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devondespresso · 2 months ago

Text

Let Me Raise The Bar

T | 3,602 words | Steddie | also on ao3! | Modern AU, Meet Cute, Fluff

This fic is for the @strangerthingswritersguild fic exchange, by @starryeyedjanai and @devondespresso. Thank you to @dreamwatch and @bubblesandink for betaing for me!! <3

dividers by @/thecutestgrotto

edit: oh my god i forgot the keep reading the first time im so sorry guys

This night is going terribly.

He keeps telling himself he’ll delete all his dating apps for good, but the prospect of being alone forever always has him re-downloading them.

Right now, he’s remembering why he hates them so much.

He hates Tinder, specifically—guys on Tinder only want to fuck. And if that was what he was looking for, that’d be fine, great even!

But he wants a relationship and guys on Tinder will say they want one too and then turn around and leave right after they get what they want.

At least guys on Grindr are upfront about it being just a hookup—no one’s getting their hopes up or feelings hurt when it turns out to be just that.

Tinder guys will take you on a date and pretend to be interested in you as a person and then won't fucking text back after they leave your apartment the next morning. It’s annoying and it’s frustrating and it’s a waste of Steve's fucking time at this point.

And this guy tonight isn't even trying to pretend. He tried to get Steve to blow him in his apartment building garage before they even left for the date and he really should have taken that for the red flag that it was.

But Steve looks good, and he did his hair routine that takes entirely too fucking long for no one to appreciate it.

His date drives him to this hole in the wall restaurant that Steve must have passed a million times on the bus ride to his job without ever noticing.

He thought he might be able to turn things around when they got there—it’s a small Italian place, a real family-owned type vibe to it. He knows before he even orders that the food is going to be some of the best he’s tasted since moving here.

He tries asking the typical first date questions to get to know him, but his date keeps giving him short answers. So he switches to talking about himself a little, but then he realizes his date’s been staring at his mouth the whole time he’s been talking and Steve finally snaps that he isn't getting into his pants.

Steve breathes out a deep sigh as his “date” gets up and goes to the bathroom. Some fucking date this is—they haven't even gotten their fucking food yet. What a disaster.

“Hey,” he hears their waiter—Eddie, his nametag reminds Steve when he looks up—say after a minute of his date being gone. “I hate to be the bearer of super bad news, but I just saw your date slip out the back door, and I don't know if he’s planning on coming back.”

There's a lilt of sympathy in his voice and Steve can't help but snort.

“Of course he did,” Steve says. “Why can't guys just be upfront about what they want? It would save everyone so much time.”

He’s not looking for an answer, but Eddie's mouth twists and he says, “Guys are stupid. I mean, they’d have to be to give up the chance to get to know someone as cute as you.”

Steve can't really muster up a smile at the pity, so he says, “Well, whatever the case, he was my ride home, so I think I need to call a Lyft now. Can you box the food up and bring me the check?” At least he’ll have lunch for tomorrow, which doesn't feel like an adequate consolation prize for how shitty he feels right now.

Eddie shakes his head and says, “There’s no way I’m letting you pay for such a shitty date.” Steve opens his mouth to protest, but Eddie continues, “Tell you what, my shift ends in ten minutes. Why don't I show you how I’d treat you if we went on a date.”

Steve's heart thuds in his chest, a flicker of hope in this incredibly dull evening. “Seriously?” he asks.

Eddie nods. “Think of it as a trial run. See if I rank good enough for a real one.” He winks and Steve finds himself nodding dumbly, still shocked at the rapid turn of events.

“Okay,” Steve says, kind of breathless.

Eddie heads back to finish cleaning up his other tables before he ends his shift, and Steve fills Robin in over text about what happened.

He’s still waiting for a response when Eddie shows back up with two plates of food, setting one in front of Steve and the other where his date sat before sliding into the chair across from him.

He’s wearing a different shirt, Steve realizes. It also looks like he attempted to wrangle his curly hair into something more manageable, maybe sprayed some water on it to smooth it down.

The thought that this guy, this random guy who happened to be his waiter on this horrific night, would put in more effort than his previous date makes Steve's cheeks get hot.

Maybe this night really can turn around.

“Alright, names. Hi, I'm Eddie.” Eddie says, sticking his hand out across the table cartoonishly for a handshake. Steve suppresses a laugh and takes Eddie’s hand with a smile.

“Steve.” He says, and Eddie’s eyes brighten before he takes his hand back.

“So, Steve, what do you do for fun?” Eddie says, leaning forward slightly with vibrant confidence, tone feeling more and more noticeably rehearsed as he goes. “Other than light up the room with that smile, of course.”

Steve huffs a laugh, blushing despite himself.

“You practice that one a lot?”

Eddie shrinks back a little, still smiling even as he messes with the hair on the back of his neck, already starting to ruffle what he’d tried to tame.

“Yeah, it’s uh…”

“It’s sweet.” Steve leans in a little closer himself, trying to match the effort Eddie keeps putting in. “Almost as sweet as the smile you're wearing.”

Eddie flushes pink and lets out a little “Thank you” to cover a nervous laugh—and christ, Steve is already hooked.

Steve hums and grabs his fork to start eating and Eddie mirrors him.

“Thank you for this by the way.” Steve continues, “Tonight's been… ugh, you know.”

“A special kind of shitty?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs, “So all this is… really nice.”

“I'm glad.” Eddie says, voice soft before he shrugs and continues casually “M’hoping I’ll at least do better than the last guy.”

“Yeah, of course, you haven’t even asked me to blow you yet or anything.”

Eddie turns red and busts out a nervous laugh, looking away immediately. God, he’s so fucking cute.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm not–” Eddie looks back at him, nervous still, but sincere anyway, “That's not exactly my style.”

“You a wine and dine kinda guy?”

Eddie shrugs lightly, then he seems to get an idea, leaning in again with a smile “Actually– ideally, I'm a dine and mine kinda guy.”

A smile takes over Steve’s face that he can’t fully tamp down, a little flustered and a lot amused.

Eddie preens, then continues with a shy smile.

“Though, uh, usually it's more dine and…” Eddie pauses, “Pine. Dine and pine. You know, like pining.”

Steve makes his face relax as he nods and leans back. “Oh, yeah, like the tree.”

