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nereidprinc3ss · 1 year ago

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andromeda | (dybmn? bonus)

a bonus vignette from spencer's POV. we find out how he really feels about reader. takes place the day before the argument at the bar.

note: this is not part six! takes place between parts four and five.

series masterlist

18+ warnings/tags: fem!reader, semi-graphic descriptions of sexual fantasies, some angst, you're not actually present, mention of alcohol, very vague discussions of murdery stuff bc he's supposed to be working, sassy spencer makes an appearance a/n: for all my angels who said they wanted a snippet of spencer's POV! i'm sorry if i'm overdoing it with this story or clogging the spencer tags, i'm just having a lot of fun! i hope you enjoy or that this may be clears some things up for you, pls lmk your thoughts:) ily!!!

Spencer is incessantly drumming the particle board table underneath his fingers.

The polymer veneer is one of his least favorite textures—he hates the grain of it and if he were to accidentally scratch the table with his nails he knows it would make the hair on the back of his neck stand up.��

But of all the things he’s worried about, that ranks very low on the list.

He’s got a lot of mental tabs open all the time—and the tabs, he can deal with. It’s when he starts trying to operate with multiple windows that he begins to struggle. His brain, while it is a very fine tuned sort of computer, only has one monitor. Unfortunately, no human (except for the ones who’ve had their brain hemispheres surgically split) is immune to the inevitable pitfalls of multitasking. By dividing his mental energy between you and his job, he’s really fucking up his job. But he also thinks he really fucked up with you on that phone call the other night and for being as logical as he is he can’t seem to make that feel unimportant—even though he’s disgusted with himself for it because there are literally people dying.

Someone knocks on the open conference room door—he looks up, skimming his lips over his fist.

“What’s up?” he says too quickly upon seeing Emily’s mildly concerned face peering in on him.

Her mouth bridges into a sort of nonchalant frown and her brows kick up.

“Just… checking in. Haven’t heard from you all morning.”

“Yeah, the, uh—the geo-profile. I’m still… I’m still working it out.”

It’s not like he’s ever been phenomenal with his syntax in a social sense, but Spencer is certainly aware he’s doing even worse than usual right now.

“Okay. Uh… is there anything in particular stumping you, or…?”

“Nope. Just not enough information. But I’m—I’m going to keep trying.”

“Alright. Got your phone handy?”

It’s an odd question—of course he has his phone handy. He’s been doing this job longer than Emily has. How else would he communicate with the rest of the team? He bristles.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

Emily shakes her head. She’s always been particularly good at reading his moods.

“You’re not under attack, Reid. I was just asking.”

Just as he’s about to say, why would you assume I’m not prepared for my job, he manages to swerve away and stifle the words with his fist. Instead he looks back down at his copy of the map and nods. In reality, he truly isn’t prepared for his job today. The reason he has his phone so close, fully charged and at top volume is because he’s worried he’ll miss a call from you.

Emily says something else, and he hums in response, and then she’s gone.

He shouldn’t be reading into your reticence this much. It’s not like you just sit by the phone all day, eagerly awaiting a call or text from him (like he does you). You have a life. You’re busy. And even if you are intentionally dodging his texts, he can’t entirely fault you for it. Spencer knows he’s clingy. He knows he’s overbearing. It’s part of why he panicked the other night and told you the whole humiliating story about Elle. Because he can’t ever just be cool and he felt the need to explain himself.

But the problem was, and is, that he doesn’t know how much longer he can go without saying those three words that fucked him over all those years ago.

So he’d danced around them. Applied them to someone else to try and avoid outright professing his all-consuming love for you over the phone. However you feel, Spencer has to assume he feels more. Spencer always has to assume he feels more because he usually does and it’s gotten him into trouble before. And now he’s pretty sure he was exactly right, as often is the case, because you didn’t tell him he was mistaken and you’d clammed up and you haven’t talked to him since and he’s not supposed to be reading into it this much.

Three victims killed and dumped within a 6 mile radius of the first victim plus one victim killed and dumped 23.8 miles away. That doesn’t make any fucking sense. Fuck this guy.

Spencer decides the problem is that he needs more caffeine.

Or possibly, if he were a different kind of man—copious amounts of alcohol.

So he stows his phone in a pocket and asks the first person he sees where the coffee machine is.

“Looks like you found it earlier,” the woman says, glancing pointedly down at his mostly empty mug. A playful smirk tugs at pinkish-brownish lips. She’s pretty, he realizes distantly. But he registers it the same way he’d take note of the model of a car, or the species of a bird, or the kind of shoes someone is wearing. It doesn’t actually interest him. It’s just part of processing his environment. “I can show you to it?”

He doesn’t have the heart or energy to explain that someone else brought him his cup earlier and he’s not flirting with her.

“If you could just point me in the right direction…?”

She laughs, short and dry, before she’s pointing down a hall.

“Kitchenette down there and to the left.”

“Thanks,” he mutters, already walking away without sparing her a second glance.

She’s the kind of woman he would have paid a lot more attention to before you came along. Not that he’d ever sleep with someone on the job (not since he was 25, anyway), but if he’d met her under any other circumstances he probably would have cared more about the way her pupils dilated and her eyes had widened slightly and she’d adjusted her posture and all the other small things people do when they’re attracted to someone else. 30 year old Spencer might have slept with her. 27 year old Spencer definitely would have slept with her. Current Spencer obsessively pines for a woman who is already his girlfriend and whom he has yet to sleep with at all far too much to think about other women like that.

But god, does he think about you like that.

His feet carry him down the dim, carpeted hallway but really it took barely a nudge and he’s thinking about you like that. At work. As he’s pouring himself coffee.

Spencer is confident in the fact that if anyone were to look at him right now, they’d never guess he’s running clips of you in his mind like a dirty supercut. Because he’s just pouring coffee. That’s one good thing about having all those tabs open all the time. He can toggle between them quickly. He has enough going on in the background that people look at him and all they can tell is that he’s thinking hard about lots of things. Some of them just happen to be the way you look when you’re naked on his bed, skin shining and glazed eyes sleepy, parted lips higher in color than usual and catching your breath. Some of them happen to be your hair brushing his stomach before he gathers it back for you. Some of them happen to be the way your thighs feel on either side of his face, or how you stretch around his fingers, or how you might feel when you stretch around his—

He hisses as hot coffee overflows from the mug and burns his hand.

Maybe he’s not as calm and collected as he thought.

But on top of all the other things he’s dealing with, having been so close to actually sleeping with you the other night is really fucking with his head. Even if he tells himself he wouldn't have done it, he knows himself better than that. He's too familiar with the effect you have on his judgement.

“Found it okay?”

Spencer looks down, surprised to see the woman from earlier sitting at her desk and watching him as he quickly passes by on his way back to the conference room. Her legs are crossed. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and a flouncy sort of blouse which seems impractical for working in an FBI field office. Maybe she notices his eye catching on her figure and misguidedly swivels her chair to give him a better look. But all he’s noticing is that it doesn’t look like yours. Now he’s picturing the curve of your hip dripping in silk after that first night at Rossi’s. How your waist and your stomach feel when he slides his hands over you. This woman—she might as well not even be here for all he’s actually seeing her.

“Yeah. Thanks again.”

Then he’s gone. Very briefly he acknowledges that he should feel sorry for so obviously brushing her off, but he doesn’t care even close to enough. He sets the coffee down on the table and rounds to the board where one of several maps is taped. On autopilot he draws lines between dump sites because one of the background tabs had deduced, while he was busy watching you like porn, that the distance between dump sites form the beginnings of the constellation Orion with some mathematical precision that’s too exacting to be coincidental. Orion’s Belt plus the most recent victim. Betelgeuse.

There are ten formally named stars that make up Orion. He marks all of them, but circles the transposed coordinates of Bellatrix, Saiph, Rigel and Meissa as the next most likely dump sites. Most probably it will be Orion’s head. They’re all in wooded areas. He calls Garcia. Garcia will call Emily, wherever she is. If the unsub sticks to pattern, which they always do, they have until midnight. It’s trite, really. Predictable, like people always are. Far too quickly he drinks half the cup of scalding coffee and retraces his steps through the office to find the bathroom.

It’s empty. The fluorescent lights hum. Spencer washes his hands with cold water and presses still wet fingers to his eyes. You’re waiting for him behind the black of his lids.

At first you would whine, and he would kiss you and you’d moan into his mouth and say his name when he opened you up as far as you would go. The air would be thick and warm with sex and vanilla perfume. Afterwards he’d take care of you and buy new sheets for his bed in your favorite color even if they didn’t match the walls and there would be nothing you’d want for that he couldn’t give to you ever again.

But.

That’s all contingent.

No matter how often he fantasizes about it, no matter in how much detail, and regardless of how often those details change wildly, one thing always stays the same.

The shape of your lips, swollen from kissing, bending around five or six vowels and only two consonants (it seems odd that there are only two consonants in I love you), sometimes before you start, sometimes in the middle or right at the peak—but always there, always moving in slow motion—and always silent.

In real life, they’d be aloud. It’s why his fantasies aren’t good enough. It’s why he can’t stop fantasizing about it. That’s the only part that really matters to him. The rest varies.

Not because having sex with you doesn’t matter—it matters so much he almost shatters his molars whenever he starts picturing it around other people. But because Spencer can’t have sex with you until you love him.

And he worries that you can’t love him until you have sex with him.

The last time he thought that about a person, it didn’t turn out well.

Maybe there is some magic number. Some amount of times you need to have sex with someone before they’ll love you back.

If there is, he knows for a fact it’s more than 32.

And he also knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he cannot have loveless sex with you thirty three times while he waits to find out.

Not again.

But he's going to hold out as long as he possibly can until you say it because he so badly wants you to love him back. He'll let the weight of every ignored text, every reminder that you don't feel that way about him, hang from his shoulders until he collapses. And then he'll probably try to get back up.

Recycled paper towels scratch against his skin. He dries his face and hands and throws them crumpled into the trash can.

Outside the restroom, he pulls out his phone. For safety reasons and paranoia disguised as professionalism, you’re not his lock screen. It’s a photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. Whatever distance lies between you and Spencer, it could always be greater. No matter where you are in the world, you will always be the same 2.537 million light years away from Andromeda that he is.

It makes Orion feel much closer. You, too.

He sends you a text—the third message in a row.

The distance between blue bubbles feels like light years.

I’ll be home tomorrow. I miss you.

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid angst #dr spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine

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book-of-forbidden-knowledge · 6 months ago

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Magic in Ancient Greece: An Introduction

I have seen some people claim that magic or witchcraft did not exist in Ancient Greece. This is not the case. So, I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce you all to the strange and wonderful world of Ancient Greek magic!

First, what do we mean by "magic"? Radcliffe Edmonds, one of the leading scholars on Ancient Greek magic, defines "magic" as "non-normative ritual behavior." In short, what makes something magic, and not just normal religion, is that people in a given culture think it's weird. The word "magic" itself refers to the magi, Zoroastrian priests — the Ancient Greeks thought they did magic because to them, Zoroastrianism was foreign and weird. They also thought that Ancient Egyptians could do magic for the same reason — what the Greeks thought was spooky magic was just normal religion in Egypt. Within their own culture, magic was basically heteropraxic religion. Magic was not considered hubristic, at least not inherently.

There are multiple Ancient Greek words that refer to magic. The word μάγος, magos, itself means "magician" or "charlatan." There's also γοητεία, goetia, usually translated as "sorcery." The word most often translated as "witchcraft" is φαρμακεία, pharmakeia, the use of drugs or herbs to transform or influence people. This is what Medea and Circe do.

