fell short on caused people to ignore it’s strengths.

I’d honestly argue Attack of the Clones had better pacing than A New Hope. I’m not saying it was a better movie but for me, many of the scenes that took place in the middle of the film (in the Death Star) were dull. We also need to keep in mind the Vader vs Ben Kenobi duel was poor and the movie made stromtroopers look like a joke with them constantly missing. But nostalgia can fix many things. Don’t get me wrong, the start of the ANH was very strong and the end of it (trench run and celebration scene) brought about some of the best moments in cinema history. 

2. It reduced the sting of Jar Jar

The main reason and many viewers enjoy Attack of the Clones more than the Phantom Menace is because of Jar Jar Binks. That character had constant, over-the-top comedic scenes that just weren’t funny. Many thought he killed the movie and Attack of the Clones was at least watchable in most scenes. More so, it made such an annoying character become a mature senator. He ended up being more mature than Anakin!

3. People Took it Too Seriously

This honestly is the biggest reason people didn’t enjoy the film as much as they could have. Attack of the Clones is easily one of the funniest if not the funniest Star Wars movie of all time. I watched it as a kid, so I was able to see this, and I watched it again as an adult and enjoyed it even more. It isn’t a Rogue One type of story and shouldn’t be treated that way.

4. We get to see Anakin simp as soon as it starts

When I rewatch, this scene always has me cracking up. Perhaps some people had gotten so old that they forgot what it was like to be young. If you understand what it’s like to be a teenager and young adult, then much of what Anakin does should make you laugh. I’ve known so many Anakins in my life and honestly don’t know what we’d do without them bringing flavor in this world.

Anakin loses it with Obi Wan all because he’s flipping out about some girl. But it’s not just about that, he’s a young man who wants to prove who he is. Like many recent high school grads in the work force and college graduates. Anakin at this time was 19, still a teenager who wants to rush too quickly which gets him into trouble. I myself have had to learn this lesson so many times, to slow down.

Every time I hear Anakin impulsively say, “WHY??!!” I bust out. Even Jar Jar gulps in fear when he witnesses Anakin’s outburst. And pay close attention, you’ll notice Anakin is still staring at Padme when everyone else has moved on. Lucas knew exactly what he was doing lmao.

5. Anakin is so realistic

People like to make fun of prequel dialogue even if they believed Anakin was a decent or good actor, but I have another argument, the dialogue wasn’t even that bad. At least not as bad as many people were making it out to be. For me, realistic acting is never bad acting because the point of acting is to mimic reality.

 Let us think about Anakin’s past shall we. In the last movie he was a slave. Taken away to join a group of detached monks for ten years. For all his highschool age and younger years he never learned how to deal with women he liked. He never kissed a girl, probably had no idea what flirting was, and wasn’t trained on dating etiquette. Whether people would like to admit it or not most of us wouldn’t figure out and many of us still haven’t in better circumstances found out how to talk to people we are attracted to. 

I knew awkward adults in college and high school when it came to women. Why then is it strange for Anakin to be awkward when they who at least had more opportunities to learn about dating approaches were just as awkward?

PADME!!! 

6.The first conflict was fun

I did not watch Attack of the Clones in theaters, it was a bit before my time. The first Star Wars movie I watched in theaters was Revenge of the Sith, but I was still quite young then. I don’t know how people initially reacted when the saw the movie. but it had a strong start. There was a conflict, we knew a bounty hunter wanted to hunt down Padme. Anakin had simp tension, and an epic chase ensued throughout the Corsucant streets.

7. Anakin killing the Tuskens was also realistic

Remember when I said Anakin was only 19? There are soldiers who at 19 snapped and wiped out villages. Killing men, women, and children. More so, Anakin himself is a former child soldier. Who was recruited at 9. Jedi in the Clone Wars TV series fight at 14. Anakin in a legends comic killed someone at 10 years old. Perhaps that could have been more fleshed out, but when you are fighting at such a young age your mind is at risk.

Not to mention they just killed his mother in cold blood. I also loved the scene itself. Seeing Anakin rage and slash up Tuskens was great. I thought his acting was amazing. He was clearly ticked off and people often blame others when big incidents happen (like how he blamed Kenobi). Some people criticize Padme for staying with Anakin knowing he slaughtered tuskens of all ages. But Padme’s reaction was realistic.

I recommend people watch a movie called “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” about Tina Turner. It’s incredibly underrated. Women stay with abusive men all the time. In this case, she had a clear way to justify it because they killed his mother and Tuskens had terrorized the local villages for years. The Tuskens themselves have probably cleaned out households, so while Anakin’s actions weren’t justifiable they are not surprising and remember Anakin is from Tatooine. 

For all we know, he may have heard bad stories about them for years even while he was gone away as a Jedi. He might have been anxious about his mother well before the movie.

8, Jango Fett vs Obi Wan

This fight was epic and Jango gave us everything Boba didn’t in ROTJ, an amazing fight! Jango was the first to really show us that you don’t have to be a Jedi in Star Wars to take them on.

9. Jango vs Obi Wan in Space

Ok honestly, this was one of the best dogfights in Sci-Fi history. There I said it. It was phenomenal 10/10 the entire time. And it even did things to make it stand out as a showdown such as...

10. Seismic Charges

Jango’s use of a homing rocket was also a nice addition to the space showdown.

11. No Dull Moments

How anyone can watch Anakin riding that animal until he gets bucked off without laughing is beyond me. It’s gold and the CGI only makes it more comical. 

12. The sand joke

Big deal, Anakin said sand is rough, course, and irritating. Is that not true? Sand really has all of those qualities. Is it more irritating that he said everything is smooth on Naboo, perhaps but is it that big of a deal. I’ve heard plenty of people make weird statements before and remember this is a monk who was not able to party, date, or do anything wild. 

If you live a socially deprived like you might make lame statements too. All we can reasonably expect Anakin to do well is fight well and he did that. Outside of that, we could somewhat expect him to conduct himself professionally, but there is always an immature person out there. Like many young people, rock stars, class clowns, and others. There is always that person, why can’t it be Anakin. 

13. The Droid Factory

This was a visually stunning scene with great action. We also got a good humor bit with R2 and 3P0. They are always 100 percent on character. Their argument about leaving the ship was noteworthy as well.

Also mentioning humor, when Obi Wan said he wanted to be left alone and Anakin literally wanted to ditch him after he was captured, I was in stitches. Seriously felt like a comedy skit. Padme of course does the mature thing and emphasizes that they need to rescue Obi Wan and lets Anakin know that she’ll be looking for Obi Wan. Anakin then has no choice but to also look for his master.

Maybe he was seriously, lol. Perhaps he had been nagged one too many times. Perhaps he was yanking her tail and knew Padme would insist. I guess Kenobi would have to hope that was the case. 

14. The Arena creatures

A great nod to Star Wars in general. Creatures have always been an essential part of Star Wars and Anakin never missed his mark. Especially when Anakin took command of one of them. That was iconic. 

15. The Arena Battle

Here Lucas did something really novel. In other depictions, we always only saw one or two Jedi around. Lucas gave us a scene with 200 Jedi fighting together as a group against a massive droid army. Like the Battle of Hoth, speeder chase, Mustafar duel, Phantom Menace duel, and Battle over Coruscant this was a staple moment in Star Wars. 

Though the scene itself might not have been cinema gold, the idea was. it really deserves to get remade more in Star Wars video games. I hope to see more scraps like this in Tales of the Jedi’s next seasons.

17. C3PO switched out

Hilarious, who’d ever imagine fighting him? Him nearly blasting Gunray made it even better.

18. The Clone Troopers

One of the most beloved aspects of Star Wars. What later became a staple of the Clone Wars 2003 miniseries and 2008 Clone Wars series. It all started here and there was something special about the early clones. While the second phase of clones was my favorite (episode 3 timeline), I really enjoyed the uniform, professional, and mysterious vibes we got form the early clone troopers.

19. Count Dooku

One of the most iconic, beloved, elegant, and unique Sith Lords of all time emerged. Dooku is a staple Star Wars character (like Maul, Vader, Grievous, Jango Fett, Luke, Obi Wan) who is listed in many fans top 10 Star Wars characters. Not only is he an amazing villain but he makes for a great anti-hero or anti-villain in the Tales of the Jedi tv series. And they picked someone who was 80 years old yet still seemed powerful at all moments and someone who they can still make a lot more content about in a new show.

20. Mace Windu

Mace Windu is a classic prequel character. He has been shown in countless tv shows, comics, and novels. He is known for his dogmatic nature, being a mighty force user, and exceptional duelist. Mace really shows us what it’s like to look at an intimidating Jedi Master. His showing against Jango Fett further displays his dominance. 

Dude is just OP!

21. Yoda in action

I’ve heard that people reacted by cheering in the theaters while watching Yoda’s first lightsaber duel. I remember watching the documentary and seeing how the Prequel devs created a unique acrobatic fighting style for the legendary Jedi master. He dueled in a way that made him seem terrifying and inspiring despite his size.

He showed he had the force feats and saber skills to easily match a lethal Sith Lord who just beat two top tier duelists. This was another groundbreaking moment in Star Wars much like Obi Wan’s duel with Grievous and the fight in the Phantom Menace with a double bladed lightsaber user. 

22. Geonosians

Star Wars has many fascinating cultures and races such as the Wookiees, Ewoks, Mandalorians, and Twileks but what makes Geonosians particularly inspiring is their insect like appearance. More so, most of them seem to have an ability to fly and they have unique weapons that make them lethal warriors. The vicious nature of Geonosian warriors was further explore in the Star Wars Republic Commando video game which came two years after the release of Attack of the Clones. 

23. Kamino

I don’t know how I skipped this but I skipped it. Kamino was an awesome water world. Similar to how Mustafar was an awesome fire planet and Naboo was stunning. Bespin was a gorgeous land in the clouds and Hoth was a nice arctic tundra. Kamino is another fine addition to Star Wars’s collection of intriguing locations.

24. It builds up beautifully with Revenge of the Sith

Especially the scene where Anakin has his vision and his mother dies. It really explains the peril he feels when Padme is also at risk. Anakin didn’t have a lot of people that he loved that weren’t involved in the Jedi Order. And that really matters because all the Jedi that he knew (even the ones he liked) constantly reminded him (whether intentionally or not) of the rules and obligations he desperately wanted a break from.

The scene where Anakin vows to never again let someone he loves die and how he reacts to his mother’s passing is huge. It really lays out why he isn’t willing to risk Padme’s death in Episode 3 and how his biggest issue is an inability to accept that some things are beyond his control. Furthermore, it laid out the foundation for the story of Darth Plageius the Wise.

My rating of ATOC is 7 out of 10 stars but I honestly enjoy it more than that rating.

25. Obi Wan’s sass

Ok how did I miss this? Anakin doesn’t get to hog all of the comedic points. Kenobi definitely deserves to join in on this fun. If you didn’t notice his blatant sarcasm during the “rescue attempt” I really don’t know what to tell you.

26. The Fireplace Scene

One of my friends mainly agrees with me, he tells me most of the scenes in this movie are decent. Some were a bit cringey but they made sense (like how Anakin acted around Padme) but the fireplace scene was just atrocious. I’m going to argue with him. I’m going to argue it was delicious. But seriously, this is an all or nothing scene. 

