#anyway i’m finally watching whiplash and you know what… i get it now

[102leclerc]

i’ve watched 6 films in the past like 28 hours, i’ve watched more films this month alone than i did all summer, am i… am i becoming a film bro???

[willowsnook]

an experiment pt. 4

lando norris x reporter!reader

a/n: this is the final part friends. hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing this. thank you for all the kind words

tags: @sarx164 @wildflowerrsszz, @jaematthews15, @opastries81 @armystay89 @hadesnumber1daughter @dying-inside-but-its-classy@chlmtfilms@freyathehuntress @ashley-k@charlesgirl16@widow-cevans@cmleitora@rawr-123s-stuff@majapapaya4@fullmugwolffish @330bpm-whiplash @prudyhoo

pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3

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You sat in complete silence for five minutes. 

That fucking asshole. 

A wave of rage fueled you as you bolted up and to your bedroom, ripping out your suitcase from underneath the bed. Muttering under your breath about that man having the audacity to hang up, you started pulling clothes out of your drawers and shoving them into the bag. 

Once that was done you got on your laptop to find the next flight to Monaco. The prices made you want to throw up but in your pissed off state, you didn’t care. This is why credit cards exist, right?

13 hour redeye. Godspeed. 

—-----------------------

It was 4:30 in the morning when Lando woke up to someone pounding on his door. What the fuck? He thought before getting out of the bed, rubbing his eyes as he made it to the door. 

To say he was shocked when he saw you standing there was an understatement. 

“I can’t believe you hung up the phone on me,” you yelled at him angrily in greeting, moving past him to set your bag down. 

“What are you doing here?” He asked sleepily, trying to figure out if this was a dream or reality. 

“I’m here to fight you,” you told him, crossing your arms. 

“You want to fight me?” He asked, confusion on his face. “Can we do that later? It’s five in the morning.” 

You wanted to argue back with him but a yawn escaped your mouth and he gave you a knowing look. 

“Fine, I didn’t really sleep on the plane anyways,” you admitted. “Too busy figuring out what to yell at you.” 

He chuckled before beckoning you to follow him down the hall, you stopped outside of his room. 

“Do you not have a guest room?” You asked and he smirked at you. 

“I do but right now it’s a storage unit for a bunch of racing stuff, so this will have to do,” he said. 

“Can’t you sleep on the couch or something?” You complained and he rolled his eyes. 

“Oh so you confess your love to me on the phone but are getting cold feet now?” He mocked. 

“I didn’t confess my love, I just said that I maybe missed you,” you grumbled, slipping off your shoes. Lando watched as you walked over to his dresser, digging around until you found one of his bigger t-shirts to change into. 

“No cuddling,” you warned as you got into the bed, pulling the covers all around you. Lando respected your statement, sticking to his side of the bed as you drifted off. 

You startled awake to the sound of someone else pounding on the door. Lando had shifted over during your nap, his arms wrapped tightly around you. 

“You’re joking,” he mumbled into your neck. You squirmed to get out of his hold. 

“I told you no cuddling,” you grumbled back at him. You started to throw another insult at him but he jerked your chin towards him, pressing his lips harshly against yours before getting up. 

“I don’t care,” he said. Catching your breath, you heard him greet whoever was at the door, the spanish accent you would recognize from anywhere. 

Carlos was in the kitchen talking to Lando as you entered, his eyes widened at the sight of you, especially in the very minimal clothing. 

“Y/n!” He exclaimed, pulling you into a hug. “I see Lando finally came to his senses.” 

“No, she just showed up at my door this morning,” Lando said, annoyed. Carlos smirked at his friend before turning to you. 

“Seems like it was a nice reunion,” he teased, eyeing you up and down. 

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” you chastised. “We just took a nap, we have a big fight between us on the schedule today.” 

“Well it’ll have to wait because Lando and I are doing a Quadrant shoot in an hour,” Carlos said. 

“Okay,” you said. “I’ll just catch up on work here.”

Lando shook his head, “if you think I’m letting you out of my sight again, you’re very mistaken. You are coming with us.”

You started to argue but the glare he sent your direction shut you up. Carlos waited as you both got ready and then you were off. Lando drove to the sight, his hand gripping your thigh tightly while Carlos smiled to himself in the back. Just happy his friends were together and hadn’t killed one another yet. 

Everyone was already there when you arrived and you let Lando drag you along to where Max was with the cameras. 

“Y/n,” he greeted, surprised. “Good to see you.” 

“You too,” you said, catching the smirk he sent Lando’s way. Lando and Carlos were whisked away to shoot and you hung out with Max in the meantime. 

“Lando didn’t tell me you were coming to Monaco,” Max said. 

“I didn’t tell him I was coming,” you told him and he nodded. 

“That would explain why he was still all pissy yesterday. Been that way honestly since you kicked him out of Austin.” 

“I didn’t kick him out of Austin,” you grumbled but Max’s face made you sigh. “Okay fine maybe I did, but I made a mistake.”

“Does he know that’s how you feel?” Max asked. 

“Oh yeah he does, I told him and then he hung up on me immediately,” you said and Max let out a sharp laugh. 

Max laughed, shaking his head. "Classic Lando. He's been moping for months, and when you finally reach out, he panics and hangs up. No wonder you flew all the way here."

You sighed, watching Lando pose for photos with Carlos. "I don't know what I was thinking, honestly. We still have so much to figure out."

Max nudged your shoulder. "Hey, the fact that you're both here, willing to try, that's a good start. Just... talk to each other, yeah? No more running away or hanging up phones."

You nodded, offering him a small smile. "Thanks, Max. When did you get so wise?"

He grinned. "I've always been wise. You lot just never listen to me."

As the shoot wrapped up, Lando made his way back over to you, his eyes darting between you and Max, a feeling of jealousy creep up his spine at the way you were laughing with his best friend. 

Max was explaining a new project they were working on when you felt two arms wrap around your waist and a chin settle on your shoulder. 

“All done?” You asked him softly. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “Ready to go?” 

—------------------------

You waited for Lando as he showered, twiddling your thumbs anxiously knowing that the conversation you’d been avoiding was looming. 

When he finally emerged, damp curls falling messily over his forehead, gray sweatpants hanging low on his hips, you had to force yourself to focus. He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching you with an unreadable expression.

“So,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, “are we actually going to talk, or did you just fly all the way here to yell at me some more?”

Your jaw clenched. “Oh, don’t worry. We’re talking. But I make no promises about the yelling.”

Lando scoffed, dropping the towel onto a chair. “Right. Because it’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

You shot up from your seat. “You hung up on me, Lando! After everything—after months of silence—you didn’t even have the decency to listen to me!”

His nostrils flared. “And what was I supposed to do, huh? Just pretend like it didn’t rip me apart when you pushed me away? That I was just waiting for you to decide I was worth calling?”

“I never said you weren’t worth it!” you snapped. “I was scared, okay? I panicked! But at least I’m here, trying! You—” You jabbed a finger into his chest. “You just ran away like a coward!”

Lando grabbed your wrist, his grip firm but not rough. “Coward? Are you serious? You were the one who shut me out, Y/n! I gave you everything, and you threw it away like it didn’t mean anything!”

“Oh, fuck off with that,” you snapped, yanking your hand free. “You don’t get to act like the victim here. I was scared, yes, but you didn’t fight for me either! You just let me go and then acted like I never existed!”

His jaw clenched. “Because I didn’t know what the hell you wanted! One second, we were good, and the next, you were pushing me out like I was nothing.”

“That’s bullshit,” you seethed. “You knew how I felt about you, and instead of trying to talk to me, you let your ego get in the way.”

Lando let out a sharp laugh, running a hand through his hair. “My ego? Jesus Christ, Y/n, you really think this was about my ego?”

“What else would it be about?” you shot back.

His hands balled into fists at his sides. “It was about the fact that I was falling in love with you, and you just—” He exhaled harshly. “You shut down when things got hard. You didn’t trust me enough to stay.”

Your breath hitched, the words slicing through your anger like a knife.

Lando’s chest rose and fell heavily, the weight of what he’d just said hanging between you. You swallowed, hands trembling as you clenched them at your sides.

“And what about you?” you whispered. “You say I didn’t trust you, but you didn’t fight for me either. You let me walk away.”

Lando’s eyes darkened. “Because I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

Silence.

You both stood there, breathing hard, staring at each other like two opposing forces in an inevitable collision.

Lando was the first to move. One step forward. Then another. Until he was close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off him.

“They told me I could have the F1 assignment if I wanted it,” you whispered. 

His hands hovered near your arms, uncertain. “And do you?” he asked, voice low, rough.

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “If you still want me to.”

A beat of hesitation.

And then he reached for you.

You didn’t stop him. Didn’t push him away. His lips crashed onto yours, desperate, angry, needing. You matched his intensity, fingers curling into his damp curls, pulling him closer as if you could make up for all the lost time in one kiss.

When you finally pulled away, foreheads pressed together, you exhaled shakily.

“No more running,” you murmured.

Lando nodded. “No more hanging up.”

You cracked a small smile. “And no more being a dick?”

He chuckled, pressing another quick kiss to your lips. “No promises.”

[dilemmaontwolegs]

Not A Verstappen: Sibling Rivalry {2}

Pairing: F1 drivers (platonic) x fem!reader Summary: Alcohol leads to some bad decisions and a big fight threatens to tear the family apart. Warnings: 18+ only, lots of bad language, protective big brother, alcohol, daddy issues, angst WC: 2.9k F1 Masterlist NAV: Sibling Rivalry One || Two || Three NAV: Gridlocked One || Two || Three

Round Twelve - Belgium 2022 A sponged microphone was shoved in your face and you barely stopped yourself from smacking it away out of reflex, but you did startle back a bit before recovering.

“You look a little wound up, Spitfire,” Lando commented with a laugh. “Ready to call a truce.”

“You wish, Norris. You may have won the battle but I’m going to win the war.”

The microphone picked up the exchange and the reporter cast a glance between the two of you. “Is this battling on the track?”

“With his tractor? No way,” you laughed, nudging Lando with your elbow and a smile to ease the blow. “Someone thought it would be funny to wake me up with a fire extinguisher, which I am totally blaming on Charles because I know you couldn’t come up with that on your own.”

“Hey!” Lando whined with a pout. “I…can’t come up with a lie right now.”

“That’s what I thought. Charles, watch your back and you both better sleep with one eye open.” You turned your attention back to the reporter and signalled with your hand for them to do their thing while you dutifully did yours for yet another Media Day.

“We know you and Max have a, some would say, unhealthy amount of competitiveness on the track but outside of that you are very protective of each other…so, how has he reacted to finding out you’re on the dating app Raya?”

You winced at the question and saw the guys get whiplash with how fast their heads turned your way. All along the line the question echoed. Lando, Pierre, Charles, Daniel and finally Max, ten beady eyes staring at you with a mixed array of emotions.

“What? You all get to date, why can’t I?” you asked defensively as you crossed your arms. “Gotta find something to do for summer break.”

“Hiking in the Alps,” Charles offered.

“Or sunbathing in the Maldives,” Pierre suggested.

“Please never refer to dating someone as ‘something to do’,” Max huffed. “Or better yet, never mention dating at all. Adopt some cats.”

You looked at Lando and quirked an eyebrow. “Do you have anything to add? Since everyone else seems to think they actually have a say in what I do.”

His eyes darted around the guys who were expecting him to pitch in but all he had was a squeaky and unsure, “No?” 

“And that’s why you’re my favourite.”

“Why do you want to date anyway?” Daniel asked, and you swore there was more than just curiosity in his tone.

“You guys have girlfriends, and I want one too.”

“A girlfriend?” he asked with far too much enthusiasm.

“Maybe,” you replied with a wink. “I’m not ruling out 50% of the dating pool.”

“So how have you been finding the app,” the reporter asked, “any connections made?”

You huffed and shook your head, a few sighs of relief sounding down the line but you didn’t see who they came from. One was definitely Max.

“I’m an athlete. I train and I sweat so the last thing I want to do when I get home is do the laundry or cook a healthy meal. But my experience so far is that men think it’s the woman’s job to do that, so I need a guy that’s up for sharing responsibility. Is that too much to ask?”

“I’d cook for you!” A man called from the crowd and you sat up straighter trying to see where it came from. 

“What about laundry?” you fired back.

“Security,” Max called with a finger pointed to the good looking man who put his thumbs up in the air. 

“Ignore him. What’s your name?” you asked as you pulled out your phone. It only took ten seconds to find Martin’s social media accounts and you rolled your eyes in annoyance. “This is why I have trust issues. I hope your girlfriend sees this and dumps you.”

Three days later You had failed to finish the GP after an embarrassing pitstop left one of your wheels rolling down the lane. The replay footage kept popping up wherever you went, even at the restaurant before the afterparty, and Max had the audacity to laugh. “Nice trike, zusje.”

“Shut up and get me another drink,” you grumbled as you drowned your sorrows.

He soon returned with two gin and tonics and huffed as you took them both. “I’m not carrying you back to the hotel if you pass out,” he warned before going and getting another drink for himself.