One of our best sources on Ancient Greek magic is the Greek Magical Papyri, or PGM, a set of magical texts from Hellenistic Egypt. When I first learned about it, I thought it was too good to be true, but here it is: uncorrupted ancient pagan magic! Essentially, the PGM is one of the oldest known grimoires, and the ancestor of the entire Western magical tradition. The papyri contain spells and rituals for almost every purpose: curses, love spells, divination, dream oracles, summoning daimones, necromancy, even full mystical rites. Most of them include invocations to various gods, which are heavily syncretic. Helios/Apollo (treated interchangeably) is invoked the most often. Aphrodite appears pretty often, too. Hekate-Artemis-Selene-Persephone (conflated with a whole bunch of other chthonic goddesses, including Ereshkigal) has her own set of spells. You'll even find the names of Egyptian gods and Hebrew angels in there.

One of the most common features in PGM spells is voces magicae or barbarous names, nonsense words that are supposed to be the secret names of the gods, which give you the authority to call them up. They act almost like a written form of glossolalia. Most are supposed to be spoken or chanted aloud. Some sound like actual names, or are well-known magical epithets like ABRASAX. Some are just strings of Greek vowels. Some of them are palindromic; there's lots of spells that use the "abracadabra" disappearing-letter-triangle format. There's also charakteres, apparently-meaningless magical symbols, the distant ancestor of modern sigils.

Another major source for Ancient Greek magic are defixiones or katadesmoi, curse tablets. They're little lead leafs called lamellae, which are inscribed with curses and then deposited in wells, graves, and other chthonic places. Thousands of them have been found.

Here's the text of a curse tablet that invokes Hekate and Hermes Kthonios (copied from Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World by John G. Gager):

Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia Let Pherenikos be bound before Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia. I bind Pherenikos’ [girl] Galene to Hermes Khthonios and to Hekate Khthonia I bind [her]. And just as this lead is worthless and cold, so let that man and his property be worthless and cold, and those who are with him who have spoken and counseled concerning me. Let Thersilochos, Oinophilos, Philotios, and any other supporter of Pherenikos be bound before Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia. Also Pherenikos’ soul and mind and tongue and plans and the things that he is doing and the things that he is planning concerning me. May everything be contrary for him and for those counseling and acting with…

Another curse tablet, which invokes Hekate to punish thieves, includes a drawing of her and charakteres. This is how she's depicted:

From Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in the Ancient World by John G. Gager

It's supposed to be a woman with three heads and six raised arms, but to me it looks like Cthulhu, which is honestly appropriate.

There was a very fine line between love spells and curses in Ancient Greece. Some love spells in the PGM call upon the spirits of the dead and chthonic gods to torture a poor girl until she submits to the magician. Just as many defixiones attempt to forcefully bind a lover. But there's another, gentler kind of love spell described by Theocritus in Idylls, in which a witch named Simaetha invokes the Moon and Hekate and uses an iynx wheel to make a man love her.

If you want to know how to apply all of this in modern practice, I'm still working that one out. I've found the PGM very hard to adapt, because a lot of its requirements are dangerous or impractical. Many of its spells require gross ingredients worthy of the Scottish play, or plants that scholars can't identify, or procedures that I don't plan on attempting. And if you haven't noticed by now, most of them fly in the face of modern magical ethics. (Don't let anyone tell you that the gods will punish you for doing baneful magic, because that's clearly bullshit.) On the other hand, Crowley adapted his Bornless Ritual almost word-for-word from PGM V. 96—172. So far, the best resource I've found on modernizing Ancient Greek magic is The Hekataeon by Jack Grayle. Its material is clearly historically-inspired, but still doable, and spiritually relevant. I really recommend getting it if you have the means, especially if you have an interest in Hekate specifically. I'm happy to have it as a model for how to adapt ancient magic for myself in the future. To me, it strikes the perfect balance between historically-informed and witchy, which is right where I want to be.

If you can't access that one, here's some other books I recommend:

Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: An introduction to Ancient Greek magic, both scholarly and accessible. It covers the definitions and contexts of magic, curses, love spells, divination, theurgy, philosophy, basically everything you need to know.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation by Hans Dieter Betz: The definitive English edition of the PGM. A must if you plan to study ancient magic in-depth, especially as a practitioner.

Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in the Ancient World by John G. Gager: An English edition of the texts of many curse tablets.

Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden: a sourcebook of ancient literature concerning magic.

The Golden Ass by Apuleius: A Roman novel about a man who is turned into a donkey by a witch. A very entertaining story, also our source for "Cupid and Psyche" and one of the best sources on the Mysteries of Isis that we have.

Ancient Magic: A Practitioners Guide to the Supernatural in Ancient Greece and Rome by Philip Matyszak: A simple and straightforward introduction to Ancient Greek magic, less scholarly but very easy to follow and directed at practitioners.

#occultism #occult #ancient greece #ancient magic #folk magic #pgm #greek magical papyri #curse tablets #helpol #hellenic polytheism #hellenic paganism #hellenism #magic #occult history #history #ancient greek history #book recommendations #hecate #hekate

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tomikashii · 7 months ago

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tokyo debunker : asking the ghouls to do the “jacked & kind” trend from tiktok ! (part 1)

refer here for the trend ! i hope this idea hasn't been used yet... but anyways ! enjoy the headcanon ! <3

frostheim

jin kamurai :

will he even bother doing the trend with you ? not in a million years.

well, until he saw haru did it with you.. then he got abit jealous and left out 🧍🏻‍♀️he won't let you post it anywhere ✨

lifts you up like nothing (remember chapter 1 on how he effortlessly lifts you up) then puts you down back to the ground and walks back to his bed to sleep

tohma ishibashi :

it depends if he is busy or not, but i feel he would do it if you are close enough with him to do so

also wouldn't let you post it anywhere ✨✨✨

just simply lifted you up & placed you on his shoulder (LETS NOT FORGET ON HOW STRONG THIS GUY IS !!!) now when he puts you back down, he reminds you that you now owe him one

kaito fuji

would be the one who would awkwardly ask if its okay if you could do the trend with him

and gets super happy when you agreed

im not saying he is very weak, but it took him abit to grab a hold of your waist and he keeps sweating due to nervousness

lucas errant

would agree to the trend but would ask 100 times if he could touch your waist so that he could lift you up on his shoulder

“why are you so light ? have you been eating well ?” he would get so concerned about your weight and eating habits

doesn't mind if you post it but make sure you send him a copy of the video so that he can keep it as memories 🥹

vagastrom

alan mido

would immediately reject.. not because he is shy about it, its because he is afraid he might hurt you (took you 10 minutes to explain what is a tiktok trend too)

so you decided to negotiate with him, saying that it's a good way for you to see if in any near death situation, he is able to pick you up and bring you to safety 🫡

thats when he agreed & did the trend. and ofcourse, HE LIFTS YOU UP WITH EASE🤭 as if you are a piece of paper to him

sho haizono

only if you agree to help him with food truck, then he will consider doing the trend with you

lifts you up with ease and also would ask if you have been eating 🤭

the next thing you know, he sends you food to your dorm for dinner, to make sure that you are eating well

leo kurosagi

the only way you are doing this trend, if it comes through his fyp & if he initiates it

and even if he does it with you, he would pretend or exaggerate the fact that he can't lift you up and act all cutesy

but i feel he actually can lift you up. would make you retake multiple times until he is satisfied with your reaction

jabberwock

haru sagara

would love to do the trend with you !!! but you might need to help him with the park first

lifts you up like nothing and even will twirl you around while giggling (i love him)

would want you to post it and he will post it on his own account! if possible, he would want to use it as a marketing strategy to promote his park ! “our park rangers are jacked & kind!” LMAO

towa otonashi

the reason how you guys ended up doing it is because he saw haru and you filming it. literally ran over cause he wanted to do it too

after he lifts you up and puts you on his shoulder, he jumps off and you grip tightly onto his head, making him giggle while haru chased after the two of you by foot 🏃🏻‍♂️💨

swiftly swoops you off his shoulder and place you on the hill side of jabberwock, cuddling you & telling stories about flowers

ren shiranami

no. an immediate no. would even threaten to report you for harassment

the only way if you want to convince him, is to get some rare loot from the game he plays

lets not forget how strong this guy is, he easily could lift haru, peekaboo and calamari with ease, like its nothing. so watch him sigh, while he swiftly lifts you up, place you on his shoulder and puts you down. take note of him walking away with tinted red ears 😋

sinostra

taiga hoshibami

you will be dead the moment you even step foot into his room and asked him

gotta be like super-close with him to even dare to ask him to do the trend with you 😭 or you are gonna be like the anomalies he eats...

but if magically, you could convince him somehow.. he is pretty excited to do this trend. he just lifts you up, tickle your sides so that you would be fidgety on his shoulder & laughs out loud when you turn red.

romeo lucci

don't even think about it. it would be insults over insults for you to even think about romeo lifting you up and putting on his shoulder

even if you want to convince him, you gotta promise him something good (like kaito's schedule) or even gaslight him

if you do end up giving kaito's schedule, he would do the trend but wouldn't even let you record it WKWKWKWK

ritsu shinjo

he is too busy for that nonsense of a tiktok trend, as he states.

would want you to be more focused on your curse and how to help sinostra get the laurel crown

if you somehow managed to convince him to even do the trend, he will lift you up but not put you on his shoulder.

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artbyblastweave · 26 days ago

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you talking about how rorschach veers into comedy reminds me how out of costume he asked for a copy of the new frontiersman from a newspaper vdndor and then turns around asking the guy not to forget which causes him to spit take.

Right, legitimately, this is a major element of what I was talking about regarding Rorschach's sense of humor- not just this specific interaction with Bernie, but Rorschach's entire secret identity.

In Issue 6, we learn that Rorschach is explicitly an atheist. He doesn't believe in signs or portents- he views things like reading into a two-headed-cat as purely a function of human meaning-making- and while he strongly suspects that the world is going to end, everyone paying attention also thinks that, and that it'll end for completely mundane reasons. (Refer to Detective Fine's aside in issue 5 that Russian tanks in Afghanistan are a much more concrete portent of war than anything astrological.) Before the world ends at human hands, Rorschach is resolute in his belief that nothing is hopeless while there's still life- living for tomorrow despite the threat of the world ending today- and he's pretending to be a guy who behaves as though he believes exactly that, but in a way that makes him come across as a hypocritical, thoughtless loon unaware of the contradictions in what he's saying, not worth taking seriously. He's LARPing as a guy who's got basically his exact opposite outlook and response to the state of the world. He thinks he's so fuckin' funny.

Viewed through this lens provided by issue 6, this "Today for sure. Keep my paper for tomorrow?" exchange is recontextualized as some combination of him being dryly ironic for his own amusement, him LARPing as the kind of whack-job who would sincerely say something like that with no self-awareness, and having a laugh at Bernie's expense for falling for it. And the jumpscare at the end can support any of those readings. He interacts with Bernie constantly, he knows Bernie won't forget, he knows how big a part of Bernie's self-image is his own reliability as a newsseller- so it's ambiguous why he's doing this thing that he's clearly using his cultivated Rorschach stealth skills to pull off. He could be trying to shore up his impression as a weirdo neurotic. He could get a kick out messing with Bernie- he clearly gets a kick out of terrorizing Moloch with the fridge ambush and the subsequent fakeout, his fondest memory is of ambushing the Underboss. His mind goes to these places. And he could also just seriously be this obsessed with securing his copy of the New Frontiersman- he holds the paper in terminally high regard, so maybe this is an element of his real self shining through! You are, on some level, what you pretend to be.

One of Watchmen's recurring themes is that superheroes are on multiple levels a joke. Comedian identifies their efforts as a joke in the face of the real horrors of geopolitics, and Nite Owl identifies their efforts as a joke in the sense of being comical overkill in the context of the street crime that they're ostensibly good at addressing. Laurie thinks that the melodrama shaping the course of her career makes her a joke, and Ozymandias's big plan for saving the world involves the largest practical joke in human history. But on another level, there's an element of humor intrinsic to the concept of the secret identity- a practical joke played on the world at large, pretending to be someone wildly different from yourself so that nobody suspects what you're really capable of. Nobody thinks that Klutzy Clark Kent is Superman, nobody thinks dizty Bruce Wayne could be Batman, and nobody thinks nebbish Peter Parker could be Spider-Man. Rorschach is, notably, the only one of the second wave of heroes who successfully embraces that element of contradiction in disguising his identity. The rest don't have one to begin with, or had a fortune with which to protect theirs, or had government backing with which to protect theirs, and Dan just gets flat out made by the cops the exact second he sticks his head up in costume. Rorschach's joke is working, and it works because it's a joke- nobody, including the audience, picks up on who he is until the entire thing is taken apart from the other end when he's captured in costume.