Eddie stops and looks at Steve, and soon Steve’s smile breaks out again.

“No, I know what you mean.” He says with a little laugh that Eddie quickly mirrors.

Eddie visibly relaxes, slouching overdramatically to the side with a sigh.

“God, I swear I’m usually good at this sort of thing, words and stories and shit,” He groans, gesturing around almost like he’s talking to himself, “But apparently I meet one pretty boy and suddenly I’ve got screws loose. And they’re all falling out, all across the floor, ‘there they go!’, y’know?”

Steve bites back a snicker and hums a quiet agreement. Eddie notices, though, looks up and sees right to Steve’s amusement, so Steve decides to save them both the embarrassment and move on.

“So your job. You like it here?

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Eddie says, perking up and gesturing as he starts talking, “The owners are really cool, they were our neighbors– Wayne’s—my uncle’s—neighbors when I first moved in with him, way way back, and they were so chill, loved having people over. Then one time in highschool I mentioned saving up ‘cause I’m trying to make it big with my band, and they offered to give me a job here while we get there.”

“That’s awesome. Your band any good?”

“Depends on who you ask.” Eddie laughs, playing with the food on his plate, “Wayne says we’re pretty good, which is probably the equivalent of moms showing up to their toddler’s dance recitals, but it’s something.”

“Where'd you guys play?”

“The Hideout, a couple blocks down…”

Steve nods.

“Yeah, it’s, uh, pretty fun if you ever wanted to stop by.“

“Sounds like a great second date.”

Eddie blushes, playing with his hair again as he smiles and looks away.

“I’ll probably have to wear earplugs– not because of your band or–”

“No, no, no, you’re good–” Eddie says, almost jumping up to reassure him, “It’s metal, that’s normal– good, even.”

“Oh– good.” Steve says, a bit awkwardly, and looks back down to his food.

Eddie leaves barely a moment of silence before he pulls the conversation back together.

“So what about you? You just a professional bad-Tinder-dater?”

Steve huffs and fiddles with his fork.

“Guidance counselor, actually.”

“Oh damn, really?”

“Yeah, Middle school.”

“Oh god,” Eddie groans playfully, “I can't imagine going back there willingly.”

“Yeah, I mean, it can get pretty rough,” Steve shrugs, “It's good though. Kids start thinking about who they are, I get to try and make that a little less shitty.”

“That’s a tall order.” Eddie laughed into his glass. “I respect it though. Hell, just having a queer adult exist around me would’ve made a lot of it easier.”

“God, yeah. I've got practice, at least, for when they need more than just some guy standing around in an office.” he laughed, pulling out sarcastic air quotes for the next part, “ I ‘babysat’ kids in middle school before I graduated. Bunch of little shits but they were good kids– still are good. They're like four years younger than me though, so they're more like siblings than kids.”

“Yeah, bet they don't take well to ‘kids’.”

“Oh, they hate it.” Steve laughed and Eddie followed with him, “Always hated it, but Dustin put his foot down after highschool. Rob and I call them my ‘twenty-somethings’ now.”

“God, wait, how old are you?” Eddie laughed

“Twenty-six.”

Eddie laughed a little louder, a lively and full laugh that looked enchanting on Eddie.

“You'd love them, they're all–

Steve’s phone buzzes.

Both of them look over to it on the table. Steve moves it to the seat next to him, looked up to Eddie with an apologetic smile.

His phone buzzes again.

And again, and soon Eddie’s eyes flick in that direction, eyebrow quirking with barely-restrained curiosity.

Then Steve’s phone starts ringing, the electric guitars of Hammer To Fall creeping up in volume way too fast for comfort.

“Sorry–” Steve cringes, grabbing his phone and answering the call in a furious whisper, “Robin, are you dying?”

“No, but thank you for confirming that you aren’t.”

“I texted you what happened.”

“Yeah and it was vague as hell! I reserve the right to be a worrywart with this shit.”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve sighs, but can’t really argue with her on it. “This was going well, though–”

“Is.” Eddie chimes in, not trying to be loud enough for the phone to pick it up, just for Steve to hear him clearly.

“Is going well.” Steve smiles.

“Oooo okayyy.” Robin hums and Steve can hear her cheeky smile through the phone.

“Goodbye, Robin.” Steve says, failing a half-assed attempt to cover his amusement.

“Oh wait no, tell him if he tries anything I’ll–”

“M’not doing that.”

“I will though, I’ll go after him–”

“Oh woah you’re breaking up, can’t hear you.” Steve deadpans.

“Steve, I know–”

“Love you, bye–”

“Steeeeve–”

“Don’t pull your hair out.” Steve says and hangs up, coming back to the present to Eddie watching him, thankfully looking amused instead of annoyed.

“Sorry about that.” Steve says.

“No, no, it’s fine.” Eddie leans forward again, propping his head up in one hand, “So… friend?”

“Best friend, has to be to get away with shit like that so easily.”

Eddie snorts.

“What was she calling about?”

“I wasn’t clear that this new date thing was gonna be a good thing.”

Eddie nods civilly.

“She worries,” Steve continues, “Fuckin’ tinder dates, y’know?”

“Uh, not really….” Eddie smiles.

“Good for you. They’re all the same asshole in a different haircut.” Steve says, and Eddie smiles, laughing a little with him before continuing with something calmer, a little more earnest.

“Then why keep going to them?”

Steve shrugs.

“Call me an optimist, I guess.”

Eddie hums noncommittally, like he’s thinking more than he’s sharing, and continues the conversation in a lighter direction.

The rest of the date is wonderful. A little less chaotic, especially once they start finally eating their food for real, but what it lacks in eventfulness it makes up for in comfort. They’re not exactly quiet, but Eddie’s energy always comes with a sincerity underneath, like he’s bold and fun because he just is, and not because he’s making himself be.

It’s refreshing. And as the night goes on, it becomes intoxicating.

So when Eddie offers to save him the Lyft fee and just drive Steve home, Steve agrees, just to get a little longer in Eddie’s bubble.

Eddie leads him through the restaurant and out the back into a small parking lot with a handful of cars and one big van, decorated with a clearly hand-painted dragon on the side. Which, of course, ends up being Eddie’s.