“That’s fine, I can always call my new friend, Martin,” you said with a grimace as he took your phone off the table and shoved it in his pocket. “Bonnie Tyler was onto something. Where have all the good men gone?”

“They aren’t at the bottom of your glass,” Max said as you tipped the drink back. “So you can stop looking there.”

“You’re right. I’ll see you later, bro.” 

“Where are you going?” he asked as he watched you push your chair back and head for the door.

“Taking a page out of P’s favourite book,” you said over your shoulder.

Christian sat back in his chair as you left and asked Max, “What’s P’s favourite book?”

“We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.” Max sighed and rubbed his temples, making Christian laugh with a shake of his head. 

“Should I send someone to keep an eye on her?” 

“It’s fine, we have family share so I can see her location-fuck! I have her phone!” Max leapt from the table and rushed out of the restaurant. He looked up and down the busy street but he couldn’t see you anywhere and combed a hand through his hair, wondering what he should do.

He hardly used his social media accounts, leaving it to his PA to monitor that side of things, but this would be the exception. Opening twitter, he put out the message asking that if anyone spots you to send him the location. Almost immediately he got bombarded with replies of concern and his anxiety spiked when he realised he would waste his night with the time it would take to go through and find any messages that were actually helpful.

A familiar face spotted you on the dancefloor of the club you found yourself in and you grinned when he made his way through the crowd to you. 

“Dance with me, Lando,” you shouted over the music.

“Your brother’s looking for you,” he replied, leaning closer so you could hear him. 

“Please don’t tell him where I am.” You could already feel your mood deflating and he bit his lip as he was torn between loyalties. 

“Okay, I won’t,” Lando promised, earning a bright smile that made him feel better. “But I’ll let him know you’re with me so he can stop freaking out.”

You didn’t bother to correct him, because Max would never stop worrying. He took his role as older brother too seriously, something you often found stifling since you had grown up without it and still struggled to accept it.

“I’m getting a drink, do you want one?” you asked as while he was busy on his phone, messaging Max.

“Uh, yeah, rum and coke, please.”

You slipped away to the bar, stumbling more than you would like to admit, and leaned against the bar top as you waited for some service. You hadn’t been there for more than a minute when an arm draped over your shoulders and you spotted the Forza Ferrari bracelet on the wrist.

“You have got twitter going crazy, chérie,” Charles said with a chuckle. “There’s quite a few people out hunting for you.”

“And I found her first,” Lando said as he brushed the arm off your shoulder and stood at your other side.

“Well,” you chuffed as you draped your arms over their shoulders and pulled them closer, “I’m on a hunt of my own and I could do with some help. A girl has needs and you two are going to be my wingmen.”

They both looked at each other and you could see the mental conversation they were having, each long passing second leading you to pull back. “No, don’t call Max. Lando, you promised.”

“We can’t just let you go off with some random,” Charles said as he caught your hand before you could escape the bar, “what if they are a serial killer?”

You tugged your hand back angrily and struggled to keep your balance when you were suddenly freed. “If I were a guy we wouldn’t be having this argument. Why can’t I have fun too?”

“We just want to keep you safe.”

“Safe?” you laughed bitterly and held your hand out. “Fine, give me a condom, I know you carry them around in your wallet.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Lando argued as he pushed your hand away. “You’re not sleeping with a stranger.”

“Is that you offering then?” You looked between Charles and Lando, watching their necks turn pink as you crossed your arms. “That's what I thought. I’m going to another bar, this one’s full of assholes. Hasta luego, pendejos.”

“Great, she’s been hanging out with Carlos,” Charles grumbled as you walked away.

“He’s better company than you two,” you shouted over your shoulder before you hit the exit. 

Cold air rushed into your lungs and you realised two things. One; you should have worn more clothes, and two; you were sobering up. There was only one way to solve both problems so you marched your way down the street to find another bar.

Your head was pounding and your stomach turned when you woke up to the first day of summer break. The hotel room was elegant and luxurious, but it wasn’t yours and you didn’t know how you had come to get here.

“Coffee?”

“Oh, thank fuck,” you sighed with relief as Lando walked into the bedroom with two cups in his hands. “Where’s my clothes? Did we have sex? Wait, no, you wouldn’t cheat and I’d definitely remember that.”

“They’re in the dryer, and no we didn’t have sex,” he said as he handed you one of the cups. “You were soaked when we found you.”

You frowned as you tried to remember what happened but came up blank. “We?”

“You went for a swim in the fountain of love in the city centre. It was a ‘part of your hunt’, apparently. Charles helped me get you back here before anyone called the police.”

“Oh, great,” you muttered as you pulled the sheets higher. “Hey, you’re doing my laundry. It’s a shame you’re not single. Then again, you can’t cook for shit.”

“Be glad you’re single. The grass isn’t always greener on this side of the fence,” he said with a sigh.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“I’d rather not.” Lando suddenly looked guilty as he took the half drunk coffee back and placed it on the side table. “I should probably warn you, I called Max after you took off from us last night.”

“I was with you and Charles?” Your brows pinched together as you started to recall being angry at them before embarrassment followed. “Shit, I called you assholes.”

“It’s fine, but the only reason we found you again was because of some clips on Instagram.”

You could imagine another lashing from the Red Bull PR, it wasn’t the first time you were involved in drunk misadventures and it was caught on camera. Usually it was some dare or competition involving Max where neither of you wanted to admit defeat and things just got out of control. He’d probably enjoy hearing you get ripped a new one by Christian while he got a pat on the head for being the golden child.

“What did I do this time?” you asked, knowing it was easier to just rip the bandaid off.

“It isn’t what you did,” he said with a wince. “It’s what you said.”

“Well?” you prompted when he shifted awkwardly on his feet.

“You said Charles’ listens to Nickelback.”

Your head fell back with a laugh and the sheet fell down as you let go of the cotton to clutch your nauseous stomach. “Well at least I wasn’t spouting off a bunch of bullshit.”

“And that there were three drivers you would date if you got the chance.”

“Ah, well…” you cleared your throat and scrunched the bedding into your hands, ignoring the way his eyes trailed over your bra that was on display. “That is a lie. There’s only two. It’s just my luck they are both in relationships. Did I really use the word date?”

“You said fuck but the meaning was there.”

You pulled your knees up to your chest and rested your chin on them with a heavy sigh. “I’m a mess. I’m surprised you didn’t try to prank me while you had the chance. Or is there a dick in permanent marker on my face?”

“You wouldn’t have been coherent enough to appreciate it,” Lando teased as he took a seat at the edge of the bed. “I told you this last night and I know you’re lonely, but you're looking for love in all the wrong places. You’re not going to find someone who will treat you right in a shitty nightclub when you’re too drunk to even give consent.”

Tears of embarrassment stung your eyes and you swallowed the lump in your throat before climbing off the bed and wrapping the sheet around you. “Thanks for the concern, but I’m not going to take dating advice from the guy who clearly isn’t happy in his own relationship.”

There would be no way to erase the image of how hurt he was by the words so you turned your back and left the room, grabbing your damp dress from the dryer and pulling it on. Thankfully your shoes were beside the door so you swiped them up as you left, the heels dangling from your fingers as you pushed through the sickening feeling and left the hotel to break into a run.

People stared in the street, some even pulled out their phones when they recognised you but there would be no autographs. You focused on your breathing, focused on the cold slap of your bare feet on the pavement, focused on anything but the look in Lando’s eyes.

“Where the fuck were you!” Max shouted as you reached your room and found him already there, rising from one of the armchairs like the godfather. “I have been worried sick.”

“Jesus, you sound like Jos when you shout. Relax before you have a heart attack and leave me with no competition.”

“You’re more likely to lose your seat the way you’re going, and leave me without any competition.”

“Dream on, I just had a moment.”

Max cocked an eyebrow up and crossed his arms. “Yeah, and what was last weekend and the one before that?”

You sucked your teeth at the reminder and dropped your shoes to the floor. “That wasn’t my fault, I didn’t start the prank war. And I really didn’t think the smoke bomb would set off all of the sprinklers, just the one in Charles’ room. Plus, I paid for the damages and repairs.”

“Throwing money around doesn’t mean you can act like a spoiled brat,” he said as he fell back into the armchair. 

“I am not a spoiled brat,” you growled. “I didn’t grow up with money like you and Vicky. I was the dirty little secret, just a bi-product of Jos' affair, that had to scrounge around for second hand parts just so I could have a working kart. So, fuck you, I’m allowed to enjoy the money I have earned.”

“And what about your mother? Do you think she doesn’t see those videos going viral of you drunk out of your mind, letting some klootzak take body shots off you? Does that make her proud?”

Fire burned deep in your gut as you felt attacked from all sides and the angry words spilled over before you could stop them, “I hate you.” Your feet stomped across the carpet to swipe your phone up from beside your stunned brother before you grabbed your backpack from the race which still had your passport and wallet inside. "I never needed a big brother, so you can stop fucking trying and just leave me alone."

“Where are you going?” he asked as he watched you head to the door. “The plane doesn’t leave until this afternoon.”

“Fuck you and fuck your plane. I’ll find my own way home.”

There was only one person you knew you could always count on, the first teammate you had when you made it into F1, and you were already dialling his number as you walked out of the hotel in tears.

“Pierre,” you sobbed as he answered. “I need you.”

Click here for part three.

[peachhcs]

going to worlds

hughes!sister x will smith au (samy + will)

with worlds coming up, tensions get high in the hughes’ household between luke and samy.

2k words

so this is actually more samy x luke more than samy x will but here’s the sibling angst i mentioned a few days ago! i feel like we don’t see a lot of samy’s relationship with her brothers so i wanna try and write that more but i will be writing more about worlds between will and samy as it plays out! :))

au masterlist

“no, absolutely not,” luke immediately shook his head as he walked out of the kitchen. samy was hot on his tail as she followed him into the living room, watching as he plopped himself onto the couch, remote in hand. 

“why not? it’s not like i’m gonna be bothering you,” the younger hughes argued, hanging herself over the couch so she was right in her brother’s face. 

the boy pushed her away, “but it will be a bother when i have to look after you the entire month there. i’m not doing that shit. i’m not gonna be some babysitter at my own hockey tournament,” luke was being harsh which samy sort of expected, but not this bad.

“i’m 19 years old. you don’t need to look after me,” the girl fired back. 

“that’s not what mom and dad will say. plus, i kind of do because we’re in a fucking foreign country and i’m not that stupid to let you wander around czechia by yourself,” luke shot back even harder. a frustrated groan escaped samy’s lips. this brother was supposed to be easier than her other two. 

“i won’t be by myself. plus, i went to sweden and mom and dad were fine,” samy mumbled sheepishly. 

“what do you think you’re gonna do when we’re at practice almost the whole day? sit in the hotel? that’s gonna get boring real quick,” the curly-brunette shook his head, already very over the conversation and disregarding what his sister said.

“you’re being such a brat. i’m not 12 years old anymore, luke. i can take care of myself, you know. you’re not even 21 yet so right now it’s a one year age difference.” 

“why do you even wanna go? don’t you have your own shit to do instead of follow me to czechia,” the middle hughes rolled his eyes. although, his words hit a nerve. 

samy drew back off the couch, a frown settling onto her lips. sure, her and luke had their fair share of fights and arguments, but for some reason, his words hurt even more than any of those combined. 

“jesus, when did you turn into such an asshole?” now her words hit luke’s nerve this time. the older boy whipped around so hard samy swore he gave himself whiplash. his lips were set in a straight line along with his eyebrows pinched together. 

“who are you calling an asshole right now? you’re the one who needs to grow up right now,” the boy shot back quite harshly. 

“so me going to every single one of your ntdp games, home games at umich mean nothing to you? you just think i’m following you around?” the girl frowned, her hurt showing more than she anticipated as her voice wavered. 

“i- i..that’s not what i meant, sam. i just..it’s gonna be a bother and you just wanna go to make out with your boyfriend anyway,” luke defended himself, but his words didn’t sound any better than before. 

those words hurt samy a lot more than a few minutes ago. luke never called her sam ever. the siblings stared at one another, the silence engulfing them while luke awaited a response. “so that’s what you think? you’ve just forgotten that will’s still my best friend and i’ve been supporting him since we were kids along with you? you just think i wanna go to be some bother to you and have sex with my boyfriend?” samy’s voice finally rose to the point where they both knew she was angry. 

“i mean..am i wrong?” the wrong responses kept falling from the middle hughes’ mouth. 

“yes! you are wrong, luke! haven’t you and will always wanted to play on the same team together since we were kids but never could because you weren’t ever in the same age group? and now that it’s finally happening, i can’t go and support my brother and best friend who are playing for the same team because all you think is that i’m going to have sex with him all the time and be some fucking bother. i only asked you because i knew mom and dad would only let me go if you said yes and i thought you would because you’d want your sister there cheering you on like i have been for your entire life. maybe this whole fame thing really did get to your head,” samy stormed off before luke could even respond. her heavy footsteps carried all the way up the stairs until the boy heard her bedroom door slam shut. 

“woah, someone’s mad..” jack came out from the downstairs bedroom. his hair looked absolutely insane like he’d just woken up despite it being 2 in the afternoon. 