On every level, Rorschach is the book's idea of the uncompromised vision of the figure of a superhero, and you can't be a superhero if you don't have a sense of humor with which to crack one-liners. You can't be a superhero unless you spend a substantial amount of your time and talent playing head games with your loved ones and with the press.

#thoughts #meta #rorschach #walter kovacs #watchmen #watchmen analysis #ask #asks

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dontexpectmuch · 3 months ago

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sorrry i did not see your rules!! can you do jude x reader mornings and light kisses?

all's good! hope you enjoy!

-------

the loud groaning merging from your bedroom paints a smile across your tired face, your mind already imagining your boyfriends eyebrows pulling together and how hands trying to wash away the rest belonging of sleep on his face.

it has been some time since you got up, your internal clock not granting you to sleep in just like your boyfriend does. but that just allows you to bask in the moment, to look at his calm face, the one that usually expresses so much within seconds, no emotion ever staying hidden for long.

you hum to yourself, you and the coffee machine making the only noise in your bright kitchen, table all ready to enjoy a nice breakfast and some quiet before Jude has to leave for practice.

it is something you actually copied from his mother back then, when the two of yo spent the weekend together and had breakfast at biscuits place before moving with whatever you had planned. Denise, his mother, ever the angel she is, prepared a beautiful breakfast table, not only packed with proteins and all different kinds of drinks, but food and dishes you'd normally see on tv shows.

yo believe that was what got you into cooking and preparing a nice meal for the one you love. when thinking back to the warmth, the comfort and that feeling of home you felt when sitting on the chair to eat that breakfast, you can feel the motivation pulsing through your veins, almost desperate to make Jude feel that same kind of love and affection whenever you could.

perhaps that is the reason you are so immersed in your thoughts, fully blending away your surroundings, and why you do not hear those footsteps slowly approaching you from behind. you also do not realize that he has brought the blanket with him, only when you feel yourself losing your sight and being swept off your feet, loud shriek escaping your throat and multiple curse words following.

"what the fuck!" your voice is muffled, though loud enough to make Jude giggle as he carries you in his arms, moving to god knows where.

his arms are closed around you upper body, hindering you from smacking him as hard as you could, "william, what the fuck are you-"

you are thrown onto some soft surface, you guess its your bed, and before you can even merge from that blanket wrapping, Jude half-heartily throws himself on top of you.

"mh," he begins, sighing loudly, "better."

his arm hugs your waist, just as you finally pulled your head out of the blanket cocoon, "what are you doing?" you demand, voice matching the sternness in your eyes.

he sighs once more [you want to smack that sigh out of him], his eyes closed and leg now laced across yours, "i woke up."

"con-fucking-gratulations?"

he ignores your anger, continuing, "as i was saying," he starts again, "i woke up, reached out to my side, to cuddle with my amazing, gorgeous, breathtaking, show-stopping-"

"get to the point, love." you roll your eyes and place your head on his shoulder, eyes still holding a certain sternness in them, though your body couldn't help but melt into his.

jude scoffs, "well, i wanted to cuddle, and you weren't there, so i had to don what anyone in my position would have done."

"scare the shit out of me?"

"you might call it 'scaring the shit out of you', which is totally unprofessional, by the way," he earns a headbutt against his shoulder, "I call it romantic get away a la Shakespeare. that's just me, though."

this time, it is you, who groans, "jude, something must be seriously wrong with you."

"the only thing that is seriously wrong is you getting up without cuddling me first!"

"i was preparing some nice breakfast, you know?"

"could've cuddled with me first." he says, shrugging and tightening his hold around you.

exhaling through your nose, you decide to accept your fate.

"could you at least help me get out of this cocoon?"

"nah," jude changes his position to get comfortable, "makes you look cute, babe."

you sigh, knowing that you could never win this game before snuggling deeper into his side. you guess you'll let it slide this time. especially when jude starts to pepper light kisses along your forehead.

----------------------

got sick and am bitchless but id never let you be sick and bitchless as well.

#dontexpectmuch #jude bellingham #jude bellingham x reader #jude bellingham one shot #jude bellingham imagine #jude bellingham blurb #hey jude #jb5 #football x reader #jude bellingham drabble #jude bellingham x you #jude bellinghan fluff

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savanir · 8 months ago

Text

Death of the Father, Death of the Son

Part 3

prev and OG prompt

Dick was just about finished with his preparations in the Batjet when one of his brothers barged in and dumped some of their stuff inside as well.

“I’m coming with you” Tim straps down the case he brought and plants his ass in the copilot seat.

Dick looks at him with a slight frown, “Tim…”

“no I want to see the murder scenes with my own eyes and it’s good for you to have some backup-”

“I’ll be just fine on my own babybird-”

“-cause we don’t know if this is just one assassin or a whole organization”

“ok. and now you can tell me the real reason you want to come along”

Tim gives Dick a side-eye before slumping down“... Alf has been talking with Bruce about me needing fresh air again and I rather do that preemptively and on my own terms so you’re just gonna have to accept you’re stuck with me on this one now”

Dick sighs, and ruffles Tim’s hair before strapping himself in the pilot seat and ignoring the indignant squawk from his brother, “sure, fine, Oracle we’re heading out now”

“have a safe trip Nightwing”

and they are off

—✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*---*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—

Amity Park is about what they expected, outwardly nothing remarkable, somewhat sleepy. But upon closer inspection the signs of multiple battles are quite clear.

Though apparently it’s been quite a while now since the last “ghost” battle. There is a lot of speculation as to why among the town folks which could be important to look into some other time, but for now the boys put a pin in it and get to breaking and entering the old Fenton household for their investigation.

Things seem to be normal inside the house but… ahem, well...

Tim inspects all the strange tech that looks just haphazardly slapped on the walls with a critical eye while Dick lifts one of the family photos to have a better look.

“looks like a normal average american household to me, even with mom and dad preferring to wear hazmat suits everywhere apparently” there really aren’t any pictures where they aren’t wearing the orange and teal suits. Madeline Fenton wasn’t wearing one at the Gala though, she looks a lot more comfortable in these pictures.

Dick looks around some more, “is it just me or does this place just feel… depressing?”

“yeah no I get what you mean, there is nobody here but I also feel a lot like I’m intruding” Tim hums, “more than normal that is”

“Red…”

Tim elects to ignore that tone of voice completely, “there is no way any of this stuff is even remotely up to code” he then peeks at the picture as well, he of course already knew what the murdered father and missing son looked like, he’s done his homework, but this is a casual happy family picture, that always drives home the fact that these were- are real people.

but how did they all get dragged into this situation, this mess that is slowly turning into something a lot more complicated… maybe… well that’s why he’s here. To figure it out.

The stairs that lead to the basement lab are in the kitchen for some reason, and once down there they both need a moment to take the whole place in.

The entire house is rather abandoned but this place looks as if it hasn't been touched since the police did their own investigation.

There is some tape and markers that were left behind but overall it looks a lot like a hurricane went through it, exploded, and then everything got covered in a fine layer of dust.

Tim opens the case he brought with him and begins setting up the holo scanners to make a copy of the whole place that they’ll be able to project in the batcave later, in case they miss something now.

It's only after that’s done that they start to have a look themselves.

“Even this badly wrecked it definitely looks like some sort of evil lair” Tim mutters as he inspects the nearest vaguely firearm shaped object, or maybe it’s a hair blower he’s not sure, it’s got Fenton Works™ stamped on it though.

“is that a portal” Dick meant it as a question but it ends up sounding like a statement.

It gets Tim’s attention though, “I… maybe?” it kinda looks like one potentially, busted up to hell though.

Dick carefully approaches it but doesn’t for a second think about going in there,“Mostly looks like a hole in the wall now though, I’m not going in there to check with all those wires on the ground, talk about a trip hazard. Not to mention the threat of electrocution, has nobody here heard about cable management?!”

“where is your sense of adventure Wingster, besides I am pretty sure this place is cut off from electricity now”

“yeah, I’m not taking the risk with sketchy evil lair portals today”

Dick lets Tim do his own detective work while he takes out a little device Batman made to alert him to Deadman. He figures it would be interesting to get a read on the place and see if it's really ghosts that have been causing a mess in Amity Park or if it is something else that just appears paranormal.

The ecto-detection goes completely wild however. “Alright well… uhh”

"What's that?”

“I was just curious if something occult was going on around here what with everyone blaming the past attacks on ghosts and thinking that whatever happened here probably has something to do with them as well… but I'll be honest, Boston never registered anywhere near this high. And it's just - everywhere”

“So any further investigation into Amity Park itself is gonna have to be done by Dark?”

“probably” though Tim is also fully planning on doing a full investigation himself.

Either way, they put a pin in that too.

They have a good look at the areas where bullets made an impact, scorch marks and the broken examination tables. They are about done when Tim asks if it would be worth it to break into the local police department and have a lot at (steal) whatever evidence they might still have on the case.

They could have something useful, unless it is who Dick really hopes it’s not.

They leave the basement and are greeted with the sight of two teens in the kitchen.

hm…

Dick decides to just go with a cheery hello,

“Holy shit it’s Nightwing and Red Robin!” Tucker basically has stars in his eyes.

“After the message we got from Jazz I kinda expected the big bat”

“That's not true, you said after all this time you didn’t think they were actually gonna come at all- ow!” Sam doesn’t hesitate to hit him in the shoulder.

“Didn't think we'd show up” Tim says.

“Well am I wrong?” Sam sneers, “the only reason you guys are here is cause it’s a Gotham thing now. Otherwise someone actually competent would have looked into this months ago”

Tucker shrugs sheepishly and looks a little pained, “perhaps we shouldn't antagonize the Justice League heroes?”

Sam looks about ready to start hissing, it reminds Tim somewhat of the demon brat when he's particularly upset. “whatever” she says.

Tucker now has a strained smile, “uh, if you guys were wondering how we knew you were in here, that's because Jazz asked us to keep an eye on the place”

they tripped an alarm? how… Everything in here is cut off and disabled. some sort of battery based system maybe? but they would have surely picked up on that…

Dick figures he might as well just go ahead and ask some questions so he takes a seat and the other two follow suit more at ease than the two birds expected. Tim decides to wander a bit more around the kitchen. Maybe there is something he missed here.

“so, I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and assume that you two also think Daniel-”

“Danny” Sam corrects immediatly

“-yes Danny, you two also think he's still alive?”

The question is immediately answered by a, “yes” and a, “he is”

“Jazz also seemed very certain of this despite the fact that a body was found. what makes you all so sure?”

Sam looks ready to spring into another tirade, Dick is starting to suspect that she has a serious issue with ‘not being taken seriously’

“Jazz told you guys already about the clone thing right? just go to Vlad's estate and it's all there in his evil basement laboratory”

“and we also know someone who can check deaths through occult stuff, and they confirmed that he has not… you know, crossed over”

“occult like magic?”

“or something, they were never wrong before. we do realize this isn't hard evidence obviously but they are a friend and not the type to just tell us what we want to hear” this is the easiest way to explain that they got in contact with the ghosts to have them look through the realms for Danny.

“I'd like to speak with-”

“that's gonna be hard, they don't show up with all the government people crawling about”

“so that individual with proof cannot be reached so we can’t verify their claims”

“nope”

unfortunate, but they did already say it wasn't hard evidence. It seems that these two aren’t going to budge on it which seems a little odd to Dick, there are known magic users in the League. Someone being able to check into the afterlife or whatever to see if someone is truly dead isn’t completely out of left field, it should be fine to meet with that person and at least hear them out… so why are ‘’government people’’ an issue? are they possibly wanted for some crime? oh well…

“when we went to them it was mostly just to know. you know? like… mr. Fenton got murdered and Danny went missing, and nobody knew anything or could find anything. Everyone suspected ghosts of course. and we just wanted to know if our best friend was dead or not, if searching was even worth it”

“and now the fruitloop got assassinated. to us it basically also confirms it you know. he's still alive, and it would absolutely be best to shut up the one guy who knows about the whole thing”

But why smear Masters? Why not do it quietly? And what makes Daniel so special?