“Dustin would love this thing.” Steve says as he hops into the passenger’s seat, not really thinking twice about it as he looks at the interior, eyes lingering on the big fuzzy dice with too many sides hanging from the mirrors.

“So Dustin is…?”

“A Twenty-something.” Steve laughs as he spins the fuzzy dice to see all of its sides. “He’s like my little brother. Loves DnD and science and… all the nerd shit.”

“Nerd shit?”

“Yeah, I mean– it's not my thing but it’s cool. I’ve played with Dustin and them a couple times.”

“Oooo, a bit of a nerd, are we?” Eddie hums in a weird, almost witchy voice.

“Casually.”

“Mmm, but you’re already down the path~~”

“Just drive, dude.” Steve says with a fond eye roll.

“As you wish, your majesty.” Eddie hums in his normal voice, giving Steve a glowing glance before shoving the keys in.

“Alright, I'm about to push your nerd-tolerance to its limits.” Eddie says, pulling out his phone with a grin. He connects it to the car and quickly turns it down before drums and guitar erupt from the speakers, and Steve flinches at the volume.

“Sorry, sorry.” Eddie whispers and turns down the music again.

Steve nods, and after a second of the music playing much more quietly, he finds it much more comfortable. Nice, even. The energy is quick and alive like Eddie is, though the aggressive vocals fit his outward aesthetic more than his borderline goofy demeanor.

“It’s not the music, I promise.” Steve says, saying it casually but meaning it sincerely.

“You’re fine, I get it.” Eddie laughs, a little too cynically for Steve’s liking.

“No, I–” Steve reaches for Eddie’s hand between them, intertwining fingers and bringing both hands up between them, “I’m serious, I like it. My head’s a little sensitive, been hit a few too many times, but it’s nice. It’s bold and very energetic… stuff that I already like about you.”

Eddie blushes hard—a sweet cherry pink—as he slouches, bringing their joined hands closer to his face like he’s trying to hide behind them. Eddie rests his forehead against the back of Steve’s hand and huffs a quiet laugh.

“God, you’re quite the charmer, Stevie.” Eddie says, and Steve finds his face warming too.

“And I’m guessing it’s working?” Steve laughs.

Eddie looks up at him, smiling wide.

“Oh, it’s working very well.” Eddie says, and brings their hands closer to him again to plant a soft kiss onto Steve’s hand.

Steve’s face goes warm again, lights him on fire, and Eddie’s smile turns slightly smug before he looks away.

“Alright,” Eddie says, looking back to the front to drive but not letting go of Steve’s hand. He even reaches his left arm over to change the gears, leaning into how silly he looks to make Steve laugh.

It’s sweet, it's genuine, and it's everything to Steve.

Eddie starts driving, hand still firmly holding onto Steve’s, neither of them willing to let go first. Steve looks at it as Eddie drives, splitting most of his attention between their hands, Eddie’s profile lit up by the colorful city lights, and the road ahead as he navigates Eddie to his apartment.

And if they miss a turn or two because Steve’s tired brain doesn’t want to watch the damn road? Eddie doesn’t mention it.

“Alright.” Eddie says, putting the car into park with his left hand again, though far less comically now.

He sits there for a second, quiet like something’s on his mind, so Steve waits.

“Okay, uh,” Eddie starts, looking vaguely down as he wanders through what he wants to say, “I had fun, I’m assuming by how the nights gone that you did, too…”

Steve squeezes Eddie's hand, and Eddie laughs.

“I had a really great time. And I want to do this again, if you want to.” Eddie glances up at Steve for a second before his eyes dart away again. “But I want to be sure you’re… you’re not being an optimist with me. That you want want this, y’know, because you're an amazing guy, Stevie. I don’t know how you keep having such shit luck but believe me when I tell you it's not because of you.”

Eddie looks back up at him again and keeps his gaze there, looking more relaxed now.

“So, uh, I would love to take you out again.” Eddie says, “If you want to.”

If he wants to, as if that's not the most romantic thing Steve’s heard in his life.

Steve almost says that. He also debates kissing him or pulling him into an awkward hug over the center console that he’s sure would be put up with no matter how uncomfortable it’d be. But Steve doesn’t, because Eddie continues before Steve can make a decision.

“What do you want?”

Steve resists the urge to say a cheesy ‘You’ and thinks about it, really thinks so he can put together words that make sense, so he can give Eddie a real answer.

“I want a long relationship. A real one, y’know?”

Eddie nods.

“And I want to get married, someday. I want someone who’ll stay that long, who will love and let me love them, all cheesy and clingy and shit.”

Eddie hums, searching Steve’s face.

“And?”

Steve looks down at the joined hands between them.

“And I’d love if it were you. You’re sweet, so sweet, but you’re also… alive. Everything you do, you’re…” Steve thinks hard for a moment, working out how to phrase it. “It’s like the world doesn’t weigh you down. And you’re so genuine and you’ll come and say what you mean like it’s nothing, and I think every one of the people in my life—my favorite people—would love being around you almost as much as I do.”

Steve looks back up to him, face hot with another intense flush, and tries to smile casually.

“Hate to break it to you, dude, but you’re kinda my perfect man.”

Eddie huffs a breathy laugh, face painted with disbelief and wonder.

“Okay, then. Case closed.”

“Yeah,” Steve hums, with as much fondness as possible. Steve leans in across the center console, bringing a hand up slowly, trying to signal that he’s leaning in for a kiss.

It takes Eddie a second, and Steve gets to watch him look down at Steve’s hand and look at Steve leaning in, gets to see the moment it clicked before Eddie lunges to meet him halfway and then some, making the hand that was supposed to cradle Eddie’s face hold onto the seat beneath him to keep their balance.

Eddie kisses him hard at first, bringing a hand up to card through Steve’s hair, excited and alive. Then Eddie seems to come back to his senses, moving back but taking Steve with him until they’re both leaning over the center again.

Their kiss softens, intensity melting out into fondness, gentle but passionate, warm and Steve wants to melt from it.

Still, Steve’s going home tonight, going to go upstairs to Robin and tell her all about it. He’ll get to have a good night's sleep in a bed that doesn’t need cleaning, and he’ll get to wake up to the idea of something new brewing fresh in his mind.

Steve pulls back gently and Eddie does the same, eyes flicking open one after the other, a smile on Steve’s face and another lighting up Eddie’s.