“i don’t know what’s up with her,” luke rolled his eyes, settling back into the couch like nothing happened. 

“she’s got a point, you know. you were kind of being an asshole,” jack shrugged as he wandered into the kitchen. 

“oh come on, not you too. if she goes, i’m just gonna have to look after her!” luke exclaimed, head falling back onto the couch in frustration. 

“she’s not some kid anymore, moosey. she’s 19. you’re not even 21. she can handle herself. she did in sweden,”  jack stuck up for their little sister. 

“that was different because everyone was there already. this isn’t the sam, jack. mom and dad will put me on babysitter duty because they aren’t there,” the younger brother continued his defense. 

“i don’t think it would be babysitting. more like making sure she’s okay. checking in? plus, i doubt she’ll even be in the hotel room that much anyway. she’ll wanna hang with smitty and leno,” jack started making himself a sandwich with the little ingredients in the fridge. apparently, ellen and jim hardly grocery shopped when they didn’t have four kids in one house anymore. 

“yeah and then that will lead to them having sex and then that becomes a whole thing,” luke rambled on. 

“is this really about not wanting samy there or is it about you thinking she’s taking away your moment if she’s there?” the older hughes brother proposed a new idea. he always saw through to his siblings hidden emotions they were trying to conceal. a beat of silence passed between the brothers and jack took the silence as his answer. he stopped making his sandwich for a moment to find a seat on the couch beside his brother. luke’s gaze stuck to the ground. 

“come on, rusty. talk to me,” jack nudged his brother’s knee. 

“it just feels like i never get to hang out with will because samy’s always there. or..he chooses her instead of hanging with us nowadays. being able to play on team usa together has been our dream since we were kids. i love that samy’s happy and so is will..i just..i really hoped this could be a just us thing. i don’t know. sounds selfish, i know,” the younger boy mumbled almost ashamed. 

“it’s not selfish, lukey. i get it. i’m still getting used to their whole dating thing too here and there. it is weird seeing one of your close friends date your sister,” jack sympathized. “i’m sure if you talked to samy she’ll understand. she’s always been your #1 supporter, luke. i know she’s not trying to come with you to wedge her way in between you guys. maybe set some boundaries?” 

“maybe i just feel so disconnected because i went to college and then was hardly ever around. feels like i don’t even know her sometimes anymore or will, you know? he used to be attached to our hips as kids and now..it’s just..not the same,” the curly-haired boy’s voiced faded off. a frown appeared on jack’s lips, rubbing his brother’s arm in a soothing manner. 

“talk to her, lukey. this can be your chance to reconnect with both of them the month you’re there,” the older boy encouraged. 

luke finally took to his words, agreeing as he got up and shuffled upstairs to hopefully reconcile. samy’s room sounded quiet the closer he got, so he gently knocked on the door.

“go away,” he heard lowly.

“please? just wanna talk,” luke mumbled from outside. 

a beat of silence passed until there was a small click and his sister’s gaze appeared through the crack, “about what?” 

“me being an asshole,” the older boy admitted in defeat that she was right earlier. the door opened wider, an indication that he could go in. 

luke’s gaze flicked around the room that he really hadn’t seen in..years almost. it was so similar, yet it felt so different in his eyes. so much time seemed to pass in samy’s room.

“you have five minutes to give me a good explanation,” the girl crossed her arms, snapping her brother back into reality. 

the guilt crept across luke’s face as he struggled on where to start. he was never the one to admit his feeling outright like this. “first, i’m sorry. i was an asshole about the whole thing,” he began.

“yeah, you kind of were. that really hurt, luke,” samy said seriously and the boy sighed. 

“i know..i don’t know why—i think i just…” he stumbled over his words and everything he just admitted to jack downstairs. “feels like i don’t really know you anymore just because i’ve been away and i hate that. we used to be so close and now it feels like we just don’t talk..same with will. i dunno. i guess i just didn’t want you there because i was being selfish and just wanted will and i there together. i realize now that you deserve to be there too to support us,” the boy continued in a long ramble that probably made no sense. 

he watched samy’s expression soften up a little, “you think we aren’t close anymore?” 

“i mean..not as close as we used to be. college and everything else seems to have made us drift..same with jack. same with quinn.”

yes, the hughes siblings were close, but not nearly as close when they all lived under one roof. one by one as each brother left, their bond slowly dissipated. texts became littler and littler. the time changes weren’t easy to work around sometimes. 

in some ways, samy saw where luke came from because quinn and jack missed a lot of big milestones in samy’s life yet she was there for all of theirs. 

“i-i’m sorry. i didn’t know you felt that way,” the girl frowned. 

“no, no, it’s not your fault. i just..have been feeling weird lately. i think having you there will be really fun. maybe it can even make up for some of the time we’ve lost,” luke offered a smile. 

“no, i don’t have to go. you’re right. it’s a you and will thing. something you’ve been waiting for since you were kids,” the girl shook her head.

“no, no, i want you there. i promise. plus, i think smitty would actually fight me if he knew i wasn’t letting you come. i’m serious. we can catch up. have fun in czechia together. i’m sure mom and dad would love our sibling bonding,” the two shared a laugh. 

“are you sure?” 

“positive. i’ve missed hanging around you,” luke opened his arms for a hug. the youngest hughes stepped into his arms and they shared a tight hug in what felt like forever. 

“we’re gonna have so much fun there. i already have an intinerary planned for your off days,” the girl grinned widely when the two pulled away. 

a laugh escaped luke’s lips, “of course you do. we’ll talk to mom and dad tonight, yeah?” 

samy nodded and she let her brother squeeze her shoulders one last time before leaving her alone for now. she excitedly called will next to let him know the good news that they’d be able to spend the next few weeks together. 

[tribalmajesty05]

Title: The Number Game

Roman Reigns X Reader

It was a quiet evening in the Anoa’i household. The kids were asleep, the house was peaceful, and I was curled up on the couch beside Joe, lazily scrolling through my phone while he absentmindedly watched TV.

Then, for no apparent reason, a random thought popped into my head.

“Hey, babe?” I asked, turning to him.

Joe hummed in response, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“How many women have you slept with?”

That got his attention. His head snapped toward me so fast I thought he might’ve given himself whiplash. “What?”

I smirked. “You heard me.”

Joe blinked at me like I had just asked him to recite the Constitution backward. “Why the hell you asking me that?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, biting back a grin. “I was just curious.”

Joe scoffed. “Nah, see, that’s a setup. You tryna start something.”

I laughed. “No, I’m not! I swear. I just wanna know. So? What’s the number?”

He ran a hand down his face and muttered something under his breath.

“What was that?” I leaned in.

“Why does it matter?” he deflected, suddenly looking real interested in the TV.

“It doesn’t!” I said quickly. “I just wanna know what kinda numbers you were working with before you landed this—” I motioned to myself dramatically. “—top-tier wife right here.”

Joe side-eyed me. “You sure you ain’t gon’ get mad?”

I scoffed. “Please. You think I can’t handle it? Boy, I know you were out here in these streets before you met me.”

Joe exhaled heavily, leaning back into the couch. “Alright. Fine. The truth is…I don’t even know.”

My jaw dropped. “You lost count?!”

Joe held his hands up defensively. “Hold up! That ain’t what I said!”

“Joe!” I gasped, smacking his arm.

“Why you hittin’ me?!” he laughed, dodging the next slap.

“You really lost track?!” I accused, eyes wide.

“I mean…I wasn’t keepin’ a damn diary!” he argued, his deep laugh shaking his chest.

I dramatically placed a hand over my heart. “I cannot believe I married a former hoe.”

Joe burst out laughing. “Oh, so now I’m a hoe?”

“You said it yourself! You don’t even know the number, Joe!”

“Okay, okay,” he grinned, rubbing his jaw. “What if I just give you a ballpark estimate?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Go ahead. But if the number’s too high, I might just file for divorce tonight.”

Joe laughed again before schooling his expression into something more serious. He pretended to count on his fingers, muttering numbers under his breath like he was solving a damn equation.

Finally, he looked up at me. “Alright…I’d say…less than a hundred.”

I gasped so loud I swear I woke up the neighbors. “LESS THAN A HUNDRED?! JOE, THAT IS NOT REASSURING!”

Joe started wheezing. “Baby, chill! I meant waaaay less than a hundred!”

“But you ain’t say way at first!” I pointed an accusing finger at him. “Oh my God, I really married a hoe!”

Joe was laughing so hard at this point he had to wipe tears from his eyes. “You actin’ like I was out here on the damn Hoe Hall of Fame!”

“If they had one, you’d have a plaque!”

He threw his head back, still cracking up, before pulling me onto his lap. “C’mere, crazy woman.”

I huffed, folding my arms as I sat on his lap. “You nasty.”

Joe smirked, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “Yeah? Well, clearly, you like nasty since you married me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. But if I find out your number is actually close to a hundred, I swear—”

Joe kissed my cheek to shut me up. “Relax, babe. It ain’t that high. You’re the only number that matters now anyway.”

I narrowed my eyes at him before sighing dramatically. “Fine. But just know if a woman ever comes up to me talking ’bout some Hey, girl! I used to mess with your man! I’m squaring up on sight.”

Joe laughed, holding me closer. “Damn, I love you.”

I smirked. “I know. Even if you was a hoe.”

Joe groaned while I laughed, and that was the end of our ridiculous little argument.

[hyper-fixated-delusions]

Can we be lovers and friends?

Wanda Maximoff x Avenger fem!reader.

A/N: Y’all this was hard to post, I kept reading it and reading it over again, not really liking it cause I’m paranoid??? Haha but decided to post because why not! Also coming up with titles is so hard!?!?! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fluff piece, I apologize for any mistakes! :)

Warnings: Talks about drunk people, unwanted contact (not in a heavy way, but still a warning.)

Translation: “Detka.” Baby.

Word count: 2,860.

Masterlist.

It was a typical Friday night, the Avengers were gathered at their favorite bar in uptown, decompressing after a rather hectic week when Natasha Romanoff approached a sullen looking Wanda Maximoff.

"Hey Witchy, what's got you all grumpy?" Natasha teasingly asks the younger woman who is currently sporting an angry pout as she glares across the bar at two figures in the distance.

"I'm not grumpy," Wanda retorts, never removing her eyes from you as she answers Natasha. Eyebrows furrowing more than before as a woman rests her hand on your arm, "it's just, who even is that with Y/N," she says, arms crossing on her chest.

Natasha let's out a small laugh at the sight of her increasingly pouty friend, "no clue Wands, but maybe this is a sign for you to get off your ass and finally ask Y/N out, or like you're seeing now, someone will definitely sweep her off her feet," the older woman says, as she places a comforting hand on the Sokavian's shoulder.

"W-what?" Wanda sputters slightly, finally tearing her eyes off of you turning to look at her friend so fast she's surprised she didn't get whiplash, "Nat, what are you even talking about? I don't like Y/N, that's insane!" The younger girl says nervously.

Natasha chuckles at the younger girl's expression, her voice softening as she speaks, "Wanda, it's clear to anyone that has eyes and half a brain that you love each other, it's just you two idiots that have failed to realize your true feelings for the other," she says, squeezing her shoulder with a smile.

"Wait, she likes me?" Wanda asks, eyes wide in shock.

At this, the older woman laughs, her hands coming to her face in exasperation, "yes you dork! She loves you just as much as you love her. My goodness, it's so sickening to see! I seriously don't know how either of you haven't noticed, I mean with all the longing stares, the soft smiles thrown at each other when you guys think no one is watching, the overall adoration. Truly and unbelievably sickening!" Natasha says with a playful smirk.

"I-" Wanda begins, cutting herself short as she looks at you, standing across the bar, polite smile on your lips as the woman that is in front of you continues talking, "I don't think she likes me like that Nat," Wanda whispers, eyes looking at you sadly.

Natasha frowns at her friend's expression, her own eyes flitting towards you, not understanding why the brunette still looks so upset after she just revealed that you feel the same way for each other, "Wanda, I can assure you, she definitely likes you," Natasha says with conviction.

The younger girl sighs, "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but maybe you've got it all wrong," she says, eyes casting down as she can longer stand to see someone else flirt with you.

At this, Natasha blows out a breath of air then says, "god, I have to do everything," and begins making her way towards you.

Wanda's eyes widen in surprise, "Natasha, wait!" She yells, her hand reaching out to stop the redhead, but it's too late. The woman is already walking towards you with resolve.

As you're listening to the woman that approached you at the bar drone on about who knows what, you notice a figure making its way towards you and you let out a sigh of relief as you realize who it is, "Nat, hey," you say softly, your eyes lighting up at the prospect of getting out of this unwanted conversation.

"Y/N/N," she greets with a smile, "it's getting late, we should start making our way over to the compound," the redhead says, smile widening as she notices your eyes soften in appreciation at her interruption.

"Okay, should I help you regroup?" You ask, looking at your mentor with a smile.

"Yes, let's gather everyone up so we can go," Natasha says, her eyes then glancing to the woman that was speaking to you, "I'll be taking this one off your hands now, we need to be going."