Either you love it or hate it and I love it to pieces! Perhaps not so much if you care about Anakin’s dignity, I mean he really went way to far here. Like I said, the sand quote wasn’t embarrassing, it wasn’t an odd thing to think though uncommon to express. But the I CAN’T BREATH, you’re in MY SOUL TOURMENTING ME! That would get a man ghosted very quickly.

Still, fighting in the battlefield and almost getting killed alongside each other might change things. I mean, maybe Padme was intending to ghost and friend zone until that happened. Being a hero, slashing droids in half, that definitely can win a woman over.

And to be fair, if a woman meets with you in a nice gown and you’re supposed to “protect her” I’m not quite sure what her real motives are.

27. Deathsticks

Brilliant, brilliant, absolutely BRILLIANT! Seriously, drugs in Star Wars were makes it feel much more real. But what’s even better about this is Kenobi himself uses his trademark jedi mindtrick to convince a man to clean himself up, stop selling drugs, and change his life. That’s inspiring, Lucas was dropping golden nuggets and making people laugh in a Star Wars movie. 

28. Little Boba

This was honestly a nice touch. Boba at this point in the story a goofy little kid, it added personality to his dry yet cool persona we saw in the OT. Which was appropriate for the Original Trilogy, but it is important to know that people are people, there is a reason they act however they do. 

Boba Fett yelling, “Get him dad. Get HIM. FIRA.” It wasn’t that bad and hey he was a kid, just rooting for his father. Boba also showed maturity by doing as Jango ordered without hesitation and being able to operate the Slave 1 on his own even managing to use it to hurt Obi Wan.

The most important scene here was him witnessing his father’s death, it completely explain how he became such a ruthless and cold bounty hunter later. But like his father Boba had some values, unfortunately AOTC didn’t do a good job showing the values Jango had or how he passed them down to his son.

29. Dexter’s Diner

It was a nice dive into a more casual aspect of the Star Wars universe. I felt the same way about the glimpses we got into Coruscant, the Jedi Temple, Naboo, and the public transport in the film. The nice thing about Star Wars is getting different themes and narratives each movie. it can’t be all doom and gloom like Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One, and you get it.

30. Look at what it led to

I pretty much wrapped it up but I want to add this. I’m not focusing on projects that came out Revenge of the Sith, which in my opinion was the best movie lore-wise (not in general) in Star Wars history. Attack of the Clones and the Phantom Meance may not be the best Star Wars movies by any means, but they were decent (well TPM is decent without Jar Jar) but lore-wise I think the Prequels as a whole are on another level to anything else Star Wars. 

Star Wars Republic Commando (2004)

One of the best video game series of all time. It was outright phenomenal and delved more deeply into the mysterious, sci-fi, war, and clone aspects of the Clone Wars that Attack of the Clones introduced us to.

Star Wars Clone Wars (2003) Volume 1

This series was epic and action packed. It really showed us the huge battles, vast frontiers, mysterious worlds, great array of vehicles, and different climates that were shown in Clone Wars battles. This is a distinct vibe from the later Clone Wars which has more of an episode 3 vibe. The biggest difference is by then both the CIS and Republic are much more developed and begin to fight in more populated and crowded worlds. 

The 2008 Clone Wars series initially gave us a blend of both feels that were in Episode II and III but eventually (post season 3) became more centered on the Episode III tone of war. The same was true with the second volume of the Clone Wars (which makes perfect sense) but the first volume is largely regarded as the favorite. And what really made it special was that peculiar vibe the era had, you never knew what you were going to encounter.

When invisible droids engaged Yoda on Illum or when Ventress dueled Anakin something about it was so new and fresh that isn’t easily implemented in other eras. And for good resaon, they all have something special about them.

Star Wars The Clone Wars (2002)

It was a phenomenal vehicle based video game that existed in a Star Wars setting. It had a compelling story, epic battles, unique vehicles, and diverse multiplayer modes. This game just showed how much potential the AOTC era had.

Star Wars Republic (2002-2004 content)

While Republic initially came after The Phantom Menace and many of it’s great comics were inspired by the character Quinlan Vos, much of it’s content that came after 2002 was influenced by Attack of the Clones. But likewise Attack of the Clones was influenced by the comic series. 

Many people though Aayla Secura was created in Attack of the Clones, but she actually first appeared in Star Wars Republic back in 1998. Still, the Clone Wars timeline brought many interesting storylines to this series.

[provisionalsparkle]

The Boy Next Door

Reader x Bang Chan (Stray Kids)

[Genre] exes-to-lovers au, smut, angst.

[Word count] 6.7K

[Warnings] Smut. Angst. Unprotected sex, voyeurism, ample description of bodily fluids.

[Note] This is my contribution to @feliix ’s Summer 2 Lovers collab! Check it out!

Summer.

The season of fun and sun, careless joy, long days and warm nights…

For most people.

For you, this summer is about change. It’s about the little town you used to live in, the quaint house you grew up in, the smell of your mother’s cooking or the breeze from the yard, the sound of younger kids playing in the street. It’s about the big city you will go to live in, it’s purple and orange twilight skies, black silhouettes reaching toward the skies beginning to twinkle with golden lights, the noises of the traffic coming from evening bustle, the scent of the delis and restaurants that line the streets.

You were stuck between these two places, university having been a four year long limbo of boundless sex mislabeled as self-discovery, and now visit your home one last time, reminding yourself of the life you had there before moving on to another.

You think of the past with nostalgia, yet also with a restlessness that makes you want to run from everything. The stillness, the silence, the unchanging landscape in this little town is too unbearable, too unsettling. But it’s familiar, and it’s comfortable. The life you’ll soon live promises excitement, autonomy, it’s the adulthood you’ve fantasized about. It terrifies you too, and you have these horrible dreams about missing the payment of the most insignificant bill and having the entire world collapse on you because of it. You still don’t know how to do your taxes.

College is over, a new life awaits you in a big city after landing a rather ideal job, but it felt like you were leaving things behind. Funny how, after so many years of fantasizing about this grown-up life you suddenly felt like a lost child, scared to forgo the familiar.

It’s these sort of almost-quarter-life-crisis thoughts that fill your mind on a particularly warm afternoon. You’re indecently splayed out on a couch with as little clothing as possible, the door to the backyard is wide open, letting an occasional breeze waft in to disrupt the stifling stillness of the heat. The lights are off, and you were too unbothered to turn them on as the sun set, preferring to stare at a darkening ceiling as the evening sky turned purple.

There’s a familiar jingle of keys from the front door.

“Honey? You home?”

“I’m here, Mom.” You lazily answer back. She wanders from the hall to the living room, you can feel the judgemental look she gives you.

“Have you been laying like this all day?”, indignation lines her voice. Was it so surprising to find you like this?

“Yeah…”

“You can’t just lay here all day. Go out! Get some sun! Go play with those kids you used to hang out with from school!”

“I can’t Ma, I’d rather just plank here.”

“Oh goodness, Y/n. Give me one good reason you shouldn’t go hang out with them!”

“I’ll give you two: either they grew up to be total bitches or they had kids and became a bore.”

“I didn’t become a bore when I had you!” She exclaims, although it’s not too serious and some playfulness hides beneath the surface.

“Yeah, that’s because you’re a cool mom. They don’t make those anymore.”

“Hmm… well, I think you should make a bit of an effort.”

“Mom… it’s my last vacation you know -”

“You know what?!” She suddenly exclaims, her voice brightening like a lightbulb just radiated in her thoughts. “Mrs. Carson’s son is here with her for the summer too! I bet you haven’t seen him in ages, and he’s gotten so handsome.”

“Mrs. Carson?” You didn’t have any clue who that was.

“Well… you might remember her as Mrs. Bang, but Jane changed her name when she married Norbert a few years ago. She still lives next door and Christopher’s in town spending the summer with his mother.”

Bang…

Christopher…

You hadn’t heard that name in years. It surprised you a bit actually, and a hint of a smile came to your lips.

“Yeah, yeah, Mom… I’ll think about it.”

You wouldn’t admit… something did grab your attention. A curiosity of sorts.

You were fifteen years old when you had your first kiss. He was a short boy with a kind smile, a bit awkward really, but you had a fondness for him. It wasn’t about looks at all, all boys at that age were hideous and nothing would change your opinion on that, but you’d swoon whenever you saw him. It was mutual, an icky teenage infatuation that had your friends poking fun at both of you whenever you’d become giddy at the sight of one another. Hot faces, nervous glances, trembling innocent touches.

He sat next to you in chemistry and you’d hold hands under the lab table while the teacher gave class. His left hand always felt soft in your right one. Cute. It’s a bit silly but you’re glad you had that sort of adorable and silly romance. While it lasted, that is.

Christopher wasn’t a bad guy. He was stupid, like all boys that age.

When you saw him kissing another girl, of course you cried, but you knew it had to do with him being stupid more than anything. This simple looking girl that you had been friends with in elementary school, you can’t even remember her name.

You know why he did it, beyond his stupidity. Your mom had let it slip long before - you knew it was coming.

“Honey, would you believe? Mr. and Mrs. Bang are divorcing!” Probably just some hot gossip from one of her PTA yoga groups, no ill intention on your behalf. She didn’t know you were seeing Christopher - over your dead body. You were fifteen and a horrible student, you didn’t need to give your mother yet another element to ground you with.

“Oh no…” You acted as normally as you could, your first thoughts went out to Christopher first though. “Do you know why?”

“Well… I’m obviously not going to ask, duh! But I do know that Mr. Bang is taking the kid with him abroad.” What?! What did she just say? Chis is WHAT?!

“I - uh, what?” Act normal, act normal, act normal.

“Aww… sweetie, was he your friend?” Goodness, parents can be so oblivious, but it’s beneficial in this case. She doesn’t pick up on the depression of your mood.

“I guess.” A sniffle is about to threaten your composure so, in your teenage arrogance, you leave before your mother can see your teary eyes.

The subsequent days were strange. You expected Christopher to tell you the news, you expected to comfort him, you expected to live out the rest of your young romance as best as you could. And then… you saw him.

And he said nothing. He was cold, pushed you away. He must be going through a lot of pain, you thought. More days went by and he still said nothing, and his demeanor grew worse, no affection, no smiles. He must be having a hard time, you reasoned.

Sometimes you thought he was on the verge of saying something to you, like he was about to say something and the words threatened to come out but he’d suddenly pull away and swallow them. You didn’t question it really, it was so confusing but you just went with it.

You never held his hand in chemistry again.

Time made you realize that Christopher didn’t want to be with you anymore. You weren’t sure if it was because he stopped liking you, and that hurt a little, but you knew what he was going through, and you stood by him in case he ever chose to open up and cry on your shoulder. You’d be there for him.

When he kissed that girl, it didn’t really surprise you. Damn it, what was her name? You cried, you thought it was because you were ugly and your boobs were still pretty small - stupid reasons.

It took a few months for you to understand the real reason.

He left without saying goodbye. You never spoke to him after he kissed what’s-her-name. Maybe he tried to do so a couple of times, but you ran away or didn’t let him. Or maybe you remembered it that way to comfort you, just so you’d live with the thought that he tried to apologize, tired to make things right.