Steve catches his breath, feeling lighter now than he has in ages, and Eddie opens his mouth to say something again.

“Does this mean I can get your number?”

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie fic #steddie fluff #fluff #modern au #happy ending #devon's writings

791 notes · View notes

kalims · 15 days ago

Text

⭒ㅤnot gonna lie !

premise. pov prefect opens a ngl, except! the story they shared it from can only be viewed... by one person!

characters. first years

ace

not gonna lie ! smash tbh

unironically pretends that he never sent one when you start bombarding him.

uniquewhere: i didn't even see ur story

shrimp: [attatchment]

uniquewhere: i have no wifi to see that sorry not sorry

vehement denial is actually the most effective defense according to him. even if it bypasses all forms of realism, it's not real if he doesn't believe it to be! <- real life advice from ace trappola guys.

if you haven’t already guessed, he can indeed see the picture you just sent and just assumes his very first form of defense… no amount of proof will remove him from his little ball of: “i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

you gotta prepare some kind of miscrosoft presentation, and sit him down. though he will 100% do that thing where he plugs his ears in with his fingers pretending he doesn’t hear anything even though it doesn’t block out you reading out the words.

“here is the real, actual screenshot of my replies—”

“I NEVER EVEN SAW YOUR STORY.”

“ah, good! next slide after this is the views of the story!”

deuce

not gonna lie ! i like you

very demure, very straight to the point is deuce.

he would've written some long ass paragraph in all honesty but he just can't because he sees what he writes, deletes it, then cringes to himself.

atleast with that one he has the excuse for whichever scenario that might randomly ask about it.. (yes, he's thinking that far) weird flex but ok

1. "you ever confessed to your crush?" someone asking

2. "yeah sorta....." deuce

3. "???" someone confused

he was feeling reaaallyyy proud of himself. the anxiousness finally settles down, alongside with his rapidly beating heart. even if it isn't a real, confession it still brings him a bit of peace.

shrimp: I know what you did

tokyodefenders: WHAT?

there goes his heart rate.

like, you did not offer context to any of that but he's still gonna think you somehow, actually do know even if you didn't provide an explanation to... whatever it is you know about him!

tokyodefenders: whaTEVER IT IS IS NKT TRUE

shrimp: please, ur breaking my heart

shrimp: I like u too :(

heart? ascended

he's not even gonna question it. all his braincells got dumped out, and all he can focus on is that particular message. he isn't even gonna remember backtracking about the ngl cause he's gonna be like:

how did they hack my keyboard.. are they tracking it?! LOL

"I'm a mastermind,"

"HOW DID YOU KNOW?!?!" <- deuce, scared for his life.

jack

not gonna lie ! stop getting into trouble. I'm not always there to pull you out

is concerned with how many times you've managed to unknowingly walk into trouble, jack had been lucky enough (yes, him. not you, cause knowing you, you wouldn't be too phased) to be a near constant presence when the shenanigans during the tournament concluded, he stuck to you then.

as in reluctantly following around you like a tail. narrowing his eyes at the less than friendly faces often wore around you, that you were... well, amazingly oblivious to. or maybe you acted like you didn't know, the carriage didn't pick you up for nothing if you were here in nrc.

shrimp: do u rlly think I'm a troublemaker?

iheldheroncejacob: yes

the random topic being brought up went completely over his head. jack probably had forgotten he'd given the link to your story the time of your day, in all honesty

shrimp: well maybe I keep getting in trouble so u can rush in, and pull me out?

iheldheroncejacob: you're a terrible friend then

shrimp: :(

in retrospect jack is able to keep up with joking around, usually. but it's so hard to take you seriously that he takes whatever you say with a grain of salt, you're almost always tipping between flat sarcasm, or calm nonchalance between your words. it almost always has something to do with the people you're with.

the heartslabyul prefect for example, you take a kind, subtle undertone of teasing to (which is crazy, because you're scarily tame in the presence of the vice-dorm head.) and then you're all stony faced when you're with someone you don't like.

^ and you obviously don't dislike jack, if the little selfish, presumptuous nrc part of him would like to claim confidently so... would you really be joking?

only does jack realize the connection between your text, and the ask he sent when he's just finished his laps.

"I'm not your guard dog! why would you even get in trouble for that, next time I'm not even gonna spare you the time cause—"

"what a pee brain."

"what? don't compare my brain to a tiny pee—"

epel

not gonna lie ! CAN I PLS TRANSFER TO RAMSHACKLE AHHHH

you've never met anyone who's disliked being sorted into whatever the dark mirror fitted their 'soul' into as much as epel.

even without the private story only limited to his response, you're sure you could pick out his message and put a face to it.

epel, in his defense, still has savanaclaw as number one in his heart. though upon asking jack if it was possible to transfer there, the latter confirmed but it was... a tedious process, and suggested asking rook, who literally came from savanaclaw!

the boy only spared his friend a side glance before scurrying away. no use traipsing around that...

but of course, getting away from pomefiore is only a goal! always being near your proximity was a biiiiig bonus!

shrimp: hey I need ur files for the dorm transfer

catchwhathands: [escapeplan.jpg]

catchwhathands: I knew u wanted me in ur dorm!!

shrimp: actually I don't. ur the one that asked ;)

catchwhathands: who cares. I'm finally getting out of this hell YEAHHHH!!

shrimp: who said I was gonna use the files you sent?

okay, admittedly the moment he'd sent over the files, epel shut his phone, and quite literally did a victory lap around his room. making sure to frolic so vil has less chances of hearing his chaos...

the dorm leader woke up so easily from noises that you'd think rook was the reason he developed such a habit.

probably.

epel was already planning the plan! he could see the vision! maybe he could plant around ramshackle since it is a pretty big area. you guys would be together for the remainder of the year—and he'd finally bump the adeuce duo from their pedestal!

*ping*

"AGHHHHH STUPID FRIGGIN'—"

"epel!"