The woman pouts, "why so soon? We were just starting to get to know each other well," she whines.

Your brows crease for a second, then an awkward smile takes over your face as you try to hold back an incredulous look, you definitely weren't getting to know each other. "I know, I know and I'm sorry, but I really must go," you mutter, trying to sound as apologetic as you possibly can without actually feeling any kind of remorse, slowly trying to shuffle towards your mentor.

The woman sighs, "it's okay cutie, I know you're a superhero and you need your rest, so go," she says, as she leans forward grabbing your face to place a kiss on your cheek, causing you to go as stiff as a board at the unwelcome contact, her lips lingering on you longer than you'd like.

"Uh, thanks?" You say with confusion as soon as she pulls back, Natasha blinking, slightly bewildered at the woman's audacity.

"Come on," the redhead says a second later, composing herself immediately, grabbing your hand to pull you away from the woman.

"What the fuck," you mutter, as you're dragged by Natasha. Reaching Wanda you look at her with your eyebrows furrowed, "did you see that?" You ask your best friend, grimacing as you wipe your cheek.

"Yes," Wanda responds sadly, but you don't get to dwell on her response as she quickly moves away from you and makes her way around the bar with Natasha to gather the other Avengers so you can all make your way home.

Once the team has been gathered by the trio, you three make it a priority to make sure you all make it back to the compound safely.

When you arrive home you help your teammates into their sleeping quarters. Making sure they're taken care of as good as possible, setting aspirin and glasses of water down by the bedsides of those who will inevitably have hangovers in the morning.

As soon as you finish making your rounds, you make your way into the kitchen to pour yourself a glass of water and finally take a breather after the exhausting night you've had.

Granted you didn't drink or do much of anything at the bar like the rest of the team, but the social interaction of it all finally catches up with you, weighing you down.

As you stand in the kitchen, gripping the sink, head down in exhaustion, you hear steps make their way into the area causing you to stand up straight and look over your shoulder at the person walking into the space.

"Hey Max," you greet softly, as your eyes land on your best friend, "what are you still doing up?" You question, turning your body to face the woman.

Wanda smiles softly at the nickname, "I just came for a glass of water," she says, eyes observing your face, exhaustion written all over your features, "what about you? Are you doing okay?" She asks, a small frown of worry present on her face.

You lean against the kitchen sink, arms crossing on your chest, "I'm good," you smile tiredly, "although, as eventful as today was, I can't seem to fall asleep, so I thought taking a small breather and a glass of water would help," you chuckle.

Wanda nods in acknowledgment, as she makes her way through the kitchen, getting herself the glass of water she came for, standing across from you when she does, "yeah, I get what you mean," she says, taking a small sip of water, "today was something," she whispers, clearing her throat.

"You're telling me," you chuckle, shaking your head, "all I wanted was to hang out with you," you begin, missing the blush on Wanda's cheeks, "but I got bombarded at the bar and I just couldn't seem to get away. Like I know it comes with being an Avenger and all, but that woman would just not stop talking about herself and I couldn't find it in myself to politely pull away. Any time I tried, she would just put her hand on my arm and hold me there, it was truly uncomfortable," you rush out, looking at your best friend with a silly smile.

Wanda stares at you lovingly, then shakes her head after a minute, regaining composure, "wait, so you didn't like her?" She asks slowly.

You shake your head, "god no. I mean no offense to her, she was pretty I guess, but she's just not my type," you say with a casual shrug, "she was way too drunk. She kept talking about her ex the whole time, saying how dating an Avenger was for sure going to make him jealous. I didn't know how to tell her that I certainly did not want to date her. Thank god for Natasha, she came at the right moment to intervene," you smile.

Wanda lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding and says, "but she kissed you," her eyebrows furrowed at the memory.

You shiver slightly and say, "yeah, she did. But it definitely wasn't welcome. I think she was too drunk to realize what she was doing," you grimace, and with Wanda's silence you decide you should bid her goodbye and head to your room, "anyway, it's late, we should get some sleep, goodnight Wands," you whisper, moving forward to hug your best friend.

As soon as she's in your arms, Wanda all but melts into the embrace, your towering frame causing her head to rest comfortably against your chest.

After standing in each other's arms for a few minutes Wanda pulls back slightly to look up at you, her green eyes shining with something you've never seen before and maybe it's the calm and the quiet, maybe it's your exhaustion, maybe it's the feelings you've pushed down one too many times. You're not quite sure what it is, but you lean down and press your lips softly against Wanda's, a sigh escaping her as your lips lightly brush.

Soon after your brain catches up with your body and you pull away immediately, "oh my god, shit Wanda, I am so sorry, I didn't-" you begin rambling, but your words are cut off by Wanda pulling your face down to hers to meet your lips in a passionate kiss, both of your feelings pouring into this long awaited moment.

As soon as lack of air becomes an issue, you both reluctantly pull away, "wow," you whisper, eyes closed, a dopey smile on your face that causes Wanda's heart to flutter and laughter to bubble out.

"Wow indeed," she whispers back, an enamored look in her eyes as she waits for yours to open.

Once you open your eyes, you look at your best friend in a whole new way, "wait, does this mean what I think it means?" You ask softly, wanting to confirm that your best friend does indeed feel the same way that you feel for her.

Wanda laughs softly, "if this is your way of asking me if I'm in love with you, then yes, that's exactly what it means," she says, lightly biting her lip, causing your eyes to cast downwards in distraction.

"I can't believe this," you say after a moment, "I was so afraid to admit that I love you in fear that you'd reject me and I'd ruin our friendship, but you love me?" You ask with a big grin.

Wanda's hands cup your face softly as she looks into your bright eyes, "yes detka, I'm in love with you," she beams, thumbs rubbing soothing circles on your cheeks, "I think I have been for 2 years, but I guess I just admitted it to myself today after seeing that woman flirt with you, and maybe also with a little help from Nat," she mutters the last part shyly.

You let out a laugh at the sight of Wanda's reddened cheeks and pull her in by the waist, her arms automatically encircling your neck, "I love that woman, who knew she’d be such a matchmaker," you smile widely, "we should definitely thank her when we see her tomorrow," you say softly, as you lean your forehead on Wanda's, getting lost in a sea of green.

"No need," you hear a voice say from the shadows, and both you and Wanda pull away from each other to stand side by side. "I'm amazing, I know," Natasha says with a slight smirk as she walks into the kitchen. "Also I'm glad you two idiots have finally confessed your feelings for each other," she says as she stands in front of you and Wanda, "I'm happy for you both, you deserve this," Natasha smiles, placing a hand on each of your shoulders, "also Wanda don't hurt Y/N," your mentor tells the brunette seriously, maintaining eye contact for longer than you'd like as you see Wanda slightly begin to fidget.

"Okay Nat, I think she gets it," you cut in with a small, nervous chuckle. Reaching for the redhead's hand that's on your shoulder to squeeze and hold.

Wanda smiles at you appreciatively, then at Natasha a second later, "Y/N/N, it's okay, I see where she's coming from, she's been your mentor for longer than I've known you, she's just looking out for you," the brunette says, "thanks for looking out for her Nat," Wanda whispers honestly.

Natasha nods with a small smile on her face.

Then suddenly she turns to look at you with a serious glare, the action causing you to drop her hand and step back a little in surprise and slight fear, "and you," Natasha begins, pointing a finger at your chest, "you better not hurt her either. I know that you mean well most of the time and that things easily go over your head," she says and you pout.

"Rude," you mutter.

"But please, don't be an idiot, be rational. Always remember, both of you, that communication is key, talk things out before jumping to conclusions, listen to what the other has to say and all that good stuff because this is the last thing I will say to you both as relationship advice or whatever. So please, don't hurt each other, be mindful of one another and for all that is holy, use protection," she ends with a smirk as she sees both you and Wanda stutter, faces flushed red in embarrassment.

"Mom," you whine jokingly, causing Natasha to let out a laugh. "Thanks Natty," you say after a brief moment, pulling the shorter woman into your arms, "for everything," you whisper, placing a chaste kiss on her cheek. "Also, we're both girls, so protection doesn't really work that way, I can't even get her pregnant. So really, you're worrying for nothing, we're all good on that front. But also you don't even know if Wanda wants children, like what if she wants to have my-" you begin rambling, but Wanda's hand on your mouth stops you.

"W-wait, no. We're not- we haven't-," Wanda stutters, shaking her head, "I- what I'm trying to say is, thank you Nat," Wanda smiles with flushed cheeks.

Natasha laughs at both women in good nature, "no problem kiddos, now get some rest, it's late," the redhead says as she walks towards her sleeping quarters.

Wanda removes her hand from your mouth when Natasha is out of ear shot and slaps your arms softly, "oh my god, you're such an idiot," she blushes.

You laugh as you pull her into your arms to stop her assault, "what? What'd I do?" You ask teasingly, "what I said was valid, or what you don't want to have my kids?" You squint playfully causing Wanda to hide her face in her hands as you move forward to hug her, swaying your bodies from side to side lightly in jest.

"Oh my god," the brunette groans, "I am not having this conversation with you right now," she says rolling her eyes as she moves back to grab your hand to pull you to her room.

"So when, tomorrow morning?" You continue teasing.

"No, shut up," she continues grumbling, causing you to laugh.

"Okay, so wait then, where are we going?" You ask.

"To my room," Wanda says still dragging you.

"To make babies?!" You ask excitedly as she pulls you through her door.

"I hate you," she mutters red in the face and you let out an even louder laugh.

"I love you too sweetheart," you say, as you bring her into you to kiss her softly.

When you pull away Wanda looks at you with a smile, "I love you, now it's time to sleep," she says as she pulls you to bed.

After a few minutes of peace and quiet, Wanda thinking you're already asleep. You sit up slightly to teasingly whisper into her ear from behind, "so do you want to have my kids?" Causing Wanda to groan as she shoves your face away from her.

[ashetherando]

Disney Adult| FizzOzzie Poly x reader (and separate)

my sorry ass have been looking at Disney World stuff and as a Disney Adult I’m surprised I haven’t made this before! pronouns: They/Them/Theirs

Key words:

(y/n)-Your Name

(l/n)-Last Name

(POLY FIZZOZZIE )

They don’t really care of what you’re into, as long you don’t be stupid or harassing imps/demons they don’t care. They will in fact have a whiplash of Disney merchandise you own at your home with the Minnie/Mickey ears and clothes, PJs, and cups! They will be shitty boyfriends if they shit all over your interest while you don’t. If you’re going to Disney World/Land, you’re their guide! Teach them about Genie Plus, teach them about the Disney World app, cuz they’re helpless without your Disney eyes! Also, let them pick their magic bands there so much designs and their brains cannot handle it! Also, quick thing, give fizz a kid leash. You’ll be walking around in Animal Kingdom with Ozzie planning what he wants to eat, then POOF Fizz somehow learned to park hop and is now at Magic Kingdom at Peter Pans Flight!

💙OZZIE/ASMODEUS💙

Ozzie believes that Disney can be dark, for example Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Black Caldron, and basically he’s more into the Disney Renaissance than the present day movies at the Disney franchise. He will not be surprised when he comes over to your home and you hand him over Disney PJs, he doesn’t care about how much Disney merchandise your house can handle, as long you’re not blowing off all your money for a Disney figure ‘cuz you still need to pay bills and rent! But! When you ask what he wants at Disney World, he asked “coffee” as a joke, but when you came back from your trip and before you clock in “here ya go, Asmodeus!” You said as you held up the bag with the word Joffrey’s printed on it “I wasn’t so sure what you wanted so I kinda just guessed!” He tilted his head to the side as you place the bag on his desk, he opened the bag and see two bags of coffee grounds one is a flavorful coffee ground and the other is just plan coffee grounds “I wasn’t expecting you to get me this” he grabbed a bag and analyzing it “do you not want it?” “No! I want it, I really do need some coffee grounds, I just never thought that Disney have these type of things” “well, it’s a huge company! Of course they’re gonna have coffee!” “That’s fair” he placed the bag down and bring up the flavor on, it’s was obviously bought at the Polynesian resort exclusive. “Thank you, (y/n)”

When you finally convinced him to go with you while being part of the Disney Vacation Club, you have to treat him by bringing him to Food and Wine festival. He’s quite interested by the new wine they give out every year than the food. Keep an eye on him, we don’t know his drink tolerance is, he might get drunk at Epcot!

