#and tommy (rightly) thinks that’s an insane take actually

[meinenaffenhosen]

I’d like to thank screen rant for indirectly providing a handy dandy block list.

[kechiwrites]

Just read white flag and UUUUUUUGH my heart hurts and my head hurts and my nose is all stopped up. Ugly crying is the only way to go about this.

Then I started thinking, how torn up would ghost have been if Tommy knew nothing about him. And when he asks (as all kids do) reader let years of anger and hate guide her tongue when she tells their son she doesn't know the big scary man but she won't let him hurt them. I just can't rn. I hurt my own damn feelings and I just stopped crying from reading your last fic.

no because let's talk about it!

toxic baby daddy ghost x reader : angst of course, slightly suggestive content, hints at dubious consent, no proofreading, we die like reader's empathy, no gendered language, no use of y/n ever

imagine you swinging open the front door, tommy all knotted up in the legs of your pants, four years old and so insanely bright, smart for his age, all the preschool teachers say so. he's all sweet voice and chubby cheeks and little hands that cling to you just a bit tighter when the big man dressed in black fills your doorway.

the skull mask is firmly in place, like he couldn't be bothered to change into his civvies, and you would laugh if you weren't so sure it would end in heaving, desperate sobs. His eyes burn a hole into your face, hovering over your mouth, your eyes, your nose, your throat; cataloguing what's the same, studying what's different. you hope to god he's committed it all to memory, the disgust in your gaze, the anger that curls your lip, because you'll do your level best to ensure he never gets the chance to see it again.

"who're you?" tommy inquires, when it's clear that the two of you are just going to fucking stand there and immediately ghost's gaze slinks lower, until he's staring at your son, like he can't believe the little boy is right there. your boy, for all his vocal, youthful curiosity, hides under the scrutiny, and his fear spurs you into action. you scoop him up, a task that gets harder by the day, and heft him onto your hip.

"he's no one, sweetie." you slam the door closed with your free hand and thank god he doesn't think to wedge his foot in before it shuts completely. later, you think, vindictively, victoriously; 'i did that, that defeated look in his eye', after all, if he wanted tommy to know him, to love him, then maybe he should've let you take a picture of his face as is, given you something to show your kid at the very least when he inevitably asked where the fuck he came from. better yet, maybe he shouldn't have poured acid all over the relationship you'd once had. maybe he should've stuck around instead of leaving you to fend for your goddamn self. when you tuck tommy in, he asks after "the man" again, the ghoul newly haunting your neighbourhood. his voice is subdued, sleepy and yet somehow still shaky with fear.

"i would never let him hurt you, baby." you whisper, and his grateful, baby-toothed smile solidifies a whisper of a thought into a full blown plan. by the next morning, half of your bedroom is packed up, and when tommy stirs awake, you pitch a "road trip to grandma's". 14 hours away will just have to be far enough, for now anyway. this didn't actually happen, of course. you were too shellshocked to give ghost what he oh so rightly deserved. you'd gaped and gawked and stepped to the side when he inclined his head like he wanted to come in because even after four lonely years, the two of you still sustain a language of sounds and gestures and touches so soft the memory of them nearly ceased to exist after they were done. he stuck around for hours, introducing himself to tommy, shaking your baby's hand in a sterile show of his own discomfort, hunkering down in your living room while you guided tommy through your night time routine. once your son was snug in his bed, snoring softly, ghost used your shock to intrude on your personal space, used your hesitation to touch you, first gentle, then harder. until you cede to familiar sensation.

teehee!

baby blue masterlist

[mobius-prime]

205. Sonic the Hedgehog #137

Robo-Dyne Systems

Writer: Romy Chacon Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

The Freedom Fighters have set out to go rescue Tommy from New Megaopolis. Sally expresses worry that she didn't tell her father they were coming on this mission, while Sonic is surprised that Sally has elected to come along at all given her anger with him for wanting to go on missions. She says that since Tommy is a childhood friend of hers as well she wants to be there to rescue him, and this is good enough for Sonic, who is just happy to have a hint of the old Sally back.

Nicole calculates a route through the buildings to the factory, and the team makes their way there, realizing that this is specifically a factory to produce lifelike robots when they see a number of said robots without their covering of skin and fur. Apparently Eggman is unaware that Robotnik tried this once before, and it was an abject failure. They make their way deeper in, and are shocked by what they see there.

They're discovered by a swatbot patrol, and Sonic leaps into action to fight while Rotor puts together a plan to electrocute the floor, thereby taking out all the swatbots. Sally swoops in to grab Sonic off the floor before he's caught in it, and makes a weird quip about hoping he's not embarrassed about being saved by a girl, which seems totally out of place considering their history. I mean, when has Sonic's personality ever included even a hint of an opinion of guys being better than girls? He has the utmost respect for Sally and Bunnie as valuable members of the team, and regularly encourages everyone around him regardless of gender. The only place I can even think of her getting this idea is during her year without Sonic, since her parents and the monarchy in general seem to be a bit more stuck in traditional gender roles. But regardless, Sonic and Sally get separated from the others, and Sally decides to trust Bunnie, Antoine, and Rotor to handle blowing the facility up while she and Sonic focus on saving Tommy. However, at the same time, Rotor finds himself and his friends being approached by… Sonic and Sally, who act like they've been searching all over for them. Rotor becomes suspicious when he notices Nicole isn't strapped to Sally's hip like usual…

The three take out the imposter Sally and Sonic, while the real ones have a happy reunion with Tommy, and both teams make their way to the facility's rooftop once the bombs are in place. They're tailed by a huge swatbot force, and have no way to get back to Tails and the Freedom Fighter Special, but suddenly…

The bombs go off as they zoom away to safety, and Sonic cheekily tries to pull a "See, being on missions isn't so bad!" on Sally. She huffs and reminds him that they still have to find a way to explain this to her father, which he admits he forgot. Ultimately, it still seems like she's upset with him, but they're no longer as cold as they were after the party when she slapped him, so that's good at least.