"sorry..."

sebek

not gonna lie ! since it is a request for unbridled honesty, I shall deliver what you've requested. you have done so without much thought, clearly! if you've given such leeway for... criticism! you, human, could use a lot more educating in terms of the glory of our eternal lord, the glorious malleus! in accordance to your previous, description of our relationship. the farthest I can give is acquaintance, but I shall only call you a companion (AKA friend) if you are atleast educated about my interests! as the good companion you desire to be!

woo, alright. he really wrote all that...

oh, uh oh.. you just got another ask from him, maybe even longer..?

shrimp: what would that make silver then

rizzvolt: my brother in arms!

shrimp: but hey, actually I do want to know

rizzvolt: ah! finally! I knew you atleast have some common decency, and sense. for that I shall agree for your request in our friendship! these are the most accurate ones pertaining the great lord malleus' biography! [link] [link] [link]

rizzvolt: is that enough? I will send you more, but only if you finish these three. I will test you rigorously to confirm that you are indeed genuine in your interest!

why he has all that, you have no idea.. if only he displayed that much dedication for his studies...

shrimp: I don't wanna learn about malleus

shrimp: I want to learn about you

rizzley: how dare you! the lord's name should only be addressed with a: 'lord', 'the great', 'the

...

sebek stares at his screen, just in the process of finishing his... educating sentence, because even in text, malleus should only be treated with the highest form of respect!

have you no integrity?! he wonders.

only then does he focus on your response, does he make a rather... dubious sound of shock? sebek doesn't know why he breaks into a cold sweat as he runs the sentence through his mind a hundred times in the span of a minute.

what is this... some sort of human illness? or maybe love—

of course he'd never even consider such a thing! (just did bro)

shrimp: sooo.. since you sent me an ask, does that mean you actually like me?

shrimp: sebeeeeekk.. did you actually read?

with the speed of lightning (and the adrenaline maybe, what else could this frantic pounding of his chest explain besides that you are indeed, dangerous!) he opens the story on your media

'send me an ask if you like meeee :)'

sebek promptly falls over.

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sapphic-kpop-fics · 22 days ago

Text

Smoke Slow Part 2 (Daniela Avanzini x Reader)

Sorry it’s so late! It got deleted on accident and I had rewrite but here it is! Also it’s almost Halloween so there’s a tiny reference to my favorite Halloween season movie, can you find it?

Tiny angst in beginning because of awkwardness and miscommunication, smut at the end.

After Dani had left your room the night before, you went to the kitchen where the rest of the girls were including Dani. You sat at the farthest seat possible from Dani at the table, curse Sophia and her family breakfast rule, which she had found weird you always sat next to each other, there was a flash of hurt in her eyes when you made eye contact. No one else noticed or at least made it obvious they noticed the tension between the two of you, except Manon who had caught you which she sat next to you giving you a look.

“What?” You ask so only she hears you.

“Everything okay with you two?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Manon gives you a look as if to say, “don’t fucking start that.”

“Come on.” She adds.

“I don’t know. Honestly. We haven’t talked since… you know.”

“Yeah I know too well, I’m gonna have to bleach my brain to get that image out.” You roll your eyes at you, “you need to talk to her.”

“I know.”

“Today.” As if reading your mind and knowing you would put it off to save yourself from an awkward situation.

“Fine.” You sigh, looking up to Dani who’s already looking at you but she quickly averts her eyes to the food in front of her.

When breakfast is over you notice Dani starting to clean up and put things away, obviously stalling to be able to talk to you without others around. So you linger around, pretending to look for something until you’re alone with the blonde, who simply looks at you expectantly.

“Hey…” you start, awkwardly.

“Hi.”

“About last night-“

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No of course not.”

“Then why have you been ignoring me all morning.”

“I just.. got scared after last night.”

“Oh. Why were you scared?”

“Did you kiss me because we were high or because you wanted to?”

Dani looked shocked at the question, in her mind it was obvious she wanted to kiss you since you met basically.

“Because i wanted to. Definitely because I wanted to.” She smiles at you, “and I’d like to do it again if you want that.”

“Of course I do.”

“Amazing, see you tonight. Same place and time.” There’s a bit of a mischievous smirk on her face as she walks away and glances at you over her shoulder.

The day goes by awfully slow after that interaction, lingering touches and looks between you and Dani. You fight the urge to kiss her whenever you’re next to her, it’s like she put some sort of spell on you.

Finally after what felt like a year, it’s finally one am and you’re sitting on your balconies couch, joint in hand with a little speaker playing music just loud enough to hear. You smoke some of the joint before Dani joins you simply because of the nerves of what might happen next. You’re snapped out of your thoughts by a slight knock and an open of your sliding glass door.

“Hey.” Dani say softly, a smile resting of her lips as she closes the door, luckily for you guys you invested in a chain lock for the outside of the door for privacy reasons anyways so Dani locks that and makes sure the outside curtains are shut. Then sits next to you on the couch, again with her thigh right next to yours, shoulders touching.

“Hi.” It comes out a bit shaky because when you say it you notice what she’s wearing. Very short shorts and a white tank top, no bra.

“Can I have some?” She looks at the joint between your fingers.

“Sure. Like yesterday or do you want to try it yourself?”

“I want to try it myself.”

You smiled but inside you felt a little upset you wouldn’t be able to have your lips next to hers yet. But you handed her the joint.

“Just put it to your lips and breathe in. Not too much though.” You instruct the inexperienced girl. She does as you say, except the last part she definitely breathes in way too hard and for way too long. So now she’s coughing her lungs out as you rub her back for comfort, when she finally settles her eyes look into yours. They’re glossy, and a bit squinted, a head high taking over her, you take one more hit to get to her level before tossing the joint aside.

“Kiss me.” Dani says, growing bolder with the high she’s experiencing. You barely let her finish before you’re pressing your lips against her. She moans in response to your eagerness, parting her mouth enough for you to slip your tongue in. Your hand goes to her thigh, slowly gliding up until they’re at the end of her shorts that sit on her upper thigh almost to her hips, you brush your thumb underneath the fabric making her gasp. Her reaction spurs you on to move your hand to cup her center, causing another louder gasp that you’re sure the street below could hear.

“Please. Don’t tease.” She says, glossy eyes with blown pupils look up to you and you couldn’t say no so you skip the teasing and immediately shove a hand into her shorts and past her underwear to start rubbing tight circles on her clit, at which she whimpered as not to be too loud while anyone around could hear. You suddenly stop and drop to your knees in front of her, as if Dani could get more turned on. She lifts her hips to start pushing her shorts down which you help with. Pulling her down a bit by her hips so she’s on the edge of the cushion, as she puts her legs on your shoulders and a hand in your hair which she pulls forward to put your mouth where she needed it, an immediate moan coming out which causes her to cover her mouth.