But the fact of the matter is he didn’t speak to you and he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to say goodbye because it hurt.

He was trying to ruin your relationship so you’d break up with him and he wouldn’t have to say goodbye, so that he could kill the feelings you had for him to spare you from the pain of his departure.

Or maybe you were just imagining it like that to make it a cuter memory and think about it fondly.

Maybe in the end, Christopher was just a horny teenage boy that cheated on you. Maybe.

Regardless, you giggle as you think back on the silliness of it all, and how serious and life altering it all felt in your childishness. It seemed so long ago, so distant, and you were so changed that it felt like it had all happened to a different person. You wondered about the man next door, and the entirely different boy who had once been next door. What kind of person had Christopher become?

University did you well. It was four solid years of irresponsible drinking and uninhibited sexual exploration paired with relatively easy academics. You don’t know how it happened, but it had been like a transformation from one day to the next.

You, sort of, kind of, absolutely plain and normal girl that no one would notice lest you stepped in their line of sight. One day, there you were - normal.

Two weeks in - boom. Confident. Your roommate was an okayish girl, another plain one. Then you started noticing how comfortable you were undressing in front of her, to change clothes or whatever, as if it was the most normal thing in the world - which it was. Wearing shorts and skirts became less of a worry, just something that felt better. Sometimes you’d be thrown icky glances from some boys, which you hated, but others were acceptably flirty and you loved those. The best ones were the boys that would get shy and who would quickly whip their heads the other way once you caught them staring.

That definitely flipped the switch. It made you feel strong, it made you feel damn good. You, who at the most had dipped a finger into the world of heavy makeouts during high school, now became a seasoned seductress of all kinds of men. So long as you could wrap them around your finger with your demeanor, so long as you could prowl over them and take the lead.

Ah… the good old days.

What was going to happen now, though? Four years later, no slightly inexperienced men left to be wowed. Everyone you knew was turning into a bland and bitter office worker. Was this the end of it?

To think that you’d be ending this glorious chapter of your life in this tiny town, lounging on the same stuffy couch in the same hot living room every day, having your routine philosophical melodrama where you’d stare at the ceiling in the afternoons until your mother came in inquiring if you were alive. It was a terrible fate.

A few days after the revelation of Christopher’s presence, which you would never admit had been circling your mind nonstop, your mother returns with another piece of information.

“You know, Jane and Norbert are having a get together of sorts next Saturday - just the usuals from the block.”

“Is that so?” You said with disinterest.

“In fact, I borrowed a baking pan from her last week… why don’t you go over and give it back to her for me? She might need it, and you probably haven’t left this house in days.” You didn’t reply, but you could feel her eyes on you, waiting for you to obey.

“Fine…”

The afternoon was enjoyably fresh, although your white t-shirt stuck to you like a second skin, the bikini top you wore underneath tracing its silhouette into the cotton. You lazily stomped your way to the house next door, admiring the tall window where you had snuck into Christopher’s room a couple of times during your short romance. A ladder was perched up against the exterior toward that window, they must have been fixing things up. The porch was full of cans of paint, tools, boxes. It was only when you rang on the doorbell, begrudgingly holding the large tray, that you realized that Jane might not be the one to open the door but instead it could be -

The door swings open and you gasp. Christopher.

Well… his face hadn’t changed much. But he was slightly taller than you remembered, far more masculine, oh, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Yeah, he was shirtless… jeans hanging low on his hips… shirtless… abs… fit waist… arms…

“Hi! Is Jane home?” Good… pretend you don’t remember him.

“I - Uh… no, my mom’s actually out right now.” He replied. His voice had grown deeper, and where did he get that accent? Wait - did he not remember you? Now, that just made you angry, but you wouldn’t let it show.

“Oh, well… my mother wanted me to return this.” You say handing him the tray, avoiding trailing your eyes downward.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll give it to her.” He says. He seems a little frozen, an expression between surprise and caution lingers on his face, but you don’t know if it’s good or bad.

There’s a moment of silence where you just stare at each other.

“Y/n…” He finally says. There’s hesitation in the way he says your name. He’s scared, not of you, but he’s scared about the fact that you’re on his doorstep.

You don’t say anything, calmly, almost coyly, waiting for him to continue. You’d gotten rather good at pretending you were calm, and the slightest tint of a smile painted your lips so you wouldn’t seem cold or ingenuine.

“Do you remember me?” He asks. You can’t help but huff, a tiny laughter really.

“Of course. You know, you haven’t grown much taller.”

With those slightly playful words, you turn to walk back to your home, and with each step your impression of the encounter with your childhood love became more bitter and less sweet.

It was strange how you thought about him, about it. The situation, that is. Seeing him, talking to him, both of you now being older. A few days of thinking now.

You don’t know why you thought about it so much, but you thought about it. You thought about it without knowing how you felt about it or what you thought about it. This man you had only gotten a glimpse of, too overwhelmed to take in his features properly, now walks around your mind freely. He wasn’t the boy you knew. He wasn’t the boy next door whose hand you’d once hold in chemistry, who you’d kiss before turning the corner towards both of your homes. The boy who left all those years ago.

No, it wasn’t that boy. It was that man, who kept perturbing you. What did you feel? Interest? Yes, there was something quite intriguing about all of this which sparked your curiosity. Lust? Of course, absolutely, the man next door looked divine. Suppose you could abstract the person from his body, so that you wouldn’t be so bothered by who he was and what he meant to you, and you’d easily bend over in front of him and invite him in.

You supposed a conversation was in place, though, because after all, he was still the Christopher. You couldn’t just go around fucking people like that anymore - unfortunately. That was something you got away with in college. It’s a shame college boys grow up to be boring men, sex gets more boring, they think they have all the authority… Maybe you should go back to school.

You’re sitting on the windowsill of your second floor bedroom, one leg hanging out and stepping onto the roof. Opposite to your window, beyond a neat shrub, is the window of the guest room of Mrs. Carson, formerly Bang, which seems unchanged from when you last saw it. You remember watching her from your room, also unchanged, using the TV in there to do some aerobics she followed along from a VHS… was it a VHS? No, that’s the machine. What were the things you used to put in the VHS? A cassette? No… regardless, eventually she must have started using DVD’s.

Damn it, it all seemed like thousands of years ago.

Damn it, you were still so melodramatic throwing around words like poetry over some Richard Simmons tape. Aha! It’s a tape!

Your crotch is being dug into by the window frame, and you let your weight rest on it, the slight grind tempting you to have a round of masturbation. But you’ll finish the cigarette you stole from your mother first. It tasted awful, it was another adult thing you couldn’t understand. Why did everyone at university smoke so much? It was just another thing their eager teenage selves did to emulate the adults in grown-up world, to feel a little more grown-up. Who the hell likes this stuff?

But you liked watching it burn, occasionally inhaling its airy and bitter smoke. It wasn’t your preferred type of smore. You preferred watching papers and matches burn, their sweet and rich smell, the warmth of the fire that would sting the edges of your fingers. Shame your mother only used a lighter, you didn’t like the smell of that fire either.

You just surrendered to watching the bright tip of the cigarette and the white streams that came from it.

“You know those are bad for you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” You exclaimed, your heart nearly jumping out from your chest. A man had sprung out from the window in the guest room of the Carson house, formerly Bang, and that man was Christopher Bang himself.

“Sorry I didn’t -”

“You almost gave me a fucking heart attack - what the hell?!”

“ - mean to startle you…”

“Damn it, Christopher!”

“Ah! So you do remember me?” He says with a bit of joy, but you just look at him, realizing that this is where the talk will come. His features grow a little more somber. He continues, “So… I guess I -”

“Where’d you get the accent?” You interrupt, genuinely curious. “You sound like the crocodile hunter.”

“Well… I was living in Australia with my dad.” He says it in a normal tone, but you make sure it doesn’t stay normal.

“Oh, so that’s where you went?” You both wince at what you just said. Yep, it’s finally time for that talk.

There’s a bit of silence, but you’ll let him be the one to fill it.

“I…” He sighs deeply. Uuhh… it’s quite a masculine sigh. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again but I… there’s something I’ve always wanted to say.”

“I’m listening…” You say. It’s a flat tone, but it’s funny. You hope it’ll ease him.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.” Some silence again, “I’m sorry for being an ass, I’m sorry for cheating on you -”

“Chris, we were like fifteen… you kissed a girl with braces, big deal.” You waved it off. Really, kissing that girl didn’t bother you so much, now almost ten years later.

“I left without saying anything.”

“Yeah, you did. Hard to not notice.”

“I was - I know it’s not an excuse, but I was going through a lot and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“So you left without saying anything?”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok… we haven’t spoken in years. I practically forgot about it.” No you didn’t.

“Did you?” He says. Was he hopeful when you insinuated he hadn’t hurt you as much as he thought he had?

“No, not really. I mean, yeah, you kissing another girl was pretty insignificant, we were just kids. It did hurt that you left without… I don’t know… There wasn’t any closure. There wasn’t a goodbye. I felt confused for a while, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry about that. But my parents were splitting up, I was going to have to leave everything behind. You were the first girl I loved and I was going to have to say goodbye and I couldn’t handle it. I was too hurt and embarrassed to even tell my friends. I wish I had done it differently.”

“Yeah, I wish you had too. I wanted to be there for you, you know? I wanted to hug you, hold your hand, tell you it was going to be ok.

“I really messed up there…”

“It’s okay Chris, you were just a kid. We were just kids.” You offer your sympathy but he doesn’t soften.

“Mhmm. Doesn’t make me feel less guilty about it.”

“Can I ask you something?” He nods, “Did you do all that stuff… you know, treat me that way, for real or where you…?”

“I was hoping you’d break up with me, get over me. That way we wouldn’t have to say goodbye and we wouldn’t get hurt.”

“I got hurt.” You admit.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” You insist. “It’s fine. We’re fine. We’re old and grown and fine. All of that’s in the past, I can’t blame you for acting like a kid. It’s okay.”

“Well I can agree with you there. We did grow up, not kids anymore.”

“You didn’t grow that much.” You laugh, he laughs too.

“You certainly did.” He’s being flirty. It could have been bad timing, but the mood felt right.

“Oh, you noticed?”

“Hard not to.” Goodness was he being direct. “You were really cute back in school, I had a crush on you for like, forever.”

“Really…Plain old me?”

“Really. And now here we are and I think I could have a crush on you all over again.”

“So you can go off and kiss another girl with braces and leave the continent?”

“No, I’m a one woman man.” He says while making himself comfortable on his own ledge. It’s getting comfortable overall, like you’re talking to someone you’ve known for the longest time, like a decade of separation didn’t do much harm.

“Well, well. And who is that lucky woman now?”

“There’s no one at the moment. I’m in the middle of some life changes.”

“Do tell.”

“I’m moving back. Well, not here, just in the country again. A big city, big job, kinda scary.”

“Seems we’re on the same boat. I just came back to say goodbye to this place forever and I’m ooout.”

“Did you finish school already?”

“Yeah… I wish I hadn’t though.” You think back on your experience with longing, lamenting it’s end.

“Wow, can’t relate. I couldn’t wait for it to end. What’d you miss about it?”