Tim just knows he's going to end up with more sleepless nights because of this.

In the end the two teens aren’t actually all that cooperative. It seems they actually have mostly shown up to check what was going on inside the Fenton household, Tim and Dick decide not to push them too much then and there, figuring they could visit Master’s estate first, verify the clone allegations, and after that get back to these two, perhaps when they get more intel and have something more substantial to work these then Sam and Tucker will be a bit more forthcoming as well.

Only time will tell.

—✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*---*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—

Slade had to go on some solo mission and at this point he's okay with leaving the boys to handle themselves, Danny eagerly takes the opportunity to do his own thing.

Aka, going after politicians to get the acts repealed. Making deals with the ones who value their lives and can see a good opportunity when they are presented with one and getting his name out there. If he’s an actual threat people will be forced to listen.

This day though he lands a hit that the supers in Metropolis somehow know about…

someone somewhere snitched, or… they are compromised. A worry for later.

"Memento Mori, they say you're trained by the Deathstroke and that you have an absolute success rate. And that you only kill your target and no one else on one of your assignments... but today all of it is coming to an end because with my tactile telekinesis I-"

"If I had known that all I had to do to meet a real life alien was to act up a little I would have gone down this road a lot sooner" Danny leans against the AC unit on top of the apartment building they are currently on.

Kon splutters, "what?"

"Alright, okay, clone of an alien, which to me is still basically the same thing. Very cool, honestly, if you ask me, even better"

Kon puffs up, "well I am pretty awesome if I say so myself"

"Absolutely, out of this world some would say"

Kon snorts, then remembers what's actually going on here, "are you trying to distract me?"

"Maybe? Is it working?" Kon pouts and makes a so-so gesture. "I do mean it though. You're easily in my top five favorite aliens"

Kon blushes quite prettily "Uhm, well I... oh wait aliens? Not heroes?"

"Ah, yeah well about that, I guess I'm not a fan of that? Especially not currently. What with you being in my way and all that"

"Oh so if I were to politely ask to not kill the lady"

"Yeah I'm still gonna do that, sorry"

Kon sighs, "well in that case I'll-"

He promptly gets knocked back by an impressive punch to the face. Mostly stunned by the fact that it properly hurts and then realizing Danny can move at all.

"You got distracted" and gives him a wink.

Kon rubs his jaw, "Oh you think you're cute"

"not just cute, I am adorable" and Kon just knows this smug bastard is grinning at him under the mask he can’t see through.

He really wishes he didn't have a thing for dark haired spunky dangerous people.

"... it- it doesn't matter, even with your freaky assassin skills there is no way-"

"You're a bit of a terrible match up against me though, no offense" Danny is trying to not overuse his abilities. He doesn't want the justice league to know about all of them. but it'll turn into a messy and long fight where neither come out on top if he sticks with the regular stuff. And that would allow backup to arrive and make things even more complicated...

"Damn... I just don't have time for this"

Kon makes sure he's prepared to intercept anything Danny might throw at him now.

"If you go invisible I'll just follow the sound of your heartbeat"

"Oh" Danny turns his heart off. He can't do that indefinitely while in human form though, but this will do for this fight. "How about now"

"What the-? Are you alright!?"

"Awww you’re worried? That's sweet. Supersweet one could say," Danny turns invisible, "you should really be more worried about yourself though Superboy"

Kon tries if he can keep visual with his X-ray vision, he thinks about trying to do a sweep for even the slightest disturbance with his TTK field when a freezing cold shiver shoots up his spine.

There is a moment of silence where nothing and nobody moves and then Kon can hear Superman in the distance.

"Kon! What's going on!"

"That little- he slipped away!"

"That's unfortunate... meet up with Kara at Miss Holloway’s location. Together we'll be able to stop him there"

"No I think I can-" Kon tries to argue

"Superboy" superman sounds stern

"... fine, I'm going"

Kon makes a direct beeline for the target location and a grin can't help but spread over his face. He pushes his sunglasses up a bit more to hide the glowing green eyes.

Now that he got to this point he’s getting back to wondering who tipped the supers off though. Having to switch to plan B was rather annoying.

And he still absolutely doesn't like overshadowing people but what can you do… mission first, personal and ethical little hang ups second.

Superboy went under so smoothly though, Danny wondered why that was until he did a careful skim of the surface and sensed the roiling self hatred. He suspects that'll do it.

Danny feels sorta bad though, Superboy really is up there in his list of coolest things this world has to offer. He'll have to make it up to him after this is all over somehow. In a way that won’t compromise himself, and also avoid the old man knowing.

It's then that he realizes he's arrived at the target location, it's showtime!

"Here I am"

Kara gives him a wave and he smoothly touches down, it really is a good thing he already knows how to fly and stuff, makes the whole pretending to be a Kryptonian thing a bit easier. "Got away huh?"

He huffs, "he can just turn his heartbeat off, how was I supposed to know that?"

"Deathstroke's protégé's are on a different level for sure. But even they have a limit"

Right... sure... underestimate him, very smart...

Not that he can really blame them. They probably think he's a baseline human with maybe some meta abilities or just a new upgraded Ikon suit.

"Can I see the tip off?

"Again? Sure. Though I doubt you'll see anything in it that we haven't seen yet. Oracle is trying to trace it but..."

"Hm, what if..." yeah some of this was very familiar, "what if it's Deathstroke and he's treating this whole thing as a screwed up training exercise?"

"That... I sure hope not"

"He's insane enough for that though"

"I hate that you could be right"

The silence stretches.

"Are you alright Kon?"

Danny startles a little, "Yeah! I'm just, frustrated"

"Ah, don't worry. With the three of us standing ready it'll be fine. We'll catch him" she presses her fist in her open palm.

Danny feels a careful smile spread on Kon's face.

"Hey, you check up on the lady and I'll make it look like I'm not involved in all this. Kal is close by and after that we'll try that thing with you spreading your TTK field super far"

Using Superboy's ability as a net? Interesting. "Gotcha"

Supergirl nods and then takes off and Danny figures he might as well just get this whole thing over with now.

The lady is right there, she barely acknowledges him when he politely greets her. Rude…

And then he snaps her neck.

—✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*---*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—

"Youuuu" Danny storms up to Slade with vicious green overtaking his usual blue, “you fucking motherf-”

"Boy-"

"Don't you boy me. You sabotaged my assignment!"

"False accusations?"

Danny gives him a look that screams ‘are you for real…’ "Of course I took a moment to investigate. I had to know if we had a leak. But you tipping off the supers you absolute-"

Slade nods, satisfied that Danny looked into the matter, "You were fine, you need to be challenged to learn how to adapt to any situation. The moment things become complicated you resort to your abilities"

"Get off it old man I'm only half human of course I'm using my damn abilities, they are a fucking part of me! You though- You're the biggest dick in the universe and-"

Any civilized conversation quickly ends after that as it gradually devolves into a physical fight.

"Bastard" Danny mutters as he focuses his healing to fix his black eye first.

"Cool down brat” Slade says, looking no worse for wear, “We'll go over the whole thing in more depth later" and the veteran assassin leaves the room.

Danny fumes as he handles his patch up himself. While doing so he allows himself a moment of self loathing.

He hates that he's making progress getting the ecto acts removed. "working" with the people who are happily removing the thing and getting rid of those that ignorantly want to keep it in place.

He hates that the G.I.W are easier to handle with his new skillset.

He really hates how easy this is getting.

And he really really hates how there was zero hesitation to overshadow Superboy and use him.

He can't wait till this is over, one way or another.

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noonew1lleverask · 1 month ago

Text

Violently Happy

WC: 726

Author’s Note: pardon my French, but I think this fucking sucks. Enjoy it if you want😘

I rest her legs on my lap, and somehow, this makes me feel complete. This brief, unassuming moment of intimacy between us. It’s intimate. Kind of on the nose, right? But it is. It’s so intimate, just touching her, so having this weight across my thighs is something like— ecstasy. The kind nestled in pills and hiding in needles. It’s a pleasure I didn’t know before her. She glimpses over her copy of Macbeth, and her eyes crinkle at the edges, so I know she’s smiling. I think she’s listening to Bjork. She has a strange affinity for Bjork, one she’s shared with me and I cannot fully knot every string she’s so benevolently stretched across to my hand. I like Bjork. Can’t name single song besides her favorite; Violently Happy.

That’s how I feel with her. I’m thrilled to such a point I want to rip out my hair, tear my clothes off and watch the buttons ricochet off of surfaces. I want my skin gone— my teeth, out. I want it all gone, because what is left of me that is not hers? I am her. In a sense. I’ve begun to adopt her strategies in chess; she makes up stories for the pawns and writes dramas on my forehead about the black queen falling in love with the white knight. It’s so absurd, and adds nothing to the game besides her smile, so it matters. A lot. It matters more than the little frown she gets when I win. It does not matter as much as the brilliant smile of triumph she gets when I let her win. And I’ll never tell her I let her win.

I bend down and kiss her kneecap. She twitches, only slightly, and I kiss the other one. Kind of like a knight. Lancelot. I’m nowhere near as… charming as the addled piece of fiction (addled in my humble opinion, and I’m a doctor— three times over— so my opinion is the best). But, I’m loyal. Loyal to my queen I should not have; of whom I deserve in no way. Who should not be mine, but she is. I always wonder how, but never forget to say my ‘thank you’s for those how’s. She’s got those colorful tights on today. She almost ripped them— it was horrifying. Her hands were held up, not in surrender, but in calm— atonement. Her words, God, her words. “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help,” she’d said to a sociopath. She sees good in everything. She sees good, and she sees hope, even in a man holding another in a chokehold, gun to his head.

”I’m here to help.”

So much about her— all she is— catches me. Hook, line, and sinker; I’m flailing around helplessly as I’m pulled from the depths and into fresh air I cannot breathe. She bends down and kisses me, and it’s life.

Now I’m thinking of a fisherman giving CPR to a trout…

I don’t think that would work.

For multiple reasons.

Her foot nudges me, heel bumping into the side of my thigh, and I meet her gaze. Her mouth is hidden behind her book, which is a good thing. I’d probably act like a woken sleeper agent and crash my mouth to hers.

“Hey,” she says, and I soften. As if I wasn’t already a pile of soft serve in the chair. “You look pretty deep in thought, Spence.” She pulls out an ear phone, and hands it to me as she sits up— Macbeth is placed on the table, and her legs leave my lap. I miss that weight, a lot, but now I can see her mouth. It’s a dangerous; maroon but slowly fading to ruby from a long day of negotiating with serial killers. Pressed against my side, she slips the earphone into my ear canal, and, yep, it’s Violently Happy. “A little Bjork for my boy.”

My boy. Hers.

I accept the Bjork— who the heck wouldn’t?— and crane my head to snatch a kiss just as Morgan walks past. He fake gags, and she kisses me harder. If she could, she’d lower me in her arms till my head brushed the floor, and kiss me then. I’d let her. I hope she does that at our wedding.

I hope I marry her.