“You have to be quiet. We’re kinda in the open here.” You tease pulling away from her a bit.

“Sorry.” It’s more of whimper, “I’ll be quiet just please.” Her hand still covering her mouth.

You make sure to maintain eye contact while you lean back in, drawing a line from her entrance to her clit. The sounds she’s making are muffled by her hand, you were tempting to let all of Los Angeles hear what you were doing just so you could listen to her moans. You replace your mouth with your fingers so you can be eye level with her. Two of your fingers move slowly inside of her while your thumb rubs loose circles over her clit, while you maneuver her to lay on the couch and hover over her.

“Faster.” She manages to get out.

“Please” she adds to heightened her odds of you listening and you do listen your pace quickens, not just by a little either kinda 0-100. The sounds of her getting wetness fill the air, someone on the street below could probably hear it, you could only hope the walls were super thin and your members were clueless. Your actions make her bury her head in your neck so the noises she was making were muffled by you.

“Oh my god, y/n”

“Feel good?”

“Mm.” You feel her head nod against your neck.

You could tell she was close to her release when her whimpers got more frequent and her thighs started to tremble underneath you.

“Wanna cum baby?” You say as you angle your fingers and curl them while continuing a harsh pace.

“Mm- fuck. Yes, please.” She repeated the please a few times but the got more and more whiny each time. Not even a minute later her whole body is shaking and she’s pulling you into a kiss so her moans wouldn’t be too loud. She goes limp on the couch a bit after whimpering out one last “fuck.”

You lay there only the sound of your heavy breathing filling the air before Dani breaks the silence.

“I think I like smoking now.”

#kpop imagines #katseye x reader #katseye imagines #katseye smut #katseye #daniela avanzini #daniela avanzini x reader #daniela avanzini imagines

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mithrandirl · 5 months ago

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i always get questions when i do a split gifset, and it's a deceptively simple process so i thought i'd try to show how i do it! i don't know if these types of gifsets have a more universally recognized name, but that's what i call them so that's what i'm going with.

i'm going to write this assuming you have a solid familiarity with photoshop and making gifs, but please feel free to send me an ask if anything is unclear. i use video timeline/smart objects so will be showing that (here's a great general tutorial on giffing with timeline). i will also be talking A LOT about gif dimensions, so first let's briefly go over the limits and theory a little bit.

a 1 column gifset can accommodate gifs 540 pixels wide

2 columns = 268 pixels each with a 4 pixel gutter between

3 columns = 177, 178, 177 pixels with 4 pixel gutters

i'm mostly going to talk about 2 column split gifs here (what i will refer to as 2x1 from now on - 2 across and 1 high), but the process is the same for 3 column (3x1) and so on (1x2, 2x2, etc).

so, why would you even want to make a gifset like this? i mean, let’s face it, generally, bigger is better for gifs on tumblr, and there are obvious incentives to 540 width gifs over 268 or 177/8 width, especially since the upload limit went to 10MB. but even 10MB isn’t much when you’re talking about high quality footage. gif making is a constant balance between quality (whatever that means to you: frame dimensions, sharpening, coloring, etc) and file size. split gifs are a cheat to that limitation >:)

i personally believe an untapped frontier of tumblr gifmaking is playing with dimensions and time. that sentence makes me sound like an old-timey sci-fi villain, but you get the idea: gifmaking is an art and there are many fun and interesting ways of exploring the medium. you can do a lot with 268 pixels! longer frame loops to gif longer scenes unbroken, bolder coloring on a wide shot you don’t want to pare down. and, a shorter x axis means the y axis’s bang goes a lot further on a buck. also just if you have a 2 column set but only 5 gifs so you need to make one take up 2 slots. there's a lot of reasons but the most important one is it's fun :) here are some examples of other split gifs i've made: x, x, x

this isn't so much a limitation, more of a shift in how you think about gifs, but it's important to remember that each gif should ideally be doing something still. when making split gifs, it’s easy to pick a wide scene without thinking about how it’ll be split down the middle, and then you’re left with a lot of something on one side and a lot of incongruous nothing on the other - or you're left with a person cut in half awkwardly in the middle. so while a split gif can still be a whole scene, you shouldn’t ignore the break and what it means to the bigger picture. now this is personal preference, but i like to play with the break and make it a part of the gifset. mirrored movement, subjects trapped on either side but still talking to each other, a bird flying from one side to the other. fun with frames! it can be another way of drawing attention to specific images/moments/feelings happening within the same shot.

SIMPLE SPLIT GIFS

to more narrowly define what i’m calling “simple split gifs,” it’s one set of frames split down the middle into two separate gifs that are meant to play concurrently, side by side.

first thing's first, crop your gif and uncheck delete cropped pixels if it is not already (very important). i'm cropping it to the 1x1 size, in this case 268x350. if you need to see how the full size will look, you can try it out with 536 first. but this one is pretty easy, this is the exact center of the frame (the left boundary of this crop is the center line) and both their heads fit within their respective 1x1 crop.

then color as you normally would. if your scene is very different one side to the other, it might be easier for you to color on a wider crop and then either crop again or copy paste your coloring to the smaller crop version. i do that with the 2x6s, but it's usually not that big a deal to color the 2x1s with just the small crop on your canvas at the time. this scene is very symmetrical, both in movement and colors, so i'm good.

now the fun part! once you've got one side how you want it, save/export as you normally would. at this point i also like to make a mental note of how many frames there are.

so i have 49 frames and it's still only ~3MB! this is just an example that i picked from my rotk fancy set, otherwise i probably would have made this gif longer.

then onto the other side, so i ctrl + z my way back to my smart object video timeline. to get to theoden i just drag and drop the smart object 268 pixels over. since this one is in the exact center of the image, it even helpfully guides me (this can get annoying if you are NOT giffing the center of the image fyi, but you can always manually go pixel by pixel too if you need to with your <- -> keyboard buttons. just always remember where you started and count accurately). i can never move around my smart object without hiding the adjustment layers on top of it, so you'll see me do that in this screen recording.

see how it corrected me when i dragged it a few pixels down by accident, and with all those pink guidelines? sometimes photoshop is good 😌

then make sure you still like the coloring, adjust whatever needs to be adjusted, but watch out! don't make any major changes because it still has to match the other side. and export again.

what we perceive as 1 series of frames chopped down the middle is just 2 separate gifs with the same frame rate. when tumblr loads the images, it will run concurrently in the post (even though it never does in the draft post 🙄). and that's it!