“Well, I didn’t have to work, grades were good and easy. And I guess, it was tons of fun.”

“How so?”

“Being on a campus full of horny and stupid guys - it was open game.” Chan hisses at your admission.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for that type.” He chuckles, “You would stutter for like the first two months we went out.”

“We were just kids.”

“I guess we were…”

Another comfortable silence as you stare off at the sky, your cigarette burnt through with only the spongy bud left to pinch.

“Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m single too, you know.”

It might have been a bad idea, you said it on impulse after all, something quite instinctive having taken over you. Maybe you were just horny and Christopher was just hot, regardless, the conversation was over. Before he could even process what you said, and the implications to it, you had already slipped back into your darkened room and out of his sight.

Chan felt like a teenager again. Not in a good way.

Chan remembered your first kiss, holding your hand. He remembered your breasts being the first he had ever really noticed, your legs being the first he ever caressed. He remembers how you’d press your bodies together while you kissed, not really understanding what both of you felt, only understanding the urgency of it.

Now he can name those feelings, the ones that once belonged to an inexperienced boy, merely dipping his toes into the surface of that world. But now that he dove, and had dived into its waters several times, he knew how to swim in them.

Yet, seeing you made him feel like he didn’t. It made him feel like he couldn’t swim, like he couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was drowning.

The first moment he saw you on his doorstep he felt his stomach drop, a pang of guilt that had lingered on his mind during countless of sleepless nights hitting him with full force. He didn’t expect it. He thought he would never see you again.

And after taking another look, a longer look, it was like he was swimming in completely different waters. He felt submerged, and he didn’t know which way was up. He wanted to open his mouth and swallow it all up, let you drown him.

He hadn’t felt this raging feeling since he was a teenager. He certainly hadn’t had a specific woman make him feel like this until you.

It made him feel another kind of guilt. Shame even.

The following days he’d watch you, shamefully. His mother had him painting the house and when he stood on the rooftops he took his time to enjoy the view of you swimming in your pool, wearing tiny bikinis that stuck to your skin and showed the buds of your niples and the lines of your labia through the fabric. He would admit, shamefully, that he stopped watching from the roof because he needed to get closer to see these beautiful details.

He now watched you from over the fence in his backyard. Getting incredibly hard watching you swim, watching you oil your body down.

It was all horribly, horribly shameful.

But weren’t you the one that mentioned you were single? It had caught him off guard. He was being cheeky in that moment, but he didn’t know what waters he was testing then. Now he knew, and it was making him behave so, so shamefully.

Should he go over there, push you into a corner of the pool and pull your bottoms to the side? Should he kneel at your feet while your rubbing yourself with that golden oil, and beg you to let him fuck you?

It wasn’t just the thought of sex that drove him mad, it was you in general. How inferior he felt in front of you, like he had to prove himself. Every day he worked shirtless, hoping you’d get a glimpse of him, but you were just so unbothered by it all.

It was driving him fucking insane.

If only you knew.

Except - of course you did. Of course you did. This is what you craved, what you were best at. Driving boys, technically men but boys sounds tastier, to be absolute slaves to their desire for you. Christopher wasn’t doing a good job at hiding it. Did he really think that you would suddenly spend every day swimming in the tiniest bikinis after having not left your couch for over a week? They really are such stupid, fuckable animals.

And Chris was particularly fuckable.

Day four of his perverted project, he was hammering away at some boards in the back porch of his house. Your mother wouldn’t be home for hours, his parents were away for a couple of days.

Everything was perfect.

“Chris?!” You call loudly over the fence from your chaise lounge, carelessly flipping through a book. The hammering stopped, he had heard you. “Chris, it’s hot today. Don’t you think you should come over for a swim to cool down?”

Why on earth were you acting so damn unbothered and confident, he thought. Why on earth were you asking him over?

It’s only a matter of time before he circles his own house and slides in through the gate on your end. He’s still wearing jeans and a utility belt, gloves too. No shirt.

“You can’t really swim in those, take them off.” You hardly peered at him from over your sunglasses. He was just standing there, frozen. That’s usually a sign that you’re working your magic well. Good. “Come on Christopher, take them off.”

“I - uh, I’m actually not wearing trunks right now. Uhm… I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, you don’t have to go.” Insert unbothered page flip. “Why don’t you just undress and get in the pool so I can join you?”

“W-what?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He genuinely thought he had imagined it, maybe all of his hornyness was driving him insane.

“Christopher!” You whine. “You’re ruining the fun!” You slam the book shut and throw it over to the side, taking your sunglasses and hat off. “Chris, I think it’s obvious. Do you think I haven’t noticed you being a peeping tom for the past half week? Look! You’ve already got a tent in your pants and everything!”

“Fuck.” Shit, you were right.

“This is like, hmm, like an open invitation to fuck me.” You say with an eye roll, but your eyes roll toward his abs because they are absolutely distracting you.

“Are… are you serious?”

“Well… You want to, I want to. You’re nice, look like you’ve become quite a decent man - and I’m not just referring to your physique Chris. Maybe, just maybe, it would be an excellent idea if we finally fucked this tension away.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. You’re here for a few weeks, so am I. Why not enjoy each other while we can? After that we can just go our separate ways, just like before except we’ll end it on good terms.”

Too many points for him to argue with - you were right on all of them. He couldn’t disagree. In fact, he eagerly agreed. Little did he know you had this pitch rehearsed to perfection, to your benefit, because he seemed to be completely subdued by it.

“Fuck.” He mutters under his breath. Fumbling with his belt, zipper, exposing the line of his abdomen down to his hardening cock. A fat, heavy cock that swung between his muscular thighs. He was fully nude now, standing in front of you, his tan skin glistening in the sunlight. You’re quick to urge him over with a finger.

He pounces, but once he’s crawling over you on that narrow chair, he becomes slow.

“Hi.” You manage to whimper out, now feeling a bit small beneath him, feeling nervous even.

“Hey.” He’s just as nervous but there’s an energy that goes beyond either of your wills pulling you toward one another.

He kisses you. It’s a kiss you melt into, and he sinks his body against yours, with you spreading your legs so he can slot between them. His cock rests against your lower abdomen, his body pressing further into you.

You can’t help but slide your hand between your two bodies in an attempt to finger yourself, prepare yourself, but he stops you and pulls back.

“No.” He growls.

“No?” Is he going to leave you like this?!

“Let me.”

And you do. Chan lowers himself, adjusting you so he can easily bend over the chair while kneeling on the ground, and his hands shake as he dips the tip of his fingers into the hem of your bottoms, just slightly tugging at the material, playing with it before he starts to play with you. You’ve got the perfect view of him basically drooling over you.

He slides the bottoms to the side, but you pull at the strings at your hips, so they come undone and he pulls them away completely. Your lips and the juices coming from between them are just as glossy than your oiled skin.

He can’t help but dig in. Fucking you with his mouth, jamming his fingers in you. It’s an animalistic frenzy and it’s hot and slippery and sticky. You cum and your fluids spill over the impermeable cushion below, pooling under your ass. He can see every sparkling droplet fall from you.

It’s just a haze, he nearly jumps on you, bending your legs nearly over your head, bouncing his pelvis on your cunt like a trampoline, smacking with every thrust. You’re completely glued to one another. If he’s not abusing your mouth with his tongue then he’s biting on your shoulder or grunting, growling, into your ear. It’s filthy. You’re absolutely sure you’ve never been fucked like this.

He cums, several times, as do you. He pulls out each time, jerks himself off on your body, although a couple of times you urged him into your mouth and face. He pulls the triangles on your top to the sides, so your breasts are exposed. He made sure to cum on those too. Semen, sweat, squirt, oil, spit, everywhere there are droplets of your fluids shining on your body like jewels.

It ends with him lying on top of you, nearly sleeping from exhaustion, and your lips feel deliciously sore and sensitive, almost ticklish as he softens inside of you.

It happens again. Several times in fact. Many, many times. When his parents are away, when your mom is away, you fuck all the time. Just a little call of his name over the fence or from your window and he’d be running to you. You were too comfortable with one another to bother with formalities, it was like you’d never been separated. You’d wait for him on all fours, wet cunt on display for him to dive in, but he’d always greet you with a gentle kiss.

Fucking each others faces, drinking eachothers fluids. You even let him fuck you in the ass, multiple times, and he was the first guy to make you cum that way. You were just as hooked and as desperate as he was.

Things started to change though.

The welcoming kisses became longer, you’d talk between the rounds…

You’d fall asleep in his arms, or he in yours.

You’d fuck slowly, deeply, staring into each other’s eyes.

You’d talk to him, tell each other stories of all these years, asi if you had been together the entire time.

You’d smile as you made love, gently. You’d let him cum inside of you.

He’d hold your hand again. They were as soft and warm as you remembered.

You were holding his hand on one particular pink evening, your head resting on his heaving chest, teaching circles into his pecs and nipples. On your bed, in your quiet childhood room. It was a painful silence now. It had been weeks, weeks closer to your respective departure dates.

“I wish I had never left.” He eventually says. You don’t know what to say. “I wish we could have stayed like this for longer.”

“Maybe we would have broken up eventually, or left for college.” You ponder.

“Maybe I would have taken you to prom, or we would have had sex together for the first time…” He returns.

“On this bed? Hmm? With my cute school uniform?” You tease. “Yeah, maybe.”

“But I guess this is what was meant to be.” He sighs, as do you.

“I’m sorry.” Is all you can say.

“What for?”

“I don’t know, I just feel bad. I started this and now we have to go our separate ways again.” You feel something sting in your eye. You can’t cry now.

“Shh…” He coos as he hears you sniffle and feels you twitch. It makes his heart ache like it did all those years ago when he left.

“I - I…” You cry. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to go.”

He pulls you into his arms, crushing you in an embrace. Your eyes are closed but you feel the tears fall from his face, he’s crying too.

“I know… but what else can we do?”

There was nothing left to do, other than fuck the days away, crying, holding each other until it hurt. It was a horrible, horrible thing to have fallen in love with Christopher Bang this final summer.

You didn’t go with him to the airport. You didn’t want to say goodbye, you didn’t want to see where he was going.

But he did slip into your room that final night. You made love quietly, he kissed you as you cried.

He said it was the second time he loved you, and the second time he had to leave you.

It hurt much more this time around. Maybe you shouldn’t have done it, maybe you shouldn’t have gone next door.

Being in your house was unbearable once Chris wasn’t next door.

A week later, you’ve arrived at your new place. It had been a whirlwind and you stayed at a hotel the first couple of nights while your new furniture got brought in, most of your personal belongings only fitting in a couple of bags.

It’s kept you busy. That way you think about him a little less. Crying into pillows that have that certain ‘brand new’ smell isn’t quite as comforting as you’d expect. Everything seems unfamiliar, strange, artificial. Nothing here reminded you of him - it was for the best and you hated it.

The place is nice, bright. It’s on the third floor of a small apartment building, a couple of other doors beside yours in the hall. You go downstairs to grab a few packages that have arrived, carefully treading up the stairs in a kind of balancing act once they’re piled in your arms. It’s a choreography you can dance to with expertise, always denying any help from your neighbors.