I will.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x you #criminal minds fluff #Spotify

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wileys-russo · 2 years ago

Text

like a dumb rom com II k.cooney-cross x catley!reader

you bopped your head along to the music which was blasting from the speaker on your bedside table, for once home alone and able to have it up as loud as you wanted.

your textbooks lay open and spread around you on your bed as you scrolled through a gruelingly long article on your laptop, sticky notes plastered all over your legs as you tried your hardest to retain what you were attempting to study.

you sighed looking at your calendar on the wall, another flurry of color coded sticky notes mapping our your schedule for the rest of the month. people could call you a lot of things but you were anything but disorganized, you simply couldn't be in order to juggle your studies and have a full time professional football career.

you'd loved football from the moment you were old enough to kick a ball, following quickly in your siblings footsteps as your poor parents lives quickly became encapsulated by all three of your routines.

different teams and matches to watch every weekend, travelling back and forward to games and tournaments, weeks full of multiple training's and commitments, food crumbs in cars where dinners and snacks were smashed in the back seat from destination a to b.

you almost felt like they deserved the peace and quiet of an empty house once you'd all moved out, your brother no longer playing having viewed it as more of a hobby than a career once he got older.

but no matter the driving and the games and the fees they were always your proudest supporters. especially when both you and your sister had made your national team debuts, first as junior matildas and then into the senior teams, you always following a few steps behind steph.

when she'd moved over to london to sign with arsenal and you'd stayed at melbourne victory you'd missed her, but you were confident that a little bit of distance in your football careers would be a good thing for the both of you to grow as players.

then a couple of years later after your olympic debut had come your own offers from overseas, european and super league teams alike all reaching out to your agent eager to offer you your first international professional contract.

it was overwhelming to look at sums and salaries and contracts you could have only ever dreamed of in your youth, your deadline to make a decision coming in hard and fast you weren't any closer to making the final call.

thats when your national team mates had stepped in and suddenly you were getting calls of encouragement and gentle attempts at persuading to join them at their various clubs once it started to leak out just who had made you offers.

the least gentle of all though was of course from your older sister, who all but chewed your ear off that you were even thinking about accepting any clubs beside the one she'd called her home for a couple of years now, caitlin and lydia both quick to back her up.

you'd been the most hesitant at arsenals offer and once you were honest with steph about your reasons why her approach softened significantly. she was fast to assure you that she'd had nothing to do with it at all and had only overheard the coaching staff discussing potential new signings that afternoon.

then came the assurance that she wanted you there with her, and that despite your own insecurities she'd never ever seen it as you copying her or riding her coat tails. her heart broke a little that you could be so dismissive of your own skills and talent that had lead to all of the multitude of offers in the first place.

knowing this was a decision that ultimately you needed to make, and with a quiet reminder from dean that the tighter she held on the further you'd pull away, she left you to make the call of your own accord, doing her very best to ignore the temptation to call you and check in daily about if you were any closer to pulling the trigger.

then a few days later came the video from melbourne victory, the signing post from arsenal and your own bitter sweet goodbye to your home country and the team you'd called family for the last three seasons.

at both your mum and sisters insistence you'd moved in with steph and dean so your sister could first hand make sure you were settling in, and so your mum could sleep at night knowing you had family looking out for you in a foreign country.

you'd settled in quickly and comfortably of course. just like steph you'd always been outgoing and bubbly, never shying away from making a new friend or striking up a conversation, and suddenly you were adopted right into the team as if you'd been there for years, your football family expanding.

back to present day and you were reveling in a rare night in to yourself, steph and dean having gone out for a nice meal together as you dedicated your evening to your studies.

it was peak exam season and mid wsl season which meant you were battling your way through, mostly on top of everything thanks to your calendar and onslaught of sticky notes.

but given your loud music what you failed to hear were the taps at your window over and over, too engrossed in your studies and mumbling along the lyrics to the 1975 song in your ear, a band both you and your sister harbored quite a shared love for.

steph had gotten you tickets for your twenty first birthday earlier this year and the next day at training both of you had been teased relentlessly for your distinct lack of voice from spending the evening screaming along to all of your favourite songs.

failing to hear the gentle taps at your window, you also missed the creak of it being thrown all the way open and the gentle thump of feet falling to your carpet.

"jesus christ babe are you deaf?" you certainly heard that.

you let out a strangled scream at the sudden unexpected voice, spinning around and falling backwards off your bed, hitting the floor with a loud groan as your girlfriends eyes widened and she hurried to help you up.

"what the fuck is wrong with you? why the fuck would you do that?" you shouted angrily after she helped you up, pushing harshly at her chest and sending her stumbling as she just caught her footing.

"i was tossing rocks at your window and you ignored me, i thought you might have been asleep!" kyra defended holding her hands up as you went at her again but thought better of it, your heart beat starting to gently slow down as you recovered from your shock.

"so your reaction to me being asleep was to..break in?" you scoffed, smacking her leg as she whined and pulled a face, mumbling how she was just trying to be romantic.

"why didn't you just message me or come to the front door? i'm home alone you idiot i thought you were a murderer or something!" you shot her an unimpressed glare as the girl gave you a sheepish smile.

"i thought it would be more romantic this way! like those dumb rom coms we love." she pouted and from that moment you could no longer be properly mad at her.

"just lucky you live a few feet off the ground, bit worried i'd fall and break my neck if i had to scale a drain pipe to get to your window." the midfielder grinned as you couldn't help but bite back a small smile at her adorable dimples.

"next time warn me ky instead of giving me a heart attack. i could have hurt you!" you warned, making the girl send you an amused smile, taking a seat on the corner of your bed as you started to tidy up your mess of study materials on the bed.

"and how exactly would you have done that babe? hit me with a book? stabbed me with a pencil? assaulted me with your tiny little baby hands." the girl grinned teasingly, poking at you as you smacked her away with a huff.

"they are not tiny! they're normal sized and they're barely smaller than yours." you glared at her, standing to move your books and laptop over to the desk you should have been studying at in the first place.

"helloo!" the girl sung out, suddenly stood in front of you as you turned, arms now free she wasted no time pulling you into a hug, your chins resting on one anothers shoulders as you relished in the feel of your skin finally in contact with hers.

"i missed you today." you sighed having had to take the day off training to complete an exam, though you were studying online you still needed to go into the distance education office to take your exams which was located in camden.

"missed you more book worm." you might have rolled your eyes but really it was the cheeky comments and consistent flirty banter between the two of you that had caused you to fall for her alluringly mischievous charm in the first place.

having kissed on a night out when you both played for melbourne victory you'd danced around your feelings for far too long, mutually chalking it up to a drunk mistake.

but it seemed you just couldn't keep away from one another and with each moment apart the two of you either on the phone or texting, a few more sober kisses shared now, you'd made it official during prep camp for the world cup, over the moon to both be selected in the final squad.

a few of your close friends knew not long after you'd made it official, having been by both of your sides during the in denial but hopelessly pining over one another stage.

you were quick to tell ellie who was always your roommate on national duties, the blonde practically tackling you to the floor with a sigh of relief she no longer needed to watch the 'slow lovesick burn'.

then kyra of course told her own little football family, charlie first and then katrina who'd given you both a shovel talk about the importance of treating one another with respect and how she wouldn't hesitate to smack either of you into line.

but beyond that you kept it mostly to yourselves, the two of you had always been close so no one thought much of how touchy and affectionate you were, having been that way long before you were anything more than friends no one thought differently.

then when kyra had joined arsenal after the world cup everything seemed to fall into place, the two of you finally able to give your relationship a proper go without hours of time difference and thousands of kilometers of distance between you to be a barrier anymore.

there was just one glaringly unspoken issue and that was that both of you were far too terrified to make your relationship common knowledge, which really was only because you were even more terrified of what your older sisters reaction might be.

a few of the arsenal girls like teyah and gio who you'd been close with since your signing had caught on quite quickly, but promised to keep it hushed.

being on the younger side of the squad had meant you'd gained a whole handful of older sisters alongside steph and again it hadn't taken long before again they'd picked up on your change in mood now kyra was around, but most had kept their observations to themselves.

unlike leah who cornered you after training, your vice captain getting the truth out of you in record time with a stern look and a few well worded questions, and of course she couldn't keep the information away from lia or beth.

so as the list of your team mates who knew the truth about you and kyra grew, so did your plaguing anxieties that someone would slip up and alert steph.

despite knowing you easily the best out of everyone it amazed you that somehow she herself hadn't caught on, you and kyra having made a few clumsy mistakes where she could have easily put the pieces together.

after your first major argument with kyra over something so stupid you could hardly remember what it was even about, you'd turned up on caitlins front door step with tear stained cheeks both for comfort and some advice knowing there wasn't a chance you could speak with steph who was always your go to person.

you knew you needed to come clean and the longer you put it off the more strain it put on your relationship with kyra and the worse you worried for steph's reaction given how long you'd kept her in the dark for.

"i really should study for another hour ky." you hummed, reaching out for your laptop as kyra tutted, moving you away from your desk with her body still wrapped around yours. "lets go look at your schedule babe." she ordered as you moved toward your calendar.

"kyra!" you exclaimed in surprise, seeing a few new sticky notes replace your old ones. "oh look, give kyra a cuddle? check." she wiggled her body against yours where it clung to the back of you making you smile.

"give kyra a kiss." she craned her head around and pressed her lips sweetly to yours as you shook your head but gave in, indulging her for a moment. "what's next? study? mmm don't see that on here for tonight." kyra hummed, finger reaching out to trail down your new list as you sighed.

"when did you even change this? you've been here for like five seconds." you laughed in disbelief at how fast she could be. "i didn't change anything!" she gasped in mock offence.

"oh look! watch movies and make kyra her favourite snack. guess we have to do that then babe, you do live by your schedule!" kyra grinned cheekily, letting go of you and making a beeline for your door, holding out her hand expectantly.

"you are unbelievably sneaky sometimes cooney cross." you smiled, crossing your arms and staring her down. "who, me? never!" she beamed, wiggling her fingers for you to take her hand as you did so with a dramatic sigh as if it was a chore, causing her to attack your face with kisses and pull you out of your room.

having followed through with your 'schedule' you'd made both of your favourite snacks and settled into the living room to watch a movie, kyra's choice of course given you knew if she wasn't into the movie there wasn't a chance she'd sit still through it.

"hey where's calvy?" your girlfriend realised suddenly, pulling her head out of your lap and looking around with a frown. "its taken you this long to realise he isn't here? he's normally jumping on you in seconds ky!" you laughed as kyra rolled her eyes.

"he's with steph and dean they found some dog friendly outdoor bistro they could take him with them for dinner, you know what steph's like with her son." you smiled in amusement, the four legged canine loved and looked at more like your nephew than a dog.

"aw and they left you here all alone." kyra cooed, reaching up to squish your cheeks as her head settled back in its previous place in your lap. "please! its a rare blessing." you mumbled as well as you could given the way your face was being poked and pulled at by the brunette.

"shut up and watch your silly kids movie." you wrenched her hands away from your face and placed them by her sides before tangling yours in her hair again, massaging her scalp gently as she sighed contentedly, tucking one of her hands up your top to rest dormant on your abs, determined to have at least some of her skin on yours at all times.

"it is not a kids movie. it's a comedy film!" kyra defended, eyes glued to the screen as you only hummed with an amused smile, melting into the sofa cushions wrapped up in your little bubble of comfort.

it wasn't long until both your attention spans wavered and you found your lips locked with kyra's, both your hands roaming one anothers bodies. the air was filled with your giggles and sweet nothings as you once again fell head over heels for the girls effortless charm, throwing your head back with a laugh at a particularly cheesy pick up line mumbled into your neck.

that giddy little love bubble burst the moment you heard the jingle of keys and australian accents which didn't belong to you or kyra invading the space, and the pitter patter of paws hurtling toward you as you both quickly broke apart.

you'd just settled with a decent gap between you as calvin arrived, launching himself on top of you with a few licks hello, jumping across to greet kyra before dean called him away.

"oh hi ky!" steph greeted with a warm smile as she appeared next, kyra quick to her feet to hug her hello. "see kyra hugs me hello. she's got manners!" your sister teased as you blew her a sarcastic kiss, unmoving from your position on the couch.

"i see you every day stephanie i hardly feel the need to hug you hello when you've been gone a few hours!" you laughed with a roll of your eyes. "i've technically not seen you all day." she countered, taking a seat in between you and kyra.

"how did your exam go peanut?" the defender questioned with a concerned look, not having spoke with you since you'd left for camden this morning a nervous wreck.

"steph what have i said about calling me that!" you ignored her question with an annoyed groan, throwing your head back and shooting kyra a glare over your sisters shoulder as she laughed at your expense.