COMPLEX SPLIT GIFS

again i'm making up terms, but i call anything with more than 2 components a complex split gifset. i've tweaked some things in the process as i went along, but this is generally how i did the lotr series. these sets are basically just many split gifs with transitions. and here's where endurance becomes a factor :) there's a lot of prep done blind. but if set up well, it will be fairly easy to pull together by the end.

first i decide on my dimensions, using my upper bounds to determine how big i'm going to go. since lotr has very nice large file sizes, i can go pretty big without sacrificing much in quality. i decided on 3 rows of 350 pixel height gifs and it's worked well for me. that means my biggest gif will have a total height of 1050 pixels - fun! you could also do 8 rows, with two 2x2s or just a series of 2x1s that transition to 1x1s. there really is no limit to this except your imagination and source material.

i cap everything i'm going to use before i even open photoshop, then do all of them at once. uncheck delete cropped pixels, then i make my gifs! this is where i spend 90% of the time on this set. every gif should be the size of the smallest 1x1 gif (268x350 for me). i make all 10 into a fully colored, separate psd. (and then i usually go back through all of them a few times to get the colors to match better 😅) for the bigger ones (2x1: 536x350 and 2x6: 536x1050), i just crop them as if they were 1x1 but always thinking about how they will look when big. this gets tricky when i do the big one :) my lazy workaround for that is to basically make it twice: one cropped as it will be and one full size for me to color. then i copy and paste all the coloring layers onto the small one and voila, i know that the coloring in the upper right slice will also look good on the bottom left slice 1050 pixels away because i saw it on the full size version.

coloring is probably the biggest thing i'm thinking about with this kind of set. the whole idea is that these gifs are using the same colors, more or less, throughout each phase. even with the 1x1s, they're still part of a larger color concept, and they should (🤞) work with each other.

in a pinch, i like to eyedrop a color from one gif and add it as an accent to another. one of my 1x1s had a much more muted color palette originally, but i wanted it to have deeper blues and yellows to complement the 1x1 that would go next to it, so i added some gradients on lower opacity over it, color picked from other gifs i already colored.

i keep my coloring and the smart object in separate folders to help me in the final step of combining everything, and then i trim everything down to my lowest common denominator of frames. you might think you need to keep frames pretty minimal if you're doing 3 phases with transitions like this, but there's more room to work with on a small gif, in terms of file size. i usually do 30-50 frames for each phase, with the assumption that i'll be adding a transition on each side of each gif that will eat up some frames (i usually do 4-6 frame fade transitions). for the rotk set my final frame count was 129 and i never went over 8MB on a gif, so there's plenty of space play around with things :)

and then, combine! whatever order you start with, you are stuck with (unless you're getting even more complicated, but we won't go into that lol). for these sets i go small 1x1 -> medium 2x1 -> big 2x6. i like to think of it in phases from this point on. small is the first phase, then medium, then big. then i put in the fade transitions, chopping up the first phase gif so the last one will fade into it, restarting the whole cycle seamlessly. i'm just doing a quick and dirty fade here, but here's a tutorial if you want more explanation on transitions.

at this point i save this psd as its position, "top left" or whatever (usually it's a psb by this point too 🥲), just in case i need to go back to it. then i export this first gif and move on to the rest.

it's the same concept as a simple split gif: drag and drop the smart object to the new position, but now there are multiple phases to keep track of. folder organization has been key for me to keep everything straight. i move through the gifs in a backwards S, starting with the top left. but you could go any direction, just gotta stick with it and remember your counts. in my case, i'm always thinking of 268 pixels over and, for the 2x6, 350 up/down. it's a tedious process, but it goes quick (apart from waiting for photoshop to load each time you export).

i did this series as a color concept aesthetic kind of thing, so my theory was by using the same-ish colors throughout, that would save me in the end when it came time to export. there's only 256 colors max to work with on a gif, and that's usually what gets me over the 10MB limit. but as i said, i have never even gotten close to the size limit on this series. it's pretty hard to reach the limit on 268 pixels, but not impossible. (i did run into that on the emma set i did, and that was hell. but also not an impossible fix in the end.)

and that's it! if you try any of this and have trouble, i'm happy to help if i can but mostly this is a "click around and see what works for you" kind of process. and feel free to tag me on your split gifsets :) i love seeing them <3

#*lotrsplit #*#split gifs #gif tutorial #photoshop tutorial #usergif #allresources #chaoticresources #completeresources #photoshop tag

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jjkamochoso · 3 months ago

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Okay guys I screwed this up yesterday!! This was a request from @killuagirly and was originally an ask but I accidentally posted it unfinished instead of saving as a draft and had to delete it lol SO here's the request: "Another Feitan request! Feitan with a Female Reader who's dying to 'pretty him up'! He's already gorgeous as is of course, but wouldn't it be so fun to do a morning & nightly routine with him? If she's lucky, Feitan will let her paint his nails! He goes for black when she asks what color he'd like, but maybe with a little pink heart on each ring finger! He wouldn't mind that much, so long as the Troupe doesn't see of course. He'd never hear the end of it."

Here's my answer to the ask: I loved this so much😭❤️ thank you for always bringing me your Feitan ideas, I absolutely love writing for this man🥺❤️ I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!!🫶

And finally, here's the fic:

Pretty in Portor

Fluff

Feitan Portor x f!reader

Warnings: slight mentions of violence

Feitan had no clue how he got so easily persuaded by you. It was like you put a spell on him or used some sort of crazy Nen technique to manipulate his actions. Of course, he knew that wasn’t the case—

He just really, really loved you.

That’s why he found himself in your room in the hideout of whatever city the Phantom Troupe had business in this time, wearing a fluffy headband pulling back his bangs while you applied a face mask to his pale skin. You already had your own on, sporting a fluffy headband matching his.