However, you do fumble with the lock and handle once you’re at your door, holding the boxes up by pressing them against the door with your body as your hands blindly fumble with the keys, nothing but cardboard in your sight.

Nothing you can’t handle, until they start to slip.

“Woah, let me help you with that!” someone says behind you, and in your complicated state it’s a bit difficult to process what happens but the boxes are soon out of the way, said someone pulling them from you and freeing you.

And then you see him.

Him.

Your him.

He says your name and you’re too stunned to react. He’s in awe too. He drops your packages, and you’re certain some of them contain some makeup palettes but you don’t give a damn at the moment.

“What are you doing here?” You finally ask, frozen in place.

“I… live in 304.” He says.

“You live in 304?” He nods. “You? You’re serious?” He nods again, eyes still wide.

You both stand there, processing it all. This can’t be real.

“I live in 302.” you manage to say, after some time. Your voice is weak, all the air has left your lungs. You shake.

“You do?” He asks. Now you nod.

This can’t be.

But he cups your face, holds it like you’re precious and delicate, he kisses you. It is real. You kiss him back, harder. Eventually you’re both clinging to one another, gripping each other’s clothes desperately.

“You live here.” He says, little tears sparkling in the corner of his eyes. You nod, the same tears coming to you.

“I do. Mm-hmm.” The sniffles you let out seem so sweet to him, he swoons with how happy you are to see him. Knowing you feel the same joy he does - it makes him feel complete.

“I live here too!” He cries, laughing, smiling, beautifully.

One more kiss, just to make sure it’s real. You pull him in and kiss him one more time.

It’s real.

[writerlyhabits]

Teach Me?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x female reader

Word Count: 5.5k

Summary: “Teach me how to dance?”

Ch 4 of the Neighbors Series | Masterlist | Ch. 3 | Ch. 5

Warnings: super super fluffy, also a dash of angst – gotta have a balance, mild cursing, Steve Rogers (whoops, baby spoiler, but it's a warning okay?), Bucky’s past, Bucky makes bad jokes, idiots in love, I think that’s it?

AN: I’m not sorry, I have too many feelings about dancing with bucky. I had to write this to kick things off, cause there’s a lot more dancing coming, so … buckle up. I don’t actually know how to swing dance, @deceiverofgodss and I just kinda made up something cute watching video after video, so I hope it at least makes sense 😂 If you’re curious about dance moves, these are some of the more complicated tricks I used. Enjoy! 💖

Playlists: Side A | Side B

“Bucky?”

“Hmm?” He responded as he finished the paragraph in his book, settled in the armchair in the corner of your living room, a welcome presence while you tried to make progress on your assignment from work.

“Teach me how to dance?” Bucky’s eyes snapped up at you, finding you’d left your place on the couch, standing by your record player. There was a sense of nostalgia as echoes of different girls calling him to dance rang through his head.

“Yeah… I, wait,” he started, taking a second to actually process what you were asking him before he got carried away. “What kind of dancing? What do you mean?”

“Swing dancing?” You answered sheepishly, and he caught the album cover of the record you’d just put on, featuring a black and white photo of a young smiling couple dancing. “I’ve always wanted to learn… since you keep telling me about how you used to be a ladies’ man, I figured you danced pretty often?” You teased, and he just grinned at you. You weren’t wrong.

“Used to be?” He shot back at you playfully, even though you were absolutely right. He didn’t quite understand the dating game anymore, he’d already ruled that out before he’d gotten to know you. “You never learned to dance?”

“Not like that at least, people don’t really do it anymore,” you explained. “I mean, I could always pay for lessons, but I don’t wanna compete or anything I just… want to dance with someone.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but Bucky couldn’t understand why it had dissipated. He remembered how much fun it was, spinning girls around the dance floor, holding them up close to him. The energy that surged through his body when he moved to the lively music, and the warm feeling he’d get when they shot him those pretty smiles… There was no other feeling like it, and he missed it.

“Yeah doll, I’d love to teach you,” he smiled, his insides doing backflips at the thought. He hadn’t been dancing in… well, a long time. You were looking so softly at him, eyebrows raised in question, and he was about to remember all his moves real quick. “When do you want to start?”

“How about now?” He closed his book and chuckled at you.

“Don’t you have work you should be doing?” That earned him a groan as you gave a distasteful side-eye to your closed laptop on the couch.

“I’ve done enough work for today, I need a break.” He simply cocked his eyebrow at you. “I don’t need it done for another week Bucky, it’ll be fine,” you reasoned. With no good reason not to, he set his book to the side and stood from his chair to make his way to you, a silent smile of victory painted on your face.

“Alright, but we’re gonna need to make room first,” he started, propping his hands on his hips as he surveyed your small living room. The coffee table was offender number one, but the lamp in the corner wasn’t exactly in the clear.

“Make room?” You asked him, sounding so innocently confused. He looked back up to find your half-worried expression already looking at him, and he couldn’t help but smirk at you. You had no idea what you were getting into...

And just like that, with almost no effort at all, Bucky was wrapped around your finger.

-

You understood why it was called swing dancing now. After he’d taught you the basic steps, helping you find the rhythm of each song and matching your steps to his, he’d put on something a little faster and was properly swinging the both of you around the room, the sheer momentum in each movement allowing you to move more freely than you expected.

“What do you think? This what you wanted?” Bucky asked at the end of one song as you flopped down onto the couch to catch your breath. You just giggled uncontrollably, his body lighting up at the sound.

“This is so much more fun than I thought it would be,” you answered breathlessly, reaching for your drink. “Now I understand what they mean when they say ‘thrown’ around the room.”

“You want me to really throw you around?” His tone dropped ever so slightly at the question, just enough to send a fluttery feeling to the pit of your stomach. Bucky had one eyebrow raised as he stood before you, pushing up his sleeves before he rested them on his hips again. Good god, he was a sight.

“That wasn’t it?” you asked, exasperated. What else could he possibly have planned? What could possibly follow the chaotic dance you were already doing? Bucky was giving you such an amused look, you knew you were in for something wild.

“Oh peach, we’ve only just started.” You watched as he made his way to your record player to switch albums, opting for the underappreciated Benny Goodman vinyl from the depths of your collection, having found it so quick you wondered if he’d planned it. Another fast, lively song came through the speakers as he turned back to you. “C’mere.”

In half a second you were pulled back up into his arms again as he swung you around the floor.

“Okay, remember; it’s all about momentum and trust,” Bucky reminded, and you clung to his every word while he effortlessly guided you. “I gotta trust that you’re not gonna let go when I’m not ready for it. And you’ve gotta trust that I’ve got you, so there’s no hesitation, okay?”

“What happens if I hesitate?”

“Throws off our rhythm, and with all our momentum, we both go flying. But that won’t matter cause you’ve got me,” he explained reassuringly. You raised an eyebrow at him in question. “I’ll always catch you.”

“Promise?” you offered with a smile.

“Promise,” he answered, winking at you. “Do you trust me?” Your gut told you of course I do… your brain saw the sly smirk on his face, which meant he was up to something.

“Why? What are you doing?” He giggled.

“I gotta know, doll, do you trust me?”

Don’t hesitate… right?

“I do.” Bucky jumped into action, pulling you in just to swing you out to his side. You came spinning back into his chest, his arms wrapped around you as he held your hands.

The part you were not expecting was when he bent over and dropped you between his legs, sliding you out on the floor while he held you just above the ground, resting you on his forearm. You caught his amused expression as you looked up at him with wide eyes. You weren’t sure how, but his arms moved underneath you and sent you spinning. He’d let go of one of your hands, which went flying to his shoulder, and he used his free arm to hold you securely over the ground. Bucky hoisted you back up into the air and placed you on your feet in front of him, a wide grin on his face as he waited for your reaction.

“How was that?”

“Oh my god…” was all you could manage.

“Yeah?” Bucky chuckled.

“Do it again.” Bucky threw his head back as he let out a boisterous laugh, the sound filling the room as you laughed along with him.

-

“When was the last time you danced like this?” you asked during one of the slower songs. There was a good beat, not too fast, which made for good conversation in place of wild tricks.

“Oh god... You could say it’s been a few years,” he laughed, and your amused giggle floated through the air.

“You seem to remember it pretty well after a century,” you jabbed, and he made a scrunchy face at you, his eyebrows furrowed.

“It hasn’t been that long. I was deployed, not dead. Except that didn’t come too much later.” You smacked his chest at the joke, eyes wide in disbelief, and it made him laugh from his chest.

“James Barnes,” you exclaimed, sounding like a disappointed parent as you were trying so hard not to laugh and failing miserably. Your use of his full name sounded very similar to the echoes of his mother calling him the same thing when he was in trouble. “I can’t believe you joked about that, you’re awful.”

Instead of responding, he continued to laugh with you as he positioned his hand differently in yours, bringing it up above your head while his other hand gently pushed at your waist. He’d been teaching you how to follow his actions all night, and you were surprised by how well you seemed to pick up on the silent, subtle language of the dance, turning yourself in response to his touch to allow him to spin you. At the end of your second spin, Buck looped your arm around behind him, leaving your hand to rest on the shoulder furthest from you as he looked at you out of the corner of his eye. He stepped around you, prompting you to stay where you were as he slid himself to your other side, quickly turning his head to keep your gaze. He looked down at you so fondly, a soft smile sitting on his cheeks and heat rising to yours. The hand resting over yours on his shoulder was then interlocked with yours again, his other quick to find it spot at your waist again.

“You are picking it up like a charm, you wanna show me what you’ve got?” He asked as he adjusted his grip on you, moving as if he was going to swing you out in front of him. You just laughed at him.

“What I’ve got is what you’ve taught me, so no.”

“No no, hold on, I didn’t teach you how to find the rhythm, you did that,” he argued. “Come on doll, just feel it, relax and listen to what your body is telling you.” You made a face as you were about to rebuttal, but he didn’t give you a chance as he swung you out.

You didn’t know what to do with yourself at first, simply matching his steps as you continued your steps to the rhythm. But when his steps started to change and the rest of his body started to react without prompting you in that silent conversation in the dance, you tried your best to follow suit. Twisting your body a little more than necessary, leaning closer and farther away from him as the music dictated. Bucky’s body seemed to match yours, with no synchronization and no communication, his body worked with yours like it was second nature.

The more he left you to your own impulses, the more you explored your movements to the music, involving your whole body in the way the music made you feel. The bright smile on Bucky’s face prompted you to keep going, to do more, and it made you feel alive.

A faster song came through the speakers, and Bucky started prompting you a little more. Not to stop your movements, but to lead you in relation to him. Your hips kept swaying as he pulled you in closer to him, your steps moving perfectly together as they sped up, his hands holding you securely by your hips as you swung around the room. You looked up to meet his gaze to find him already smiling down at you, and you knew there was something going on in his head.

“What’s that look for?” you giggled. He thought for a second before he responded, as if he was trying to find the right words.

“When you were younger, did you ever swing yourself around on that set of bars at the jungle gym?” he asked, and you could hear his amusement.

“Yeah?”

“You remember how to do it?” You contemplated his question, lost on his intentions.

“I think so?” The grin that spread across his face made you nervous. “Why?”

“You're going over my shoulder, it'll be just like that.”

What.