💚FIZZAROLLI💙

Fizzarolli is a guy to be like “haha! Imagine liking a company for babies” just deal with it, he’s gonna be a prick about your hyper fixations, but he’s doing it for jokes and will let you know about that. He only watches whatever is on TV, if you and him are chilling in your home. Just stream something on Disney Plus, then he’ll watch it with you. Here’s my advice: Have a Disney Marathon and he’ll won’t even notice! I’m kidding he will once it’s 1am and you’re watching Tangled, then he’ll be like “Old Disney is better” then he’ll leave the room. If you’re watching more present Disney movie, he’ll yell it from the hallway “Old Disney is better!” He may be your boyfriend, but he’s such a bad influence on you, when Ozzie is good with money and help you with your impulsive spendings, Fizz encourages you to buy that. You will send him a picture of a new Disney pin collection through text “oh look how cute they are!” “Get it” “fizz, I have rent that is due” “idc, get the pins” “you don’t even know the characters!” “I know the blue fur ball!” “Don’t call stitch a fur ball” “why did you send me this anyways!?” “….the pins will be here on Tuesday next week” “knew it” Disney World will be an episode and a half, homie will be in a different park quicker before you say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious so please give him a kid leash before he does it again, but convincing him took so long! You have to show him some videos, nothing too intimidating since he’s a Disney Virgin, just simplify your vacation visit, but not for clothing wear, the Greed Ring is hot, and you two will be sweating allot, which means chafing! Biker shorts are your whore! Treat him with any festival and he’ll be happy! If it’s the Food and Wine, he’ll will eat any food or drink any wine, but let’s be happy that you brought him!

[what-gs-watching]

“What good did love do, Doctor? When did it ever help?”

So I spent last week at my parent’s house finally pulling off the surprise birthday party I’d been planning for months for my mother and I was there for farrrrr too long and I ate waaaay too much and I only had six days from when I got home to get my head right and ready to start a new job after nine effing months of doing nothing. 

I’m starting on Monday and I’m super anxious about it, and everyone is posting about what’s going on with Doctor Who so obviously I decided to let Ruby and 15 turn my brain off for a bit, it’s the least they can do. Maybe that was a mistake, because woooooof y’all. I’m devastated that the season is already over. 

And as such, we def need to talk about both of these episodes at the same time. 

The Legend of Ruby Sunday / Empire of Death

Wherein, The Doctor and Ruby show up to UNIT to finally ask about the old woman they keep running into on their adventures, and immediately very purposefully fall into a trap. 

I have to say, as much as I love 15, baby boy has NOT been very observant this season. He’s caught up in having fun and showing his feelings and all of that is fantastic and beautiful but if this had been 10 or 11 they would have been mulling over this situation the entirety of the season and I probably wouldn’t feel so much like I just got whiplash. 

Like, the internet has been telling me to think about this random ass lady, instead of seeing the Doctor trying to puzzle her out in his downtime. And that’s the first time I’ve really thought to myself, ‘this is incredibly unlike the doctor.’ But we’re going to let it slide, because he’s otherwise charmed the pants off of me.

There was a lot I was definitely about in these episodes, in no particular order - 

OBVIOUSLY, the Rose / Ruby bonding. Absolutely adorable. They immediately gravitated to each other and I love that. It’s so sweet. And I’ll take ANY scrap of 14 I can get, but 15 asking ‘how’s your uncle?’ really made me greedy for more. Couldn’t my girl Rose given like, even the smallest cute little anecdote? Like ‘oh, he’s really into gardening right now…’ or something? Gimme like, even the littlest bit. I neeeed it. But fine. 

15’s outfits. I’ve loved all of the stuff they’ve put him in all season but HELLO that leather jacket and the cozy sweater he had on in the mish mash TARDIS? Gorgeous. Beautiful. I want to buy it right now.

Also, the mish mash TARDIS itself, and the little kiss 15 gives it at one point. Love all the random throwbacks inside that little thing even if I don’t know most of them because no, I never went back and watched the original seasons, so sue me. I’m pretty sure I spotted 11’s little scanner tv thing though, and I love that. I miss Matt Smith. 

And the Doctor lashing out and punching the wall and huffing and puffing and screaming and then Mel giving him a kick in the ass. I’m going to keep talking about how I love that 15 is actually okay with showing his feelings, but I do think he got too lost in them. We all been there, boo. But like, you heard that sick TARDIS sound (that’s going to haunt my dreams) and you were just like ‘oh I’ve heard that before’? BOY you are so distracted. 

Anyway, I’m vaguely aware there’s background on Sutekh that I should probably google if I want to fully understand the situation, but I’m not gonna do it. I accept that it’s the god of death and the doctor fought it once and banished it to the time vortex, but I have to say, I find the rest of the storyline a little bit weird. It hitched a ride on the TARDIS and traveled with the Doctor for basically untold amounts of time and no one ever noticed? And it’s appearance is NOT related to 14 casting that salt at the end of the universe, even though it was pretty clear that the rest of the random god appearances were? 

I guess I’m willing to accept all of that, but gang. Here’s the thing. After all of that time traveling around and watching the Doctor do what he does (and admittedly trying to sabotage him by planting harbingers? I guess? Wherever they went?) you’re still not going to kill him right off when you finally hatch your plot? You KNOW he gets out of things. You know he literally gets out of everything. You’ve watched him wiggle his way out of shit because his adversaries have given him an inch but you’re like ‘it’s fine, that won’t be me, because I REALLY need to know who this random human’s mother is?’ 

Nah. Nah nah nah. Like, maybe if you had really tried to kill him and he got out of it, I’d be like, ‘okay fine’ but that death cloud was half-assed and they beat it on like, a moped. 

If we’re going with real scary gods that have literally the power of basically everything, I’m gonna want their actions to make sense. 

I also have to admit that when the Doctor was monologuing about how the whole thing was his fault, when he said about all of the things he’s done “I thought it was fun”, I found myself thinking about how he really has been playing a game of his own devising and maybe he…shouldn’t. And it felt like maybe he thought that, too. Like, when is it gonna be enough for him? 

The point is, It’s super sweet that Ruby got to figure her shit out, they got me I cried at all of that, but the whole thing did feel a little disjointed to me. Which is fine, because now I’m sitting here like, ‘yo I need more’ but there isn’t more, not for forever, and clearly that’s how they get you. The arch wasn’t a cliff hanger really but also it kind of was and I’m unsatisfied. Maybe that’s the point. 

And I do now agree with Tumblr that the most interesting thing in all of this is how 14 and Donna reacted to the death cloud, and their reconstitution, and the realization that Rose was at UNIT during the entire thing - that’s going to occupy my brain for a really long time.

At the end of the day, eight episodes was not enough. But I’m SO  endeared to 15 and I love the direction the show is going, haters can hate all they want but Doctor Who was always weird and it was always for outcasts and it’s beautiful and stupid and silly and wonderful. Wonderful and perfectly imperfect. 

Friends, this season came at a time I really needed it. I'm thankful it helped me through my forced work hiatus, it's part of the tapestry that kept me going. And that's the good that love does. Doctor Who, I love you.

[soppingwetlegs]

“Fangirl”

AgedUp!(24) Pro Katsuki Bakugo x Plussized/Quirkless!Fem reader

warnings: swearing, that’s really it. this is the introduction to a story I’ve been thinking about so it’s not too crazy.

Chapter 1:

I was walking home from work like every other day. My apartment wasn’t very far from the mall I worked at so I didn’t mind the trip. I enjoyed my surroundings, most people would hate being in a villain hot spot but it’s a fangirls dream. I was always lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the pros at work so I couldn’t really complain. Tonight was different though, it was quiet. Growing a bit bored on my unusually uneventful trek home I decided to pull out my phone and scroll through TikTok.

*BUMP*

“Oh shit.” I grimaced as I slammed into what felt like a brick wall, but it wasn’t a wall, but a person. The absolute last person I’d expected to run into…it was him, the #15 hero Dynamight. “Watch where you’re goin’ dumbass…” holy shit, holy shit. His deep rough voice echoed through my ears, I could barely think straight. My favorite hero was standing right in front of me. “Say something, say anything, you idiot!” I thought to myself. “H-hi…” are you fucking kidding me? I was mentally screaming at myself right now.

I look from his steel toed boots all the way up to his spikey blonde hair, my gaze was so obvious it was embarrassing but I was so engrossed I truly didn’t care. “Huh? You got a staring problem, extra?” I felt my cheeks run hot, “extra” he called me an extra, this day couldn’t get any better. I struggle to stifle the excited laughter that forces its way past my lips. “I’m so sorry…I just, um…I’m a huge fan, dynamight.” His scowl twitched, is he smiling? Holy shit I think he’s smiling.

“A fan, huh? What, you think just ‘cause you’re a fan I’ll just let ya bump into me?” He said with a dry chuckle. God, he’s so hot. “No! Of course not! I just- I- uh- well…” girl…be so for real. Finally tired of the mortifying stuttering I shut my mouth and pull my phone out, holding it up to him with a pleading expression. “What am I supposed to do with that?” He asks, oh no he looks annoyed. “Could I please get a selfie?” I mumbled. He rolls his eyes and lets out a slight scoff, turning his head and revealing his hearing aid. “The hell are you whispering for?” My eyes widened and I swallow my nerves, speaking up a bit more. “A uh- selfie, please?” He purses his lips in thought. “Will you piss off if I do this for you?” The quickness of my nod gave me whiplash I’m pretty sure but I truly couldn’t control it. With a final roll of his eyes he reluctantly agrees to the selfie and I let out an involuntary squeal before rushing to his side.

This man has gotta be a solid 6’2-6’4. Being that I’m only 5’2 and I knew for a fact he wouldn’t be bothered to squat down, I decided to stand on my tip toes…bad call. I very much lost my balance and fell against his chest. “Tch, come on now!” He grabs my waist and holds me in place next to him. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to be sure he couldn’t hear how hard my heart was pounding, with a trembling hand I raise my phone and smile as best as I could before snapping the photo. I try to ignore the longing feeling when his hand leaves my waist and I take a step away. “Thank you! Thank you so so much, dynamight!” I felt like a kid in a candy store. Once again that scowl on his handsome face turned up, I made him smile…AGAIN!

“Yeah, yeah, take it easy, nobody. Now get lost, I have work to do.” I nodded happily and resumed my walk back to my apartment. The feeling in my chest was indescribable, I really just met my favorite hero and got a selfie. I even had an almost conversation with him! What a day. “Hey, extra!” I turned around and looked at him, pointing at myself, earning a nod from him as he approached me. “What’s your name anyways?” He wants to know my name?! “It’s y/n.” I hear him repeat it to himself under his breath. “American, huh?” I rub the back of my neck awkwardly, laughing a bit. “Yeahhh, I’m lame.” He’s laughing, he laughed, oh my god. “Yeah you’re definitely lame, y/n. Cool to meet a real fangirl though, I guess. I normally lose fans once they hear me speak.” He laughed again, what a beautiful sound. “No way, not me.”

“Yeah? Why’s that? You some kinda freak that likes being bullied?” I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not, but I laugh anyways, earning a confused look from him, he was serious…huh. “I wouldn’t say that, I guess I just appreciate how genuine you are. I think it’s cool that you don’t fall into media training. Just cause you’re kinda mean doesn’t make you any less of a hero, ya know?” His scowl returned, oh god oh fuck. “Huh…you’re weird. See you around, loser. Don’t get into trouble or I’ll blast you to hell.” And with that he walked away. I was left standing alone on the sidewalk dumbfounded, did I say something wrong? Perfect…

Still got my selfie, though…

chapter 2

masterlist

[tenisperfection]

I’m done with the show now because I absolutely do not trust they can write a satisfying arc that’s true and honest to the characters. The actors are amazing and will break my heart but it’s the writing that can’t keep up as Tim had shown over and over.

It’s also a completely different show now. It disregarded its own set of rules and world building and I can’t stand when shows start to betray their own rules, it’s always a sign that they’ve jumped the shark and quality is going down. Even if the show stays on air for years to come, like Tim obviously wants, he now needs to adjust to his new set of rules and we better see another main character death in the next few seasons. He can’t coast now. Shock value is now his main goal, not telling cohesive and compelling storylines.

He had the opportunity to be different, to really make 911 a true (silly, soapy but with so much heart) standout character driven emergency show but he gave that up the second he turned it into a show that’s just about disaster film remakes and choosing shock value storytelling over compelling and consistent storylines. And seriously, you have the icons of Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Aisha Hines, Kenneth Cho, JLH, Tracie Thoms and you fumble this!?

What he did may work, he’s getting the online buzz he wants, some people are going to continue watching because they value trauma porn over compelling storylines. He may even get some of the people who are thinking of leaving after the funeral episode to stick around when Peter shows up again in the final three episodes in ghost form or flashbacks because it will give them some sense of closer and their grieving will have moved to acceptance.

I can’t stick around even for that because I loved the show too much to watch what it becomes now. I’ll happily follow Peter and eventually the rest of the cast to their next projects.

This is so valid, and a lot of this is how I feel about the whole thing too. At this point I am more disappointed than anything else, though anger is still prevalent, especially on behalf of the cast, especially for Ryan and for Peter. I would've been okay with this if they'd done this because Peter didn't want to be back for S9; though their execution was shitty, I'd have found a way to be okay with the outcome. But yeah, it was just Tim being Tim. I can't say anything new about the Eddie of it all that hasn't been said already, but yeah it's all unbelievably shitty.