"that you hate it and not to call you it but i will always call you it because you're my little peanut!" the blonde cooed, pinching your cheeks and shaking your head side to side, with almost eight years between you she'd always babied you in a sense and though sometimes it was welcomed most of the times you despised it.

"i wish i was adopted." you grimaced, smacking her hands away with a roll of your eyes. "not too late. i'm sure we can find a nice family willing to take in a moody twenty one year old who can't cook, can't clean, whinges and moans about everything, doesn't do her own laundry, eats her salary in groceries-" steph started to list things off on her fingers as your eyes widened and you kicked her.

"none of that is true!" you scoffed with a scowl, once again sending your girlfriend an unimpressed glare as she clutched at her stomach with laughter. "see even your best mate agrees, you're a grub!" steph ruffled your hair and stood to her feet.

"i'm a grub? have you met the six foot three toddler we live with?" you pointed toward the kitchen, referencing your sisters fiance and soon to be brother in law.

"oi! don't throw me under the bus to cover your own ass." dean yelled back, the two of you always having gotten on like a house on fire which was one of the many reasons steph was so in love with him.

"did you drive here ky?" the older catley questioned with an amused smile, kyra getting the unsung hint it was time to head home as you sent her a look to assure she could stay, but there wasn't a use.

"yeah, i'll head off now." the midfielder smiled warmly, again hugging your sister as you were quick to your feet now to walk her out, kyra yelling goodbye to dean before you both stepped out the front door.

"do you want a lift tomorrow? we could get brekky and a coffee?" you offered hopefully, the two of you lingering just out of sight, kyra eagerly agreeing already looking forward to getting you alone for even just a half an hour.

"coast?" the brunette questioned as you peered subtly around the corner, not seeing either steph or dean in the kitchen through the window. "clear." you grinned, barely able to get the word out before her lips were on yours and your back was pressed against the cool brick of the side of the house.

"okay okay, easy tiger!" you laughed quietly, pulling away as her tongue slipped into your mouth, well aware that the two of you could be caught at any moment. "few more." kyra smiled cheekily, pecking your lips repeatedly as her hands gripped your hips.

"i'll get you round nine?" your hands settled on her cheeks, thumbs stroking her jawline, training not starting until eleven thirty given tomorrow was a double session. "make it eight and we can smooch for an hour? teyah has early rehab." kyra countered with a charming grin as you nodded your agreement.

"i hate when you say smooch." you laughed against her lips, kissing her one final time before pushing her off, knowing the longer you hung about outside the larger the chance grew steph would come to check what was going on.

"which is exactly why i say it. goodnight lover!" the girl bowed to you making you gag. "i hate that more! goodnight you dickhead. text me when you get home yeah?" you frowned, kyra quick to promise you she would before she dissapeared into the night.

returning inside you weren't surprised to find your sister and her fiance curled up together on the sofa, not dissimilarly to how you and kyra had been prior to their arrival, calvin asleep in his bed on the floor.

"you gonna watch with us?" steph craned her head back to look at you, i'm a celebrity loaded on the television. "are the two of you going to make out like horny teenagers?" you questioned, knowing exactly how they could be after their little date nights.

"probably." dean grinned in response as you gagged and steph hit him lightly with a smile. "hey you never answered me before! how did your exam go chicken?" steph called out before you could leave, again an eye roll greeting her choice of nickname.

"good i think? i finished before the timer and i remembered most of my arguments. one more and i'm done! then a five week fucking break." you moaned happily, stretching your hands behind your head.

"excuse me are those mine?" your sisters eyes narrowed, pointing to the peter alexander pyjama shorts you currently had on. "noo." you smiled guiltily, grateful she couldn't see you also had on the matching shirt beneath your hoodie.

"you are such a menace." steph sighed with a shake of her head, normally she'd be on top of you in seconds demanding you give back whatever you'd stolen, but knowing she'd actually worn one of your favourite pair of trainers out to dinner and you hadn't yet noticed she decided against that course of action.

"love you steffy!" you grinned, dipping off to the kitchen to fill your water bottle, pulling a face of horror as you returned to find the two of them attempting to eat one anothers face.

"god can you at least wait until i've left the room?" you gagged in disgust as they pulled apart. "can you hurry?" steph smirked making you pull another face and whistle for calvin to follow you.

"no leave him!" your sister attempted but the fluff ball was already padding happily after you toward your room. "i'm saving him years of therapy from having to watch his parents go at it. goodnight sickos!" you saluted sarcastically, your door closing with a thud as calvin made himself comfortable on the end of your bed.

doing your nightly routine you returned to bed with your skin soft and your teeth brushed, smiling at the text from kyra that she was home safe, clicking the facetime icon beside her contact, the two of you normally falling asleep together.

you smiled happily as she accepted, propping her phone up as she brushed her teeth and the two of you chattered away, blissfully unaware of what was to greet you in the week to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

part two

#kyra cooney cross x reader #woso x reader #woso blurbs #woso fanfics #woso imagine #kyra cooney cross #woso

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icanexplainwhythisnameisbad · 19 days ago

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DUMB@$$ DELTARUNE 3&4 (really dumb) WHAT IFS

these are in no way directly related but basically dumb thoughts I had that since I have poor story writing skills (like I can conceptualize a story but I can’t describe an environment or write dialogue which is 2/3rds of any good story (only half if you include art as well I mean I have decent art skills… but it’s a kindergartener’s drawing in comparison to most art on here )

the point is I’m putting ideas here (some of which others may have also come up with but I’m putting my own spin on it )

spoilers ahead (while most who see this probably have played both new chapters and don’t care. Just in case.)

-Toriel wakes up early in chapter 3. V1:

this version has her wake up during the Tenna boss fight and that’s a whole confrontation as the tv with abandonment issues is losing his mind

-Toriel wakes up early. V2:

this one has her wake up relatively early in chapter so The $#@* Squad/Fun Gang/Lancer Fan Club & Tenna (separately but they both do it) kinda try to keep the whole “end of the world / the knight wants to kidnap you + your divorce & abandonment of me has caused me a ton of issues” thing(s) away from Toriel (meanwhile literally everyone else there (anyone who isn’t the 3 heroes & Tenna) doesn’t care and tells her anyway ) meanwhile Toriel is just confused, curious & kinda worried that her own TV got issues from her (and the others but they aren’t here right now )

-Tenna burns a woody doll (expy) at the stake.

-Gerson ends up in castle town:

(the old man is too powerful to be bound by death & a mere meta video game’s depressing story progression )

-Susie takes Tenna “home” with her instead:

(I know I know Mettaton & Tenna is a whole thing but while we haven’t seen Susie’s house in canon yet. it can’t be a good place from the context clues hidden in some of her actions & dialogue throughout the chapters (as faking calling home isn’t normal (plus a bunch of other things but this isn’t about that (well this part is but not this whole post ) so that’s a thing and a half alone let alone if a fan made dark fountain appeared

-Jackenstein shows up again/survives:

(as from what I saw after he disappears he doesn’t show up again but isn’t directly stated to have died and while this could be a thing in a later chapter … 🤷)

-the soul ditches kris to possess noelle instead:

(as in a pacifist or neutral route the soul wouldn’t like being beaten up for trying to prevent the end of the world & everyone in it & just being curious in general. or for a snowgrave version, the soul decides it’s a better course of action instead of using kris (sure there’s the whole “your choices don’t matter but the game itself talks about you as if your kris and kris is you. so what if it’s “Kris’s choices don’t matter “ & not “the soul/player’s choice don’t matter” ) )

-noelle decides for whatever reason to visit Kris’s house in the middle of the night:

and therefore ends up in TV world (aka a reason for Tenna to get depressed again & dess is mentioned )

-Susie stumbles upon something she shouldn’t have…:

aka she ends up unintentionally watching kris play the hidden game and sees the snowgrave route portrayed (especially the “used up” scene ) and/or sees kris rip the soul out at the end of chapter 2 and is too stunned/shocked to do anything about it and doesn’t bring it up directly

-ralsei & Toriel meet and that’s pretty self explanatory

-Toriel wakes up early V3: she wakes up somepoint early in the chaoter but separate from kris, Tenna & the others & ends up going on her own adventure (kinda like the second one but without kris & the others there to give even more focus on Toriel meeting the tv world darkness (minus Tenna)

-the soul copy pastes Kris’s code into a genocide route in undertale to let them kill sans:

(meanwhile frisk+chara+the undertale player (its a mix of players being legitimate players in a game + being outerworldly beings so yeah. Multiple ) are just watching in confusion as a teenager kills sans on their own as another soul just floats there menacingly )

-since Gerson is technically a lightner reborn as a darkner he doesn’t have a theme… so potentially like ralsei couldn’t he potentially go anywhere (ignoring what ralsei said about reborn lightners turned darkners needing very specific conditions to even form cause gersons just too OP for that):

so basically (ignoring what I said in another post about something keeping the dark sanctuaries separate from the other dark worlds ) Gerson gets to be OP everywhere in every chapter

-Queen sees noelles search history:

(technically a chapter 2 one but I’m surprised nobody else had this idea) basically queen ships Susie & noelle meanwhile berdly is berdly & ralsei is confused by most of berdly’s even saying (meanwhile meanwhile kris is eating moss in a dark alley )

-asgore shows up in chapter 3 when he finds Toriel left something of hers behind (technically another attempt but she did legitimately leave something at the church (before chapter 4. I know it’s at the church but -) (this one would technically have to wait for chapter 5 as that one’s implied to be the asgore chapter but it’s mainly chapter 3 so 🤷

-something something Elnina & Lanino (and potentially roulxs) related:

no explanation needed here (well maybe one is needed but assuming this gets atleast 7 hearts/likes/whatever tumblr calls em. in 2 days I’ll reblog this with the explanation added )

(;

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hauntingofhouses · 1 year ago

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"why would you ship mizu and taigen together they're sooooo toxic ugh taigen is AWFUL and mizu should be with ME instead!!!"

of course they're toxic they're both deranged and terrible and that's why they're perfect for each other.

cuz like omg you think mizu would treat you well? mizu would abandon you. look at how she left ringo multiple times. ringo who treats her so well and is nothing but patient and caring and loyal. if you are insecure she will laugh at you because she has no social tact. look at how mikio said "it's a stupid dream" talking about his ambitions of regaining his honour and mizu straight up chuckles and tells him he's right because it IS a stupid dream. and at this point their relationship was cordial and she was even warming up to him!

like. arguably, taigen would be a better romantic partner (per the ideals of his time and culture of course), or at least he would be on paper. cuz i mean as a husband, as he is now, i think he'd be awful. but i'm talking about if you and him were dating or courting or just seeing each other romantically, he would be good to you. like we saw how he behaved with akemi and he was nothing but sweet and gentle. the very reason akemi wanted to marry him so bad was because she KNOWS without a doubt that he respects women and would treat her well. "oh but he cheated on her with the prostitutes while celebrating his engagement!" yeah but per the norms of the time and place, it was not considered cheating and akemi (as well as any wife or romantic partner of that period) would not have minded or even cared.

and yes taigen IS an asshole and he IS obnoxious but come on. so is mizu, if she is allowed to act like herself around you. mizu will tease you and mock you and challenge you and even poke at your insecurities (see:her goading mikio on even though he clearly did not view her teasing as light-hearted banter and took it all very personally). she would tell you to your face if she thinks you're being annoying (see:mizu rolling her eyes and telling akemi to straight up just "shut up" when she'd believed mizu had killed taigen).

mizu is not merely a hot and talented badass with a sword and the insane hyperfocus on her desire for revenge which literally drives her to withstand like, extreme amounts of damage and survive it. mizu is also flawed and the show does a good job at showcasing this, and showing us that she's not merely a victim but also a multilayered person. we see throughout that mizu is blunt and sarcastic and prideful.

oh what's that? oh right, very similar to taigen, who is also hot and talented with a sword and with insane hyperfocus on his desire to duel mizu and regain his honour. taigen who is also flawed (though, arguably, more so) as he is blunt and sarcastic and prideful.