“BUCK-” It happened in a blur. The hand on your hip moved to the small of your back, his other bringing your hand to rest up on his shoulder. He had you jump up, his arm reaching to catch you under your legs and hold you bridal style in his arms.

You didn’t stay there for long, your brain was moving faster than he was but not in the right direction. How in the hell were you supposed to get over his shoulder. His arm dropped out from under your legs as they swung around his body. Where would you go once you got to his shoulder? Your legs went around him, going across his back as he leaned forward. At the last second, you panicked, instinctively fighting the intense momentum your body seemed to be following; clenching your body, your legs coming in on the other side of his back.

You felt him react and knew you’d messed up. His body was quick to move in response to yours despite his balance being thrown off, starting to lean in the direction your body was headed. You felt his arm slip from your back, not being able to reach from the unexpected angle, and you clung onto his shoulders like your life depended on it. He turned his body so the hand that had been under your legs could reach out to bring you closer. You curled into him as he continued to turn, the momentum carrying him down to the ground, and you right along with him.

His back hit the floor with a thud, and he let out a breath at the contact. You looked up at him from your spot on his chest, trying to gauge whether he was alright or not. He smiled softly before he lifted his head to catch your gaze.

“I told you I’d always catch you.” Your worried expression softened at his sentiment, seeming no worse off for the fall.

“I knew I wasn’t ready for that,” you reasoned, trying to shift the conversation before you got flustered. You slid off of him to sit on the floor, offering him a hand so he could sit up beside you.

“Yes, you are.” You furrowed your brows at him to suggest otherwise, and he did the same thing in retaliation. “You hesitated.”

“You didn’t give me hardly any warning Bucky!”

“Cause I thought if I just did it, you wouldn’t get in your head and psych yourself out of it. I was wrong, cause you did it anyway,” he chuckled, and your shoulders fell as you looked down at your hands. You opened your mouth to try and come up with an excuse, but before you could think of anything you felt cool vibranium fingers under your chin, tilting your face to look at him again. “Doll, we’ve been dancing all day, and you’re picking it up like a dream. It’s like you’ve been doing it as long as I have.” His comment made you smile, your cheeks getting warm as he looked at you so intensely, so earnestly.

“I don’t know about all that, old man.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that one. I’ve got about 75 years on you, give or take.” You rolled your eyes at him, and you tried to ignore the way you missed his touch when he dropped his hand from your chin. He pushed himself off of the floor, walking over to your record player to restart the album, a different upbeat song filling the room. “But you have been doing really good.”

“That was super convincing,” you sassed from the floor, taking the outstretched hand that pulled you back up into his arms with ease, bringing you close to the scrunchy face he was making at you. Instead of following up with another comment, he simply began guiding you back into the quick beat, allowing you to find the rhythm again.

“Do you want me to tell you when you’re going over my shoulder? Or just do it?”

“We’re doing it again?” You asked, which brought a warm smile back to his face.

“Yeah, because you can,” he argued. You leaned your head back and groaned, his strong arms holding you in place. “You can throw a fit all you want, but I’m getting you over my shoulder by the end of the night.” You snapped back up and glared at him, hoping to intimidate him out of it. “You know that look doesn’t work on me.”

“You’re an ass,” you huffed back at him, but you couldn’t hide your amusement.

“Alright, I won’t tell you then.”

“No, wait- Bucky, I take it back.” He only chuckled at you while you pleaded.

“Begging won’t work either, I grew up having to hold back a twig who wanted to fight everything that looked at him. You can’t break me.” You made peace with your loss, hoping he would at least be merciful in his attempts to catch you off guard. In the meantime, you decided to pick at this new piece of Bucky trivia he’d given you.

“I’m guessing that ‘twig’ was a pre-Super-Soldier Steve Rogers?” He nodded slowly, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “Okay… I’ve pulled just about everything about your sister out of you, but I never asked about Steve. What’s he like?”

“A punk,” Bucky deadpanned with zero hesitation. When you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing he joined you, gracing your ears with the sound. “He… he was a good kid. Always fought for what was right, even if he was the only one fighting.”

“Sounds like Captain America,” you mused, dropping your voice to imitate the countless promotional videos you’d seen of the icon over the years. “How’d you guys meet? You were young, right? Or did the museum get that wrong too...”

“We did, I think I was thirteen?” He responded through the smile cocked off to the side. “I saw the school bullies all huddled together, and in the middle was this tiny blonde twig, holding his fists up like stood a chance. I had to jump in before he got himself killed, and ended up doing it for the rest of my life,” he chuckled.

“Like a big brother swooping in to save the day?”

“That’s what it felt like. He was like my little brother, always getting himself into trouble ... I either had to get him out of it, or got stuck in the middle right along with him,” he explained, giving you an insight on the dynamic of the two the rest of the world didn’t get to see. “That’s how I ended up in Nazi Germany.” You shot him a look.

“Alright, but you got in before that happened… so didn’t he technically follow you out there?”

“Yeah, he did. When I told him not to. He went and volunteered himself as a lab rat just so he could get out on the front lines,” Bucky answered with an angry expression and an exasperated tone as if Steve was in the room to hear his scolding, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. “Things changed once he did though… after he got the serum, it felt like he was always coming to my rescue.”

“Well, you did say he always fought for the right thing,” you replied after a few moments, trusting your words and doing your best to keep your composure. Bucky looked at you softly before his expression fell ever so slightly.

“People didn’t always agree with that.”

“Then it’s a good thing Steve didn’t listen to them,” you started earnestly, giving him a soft smile until you were sure your words and intentions had set in. You waited until you could see your words had started to quiet the doubts, the voices in his head telling him otherwise. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have your lap to rest my feet on,” you quipped, trying to lighten the mood, and you were met with Bucky’s deep belly laugh.

“Or get you Asian food, or teach you how to dance…”

“Exactly,” you whispered, half laughing along with him, always happy to do what you could to help him battle the demons in his past even if it was only for a moment. After a few moments of comfortable silence, you prompted the rest of the conversation as you continued to follow his movements. “You must miss him?”

“I do. But he got his happy ending, so…” Bucky shrugged, his answer catching you off guard. There was very little information on Steve’s passing, and you weren’t the kind to keep up with rumors or conspiracies about it. When it came to the Avengers and their affiliates, you preferred to just know, or make peace with what you didn’t. Until, of course, your neighbor was one of them.

“What do you mean?”

“He went back… to 1945.”

“He went… I’m sorry?” The steps he had been leading you through had fallen into the background, but with that bombshell, you couldn’t bring yourself to keep dancing. You came to a pause and stopped following his lead, taking a small step back to put some space between you, allowing him to catch up.

“Steve went to put the stones in their timelines, and instead of coming back, he… he went to go be with his girl, Peggy.”

“Peggy Carter?”

“Yeah? Why do you say it like that?”

“To be honest, I don’t know a damn thing about the woman, except that she was in the movie at the museum. She was married, she had a family. Did he just…” You couldn’t even finish your statement. Instead, you let out a huff of frustration at the implication.

“Are you alright, doll?” He asked gently, brows raised in concern as you seemed to boil over.

“No. No, I’m not. I- He left you, Buck!” Your hand flew to your face, shocked that those words had come out of your mouth with almost no delay from your brain to your tongue. “Shit, that was… that was harsh. I just- how could he do that?”

“He asked me. Before he left, he told me what he wanted to do. Told me how much he’d missed Peggy, and that he felt like it was his only chance. He asked me if I would be okay if he left.”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“He figured it out, it couldn’t have been that much harder for me… I told him to go.”

“James-”

“What was I supposed to do, stop him? I can’t hold him back from that, I’d feel even more guilty than I already did,” Bucky argued, letting you into a little more of his thought process, more of his feelings on the whole ordeal. “I knew I could handle this on my own, that I’d be fine. I’ve made it through worse.”

“There’s no doubt that you can … but you shouldn’t have had to, Buck.” He was quiet for a moment, his brows furrowed softly in concern, and his lips in a slight pout as his eyes bounced between you and somewhere off to the distance just behind you. His eyes usually told you how he was feeling when he didn’t, and the complicated emotions that filled him made your heart hurt for him. You reached back out, gently placing your hand around his for some kind of comfort, allowing him to bring them together. His eyes stopped searching, meeting yours with the slightest hint of a smile on the corner of his lips. “I’m sorry, I know you want to forgive him, or at least try to see his side, but I just… I don’t understand.”

“Which part?”

“How could he sit by and let you go through everything without doing anything about it?”

“It doesn’t quite work like that, doll,” he answered just above a whisper. As you waited for him to elaborate, he took a step closer, slowly bringing you back in close to him, beginning to move your bodies to the music again. “It would have created a different timeline.”

“Then he was okay with living during a time when you were… I just don’t understand how he could live like that,” you explained, resting your head on his shoulder as you moved with him. You refrained from admitting that you couldn’t imagine living like that. That you would have been doing everything you could to get him out. Although you didn’t say it, Bucky knew what you were trying to say, and it sent a wave of warmth through his body. “You’re a giver, James. Every chance you get, you give. It’s incredible… Steve sounds like a taker.”

“He was a 90-pound asthmatic kid in the middle of Brooklyn. He had to take what he could get.”

“And that I get, but… I don’t know. Even after everything you went through, you kept giving. And it sounds like he just kept taking.” His breath hitched at your sweet sentiment, having to take a deep breath to keep himself composed. He wanted to ask you what made you come to that decision, what had made you see that part of him. But he felt like you still had more to say, giving you time to do so. “You can’t always take care of everyone else. You need someone to do the same for you sometimes.”

“You sound like my sister,” he teased, a soft laugh escaping him.

“Yeah, well, she’s right,” you started, bringing your head off of his shoulder to make eye contact again. “You need someone looking after you, because you’re trouble. But you also need someone looking out for you, for when you don’t do it yourself.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve got you then.”

“I’ll always be there to catch you,” you smiled, and his heart soared. He couldn’t help the wide grin that spread across his face when he heard you repeat his words back to him. You were ready.

True to his word, Bucky gave you no warning as he hoisted your legs up into his arms, but he took care to notice the nervous smile on your face that differed from the anxious expression you had earlier. He released your legs from his hold, swinging them around his back, and leaned forward to give you the momentum you needed. He could feel the difference in your body language, sensing how much you gave to him as you let go and allowed your body to do the work, your legs following through to slide over his shoulder and land right back in front of him.

The excited squeal you released once you’d realized what had happened caused his brows to shoot up, and you leaped up into his arms, your arms flying around his neck in a tight embrace. Purely on instinct, his arms wrapped around your middle, hugging you so tightly as he lifted your feet off the ground and spun you around, echoes of your combined laughter overpowering the music from your player.

The two of you came to a stop, and he set you back down on your feet, your hands sliding down to rest on his chest. “Oh god, I can’t believe I did that!” Bucky couldn’t stop his body as his hands flew to your face, bringing his forehead to rest on yours.

“I told you that you could,” he laughed, and it took a moment for him to realize where he was again. He opened his eyes to find you so close to him, your eyes closed and crinkled with joy as you smiled so softly at him. He took in every little detail that covered your face, every freckle, dimple, wrinkle, and imperfection… Looking at you so intimately, so closely made his chest feel tight, and his eyes traveled down to your lips. They looked so soft, slightly tinted with the sweet flavored chapstick you had offered him earlier. They were so close, so inviting, he could taste it if he moved just a few inches closer.