I'll push back on people continuing to watch only for trauma porn though; I am not arguing that it is trauma porn but I think the audience is more complicated than that. I think I am done with this show but I will still watch the rest of the season to at least see what happens with these characters in the immediate aftermath. But yeah, I think a lot of people, myself included, have loved and been deeply invested in these characters and stories and relationships for several years now, and it's hard to just flip that switch to not caring even when the show's let you down multiple times. It might be more easy for me because I've only been a grade above a casual viewer for most of 8b, but Bobby was the reason I continued to watch this show in S1 and his arc, apart from Chimney's, has been my favorite on the show. I can't explain the amount of whiplash and heartbreak the abrupt end to his story has caused, but it's hard and I don't blame people for whatever their relationship—or lack thereof—with the show is moving forward. Not saying that's what you're implying, but just clarifying because I've seen a lot of reactions to the episode and how people are moving forward and I think don't think it can be distilled down to one thing.

Anyway, I don't know. I am sad. I am angry. But if this is the end of the road with this show for me, I'll still be happy and grateful for those early seasons full of great stories, for this fandom which has changed and evolved and worsened in nearly every way but still brought a lot of really great people my way on tumblr. I'll watch the rest of this season, and I never want to be an absolutist so never say never, but unless they manage to restore my long lost faith in this show's ability to close out story lines and deal with trauma and grief in a meaningful manner, and somehow do that in two episodes, I won't be back. Oh well. We'll always have season 5, yeah?

[slashthrashandcrash]

You should spill your thoughts more on the vibes of slasher x final girl; it’s giving me something to chew on for my own Danny/OC fic haha

I’m rabid about the idea that they just upturn everything—a disgusting happy little accident that turns what they thought was important to them upside down and now it’s trying to decide if it’s wed, bed or behead?

*SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE* OKAY SO HEAR ME OUT--

I've said it before in an absolute word vomit here but I'll say it again: I love a Slasher that is so utterly out of their depth when it comes to experiencing genuine human connection that they're forced to rely on their homicidal instincts/habits for comfort.

Obsession at first sight is always a classic, but something that's also peak is a Slasher falling head over heels without even realizing it. They've begun stalking their Final Girl, as they do with all their victims, learning her routines, who could be potential victims by proxy, tease her with close encounters -- the whole shebang. They never realize that they've almost started watching her...without an ulterior motive? There's no reason they need to know what her favorite flowers are or how she likes her coffee or what she wears to bed, but they do anyways.

And then that moment when they finally, finally have her cornered and in their grasp, the end of a well drawn out hunt, they find that they suddenly can't go through with it. It's a very inopportune realization to have. All the work they've put in stalking and harassing her, picking off the people closest to her one by one, it comes to a screeching halt in their mind. She's trembling. She's frightened. She's bloodied and teary eyed and begging so sweetly when she's not fighting for her life. Of course, it's every Slasher's favorite sight to behold, the prize to be won! Yet there's something different about it this time...not regret, per se, not mercy.

They want her like this all the time. They don't want this moment to end with a blade to her throat like every other victim before her. And just as much as they love to see her petrified under them, they also want to see more of the times she's smiled and laughed and bat her pretty little lashes (all candid moments they witnessed from afar, mind you). They want her, just her. But they want her alive.

It's this moment of confusion and inner turmoil that allows the poor Final Girl to slip out of their grip and escape to the sequel, and the Slasher spends an embarrassing long time processing this new development. They've never experienced such a whiplash before. It felt like bloodlust, but not quite. They still felt the same type excitement when she shivered and pleaded for her life, watching her struggling and feeling her heartbeat again them. Killing her though? Not an option. In that moment, she became the most addictive feeling and they'll be damned if they let her get away again. She's better than any drug. She's all the fun and none of the mess, although does she still look damn good in the resulting mess regardless.

There is a hierarchy of needs and she is at the very top. They need to touch her, feel her squirm, hear those lovely little whimpers, taste her fear -- at the same time, they want to know what it feels like to have her lean against them, flash them that soft smile she gives everyone else who don't deserve it, kiss their cheek and promise she'll never ever leave them. They legit feel like they're on a high when she's around them and withdrawal symptoms are a real bitch. If they can just find a way to keep her by their side, they'd be set for life between the rush of a killing spree and the addictive effects of her fear/love...

[giggly-squiggily]

Hi Squiggly!!

I kept seeing Wind Breaker posts and decided I had to finally watch Wind Breaker. And OMG I LOVE IT. Sakura is such a flustered bby and I love him and Umemiya is so not serious but is such a good big brother figure to the boys. Ahhhh and Togame and Choji, I love their story they are wonderful. Their arc/portrayal was so so good. And I’m admittedly inclined towards Sou because he’s so graceful and calm and always smiling but you know there’s more to him than being a perfect gentleman, there has to be. But anyways, I attribute you to being part of the reason I watched Wind Breaker so naturally I need to ramble about it to you!

💛 Sunshine

SUNSHINE! :D Forgive me- I'm incredibly late to reply; I'm so glad you're watching Wind Breaker AHH! The manga is amazing too- I'm...I can't remember what chapter I'm on but It's just so delightful!

YES SAKURA!!! I love how flustered he gets and how unserious- but totally serious Umemiya is kajrjkeajkraejkrjaekrjk He really is the best big brother! So considerate to everyone- silly but thoughtful; a considerate man through and through!

Oh god those two- the whiplash I felt when I saw Togame and his arc was crazy! I really went from "Screw this guy!" to "Oh no he's my favorite now!" kjarjkeakjraekrjkae same with Choji- their arcs are just so good in the show? Just- so well written!

AND SUO YES! Oh there has to be- I don't know what exactly he's got going on in that head of his, but I really love his mysterious he is. Part of the chaos trio, that one! :D Nirei is a doll baby, and naturally Sakura is the bee's knees. I also really love Sugishita! He might not have much to say, but he's so expressive! They're all good boys!

hehehehe, I take that with stride! I'm glad I was part of the reason for you to check it out! I was inspired by the lovely folks here on Tumblr to watch it, and now I get to share that love with all of y'all! The cycle of anime recs continues! :D

Thanks for sharing! Feel free to ramble about shows whenever the mood strikes! :D

[baelpenrose]

Project Praetorian 60: Arrival, Part VI

The Battle of Philidelphia finally ends, with a maneuver that sees the Praetorians take the fight out of Earth's gravity well, and the enemy finally withdraw.

Beta-read by @canyouhearthelight and @writing-with-olive

Mark

“Okay. Here’s the plan.” He was looking at the radar, which exhaustingly revealed that the aliens were coming in hot on more dropships - though not the command shuttle. He had to find some way of stripping their shields again, even if it nearly killed him, to try to stop off that trickle of reinforcements. 

Which meant that he’d probably be out of action for a while, but it also meant he could do the most damage on the ground - with Xavier and him splitting focus to rip apart the enemy assault.

Which, in turn, led to the conclusion that Echo would be leading the attack on the ship, but while she was actually doing techy shit, she’d need someone else managing the operation…

He glanced at Jared. From what he’d seen so far, Jared was capable of balancing risk and reward, and good at improvising. He wasn’t sure he liked the ex-Nazi, yet, but Jared had been an excellent and ruthless fighter, and one who’d repeatedly proven willing to put himself on the sharp end. The fact that Jared was, in his own right, a decent tactician, and had done the math Mark had hoped after their initial confrontation…

Mark made his snap decision and divided his command. 

“Okay. Two teams. Ground team, for discouraging alien landings and tearing apart any Ascendancy trooper who manages to touch Terran soil: me, Seraph, Boombox, Deadeye, Mags, and Titan. We’re going to support the troopers on the ground and keep them alive as best we can. Cipher, you and Frost are in command of the Shuttle Assault team. You will take Siren, Whiplash, Cat and Glitch. Get aboard the carrier, and take it down. Return alive. Do not waste any time or take any unnecessary risks. Skyflower, do not leave the shuttle.” 

Jared looked at him in surprise, and Echo blinked. 

“Yes. I trust you two to manage. Frost, do not let Cipher come to any harm under any circumstances. This war, as it stands, hinges on her as our most vital strategic asset. Keep her alive.” 

Jared looked him up and down, then glanced at Echo, pale eyes inscrutable. Then he saluted. “Understood, Lieutenant.”

Echo shot him a look. “They’re gonna get the guns back online before too much longer, you know that, right? And once I’m on, I’ll be too busy to take them back off before we take the carrier down.”

“Then take it down fast, because I’d rather do that than wind up retreating and have them glass this place off the map once they get the guns online again anyway.” 

Echo nodded. “Got it. I’ll get the shuttle online.”

Mark was already looking at the GPS, already praying he hadn’t sent friends to their deaths, and was already hearing Vergil note the positions of more alien dropships coming in, the screams of troopers minding radar.  Bastards couldn’t even bother hiding from radar, like they knew human interceptors weren’t a…hm. No, wait. Shielding itself made radar irrelevant, but it also increased radar profile because of the way it projected…hm. If things were already locked…

He sprinted over and started drawing in the standing static from all the plasma shots. “Skyflower, hold takeoff. Mags, standby with AED.” 

Then he raked the sky with lightning again.

And this time he dropped, seizing, vision gray, arm alight with agony, chest burning, and found himself breathing again, his arm no longer destroyed. He could barely stand, his nerves having been regrown a second time in less than a day, and Shiloh was shaky.

But the sky above Philly was now being torn with interceptors, and as he watched another dropship was blasted from the sky. 

And their captured shuttle streaked skyward, under the cover of hundreds of surface-to-air missiles.

“Okay. Start the battle. Fuck this. This city is fully evac’d, right?” He said, thinking. “There a gas main along any of the avenues they’re advancing through?” 

***

Molly 

She was still buzzing with anxiety when she climbed into the shuttle. But felt, without knowing how, that this ship would be the death of someone she loved, maybe herself, maybe others. Needed to say it. As Echo booted the drives up, and Amaryllis touched the controls, she strapped in, nervously. 

“Skyflower, are you sure?”

“I don’t love that Storm decided my first flight on this thing should be in live fire combat, but I’ll manage. Fly in, fly out. Survive. Hold on.” They started heading up, and Molly held on.

She had read somewhere that astronauts usually got sick when they started breaching the atmosphere, but whatever this shuttle was built from, whatever alien machinery it had, was keeping her from feeling the acceleration. 

She didn’t dare look back, but she saw, on the instruments, that they were clearing atmosphere. Echo had forced her language model onto the alien computer. “Approaching alien ship. Cipher, send the signal, let them think we need to dock.”

Echo nodded, then did something Molly couldn’t see. She had to pray that it was going to work. She could see - through the viewport, that thing had to be enormous - the carrier. Massive, sleek, grey-green, with weapon emplacements all over. The ship loomed, shaped like a massive claw, in orbit - though absent the beacon, it now seemed a little less perfectly orbiting than it had, as though the navigators were trying to actively keep it on course. 

Molly bit her tongue as Echo nodded. “We’re clear for landing. Docking port at your 2.” 

“10-4.” Amaryllis was already steering in.

Jared nodded. “Unstrap, everyone. Lock and load, we’re probably dropping hot. Siren, get ready for another one of those interference frequencies - I don’t want us eating plasma on entry. See if you can’t spray down whatever their hangar security is with your carbine while you do it.”

Echo nodded. “Right. Looks like our first stop is along this wing by the hangar - there seems to be a shaft we can take almost straight to the main reactor. We could make a play for the guns to try to get pressure off the team if…”

Almost as if on cue, the massive ship shuddered and a massive pulse of actinic fire erupted from a weapon emplacement on it’s belly. Molly didn’t see what it hit, but she knew the guns were back online.

To her surprise, Jared shook his head. “Longer we can go without them being aware we’re here, the better. I don’t like our chances if we have to fight our way in and out of this place. Honestly, Micah - how far can you straight teleport us? Like if I ask you to get you and me to the reactor, can you do it from the hangar?”

Micah thought. “Cipher, how far from the hangar to the reactor?

“Just pure space? About half a klick if you could go in a straight line. Problem is you can’t.”

Micah thought. “Yeah. I can do that. If I only have to take one person.” 

Amaryllis was almost in. Skyflower gently set the ship down. Molly bit her lip, then stopped. She took a breath in as they landed. Their hangar port was slowly repressurized - and she took a breath as a group of aliens moved into the hangar - a handful of the big Hulks, who mostly seemed to be here to check on the machinery, one that was carrying what looked like power cells - and many, many Croaks who were carrying containers of something else.

None of those were what had Molly worried. None of those, in fact, were even armed. No, what had Molly worried was the team of Spikes, almost twenty of them, that had moved into the hangar as a security team, blasters at their shoulders. She took a breath, warmed up her voice, and double-checked her rifle. 

Then Amaryllis dropped the ramp and she desperately cried out the note, twisting it as it ripped through the air, hoping to stall the aliens before they could fire. If even one got a shot off, she knew, they were all dead.

Jared snap-threw a grenade out through the gap in the door, and even as she started singing, she heard the horrible buzz that meant an alien was trying to shoot but couldn’t, that buzzing itself would mess with her frequency - but then they were in sight and already they were out of the hatch, moving, guns blazing. She felt her heart pounding as she kept the note up, firing as rapidly as she could, Spikes dropping. She found her magazine empty, then rapidly reloaded, took a breath, and dove as a plasma bolt struck the shuttle they’d taken in. She fired again and saw a Spike’s leg blown off at the knee before Jared executed it, then saw Mia run around the side of the shuttle and lit up more of them.