Mobius 25 Years Later: Trouble in Paradise

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

This story is a bit weird. Essentially, we follow both Sonic and Sally, and Knuckles and Julie-Su, through their mornings on the day of their families' get-together. Each page is divided in two from top to bottom, with Sonic's side of things on the left side, and Knuckles' on the right. It's an interesting and creative idea in theory, but in practice it doesn't work very well, as the conversations between both sides are very different and the action (well, "action") doesn't flow well if you try to read it page by page. It's actually better to read each side in isolation, focusing first on the left then the right. I'll just explain the conflict of each side on their own, and then show a page that manages to exemplify the conflict of both sides at once.

Sonic is reluctant to go on the trip because apparently he and Knuckles had some big fight last year that they're both still mad about, but Sally forces him to go along anyway. On the way there he's quiet, and Sally asks him what's wrong, and he decides this is the perfect time to voice his misgivings about being king. I reiterate - he's been king for over fifteen years now, even started a family in that time and been an active force in raising a future prince and princess, and never once given any sign of his unhappiness, and now suddenly he's deciding to make it known that he doesn't like his position. Sally rightly points out that he should have known what he was getting into when he married her, and while that explanation makes sense for this timeline, it's weak when you compare it to what we've actually seen in the comic's main plot. Present Sally has repeatedly rejected the idea of being her father's successor in the future, and though I can see her stepping up out of duty if necessary, it's clear that in the end, she doesn't actually want to be queen. Sonic meanwhile, as he points out, thrives on adventure and freedom, and isn't much of a leader in broad terms, making him a poor fit for king. I honestly can't see the Sonic we know putting his relationship with Sally over his own freedom. I really think that despite his deep love for her, if it came down to a choice between being railroaded into being a king, and being able to keep his freedom to go on adventures and do whatever he wants, he'd choose the latter. It just seems bizarrely out of character for him to somehow sulk his way through fifteen years of kinghood just to start complaining about it out of nowhere on the way to a dinner party with his now-apparent enemy.

Oh, speaking of which! On Knuckles' side of things, he finds himself being awoken by a worried Julie-Su, who is frustrated that he won't talk to her lately (gee, can you notice a pattern here? Every married couple in this timeline seems to have a weirdly unhealthy relationship with each other and it sucks). He evades her questions as they get ready in the morning, but eventually confirms that he's not at all pleased about Sonic coming over. He's also angry about whatever it is that happened last year, but turns out this isn't even what Julie-Su is worried about. She had already expected him to be hostile to Sonic, but she still feels like he's keeping something from her, so he tells her about Rotor's suspicions about the weather. He doesn't yet have enough information to tell her more about what's going on, but she merely reassures him that they'll get through it "as a family," and they head downstairs with Lara-Su and Abby to greet the royal family, who have just arrived at the door. And now, the promised example page:

You see how weird and disjointed it is to follow? Eh, whatever. The only important things we even learn in this issue are that Sonic is unhappy as king (shocker there), and that something happened between him and Knuckles a year ago that's made them hate each other, although there still seems to be something more to their enmity than we've been told. All together, this arc is dragging on insanely slow so far. I could literally condense everything we've seen into two, maybe three stories by cutting a lot of the unnecessary chatter and constant repetition of plot points we've already heard several times over. Like, yes, we get it Penders, the weather is bad. We already heard that the first forty-seven times you told us. *sigh*

One Part Ooh-La-La, and Two Parts Treachery!

Writer: Romy Chacon Pencils: Al Bigley Colors: Jason Jensen

So we've established that Antoine has had some strange changes in his personality while Sonic was away in space - namely, that he has become cold and distant, caring more about war than his friends, even Bunnie. One day, he's planning an acceptance speech for his promotion to escort for the king and queen while they're away from Knothole when he accidentally stumbles upon a note Bunnie had written him some time ago - all the way back when Robotnik had first been defeated, in fact. Antoine had received a letter from someone and was reading it when Bunnie came into the room, startling him. With an obvious guilty conscience, he tried to pretend like nothing was wrong, even fleeing the room and trying to hide in the forest, but when Bunnie caught him easily she made him explain what was the matter. He admitted that when he was a kid, there was a girl he had a crush on, Tatiana, and he did everything he could to impress her, including bragging about his exploits as a Freedom Fighter.

The letter he was trying to hide from Bunnie was, of course, from Tatiana, who had by now grown up and was visiting Knothole, wanting to see him now that they were older. Of course, at that exact moment Tatiana burst from the bushes and happily embraced Antoine, flirting heavily and implying she'd like to "catch up" over by the lake. Antoine greeted her graciously, but as Bunnie began to get jealous he rejected Tatiana entirely, pointedly putting his arm around Bunnie and mentioning that he was about to go on a walk with his girlfriend, leaving a shocked Tatiana behind. Once they were out of earshot, Antoine admitted to Bunnie that after Tatiana broke his heart before, he'd become scared of falling in love - until Bunnie came along and showed him what real love was like. This seems to be a bit at odds with what we saw before in the comic, considering he had an obvious crush on Sally for a while there - but regardless, Bunnie made him happy, and that moment was the first time he said he loved her. Aww, they're so sweet together! And thus, we come back to the present, where Antoine is rereading Bunnie's old note to him.

Ouch.