Instead, Bucky pulled himself out of his daze, opting to place his lips gently to the top of your head as he kept his hands on the side of your face, rubbing his thumb gently across your cheek. He could feel your smile grow in his hands and looked back down at you, trying to pretend his mind hadn’t gone anywhere else.

“You did great, doll.”

-

The afternoon had flown by, your small apartment illuminated only by the lamp Bucky had moved earlier, and the candles you’d lit in the kitchen. The sky was dark outside, the moon and twinkling city lights visible out your windows. The soft notes of Glenn Miller’s Serenade In Blue crackled through the speakers, providing one of the easiest lessons of the day; a slow dance. You already knew how to follow his lead, and it became second nature as you tucked yourself right up close to him, your head resting in the crook of his neck as he held your hand in one of his, and your waist in the other.

"I hope I wasn't a disaster today,” you offered quietly, and he titled his head down to acknowledge you. “You’ll have to give me some time, I'm not like all the other girls you danced with back then."

“You’re right, you’re not.” He paused to catch your gaze as you lifted your head up to look at him. “It was different. But it was nice,” he admitted.

He remembered how much he loved dancing, each girl was a new experience, and he went out dancing at almost every chance he could get. Maybe it was just from lack of practice, or how distant those memories felt sometimes… but dancing with you had made him feel so much lighter. It was so much better than he’d remembered it, and he loved how much you had enjoyed it.

“You picked it up like a dream. You did great, doll.” Bucky hadn’t even realized what his body was doing, bringing the hand in his up to his lips, placing a soft kiss on the back of your hand. Catching your slightly shocked expression was what brought him back to reality with a panic. He tried to laugh it off, hoping he didn’t sound too nervous or forced. “Sorry, I don’t know why I did that…”

“It’s fine,” you laughed along with him, his fears dissipating at your giggly response.

"Force of habit I guess,” he shrugged. You made a face at him.

"Force of habit? Did you used to do that a lot?" You interrogated, your grin wide and brows raised.

"I might have... I- hey, I liked pretty girls, okay?" He reasoned, hoping you wouldn’t look into this comment any more than anything else that had come out of his mouth today. He still liked pretty girls… especially the one in his arms.

"James Barnes, you dog. Kissing girls' hands like that, like it’s nothing. Such a womanizer." He scoffed in feigned offense at your accusations.

"How could you think so little of me?"

"What would your mother say?"

"My mother didn't know."

“That’s even worse,” you giggled, unsurprisingly. He’d noticed you taking a soft spot for stories about his mother, and he couldn’t deny that it had only made him want to tell you more. "I bet you broke all their hearts, didn’t you?"

"I tried to let 'em down easy."

"Oh, well that makes up for it then,” you teased. He continued to watch your expression, despite you dropping his gaze, opting to look over his shoulder out at the city lights that sparkled through the reflection in your eyes. "Is that what you do in your free time, when I’m not here for you to bother? Love em and leave em?" He scrunched up his face and shook his head in response.

"No, that was a different man. He’s… he might be long gone. You get the Bucky that takes long walks by himself and watches reruns of shows he’s never seen before."

"There's nothing wrong with that. You know, I think I probably like this Bucky better than I would've liked the ladies' man anyway."

"Oh yeah?" You hummed in agreement.

"I think I'd always feel like I was just ... another girl. It'd be kind of hard to get to know someone that way." Bucky nodded slowly, knowing exactly what you meant and feeling much the same way. He could only remember bits and pieces of the girls that littered his memories; the redhead who liked games at the fair, a blonde who took him stargazing, the girl with the coiled hair who had snuck him into her movie theater…

But he knew your go-to comfort food, he knew which pair of shoes you always convinced yourself were comfortable for the sake of looks, he knew your favorite kind of movie… he knew you.

"Don't worry, you're the only girl I'm dancing with now."

"Yeah? You're not gonna break my heart?" Another flash of that sweet smile as you continued to tease him, and he knew he was in trouble.

"Never."

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Masterlist | Ch. 3 | Ch. 5

[iwonderifthatisart]

Vee!! I saw Top Gun 2 yesterday and would love to hear your thoughts 😍😍

OKAY OMG. you probably weren’t expecting this much stuff, but you gave me a chance to talk about it so here goes.

first off, spoilers for top gun maverick, be warned.

So. lol. I'll preface this by saying that my thoughts on this absolutely arent objective in any way... i waited 3 (t h r e e) whole years for this movie to come out and honestly up until i was sitting in the movie theater i still thought they would push it out again, didnt feel real lmao

now a few of my thoughts, in no particular order:

i arrive at the cinema. i sit down. the lights go out. i lean over to my friend. i whisper: i hope they play Danger Zone. they HAVE to. my friend agrees. the movie starts, and lo and behold, the first notes of Danger Zone reach my ears. My crops are watered, my skin is clear. i look to my friend, we nod at each other. we turn back to the screen. we understand. we know this’ll be good.

Thought 1 flows neatly into Thought 2, which is that they knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. like, the main target audience for this movie were Dads™ and they hit the right balance between making it attractive in terms of nostalgia vs. new stuff. i think i saw a letterboxd review that phrased it like "having references to the original without being distracting" and that’s exactly what i felt like (see re: the Danger Zone example). And also: iconic homoerotic beach volleyball scene set to the tune of "playing with the boys"? turned into fun football scene on the beach set to New Music From Today (which was good, but the whole scene could've been gayer imo.)

sure. it's basically military propaganda, i know, we all know, it is known. It still looks cool as hell, i love people flying planes and say smart stuff and click a lot of buttons that look very complex and professional

AND that opening was so perfectly maverick i love it. he just HAD to push a little further

it was SO FUNNY at times! there were sincere (and at times cheesy) parts, but there were a few really funny moments that worked really well

rly liked all the new young pilots, though i expected them to focus a little more on them? but tbh it worked as it is, i didnt really felt like too much was missing (again, maybe a lil homoeroticism but you cant have everything)

Listen. Jennifer Connelly. Penny. Her character was... well. I liked her! But also. Well, she was a lil two dimensional, but idk? Or maybe its bc she was the love interest of Tom Cruise, who i really cant imagine in any kind of romantic relationship, no matter what movie he's in. I didnt really expect too much and i felt like it was done alright. it was solid.

(also... i kinda dont like tom cruise as a person, mainly bc of the whole scientology thing, but lets not get into that here. no negativity in this ask)

ofc ICEMAN!! RIP my man. Obviously wished he was in the movie more but *waves at the real life complications with Val Kilmer* still though, mav and ice texted throughout the movie and it was. so gay. like, i've read fanfiction that might have had these exact messages in them lmao

also. the whole thing about ice and mav? like we all expected there to be more of a rivalry, but they're just out here texting and chilling with each other. good for them.

"it was a nice moment, dont ruin it" lmao.

phoenix...loved her :) my girl :) also loved that they didn’t make a big deal out of ~oh shes a woman among men~ and she has to be the Strong Female Character, because that just falls flat 90% of the time

when they explained the mission to maverick and mentioned that there are still a few f14 tomcats there i was like *cocks checkovs gun* that'll come in handy later! and it did and i loved it!!

the scene where they had to fly the route in 2 mins 30 seconds and everybody’s like “thats impossible” and maverick is like “hold my beer” and does it in 2:15 and yeah i’m LIVING for that shit! call me a basic bitch i dont care!!

maverick and goose vs. maverick and rooster. we love cinematic paralles in this house

“talk to me dad” CRYING IN THE CLUB RIGHT NOW

so yeah. theres probably a lot more but i didnt want this to get so long slfksjlks.

i know its not a perfect movie, it has it’s flaws, but i enjoyed it so much! there were a lot of scenes and tropes that could’ve easily been super cliche but i thought they worked really well. or maybe i'm just biased.

please!! enlighten me with your own hot takes if you feel like it. id love to hear them <3

[ramzawrites]

(Platonic techno x Piglin Hybrid Reader)

Imagine a 7-8 y/o piglin hybrid finds techno's nether portal and out of pure childhood curiosity decides to go through it and ends up in the snow biome. They almost immediately get frostbite and pass out due to living in the nether and usually being warm. Eventually techno finds the child by his nether portal and look's around to see no parents so assumes they are an orphan he goes to pull out his orphan obliterater but the voices get louder telling him to take them home and protect them eventually gives in wraps his cape around them and brings them home to warm them up

(Feel free to ignore if it makes you uncomfortable)

-Anon :)

Kin - Piglin!Child!Reader and Technoblade

GN

Pairings: none

Characters included: Technoblade, (mentioned) Philza

Warnings: n/a

Series: a request :]

Summary: Y/N was just too curious! This weird black frame with the purple light was surely not there before! Maybe they should look at it a bit further. The light just looked too inviting!

Words count: 3023

Authors Note: My first Techno fic! YO! I really love him alot! He is one of my favorite CCs and also favorite Character in the dsmp :) Wish I found a better way to cut this one off but I had so much fun writing this!

Y/N’s little Piglin hands slowly traveled up the rough Netherrack that they were hiding behind. Grabbing the edge of the rock as their head followed along, their eyes peaking over cautiously.

There was this weird black frame with what looked like a purple pool inside of it. It emitted a rumbling but kind of musical sound that seemed to call out to Y/N. In fact, they only found this weird portal only due to the sounds. Never in their young life have they heard anything like it.

They have only seen something like this here and there whenever their clan moved on from a region but usually those seemed to be broken. The frame only half finished without a light coming out of it. Elders and the adults would always remind them to stay far away from it since apparently it could be dangerous, but Y/n couldn’t understand how.

It just stood there playing its music that seemed to almost call out to the Piglin. Wanting it to get closer and listen to its magical melody.

How could be something so beautiful be considered dangerous?

Taking another look around, Y/N made sure they were alone. Secretly having run off to follow this sound they managed to pick up on. It’s not like their parents would look for them on account that their parents were already dead.

Now the Elders took care of them, but they were usually too busy with clan business to realize when they ran off on their own adventures.

Once again checking that there were no Ghasts or other dangerous mobs around Y/N climbed over the rock. Landing on what looked like a pathway that led to the black frame.

Closer to the structure Y/N took the time to get a good look at the rock that has been used for the frame. It was a deep black and yet it somehow seemed to have a purple shine. If it came from the vortex between or the rock itself Y/N couldn’t tell, nor did they care enough to figure that out. Too amazed by it.

The sound was now really loud, and Y/N could tell that it came definitely from the purple light. It seemed to swirl in of itself almost like liquid and yet it stayed in the air as if it were glass put between the stone.

Mesmerized by it the child slowly put their hand into the light, trying to figure out what the material was.

But the only thing they felt was how cold it felt and it seemingly pulling on them. Trying to pull them deeper in. Scared Y/N immediately pulled their arm away, holding it close to their chest. Warming the cold limb up with their own body and the temperature of the Nether.

They have never felt anything like this. It was interesting. They knew what cold was but never like this. Only having felt an occasional breeze from jumping around or running around and even then, it was nothing compared to what they just felt.