the only thing that sets mizu and taigen apart is the fact that taigen is a man and is not mixed race, which thus affects their positions in society and how people perceive them. these are external factors. taigen being a boy who is not blue-eyed allowed him to easily mingle with the other kids in the village, all of whom were similarly fed the same prejudiced values which led them to gang up against mizu and bully her.

but take all that away. strip them down to the bare essentials. suddenly it's like they are the same person copy and pasted.

and that's what makes them even more interesting. yes absolutely they would be toxic. whatever souls are made of, mizu's and taigen's are the same (derogatory). and we literally see them fight all the time!!!! but the thing is they are both deranged when it comes to this.

do you get me. they both literally get turned on by sparring. mizu's whole spar with mikio was her way of flirting. just look at how she smirked at him and said "unsheathe it" like it's clear that this is an innuendo of not just unsheathing his weapon but also what's in his pants. then during the chopsticks fight with taigen in the snow, despite mizu literally being injured and taigen trying to attack her, mizu gets attracted to him. meanwhile taigen got a boner after wrestling with her in the forge.

taigen goes around saying he wants to kill mizu to regain his honour but he still literally risks life and limb for her constantly. mizu gives ringo stomach ulcers by going around flinging herself into near-death situations 24/7. she ups and leaves her beloved swordfather with barely a goodbye twice to pursue her batshit far-fetched quest for revenge (against people she doesn't even KNOW btw because she literally starts off with practically No Leads and not even knowing the NAMES of the white men who are her maybe-fathers).

these bitches are crazy and you know what good for them. that shit needs to be contained and quarantined though and that's why in that sense they would be good together.

i want to put them both in a jar and shake it very hard and see what happens. personally i think they will argue and insult each other while working perfectly in sync with each other to break out of the jar and then proceed to kill me and make out sloppy style over my dead body while they're both covered in blood.

like that's it that's the dynamic. send post.

#this is written half in jest btw dont take it too seriously. ppl can dislike what they want and ship x reader if they like #what annoys me is just when ppl are being rude about other ppl's ships like. unprovoked. like girl....#taimizu #taigen x mizu #mizu x taigen #blue eye samurai #im active on twitter again and the algorithm keeps putting bad takes on my tl against my will !!!#also yes i am aware im saying all this while writinf a tender yearning-filled slowburn fic of them #bcs i DO want them to be gentle. definitely i do. but that comes muuuuuuch later after they both wear each other's edges down ykwim #bcs if they get together any time soon they will literally be a flaming hot mess #sexy hot mess tho #but a mess nonetheless #they have the range! love them for that #fandom.rtf #shut up haydar #wank.mp3 #kinda #might delete later

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ilikekidsshows · 6 months ago

Note

Aside from Shugo Chara, Spy x Family is also a good alternative for people who got burned out from Miraculous. It's not magical girl genre, but it has a secret identity and reversing gender role theme and Spy x Family do the later 1000000 times better than miraculous ever be.

---

Spy x Family has the perfect justification for its secret identity hijinks. Both our adult leads are operatives used to working alone and think they've married a normal person for the sake of convenience. Like, of course a master spy and an assassin aren't going to be telling their cute, normal spouse about their dangerous night jobs when their lives rely on secrecy. In fact, the fact that these two are adults even justifies the whole “one man/woman mission” thing. They don't need supervision.

Also, like, the relationships in this show are so wholesome despite the dark setup. I mean, Anya is an escaped child experiment who has understandable baggage from that, but she still manages to find joy in life. Like, in general, you can see the entire main cast is better off playing family than they were before despite all the secrets they're keeping from each other for actually valid reasons. Or maybe those valid reasons are why it's working out, since it only takes life or death stakes for them to lie, instead of them going: “Well, this topic makes me uncomfy so I’ll just lie my ass off”.

The irony that this show takes place in a fictionalized version of the Cold War period and yet manages to be more progressive with its gender commentary than a cartoon set in the present day trying to be subversive. A recent thought I had concerning this is that a lot if Astruc’s ideas are outdated and surface deep. He thinks having an idea is good enough and never really commits to anything and his tendency to not rewrite scripts seems to lead to a lot of his ideas being recycled from the concept era ten years ago. But, like, a lot of his subversions wouldn't have been subversive even ten years ago. Plagiarism Man should have plagiarized more stuff instead of just Shugo Chara and Dork Diaries. When you combine ideas from multiple sources instead of trying to blatantly copy one or two popular works, your work actually ends up coming out more unique and original.

Anyway, Spy x Family gets a recommendation from me, too.

#dats chats #ml salt #ml critical #ml writers salt #recommendation

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 1 year ago

Note

@grimharuspex in the comments of that @zoe-oneesama post said it the best; Butterfly should’ve been Emotion and Peacock should’ve been Desire. I know that Zoe has a limit on what canon she changes for her comic which I respect/appreciate given the thought she puts into it (even when canon’s various nonsensical magic rules are especially grating like this) but how do you think things would’ve gone in-show if this was the setup from the get-go? On that note, do you think it’s a good setup for canon in the first place? Why or why not?

This is going to be a rather long lecture on lore and world building and how the peacock fails on every level, so before we get into that, let's start with the positives. I saw a few people pointed out the Desire idea - that being that the peacock's associated Force should have been Desire while the butterfly got Emotions - and I think that they're absolutely right. That one tiny change does fix the surface level issues and make the peacock make sense for its larger role in the narrative.

It would complicate the whole magical slave thing and also mean that you probably have to rework a few of the minor sentimonsters, but generally speaking, it makes way more sense for Desire to birth a fully realized human being. The sentipeople being people while also coming from a single emotion will always be total BS in my eyes.

At the same time, I blame no one for just sticking to canon's lore. Reworking the lore is a serious thing and even I only do it when I'm telling a lore-heavy story. There are plenty of stories where I just stick to canon's nonsense because the lore isn't important.

Now that we've done our positives, let's getting into the negatives! The issue of the day is this: changing the Force from Emotions to Desire doesn't solve the larger problems with the peacock. Problems that we'll now get into. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Issue 1: Power Diversity

While I would not call myself a superhero expert, I have seen a good deal of superhero and magical girl team shows in my time. Most of you probably have. If you think about the power sets that we see in those shows, then you'll notice that one thing is pretty much always true: every power is unique OR the powers are all closely related in some way. You never do both because the two concepts don't mix. It makes no sense for half of the characters to have totally unique powers while the other half have copies unless there's some sort of special thematic reason for this like siblings sharing a power.

Without that sort of explanation, it just feels weird and it also makes the characters feel redundant. You don't need two speedsters or two supermen! One is enough. Heck, Avatar the Last Airbender takes place in a world where whole civilizations have the same power and they STILL didn't duplicate powers for the core team because they understood that it's important to keep the characters unique.

Miraculous is pretty obviously supposed to be the type of show where the powers don't overlap. Every character gets a unique power that's uniquely suited to them. We even have this confirmed in universe during that confusing scene in the episode Destruction where Orikko - the rooster - tries to explain how his powers work:

Orikko: No, you're mistaken! Time travel is Fluff's power and I can't grant the power that already belongs to another Kwami!

This brings us to the problem with the peacock: it is not a unique power. It's derivative on multiple levels.

Derivation Level One: Akumas

The first and most obvious level is how similar sentimonsters are to akumas. In terms of how they're normally used in the narrative, they're pretty much the exact same power to the point that you literally can't tell which one you're dealing with until someone tells you. The narrative uses them interchangeably with some episodes using an akuma, some using a sentimonster, and some using both.

In fact, I thought that it was really weird that Gabriel didn't switch to maining sentimonsters back in season four. You had akumas breaking their bonds left and right, which is a thing that sentimonsters literally cannot do, making them the obvious fix to this new problem.

To really highlight the whole "indistinguishable power" issue, allow me to highlight some dialogue from Kuro Neko to show that this is very much an in-universe problem:

Cat Walker: You think that's Cat Noir? Ladybug: Of course it's Cat Noir! He must've been akumatized because he regrets having given up his Miraculous!

Ladybug: You'll see once we deakumatize him. (She runs towards Kuro Neko.) Cataclysm his bell, I'm sure that's where the akuma is! Cat Walker: Hang on! (follows her) Ladybug, what if that's a sentimonster? If I use my power on him, he'll lose control and become more dangerous!

Cat Walker: (cringes) What I mean is you're right to doubt, and I agree with you. Until we know for sure whether we're dealing with a sentimonster or someone who's been akumatized, we shouldn't make any brash decisions. (Kuro Neko leaps away.) Let's find out more.

This sort of confusion should be impossible unless it's the result of clever planning by the villain, but that's not what we're dealing with here. Kuro Neko was not about Gabriel tricking the heroes. He sent out a normal sentimonster having no idea that Chat Noir had just quit. And yet Ladybug had no idea that this was a sentimonster. She looked at it and saw an akuma.

Cat Walker also didn't know that it was a sentimonster. He just knew that it wasn't Chat Noir, which was probably the only reason that he thought to question Ladybug and warn her to be cautious. They only realize that it's a sentimonster once they learn that there's a child inside it.

This is canon accidentally telling us that akumas and sentimonster are just straight up indistinguishable unless you see then made or do some experiments to figure out what you're dealing with. That's not a good look if your claiming that each miraculous grants a unique power. It is, however, a great lead in to the second power that the peacock copies: the power of illusions.

Derivation Level Two: Illusions

I said above that it should take careful planning for a sentimonster to be confused with an akuma. While we never see that type of carefully planned setup, we do see sentimonsters used to successfully impersonate humans on several occasions. One example is the episode Optigami which gave us SentiNino and SentiAlec. Seemingly perfect clones of Nino and Alec who did whatever Shadow Moth told them to. We even see a scene where Shadow Moth is telling SentiAlec exactly what to say.

You know who else gives us this type of scene? Rena Furtive in Rocketear:

Ladybug: You said that if Nino could have heard what you were saying, there'd be no misunderstanding? Rena Furtive: Absolutely! Ladybug: How well do you remember what you guys said on the balcony? Rena Furtive: Every. Word. Ladybug: Do you think you could make... a sound illusion? Rena Furtive: Totally.

Is there any doubt in your mind that the peacock can do anything that the fox can do? What's even worse is that the peacock does illusions better than the fox! Fox illusion vanish in a puff of smoke if you touch them. SentiNino was real enough to wield a miraculous because he was a fully corporeal illusion that would have kept on going if he hadn't been snapped away. This brings us to derivation level three: the power of creation.

Derivation Level Three: Creation

The peacock doesn't just outshine the fox, it outshines the ladybug! Lucky charms vanish as soon as Ladybug detransforms. Sentimonsters last forever. The ladybug is only useful in battle as it requires a super villain to cast its cure (which is asinine, but let's not get into that here). The peacock can be used at any time. The ladybug doesn't give you what you want, it just gives you a puzzle to solve. The peacock can fulfill your deepest desires and even create life.

Outside of the extremely specific circumstances that the show gives us - aka an ongoing battle with a super villain - the ladybug is kind of useless. If you want the power of Creation, you're going to use the peacock. This brings us to our second main issue: power balancing.

Issue Two: Power Balancing

The ladybug and the black cat are supposed to be the two most powerful miraculous in existence, but it really doesn't feel like that's true. Sure, if you put them together they rewrite the universe, but that's not part of their individual base power sets. At an individual level, they don't actually feel all that powerful when compared to the butterfly and the peacock. It's more like Marinette and Adrien are smart enough to make their very limited powers work while Gabriel and Nathalie are dancing along easy street and making fools of themselves with every step.

I've mentioned before that I can forgive the butterfly's overpowered nature because this is an episodic show. They want each episode's fight to be unique and interesting and so we have to give them room to have one power set that should be an insta-win card, but isn't because plot.

I can give them that grace once. I cannot give it to them twice.