Then Kimmy was among them SMG blazing, and the last of them were down. The Croaks were running and before she was even aware of what she was doing she was throwing a frag into the midst of them, and watching as Jared and Micah coldly gunned down the bigger worker aliens. After her grenade exploded in a rough thump, Molly walked over and began gunning down wounded Croaks. 

Maybe, maybe once it would have bothered her. 

But that was before one of these things had turned Annette into a smear on the wall. One of the aliens tried to crawl away, its forelimbs burned and damaged, one of its back legs missing entirely.

She raised her pistol and executed it without pausing. Only after the last of them was dead did it hit her that the girl she’d been when she’d arrived would never have recognized the girl she’d become.

Jared was already grabbing Micah. “Okay. Can we get to the reactor?”

“Are you certain we can take it solo?”

Molly watched as Mia zipped over to the hangar door, and checked it. “No company!” 

Kimmy was breathing hard, but all the blood drying on her armor right now was the wrong color to be hers. The gymnast gave her a weak smile. “You okay?”

Molly nodded, blushing a little at the acrobat’s grin. “Doing fine. You?”

“So far.” 

Jared and Micah had apparently reached some kind of decision, one that Micah clearly didn’t care for. They were talking to Echo and with barely an effort Molly brought the sound of the conversation to herself and Kimmy. 

“-Just keep on the comms. Guide us in, and tell us when we’ve cracked it so we can get out.”

“Take out the pylons, then I’ll turn the shielding off once you’re clear. Once that’s taken care of, I upload a virus that takes them offline while the ship fails.”

Mia screamed. “Guys we have company!” 

Molly rushed to the bulkhead, deeply amused to finally, finally, have a place where cover existed against the alien machines. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Jared and Micah vanish.

Vergil

Headshot. Another Spike slumped down, brains splattered over a wall behind it. The eye not close to the scope picked up movement, and Vergil twitched his crosshairs just a little over, then fired again. Another Spike dropped, the round having slammed straight through its spine and leaving an exit wound the size of a small plate.

Jonathan was raining hell, but Vergil’s concern was far more precise. Spot enemy elites, kill them. Honestly, at this point, he was starting to note indicators of rank. Some of what seemed to be the officers wore adornments on their horns, or slight changes in the limited armor the aliens wore, and Vergil was learning to target those.

“Deadeye, check west?”

He did - “Uh…Scope’s clear. No contact. Wait, small fireteam setting up north of west. Four blocks. Be careful on approach.” 

“Understood. Start potting them. There’s a bigger force coming up and we want to cut it off.” 

Vergil was still confused about why the higher ups weren’t just letting Mark call down artillery on the bigger groups, but Mark seemed like he already had a plan.

That sounded entirely too ominous for Vergil’s taste, but he dutifully focused his fire on the advancing squad. It was at that point he actually started seeing the force that Mark was worried about - a small group of armored vehicles, at least a few tanks, a huge group of Croaks. Dozens of Spikes. Not in formation, but Croaks were being used as infantry screens even as the Spikes were moving along the buildings.

Mortars were still pounding other avenues, further off - and Vergil dropped another of the Spikes that was trying to reposition. 

Then he got a sight of Casey and Xavier, acting stealthy for once. That surprised him. He could see from here that Mark was checking some kind of map, then indicating something to Xavier. Xavier raised his launcher, focused, and fired. 

A thump, a crack, then a roar. Vergil saw something blow, beyond just the grenade, or even what Xavier could do with it. Then a blast of flame, one that tore open part of the street, one that raced up the avenue, ripped the fronts off buildings as the noise escalated and the flames ripped down the street towards the aliens.

The aliens had turned towards the formation - and Mark whipped the bits of shattered building with magnetism, raking them deeper into the damaged cover, flushing out any enemy hiding in them, and Vergil watched Spike blood trickle out the broken store high rises as Mark turned the now burning buildings into blenders.

It hit him all at once what had happened. Xavier had blown open a gas main and then he and Casey had turned it into a fuel-air bomb. Mark had taken metal blown loose by the explosion and used it to flush out anything too well covered to be killed.

Vergil snapped out of it, head pounding from the noise. They were already pulling away from the tanks, calling for Jonathan over the comms.

He was already redirecting his own fire, knowing that when Jonathan moved he’d need to start fucking up the alien officers to let Jonathan reposition and disrupt the Ascendancy enough that they’d be off balance when the other three jumped into the force Jonathan and Shiloh had been standing off with more conventional arms. 

He didn’t get the chance to see what happened next - a blast rocked his bones, and he glanced over. 

“Alien orbital fire back online!”

“Yeah, no shit. Just keep Titan covered. I need that switch to go smooth. Leave downtown to the US Army - unless they were the ones that just ate that shot.” 

Jonathan was racing across, smashing something out of his way. Vergil was reloading, then firing, keeping up. It was strange to watch Jonathan serve as the mobile anti-armor, but it was what they had, even as Mark used plasma static to fuck up the tanks’ ability to target Jonathan.

Xavier and Casey were already repositioning to start firing on the alien forces that Jonathan had pinned down - but they’d circled from the north, and when they descended, they began slaughtering with fire and thunder like murderous angels.

There were a small group of troopers - Imperator troopers - fighting their way up the avenue. Shiloh rushed towards them. Vergil immediately saw why. Leading that squad was Curtis, face blistered and armor splattered. 

That group was already pushing back into cover, engaging an advance with light machine guns and rifles, and Vergil added the weight of his fire to them. A plasma blast tore open a building and sent shrapnel flying, ripping one man’s face open, and Shiloh almost casually threw him to the ground, healed him, and shoved him back into cover.

Curtis flashed the kids a grin as Shiloh began firing at the aliens, face distorted in a savage snarl. Vergil saw a strange blur in the window and for a moment felt a surge of panic - then he fired, and saw a spray of dark blood. He kept his weapon closely trained on them. Not a chance were those invisible fuckers coming near his family again.

Micah

Being alone with Jared wasn’t exactly the most comfortable. Neither was flying into space with a totally untested craft they’d just captured. Neither was teleporting into an unknown part of a starship with unknown opposition.

Actually, almost every part of this had Micah ready to have a full tilt panic attack, and when they appeared in the reactor room, only for Jared to immediately shoot the two Spikes in the room and then immediately turn on the Croaks…

He started hyperventilating. Then he saw something new. An alien they hadn’t seen yet. There were the big ones, the Hulks - Jared was already firing on them, and grimly, Micah joined - but there was a species they knew existed but hadn’t seen.

Skinny, extremely gangly, with oblong, sloping skulls that looked almost like beetles in shape, with bodies that resembled upright salamanders, limbs more akin to those of a sloth…These must be the Slenders that had become the Ascendancy’s ruling caste. Supposedly incredibly intelligent, but physically weak. Used high technology to compel the allegiance of the Spikes, who had then…

Jared, face distorted in hate, was already walking over, and smashed one of them in the face with his rifle butt. It raised it’s hands, too slowly, and Jared smashed it again. And again. Micah was hyperventilating, but there was a rage in him. All the Spikes, all the death - it was the fault of these things. Being taken from his home wouldn’t have happened if not for the things standing in front of him. He shouldn’t have been here and next thing he knew he was screaming at them and had pulled his combat knife.

The ruined bodies of the Slenders would have been useless for Koleth to autopsy, but Jared grinned savagely at it. “Damn. Okay. Micah, I want it out loud and not just because of what we just did. I am sorry I ever called you a pussy. You are a badass.” 

Micah looked at what he’d done to an enemy incapable of defending itself and felt sick. He started checking his ammunition, started checking the distance from here to the hangar…Jared put a hand on his shoulder. “Dude. You alright?”

Micah gave a half-hearted laugh. “No! We just murdered those things! We’re going to be doing this til we die or we’ve gone so insane that that makes sense! Allah yagfir lana, Frost, that doesn’t terrify you?”

Jared paused. “I’ll answer that on the way down. For now…” He keyed the comms.

“Cipher, we’re in position.”

“Yeah, uh…checked the schema. We’re holding out. Fuck up the pylons before I take down the shielding, and have Glitch move you the minute the pylons are down. There’s gonna be enough free-flowing radiation once both those are out that you don’t want to be there without shielding.” 

Micah nodded. He looked around. There was some kind of dome of translucent material he didn’t know, and inside glowed a sphere that looked like a tiny sun. It didn’t hurt his eyes to look at it, though it was painfully bright. Surrounding that were several things that looked almost like…he’d seen a Tesla coil at a museum once, and this almost looked like that, but the connections looked…off.

Jared picked up the blaster and began heating the pylons. “Okay. Here goes. Keep anything that comes in off me.” 

The next few minutes were the most tense in Micah’s life as Jared did it over and over. Shattering and melting one pylon after another. He let the sounds of cracking, screaming metal wash over him, collected the vibration, collected the sound, focused on the distance, and when Jared at last tore free the last one, it felt loud. Too loud. Like the ship was starting to shake. Jared grabbed him and they both shook, he went dizzy, and they were back in the hangar.

The first thing he saw was Kimmy backflipping. Then he saw that she’d done it to get away from a Spike. She pulled her pistol and shot it - her rifle had been shattered and lay away from her. Echo was still at a distance. Mia had picked up one of those fast-firing needle weapons that some of the aliens carried as sidearms and was spraying it down a corridor. 

Echo cursed. “Okay, shielding down, can’t keep them from just flushing the airlock, get on the ship, NOW NOW!”

They bolted for the ship, Kimmy, then Micah heard Jared shout for him to get Echo. He sprinted to Echo, on the far side of the hangar from the boarding ramp to their captured shuttle.

He saw Jared go for Mia - start covering her as she bolted back, then back up onto the boarding ramp.

And Jared still wasn’t aboard the ship, even as Mia sprinted for it, starting to cover him, and Kimmy grabbed Amaryllis’s SMG and started covering them too.

Micah grabbed Echo as she started running and they warped back onto the ship.

“SKYFLOWER GET US OUT OF HERE!” Jared jumped aboard and the ramp came up.

Echo grinned as they took off. “I lied. I had started the depressurization when I said it. I didn’t want them evacuating. We’re out.”

They started falling through the atmosphere, Amaryllis laughing. “Holy shit. WE just took it down.”

Micah was laughing - but he saw how Jared looked at him, and fist bumped the other boy. He saw Mia looking at Jared, and he saw Kimmy and Molly staring at each other.

Jared muttered to Micah. “No. It doesn’t bother me. Because long as I’m here, I never have to go back to where I was, the people I was dealing with that made my cousin look good, and I can stick with you all. Probably going to die, but before I do, maybe I score with someone I would have been too stupid to notice before I got here. There’s definitely worse ways to live.”

“We’re coming down - Cypher, help me out, this is gonna be a trick. I know it was helpful but I do wish we hadn’t trashed that beacon.”

Xavier

“Almost got them!”

The aliens were now fully panicking. Groups of them were falling back, retreating, or otherwise bolting. The Army had managed to push it’s way out of an attempted encirclement and repay the attack, and now the Imperator troopers they were fighting alongside were pressing the attack.

Shiloh had been heroic - after Curtis’s squad had arrived, almost all of them were swearing up and down that the medic was the only reason most of them would be serving, and not a one was exaggerating. They now moved as a living screen around Shiloh when the medic broke cover, ignoring Shiloh’s pleas for them to stop.

Then Mark said something. “Colonel, General, I’m going to switch to all channels and ask you to repeat that, if it is convenient.” 

“Acceptable, Lieutenant,” Xavier suddenly heard someone say. “The enemy are routing. Additional forces are surrounding the remainder. There seem to be some kind of pods dropping from the destroyed ship - your team is closest. Can you retrieve them? Once you do, fall back to base. You’ve already won this battle.”

“Understood, Colonel.”

Echo’s voice rattled over comms on their way over to the indicated coordinates. “Carrier eliminated. We’re all okay! We’re coming down, Amaryllis wants her normal gunship back.”

Xavier started laughing. 

The drop pods turned out to contain a species whose existence Echo had confirmed but which Xavier had never seen. A handful of them, only. Sloping, large heads, slothlike limbs, and salamander-like bodies. The creatures panicked when captured. But they did now have prisoners - ones they hoped could be exchanged or used as diplomatic tokens.

When they got back aboard the gunship - with the prisoners in tow - they looked out over Philly. Over half the city was in ruins, and God only knew how many had died.

But their first major battle had been a victory, at least on paper.

Echo cursed as she glanced at the data pad. “‘Report. Multiple Ascendancy super carriers detected. Predicting simultaneous arrival within the month.’” 

The team froze. Multiple supercarriers. 

All of that had just been with one.

Molly glanced at Kimmy, and Xavier saw her desperately reach out a hand. 

Casey spoke. “Not over, is it?”

“Not close. We’ll need to make some kind of statement. Ideally before they get here. People are scared. Let’s give them something to believe in.” 

At that, Xavier smiled. It was time for them to commit. To really go for broke on keeping that promise to each other, made under the stars when they’d first heard the rumor of what was coming. To make themselves the public face that couldn’t be ignored.