Was this vortex doing this? Was this the purpose? Is this the dangerous part? How?

Y/N was already so incredible curious, but this really spiked their curiosity. What would happen if they just stood in there?

With this question in mind the kid placed one foot in the frame, soon followed by the next. The vortex completely engulfing them. Purple being the only thing they were able to see. This cold feeling immediately hitting them like a brick wall.

With a surprised grunt with how huge the temperature difference was, the child jumped away, hoping to get back to the familiar warmth but as they did the cold didn’t disappear.

The portal was still there but suddenly there was this bright light all around them. White as far as they could see.

Now panicking the child desperately looked around but their body was still dealing with the sudden temperature drop.

The world spinning around making it difficult for them to get a good look at where they were. Darkness crept in at the edges of their vision which they desperately tried to fight against.

Without realizing Y/N crashed onto the white ground which seemed to be even colder than the air around. Sneaking into the thin clothing and prickling at the skin. Their heart beating incredible fast and, in their ears, and yet they suddenly felt so tired.

The coldness that was so uncomfortable before suddenly turning more comfortable. Their breathing calming down as their eyes fell shut. Submerging themself into the world of darkness.

Luckily for Y/N, Technoblade was on his way towards the Netherportal himself. He managed to run out of Blaze Rods and needed to gather more for his potions only to spot something or rather someone lying face down in the snow.

At first, he assumed that for some reason Tommy managed to knock himself out while wandering over for whatever reason but the closer he got the more he noticed that, no, the body was way too small for that.

Also, he was pretty sure the last time he checked Tommy didn’t sport similar pig ears like Techno.

The voices in his head were pretty calm until they realized “Kin? Our kin? Out here? Our or his kin? Is it our kin as well?”

Techno approached the small body. This child was shaking and wet due to the snow. The clothes soaked. How the hell did that child just survive the travel to the Overworld like that? It was more likely that Piglin’s die during that process and end up as just a husk. A zombie if you will.

Not a lot of Piglin are strong enough to survive this magic. Techno should know he almost died when he traveled over and only survived because he had Philza on his side who helped him through it.

Impressive and yet he didn’t particular care.

“Parents? Orphan? Are they an orphan? Oh! Blood for the Blood God? No! Look at them! They are already dying! They must be something special surviving the portal like that! Are they though? Aren’t they dying? More because of the cold than anything! What about their parents?”

Grumbling Techno stepped into the portal himself, ending up in the warm nether. Hoping to still the curiosity of the voices a tiny bit with this. A sense of nostalgia spreading throughout his body and senses as he looked around the red landscape.

The child’s parents have to be around somewhere. Rule number one in the nether for Piglins was to stay together no matter what. It was dangerous in the Nether and the relationship between blood kin was precious. They must be already around here. Picking up on the child’s scent to find them.

And yet. Nothing.

No Piglin, no anyone.

He wandered a bit in, but he didn’t even spot any close group of Piglin’s running around. Weird. Was that child really alone?

“Check on them! Techno! Check on the child! See if they are still there!” the voices yelled out, infuriating the warrior a bit.

“Alright, alright!” he gave in and once again stepped into the portal. The cold hitting him but at this point he was used to this and managed to reacclimatize himself pretty fast. Not immediately and it still took a few minutes, but he didn’t almost pass out every time.

No surprise there. The child was still laying in the snow.

Once again, the voices flared up in his mind. A few demanding blood while others still expressed their curiosity towards this orphan.

Too busy with his own plans and things to do Technoblade took out his sword aptly called “The Orphan Obliterator”. He just wanted to deal with this situation as fast as he could, so he could move on.

Moving the sword up in the air only for the voices in his head to suddenly erupt loudly.

“No! Stop! Do not! Don’t kill! No! Techno! Please!”

This was very much not like their usual behavior. Usually, they would welcome any chance for bloodshed. Calling for it even in situation where it was just inconvenient and unnecessary but now, they don’t want it? Okay, maybe he should listen in to the voices after all.

“What is going on, Chat?” he asked.

And the voices, even if loudly and talking over each other, answered “Save them! Take them with you! They are special! Protect them! They are your kin if you give them the chance! We are sure! A young child able to survive this? Sounds similar to you Techno! Take them with you! Save them! Please! They deserve the chance!”

The problem with Chat was, they sometimes knew more about the world than Techno and it has paid out listening to them, but they also liked to just follow their whim for fun. Though this seemed to be the former. They realized that the child was special and worth saving, even if only in their ,sometimes omnipotent, eyes.

Sighing Technoblade sheathed his netherite sword and pulled off his red cape.

Realizing what Techno was doing, Chat begun cheering. The voices that had demanded blood before now fully drowned out.

Technoblade knelt down and carefully heaved the piglin onto the cape, wrapping it around them. Their body was unsurprisingly incredibly cold. So cold that Techno worried they didn’t have a lot of time left. Well, worry was a strong word perhaps.

Holding the kid close to his chest he got a good look at their face. Their expression scrunched up in what he assumed to be pain. A few light scars on their face. It wasn’t unusual that Piglins sported a few scars but not that young. The parents were usually too protective over their young.

“Must be a real troublemaker, I bet.” He noted.

Scars already at that age and them running through a portal just like that? Yeah, that child must cross the line between brave and stupid a lot. Not that he could fault them. He wasn’t that much different as a child himself, though he would never admit it out loud.

“They are kinda cute! It’s a child. Children do that. What do we do with them? Save them first. Talk to them. Figure out if they have potential! Kin? Kin! We need to talk to Philza. Dadza! Grandza! Oh! Yes! Grandza!”

Techno shook his head, as if that would make the voices shut up “Chat, please. Don’t assume anything. I might just help them out and find a clan for them to get back to. We don’t have the time for a child to be around. Too busy with the Syndicate.”

While Chat wasn’t happy with it, they seemed to be glad enough that Techno was acting against his instincts to help this orphan out. If the others hear that the Technoblade has helped out an orphan, well, he hoped people won’t. Doesn’t want to be seen as a hypocrite and as someone who keeps his words, and threats.

With the kid in his arms, he made his way back towards his cabin. Apparently, the Blaze Rods had to wait after all.

As he walked up the stairs towards his cabin and walked in, he suddenly got very aware he had no idea what to do. Looking around his eyes fell on his fireplace but that somehow seemed dangerous. Probably bad idea to just lay down an unconscious child right next to the fire, right?

Instead, he remembered that he had a spare bed roll sitting around somewhere.

With the cape still wrapped around the little one he pulled out the bed roll and laid them inside the rolled-out bed. While tucking them in he made sure to let a bit breathing room in. Letting their body slowly warm up instead of instantly.

“Food. Food, Techno. Eat. The child as well!”

Ah, yes. What would he do without the voices reminding him to eat?

Normally he would just pop a potato in the furnace but not this time. If he is already cooking, he might as well cook for the both of them. Soup seemed appropriate. Now, if he only remembers the recipe and instructions Philza gave him way back.

Still a tiny bit annoyed he has to put off getting the Blaze Rods, Techno sat down and begun cutting up vegetables and heating up water. Putting the ingredients into the water and putting spice in after tasting it here and there. It definitely wouldn’t be a masterpiece but as long as it not tasted absolutely horrible and still warmed one up from the inside, this should be fine.

The child better not complain after he already went out of his way saving them from the cold. He really should have just killed them so he wouldn’t need to get through this trouble and could actually get work done but Chat really was acting weird.

The cooking process took longer than he expected. Long enough that his own pig ears suddenly heard some noises, groans, coming from behind him. Looking back, he saw how the small Piglin was moving around in the bed. Slowly sitting up. Their eyes still closed.

“You are awake.” He stated in Piglish. Knowing, that they probably couldn’t speak the common tongue of the Overworld.

They opened their eyes but were still squinting. Either in pain or not used to the light yet.

“Where am I? Who are you?” grunts coming out of their mouth that made up Piglish words.

For a second Techno had to hide his smile as he realized that it has been a long while that he spoke with anybody his native tongue.

“You are in the Overworld. In my home to be specific. You are lucky I found you or you would have frozen to death in the snow. Name’s Technoblade by the way.”

It seemed to be difficult for them to wrap their mind around this new information “Overworld? Technoblade?” they repeated as if this would give them more insight.

Not knowing what else to tell them, Techno turned around and begun pouring the soup into a bowl. Walking over to them to give it to them.

A bit wary the child pulled their arms out of the cape that was still wrapped around them. The white fluff tickling the back of their head. It seemed to be an old cape. The fluffy part not being as fluffy as you would have assumed anymore. The fur dirty and strands glued together. Things that just happened over time even if you washed it quite often.

“My, uh, my name is Y/N.” they spoke, grabbing the bowl and looking inside it.

“I’m not poisoning you, you can eat it. Warms you up and once you feel good enough you can get back into the Nether.” He then proceeded to pour himself a bowl and begun sipping it.

It was edible. That was something.

Y/N kept watch as Techno continued to slowly drink the soup out of his own bowl. Drinking some of the food as well, their eyes widened out of pleasant surprise when the soup seemed to warm them up from the inside. Craving more of this warmth they begun gulping the liquid down in seconds.

This place was certainly warmer then when they got out of the portal but it was still cold enough for them to shiver. Where in the world were they? Never have they seen any of these materials around them. Grey cold stone, dark brown wood, white walls decorated with colorful pictures? It seemed almost unreal to them.

“How are you feeling squirt? Good enough to go home yet?” There was a bit of hope in Techno’s voice. The sooner this passed the better in his book.

“Home.” Y/N once again repeated what Techno said only to hold the bowl up towards him. A shy but determined expression on their face.

It took Techno a second before he understood what they wanted “More? More soup?”

The child enthusiastically nodded.

Sighing Techno got up from the chest he was sitting on to refill Y/N’s bowl and as he pushed the warm bowl back into their hand Y/N opened their mouth again “Uh, Overworld? I am in the Overworld? What- What is that?”

“A different world to where you come from. It has hot places and cold places. Different things and different mobs as well. Very different but both places are connected. You came through one of the portals that lead to this place, it also leads back to the Nether. Now, tell me something. I haven’t seen your parents. I was looking for anyone but there was no one. Not even a random group walking around.”

Y/N first slurped more from the soup before they answered “My parents are gone. I live with my clan. I always run off and they get mad at me.”

Techno knelt down to Y/N and softly pressed his hand against their forehead which made Y/N freeze. Scared and confused with what he was doing.

He let out a deep breath, wincing as a few voices begun yelling inside his mind “Ah. Seems like you have a fever. Guess I could help you through it and in the meanwhile try to find your clan. Might as well show you a bit of the Overworld while we are at it. Not a lot of Piglin get the chance to see the Overworld after all. You certainly are a special case.”

Then he turned around and talked to the air “Happy now Chat?” Turning back around to face Y/N again “Are you okay with that, Y/N?”

It was still difficult for them to grasp the whole of the situation but to get the chance to explore this Overworld? With this Technoblade Piglin? Their curiosity was certainly piqued. Maybe they were still too tired, and their head was pounding but there was this little voice in their head that urged them on.

That told them “Go for it. You will learn a lot! He might be your true kin.”

So, they nodded silently agreeing in Piglish ��Yes. I think I am okay with it.”