There is no reason why both the butterfly and the peacock need to feel more powerful than the supposed most powerful miraculous in existence. I've even talked to one person who is rewriting canon with the assumption that the peacock and the butterfly ARE the most powerful ones because they are! Nothing proves this better than the fact that they've both made creations that can copy the powers of the ladybug and the black cat (see: Copycat, Strikeback, Ladybug, Sandboy, Miraculer, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting).

They're also the only miraculous that don't require an active user. You can create a sentimonster or an akuma, then detransform and have a snack while your creation does whatever you need it to do. That's so incredibly broken and such a terrible move in terms of power balancing. Either have all of the powers require active users or, at the very least, have more of a mix of active and passive powers. Why do Mirage, Shelter, and Lucky Charm vanish when their caster's detransform while akumas and amoks stick around? There is no in-universe logic to explain this. It works this way because that's what the writers needed these miraculous to do. A fact that makes it impossible to get invested in the lore of this show.

When designing a complex magic system, you generally don't want "because plot" to be the only answer to why things work they way they do. You want your magic system to feel real and organic to the world. That's how fictional worlds come to life! If Miraculous' magic system was well designed, then you could take it and use it to tell a wildly different story set in the same universe, but you can't. Everything about it is designed around making canon's story work and not around making an immersive world that you can almost believe exists.

There are stories that I wouldn't hold to that standard, but they're mostly short form stories. Anything as big and complex as Miraculous needs to have a solid lore system backing it or else you lose all sense of stakes. A great example of this is the Bunnyx problem where you know that she can show up at any time and reset the timeline even if things are happening in her own past, so why do we need to worry about bad things happening? And how are the ladybug and the black cat the most powerful ones when you have nonsense like time travel and the power to create human-like creatures? Early canon lore was decently solid, but the longer the show goes, the more nonsense the lore gets and that makes me sad because I love good lore.

Some Final Thoughts

You may have noticed that I didn't really talk about the sentikid issue in this post. That's because my dislike of the peacock came long before that fun little twist. While sentiAdrien is yet another great reason to dislike the peacock, it didn't need to be a thing for the peacock to be a terrible idea. Take away the sentikids and you still have an incredibly derivative and lore-breaking power set that never should have made it into the show.

I actually completely redesigned the peacock for my own rewrite which I start plotting back when I was first watching season three, long before sentiAdrein was even on my radar. That's not something that I usually do in my fix it stuff. I usually try to stick close to canon and make more minor tweaks, but the peacock is so fundamentally world breaking that I had no choice but to do a total overhaul. This is already an incredibly long post, so I won't go into that here. I'll save it for another ask that's sitting in my inbox. I'll schedule them to post back to back.

For this post, I'll just end by pointing out that switching the peacock to Desire makes it derivative of and arguably better than the pig, too, since the pig can only tease you with what you want. The peacock actually gives it to you. In fact, I'd say that the peacock may be a better pig even without the switch!

You can also argue that the peacock is better than or at least equal to the rooster and the goat because they're also just variations of the butterfly and the ladybug's power. Like there is legitimatly potential in taking those miraculous and doing an AU where each Kwami's power is an aspect of creation because the powers are so awkwardly intertwined. Probably make the peacock the master and all others spawn from that one or something like that.

Anyway, this is why you can't design powers around characters if you want good lore and a large team! You have to start with the powers and go from there! It's why I edit Nino's character to be more of a protector since that's his supposed True Force! Also because I want him to be more narratively important but that is a rant for another day.

#anon ask #ml writing critical #ml writing salt #peacock salt #lore discussion #Has anyone noticed that I try to schedules posts with the same theme together?#Because I 100% do #I have my queue post 2 times a day and sometimes up it to 3 to keep a theme together #I'm nice like that #senti salt

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slasherslittlesimp · 2 months ago

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By My Side (Bucky X Reader)

Part One

The room around you is filled with quick movement and hushed chatter as your fellow scientists work. You're seated at your own station, your gaze lifting every now and then to scan over the room before returning to your research. Hydra has been working on many different projects lately with very little progress. This led to them essentially kidnapping you and forcing you to do their dirty work since you're quite the expert in multiple fields of science. The only reason you obey is because you've seen what they do to those that oppose them and the thought of being subjected to the same fate terrifies you.

Despite this, you still work slowly or make up reasons as to why things won't work or why they're not completed yet. So far they've believed you, only warning you to work harder before leaving you be to harass the other scientists who appear to be there willingly. From what you can tell, none of them have been successful in their research either. You know it won't be long before the higher-ups grow impatient and start taking their anger out on everyone. You can only hope they direct their anger towards the ones that have been here longer rather than you under the excuse that you're still adapting. Unlikely but you're hopeful.

Your mind wanders a bit as you work, your body going through the movements of mixing solutions or writing information without you really thinking about it. Instead, your mind is down the hall in a room you've never actually been in. You've heard muffled screams coming from the room a few different times and you've finally grown curious enough to check it out. Obviously you can't do that in person so you're doing it the only way you can- bilocation and illusions.

For as long as you can remember you've had these abilities and you've done a hell of a job of hiding them to the point that not even Hydra knows of them. With your bilocation, you're able to physically be in two places at once. Of course, you're only able to truly be mentally present in a single location while your 'other self' simply goes on autopilot. Paired with illusions, you're able to completely hide your copy from anyone you don't want seeing it which is what you're doing now.

Your 'copy' is the one wandering around with your mind while your real body is in the lab working. It feels almost like an out of body experience despite you being able to feel everything like normal through your second body. You don't use your ability often out of fear of being discovered but you can't help it this time. Your curiosity is too much to ignore anymore.

You look around the room, taking in the details. There's a rather intimidating chair with straps on it and large metal contraptions along with two spotlights over it. A shiver involuntarily runs down your spine at the sight of it. Looking away, you look over the screens around the room, trying to deduce what exactly everything is used for. You know it's nothing good based off of what you've heard but it's almost impossible to tell what they do.

Unfortunately for you, you're about to get a front row seat to find out.

A swarm of people enter the room- a few guards, some scientists and a man you've never seen before. The man is led to the chair where his arms are strapped down to it. The lights flick on above him, illuminating him in a bright white glow. You hold back a gasp upon seeing him clearly. He's a handsome man with shaggy brown hair and blue eyes that are dull and lifeless. What really catches your attention is the glint of his metal left arm which whirs mechanically as he clenches his fists.

You're completely zoned in on him, ignoring everything else around you. You can't help but to step closer, staring into his eyes as a mouth guard is forced between his lips before the large contraptions come down over his head and face. Everyone else steps back while you only get closer until you're just a few inches away. His brows twitch slightly as he stares through you, making you wonder if he can sense your presence.

You jump slightly with a startled gasp as the machine turns on. Electricity flows through his head making him clench his jaw as he screams in pain, the sound barely being muffled by the guard. Without much thought you step even closer, shifting your illusion to allow him to see and hear you while everyone else in the room remains unaware.

Carefully, you place your hands on his face, thankful that you're wearing protective rubber gloves to keep you from being electrocuted alongside him. He barely reacts to your touch other than his eyes widening slightly as he looks at you, obviously bewildered and confused at your sudden appearance. The electricity stops for a moment leaving him panting heavily as sweat drips down his face from the pain.

"все в порядке." (Everything is fine). Your voice is gentle as you speak to him, trying to calm him down and come across as non-threatening. "у меня есть ты. это будет только больно немного дольше." (I have you. It will only hurt a little longer).

He continues to breathe heavily, staring up at you with an unknown look in his blue eyes. You're sure he doesn't really believe you- you don't really believe yourself since you don't actually know what's going on. However, you want to comfort him in any way you can and right now this is the only thing you can do.

You flinch slightly as the machine is activated again, sending another violent current of electricity through him. Comforting phrases fall from your lips in Russian as you try to soothe him, letting him know he's not alone. It seems to go on longer this time before finally stopping, leaving him limp and breathing heavily. You barely hear the people around you speaking as you focus entirely on him. He nods slightly to whatever is being said and you take that as the sign to finally step away.

He's unstrapped from the chair before he's led out of the room and you follow after them for a little while before deciding you should return to your real body before someone figures something out. It's nearly impossible to focus on your work after what you've witnessed, the images of him in so much pain stuck in your head. You want to know who he is and why they shocked him. You want to know everything about the unknown soldier.

#mcu #mcu x reader #x reader #reader insert #marvel x reader #marvel #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #avengers x reader #the avengers

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zahri-melitor · 1 year ago

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If you want to read comics and you want to test the waters:-

Yes, RCO and clones exist, everyone uses them, I do it weekly too for titles I cannot access any other way (The Warlord) but let me tell you, it’s not the only option, particularly if you want to read reasonably modern comics back issues rather than deliberately suppressed obscure stuff. Plus, don’t you want to look at comics without worrying about getting viruses?

Your Local Library: your library probably has comics as trade paperbacks, and inter library loan will have more. It’s not the most consistent way to find things, but you should definitely look them up, there’s probably something there you’d be interested in reading. Good for having multiple presses, and most take suggestions for their collections, which is a slow but free way to read titles with highly detailed art like Wonder Woman Historia in person.

Digital libraries: my local libraries have ComicsPlus subscriptions, which I can use for free. Now you won’t get DC or Marvel on them, but BOOM!, Dark Horse, Image, Oni Press, Papercutz? All options. A really helpful way to easily sample other presses.

Internet Archive Library: the IA is again going to have an eclectic collection and be difficult to search, but it’s there and it has a lot of stuff and you’re not going to be worrying about computer viruses.

DCUI: if you’re in US, UK, Canada, AU or NZ, you can get a DCUI account. There’s a free trial available of course, and if what you’re interested in trying was published more than 6 months ago, you don’t even need to shell out for Ultra. It costs me less than a Netflix subscription per month, even for Ultra. There’s also a small handful of comics you’ll be able to access for free without ANY subscription - essentially advertising for new runs etc.

MU: just like DCUI, only Marvel, and available more places. Also runs on a subscription model. MU also has the quirk that you can manage digital ownership of individual issues also through their app (if you buy Marvel floppies there is a mechanism to obtain a legal digital copy within ~6 months of the publication date)

Local Comics Shops: you can also…buy floppies and trade paperbacks for yourself. If you really love a story and it’s out in trade, I highly recommend buying it for yourself to have forever. It just sidesteps so many future problems. An LCS is also more likely to have a back catalogue of titles available - if you’re looking for a trade published 8 years ago, they might have it while an ordinary bookshop won’t. If you’re less certain, events like Free Comic Book Day and Batman Day are largely a marketing exercise more than new original material these days, but they’re also a good way to get to handle and own actual comic books if you’ve never done that before.

Other bookshops: if you don’t have a local bookshop with a specialist comics and manga collection (I do) it’s going to be a bit like trying to find comics at your local library: you’ll see lots of stuff with Batman and Joker in the title, and a random selection of anything else. Sometimes you can get surprisingly good deals from them as collectors are less likely to use them to get titles.

Overstock/Remainder Sellers: always worth a look, particularly if you’re trying to pick up titles printed several years ago. My local one has found some absolute gems for me, at a significant discount (I have picked up parts of Dixon’s Nightwing run, Bennett’s Batwoman run, Rowell’s Runaways, some Wonder Woman trades from Rucka and Perez, Gotham Central, I just managed to get the second n52 Blue Beetle trade…)

EBay/second hand shops/Abebooks/Biblio: a decent way to measure what the actual value of a comic title is on the second hand market. Sometimes you can find that the market value is far lower than you expected (Cassie’s Wonder Girl series is remarkably affordable). In other occasions you realise DC is leaving a LOT of money on the table by not reprinting (look up Red Robin trade prices and weep).

Friends: do you know anyone else who likes comics? They may already own stuff they can loan to you! (Once I lent out my Birds of Prey collection to a friend and he returned it with the first two n52 titles added. Still unsure if that was meant to be a kindness or just letting me store them)

#yes yo ho ho is an option #but there’s also multiple free legal methods #and paid legal options #and sometimes I feel people act like managing to get comics anywhere other than RCO is wildly difficult #it’s not! and depending on what you’re looking for it can be very affordable

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