[luminouslotuses]

watched the video and. i have thoughts

the most glaring issue i noticed right off the bat was how he went through various controversies from the past first. clearly he’s doing this to make sure everyone knows what his intentions are, which– sure, would’ve been good after each issue had happened 1-2 years ago, but it’s just that this is completely irrelevant to the allegations. that’s what everyone is here for and wants his actual response to, which he knows, but he pulls this shit anyway; and he still acts self-righteous while going through them.

i’m not a liar– here’s some instances of me lying about things i’ve done in the past. this was a very good and detailed video, but he’s highly critical of me. i do not support nsfw art of minors, that’s disgusting (but it’s fine to make sexual jokes about minors in my own minecraft server!). i can’t post any photos without people saying i’m gross or weird!

the “examples” of fan & friend relationships that are shown in a following segment also bothered me. why would you bring these people, who– despite you being on good terms with in the past have clearly distanced themselves from you recently– into this dumpster fire of a situation?? again, dream with this recurring theme of constantly bringing up people he used to be friends with as either an attempt to garner sympathy or to make himself look better.

when he gets to the allegations, i feel like he’s taking a roundabout way to actually address them. at one part he says how it’s difficult to prove what actually happened without there being evidence, then gives an example saying “prove to me you didn’t sext [insert anybody here]”. thirty minutes into the video and he’s still managing to somehow sidetrack from the matter at hand, even if just for a moment.

then there’s the segment where he’s talking with his mom about him barely leaving his house between 2021 and his face reveal, which lasts for a minute and half. you’re not missing anything if it’s simply summarized as such: he rarely left his house. maybe, for the sake of clarity, he could provide a few examples and move on, but nope. he had to stretch it out for as long as he possibly could; and not to mention how despite the video being “SERIOUS” and “NOT A JOKE” he’s chuckling and laughing with his mother, which feels like such tonal whiplash compared to the heavy topics that are (and should be) being discussed.

i. don’t even want to get into the cantu situation too much or it’ll give me a headache but i do have a couple things to say. overall both dream and cantu aren’t good people and while it’s shown more clearly by cantu in this specific instance, it’s obvious by now that dream’s not a good person either. the other thing is that the editing in the video is very poppy and unserious, which– god, AGAIN, this video is supposed to be about serious topics! being discussed in a serious manner! and this is literally the opposite of that.

all in all it’s good to finally hear what he has to say that’s not in a rushed, emotionally-driven or standoffish tweet. and, yes, no original evidence was concrete. yes, dream might not be a groomer. but it’s fucking pathetic it took him this long to make a clear response. he’s not trustworthy, he should definitely not have the platform that he has, and his reputation is irreversibly damaged from this. there’s no going back now.

[scaratrina]

I hope you don't mind random story questions! But you said Yekaterina is one of your oldest OCs and that you didn't create her specifically for AiB but you can squeeze her into different fandoms. Can you talk about how you created her and how different she is now from the beginning?

you opened up the Pandora’s box. hello. how are you. this is it. this is the end of the world. I AM GONNA YAP.

Yekaterina started, originally, back when I was a high schooler who had just discovered AO3 and realized that no, I was not legally required to only ship canon (life-changing). At first, she was stuck in anime/manga universes because that’s what I was consuming at the time, and I was obsessed with the clash between Eastern European and East Asian cultures. Call it whatever you want, some kind of identity study, an excuse to project, a genuine attempt at cultural analysis, but I know I didn’t do it justice back then. I was fifteen and deeply unserious. But over time, I started actually researching, reading, learning, and yet I still don’t know if I’m getting it right.

No, I do not support what Russia is doing right now. I hate war. I wish I lived in a completely different dimension where none of this was happening, because it directly affects me, and I don’t have the luxury of ignoring it. That said, I am allowed to yap about history and culture, right?

Because while Yekaterina is Russian, she’s also a product of something much broader—Slavic culture—which, despite the regional variations, comes with certain inescapable trademarks. Slavs, across the board, are loud, emotionally explosive, deeply individualistic yet paradoxically communal, built to suffer and make jokes about it. There’s a kind of survivalist humor that runs through it all, a casual acknowledgment that life will always be hard, but at least we can complain loudly and drink about it. Meanwhile, Japanese culture moves in the opposite direction, rooted in waaaaa (harmony), where self-restraint and maintaining social balance are the highest virtues. A Japanese person will endure misery with a smile rather than cause a scene. A Slavic person will make sure everyone in the room knows just how miserable they are before inviting you to get wasted about it.

And yet. There are these eerie similarities. An obsession with tradition, an almost religious devotion to suffering as a necessary part of life, and the belief that alcohol is both a sacred social tool and a valid form of emotional processing. There’s this shared understanding that life is cruel, unfair, and full of suffering, but you grit your teeth and keep going anyway.

I live for throwing characters from these cultures together and watching the inevitable cultural whiplash.

So, enter Yekaterina: a Mary Sue abomination birthed by my fifteen-year-old brain and thrown straight into Tokyo Ghoul. Specifically, she was in a throuple with Eto and Arima (if you know, you know, Challengers wishes it had that dynamic lmao). And then, as I grew up, she shapeshifted. She lost her OP-ness, gained real flaws, picked up bits and pieces of new ideas, good and bad, evolving through every fandom I got obsessed with.

Then came 2020, the godforsaken year. Fuck you, COVID. This was when Alice in Borderland first hit, but I didn’t immediately shove her into that universe. That didn’t happen until early 2024, when I rewatched the show and got into the manga at the same time, which fried my brain. Also, around this time, I got into Dori Sakurada (listen, a man that pretty deserves appreciation), but tragically for me, I am a Distressed Ugly Men Enthusiast and found myself drawn to manga Niragi instead, because that man is a wreck and I love a wreck. AND NO, THIS DOESN’T MEAN I DON’T LIKE DORI SAKURADA, I RESPECT THAT MAN’S WORK, AND HE HOLDS HALF THE BLAME FOR MY SUFFERING.

Why did Yekaterina resurface so violently? Mikey Madison as Anora mid-autumn handed me the final piece of the puzzle—Yekaterina finally had a face. Before that, she was just a collection of vibes on my Pinterest board, flickering between actresses who were never quite right.

She’s different now. So different from where she started. She used to be a Mary Sue self-insert, but at some point, I flipped the switch because I wanted her to be real. Yekaterina is deeply, deeply flawed—cynical, sharp-tongued, emotionally walled-off. She’s quick, but not strong. She can lie with a straight face, but she can’t handle genuine affection. She learned early on that love is a transaction, which is why she both excelled at hostessing and absolutely sucks at healthy relationships. She’s adaptable but resists change, street-smart but emotionally stupid. A girl who grew up never quite fitting in, trying to carve out a space for herself in a country that never really accepted her. And now she’s stuck in a post-meteor-strike limbo, haunted by a world that technically never happened, side-eyeing Niragi across a hospital room because why is he also here.

The hostessing thing actually started when I watched Jujutsu Kaisen and had a Modern AU where Uncle Sukuna (yes, Uncle Sukuna, let me have this) was a part-time mercenary who dabbled in cannibalism in his mid-20s (he was 40 in that AU). I never actually wrote it because I am deeply unwell about fictional men, but the hostessing detail stuck, so Yekaterina inherited it. And, because I am a menace, I have continued making her suffer by throwing her at the worst men imaginable.

There was Kayn from League of Legends—because if I’m going to pick a LoL man, I’m obviously choosing the edgy shadow assassin with the possession problem. There was Jung Jae-jun from The Glory, a man so violently narcissistic that he makes other red flags look pastel pink. Sukuna, obviously, because I refuse to make her life easy. Bi-Han (Sub-Zero) from Mortal Kombat, and yeah, sure, Kitana exists, but Bi-Han has body horror sex, and that is an unfortunate fact we have to live with. And, of course, the crowning achievement of her suffering: Niragi Suguru. Because why should she ever know peace.

I love rambling about my OCs. Thank you for this ask!!!!! I have four other OCs waiting in the wings, and hopefully, at least one of them will have a little less derangement, a little less body horror, a little less dubcon, because I can feel myself speed-running into burnout haha

(featuring some Pinterest board vibes for her now)

[heatwavering]

when-harry-met-sally-ification of hangster is genius!!!! i would love to hear more about that if you don't mind sharing!

also - what's on your bradley bradshaw playlist? what's genre do you associate w/ him the most?

oh god. oh you don’t even know man. hangster being harry met sally (1989) is one of those things that only makes sense in my head or with a lot of background context, because if i were to just come out and say “rooster is like sally because he’s a chronic perfectionist and an emotional powder keg that lets everything pile up until the last moment (plus his mom is meg ryan), and hangman’s like harry because he’s an cynical asshole who’s actually gooey on the inside and doesn’t speak before he thinks and chooses to push peoples buttons and yearns more than he lets on” to someone who’s only seen both movies in passing, i’m going to get a lot of blank stares and nervous laughter. "isn't that every romcom couple ever?" yes. but i mean--

BAR. FOR BAR. I have wayyy more examples and comparisons but my computer explodes every time I try to add a picture or god forbid a gif. mostly, the "we've met before and it went terrible both times, but the third time we met it stuck and we managed to finally find equal footing and fall in love," is sooooo special to me. and since when harry met sally is an 80s movie (derogatory) and people bog down on the "men and women can't be friends" thing it gets a lot of flack, but by the end of the movie the whole dynamic shifts and becomes more like "why are we putting such big expectations on a relationship when I just love you. plain and simple. no wishy-washy philosophy applies because we've outgrown it and now know each other as equals." (plus that whole first "idea" is brought up by a cynical twenty-something who changes his entire worldview by the end of the movie bc he's fallen in love. why stick to your guns about an idea that's outdated when (a) people are too complicated to fall into your boxes and (b) uhhh who cares. you're in love. I always thought the change in harry's character is supposed to reverse his previous claim in the beginning of the movie and make fun of it for being kind of elementary. but maybe I'm thinking too hard about it.) I'm definitely glossing over some plot points and nuance and whatever but again, this dynamic is something that came directly out of my mind and basically only applies to how I've sandcastled hangster into what I want to see. plus I watched WHMS at like nine years old and it might've had some debilitating side effects. enjoy with an entire pile of salt.

about music now. I'm one of those people that is the ugly kind of pretentious about character playlists (his ass would NOT listen to hayloft by mother mother, shit like that) but also spends net zero time actually building a playlist that follows a timeline or theme. so I just sort everything into two separate playlists/categories: songs that [insert character] would listen to "canonically" and songs [insert character] is aligned with in my own opinion. sometimes there's overlap!!! and sometimes I'm forcing myself to decide if Bradley listens to third eye blind or is the kind of guy who makes fun of people who listen to third eye blind. I still can't decide. I wasn't alive when he was in high school. and you know you're up a creek without a paddle when American Pie (1999) becomes reliable historical material. anyway here's the best way I can describe the difference in the two:

Bradley's own playlist: teenage boy from SoCal in the late 90s early 2000s. in my mind he was always kinda quiet in school and did partake in band so he could play the piano (yes, in jazz band. if I hear a Whiplash joke I'm airing the room out) and spent a lot of time listening to anything and everything that wasn't uhhh Britney Spears adjacent. but lots of blink-182, foo fighters, Pearl Jam, nirvana. probably some early Coldplay. maybe some of The Killers when he got to college, and Radiohead but in secret and when Maverick wouldn't bully him for listening to so much "sad ass (unspoken: gay) music." and of course he's Goose's son, soooo: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Jim Croce, Billy Joel, Allman Brother's Band, Hall & Oates, CCR, Eagles, etc. From Maverick (and Ice): U2, Pearl Jam, The Cars, more dad yacht rock, maybe Metallica (??) depends on if you think Maverick would ever mess around with something hair metal adjacent. of course he prays at the alter of Bruce Springsteen like his fathers before him. and his mom filled in everything else: Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Paul Simon, Wham! (George Michael being outed....hoo boy. #1 topic NOT discussed at the Bradshaw-Mitchell-Kazansky dinner table.), George Strait, Hootie & The Blowfish, miscellaneous female country music from the 90s like Faith Hill and Shania Twain. Alison Krauss & Union Station! Alanis Morissette! The Goo Goo Dolls? now I'm just listing things but you get the picture.

my playlist about Bradley: anything about hating your dad or your hometown with lyrics that apply. see photo below and you'll get the vibe.

[also, that ONE specific photo of miles teller in project x is the photo that sailed a thousand fics. i love that photo. i wrote this entire fucking fic around that photo. it’s so bradley nicolas bradshaw to me.]

but overall my biggest examples of songs that apply to him (for me) are Little Giant by Roo Panes, Release by Pearl Jam, and The Long Way Around by the Chicks. Seventeen by Sharon Van Etten bc of how it makes me feel about Maverick and him (sick in the head.) souvenir by boygenius. faith by bon iver. Hot & Heavy by Lucy Dacus and The Steps by HAIM for hangster vibes. too much Taylor Swift and Maggie Rogers that I don't know how to explain without having a published fic. I have a ton more and I want to pick like 10 songs from each section and go into heavier detail, but I should probably put something out before I dig myself a hole pffft.