“Why you no ask Machi or Shizuku, even Pakunoda, to do this?”

“They’re not into this kind of stuff,” you whined.

“And I am?” he questioned, prompting you to jokingly swat at him. “You bring in water? I no going out to bathroom to wash off.”

“Of course. I’m not a monster,” you replied. “I won’t make you too uncomfortable as you so sweetly partake in my nightly routine with me.”

“Too late,” he grumbled, earning a gentle flick of the forehead.

After you both rinsed off the mask, you rummaged through your belongings to find the rest of your skincare items. You laid them out on the bed, all of the foreign labels piquing Feitan’s interest.

“What this?” he asked, picking up a small jar.

“I was just looking for that! Thank you,” you said as he handed it to you. “It’s exfoliation for your lips. It gets all the dead skin off and makes them smooth. You want some?”

“Looks sticky. Absolutely not.”

“Your loss.” You giggled mischievously before your voice gained a flirty tone. “You know, if you ever wanna kiss anyone, this is a great way to make sure your lips are smooth.”

Feitan glared at you mercilessly. “Don’t say stupid things.”

“Just a suggestion!” you exclaimed, putting your hands up in defense. You put some of the product on your lips and scrubbed with your finger, taking care to get your lips nice and soft. Feitan busied himself with looking at your array of items, thinking your words over and trying not to blush. His eyes trailed up, sneaking a glance at the way your finger ran over your now moisturized lips as his mind filled with what they might feel like against his own…

He quickly went back to his reading of ingredients on whatever bottle he picked up, trying to shake those thoughts out of his head. You were none the wiser of what he was thinking about, though you couldn’t help but notice that Feitan was a little too engrossed in the bottle of serum he was holding, especially after his not-so-subtle peek at you just a minute ago. You wondered if maybe that could mean he felt the same about you that you did about him? You hadn’t a clue and it didn’t help to ponder over questions you were sure you’d never have answers to, so you picked up a bottle of nail polish to forget your worries for the moment.

“You want your nails done too?” you asked.

“Only if you have black,” he snorted, figuring your girly, pink loving self wouldn’t be caught dead in black nail polish. To his horror, you procured a bottle of his color request and held it up.

“Perfect! I’ll do yours after I do mine.”

Feitan wanted to protest, but knew it was no use. He was a man of his word, after all, so he sat quietly, mindlessly flipping through a book he had brought into your room as you began to paint your nails.

“All done,” you had said after a few minutes. “Your turn!”

Feitan groaned but sat across from you anyway.

“Hand, please,” you told him. He held out his left hand first and you went to work, but not before he almost shivered at the skin-on-skin contact. When both hands were done, two coats of polish and one layer of lotion later, Feitan was impressed with the end result. He had to admit, he was a fan of the dark color contrasting against his skin.

“They look so pretty!” you gushed, fawning over the great job you did with his nails. You grasped his fingers and turned them every which way, inspecting them closely. They looked nice, sure, but they were missing something.

Your eyes lit up. “I know! I can paint a little heart on one of the nails.”

“Anatomical?” He smiled darkly. “Bloody?”

You screwed your nose up in disgust. “No, I was thinking something more like this.”

You picked up a small brush, used for creating tiny details, and dipped it into the pink polish bottle. You then carefully made a few strokes over each of his pinky nails, drawing a dainty heart on each one.

“There,” you said triumphantly. Feitan looked at his nails, confused at how he should feel. On one hand, it was sweet of you to include him in your hobbies and enthusiastically make him participate, but on the other hand, how could you not see how wildly ironic it was, painting cutesy hearts on the nails of a sadistic torturer? The same nails that were normally inflicting pain and misery, caked in blood and other bodily fluids, were now covered in nail polish and sweet smelling lotion, being treated with a tenderness he forgot he had craved for so long. Unfortunately, because there was a “no fighting your fellow Troupe members” rule, Feitan wouldn’t dare to walk out of your room with the nail art; he couldn’t bear the idea of being teased to no end and not being able to shut the person up with violence.

“Tch. Cover it with paint. I no need anyone seeing this.”

“Aww Fei, are you sure?” you pouted. “But you look adorable!”

“No want to look adorable when killing someone. That your job.”

You giggled as you opened the black polish bottle again while the man quickly looked away, trying to hide his sheepishness at the compliment he inadvertently gave you. Now that your last minute art additions were covered, it made it even more special to him. He loved knowing he had your heart, a little piece of you, hidden away in a place only he knew of.

“This is more your style anyway,” you said, smiling softly at his plain black nails. You were about to put the polish back in your bag but before you could do anything, Feitan stopped you.

“Wait. Sit.”

You obliged, curious to know what he was up to. Feitan himself seemed surprised that he spoke up, but nevertheless continued.

“Choose color and give me brush.”

Your stomach fluttered with excitement when you realized he was going to do some nail art on you as well.

“I’ll do black,” you said, “that way we’ll match each other.”

“Gross,” he muttered, feeling his cheeks warm as he studied your splayed out hands in front of him, not daring to peek at your gorgeous face in his flustered state. He busied himself with the brush, starting his art. You decided to wait until he was done before looking at your nails to keep it a surprise. Your eyelashes fluttered closed, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. Feitan, now finished, was going to question why you hadn’t said anything yet but he looked up to see your shut eyes. You looked so peaceful that he wouldn’t be surprised if you were asleep. His gaze darted down to your lips, the skin softer than ever after your exfoliation, and he was so terribly tempted to kiss you. He stared you down, deathly still as he took this time to inspect all of your pretty facial features while he knew for sure you wouldn’t catch him doing so.

“Feitan,” you whispered, his skin erupting in goosebumps at the way you said his name, “are you all done?”

He wanted to say no, have you all to himself as he continued to commit your every fine line and curve of your expression to his memory, but as selfish of a man he was, he didn’t want to make you wait to see his work any longer.

“Open eyes.”

You did what he said, but instead of your nails, your vision was filled with the handsome face of the man you adored to no end.

“So pretty,” you breathed out, getting lost in his gray eyes.

“You haven’t seen nails yet, idiot,” he chided, wishing the acid in his stomach could dissolve the butterflies flying around in it.

“Hmm? Yeah, you’re right,” you replied, finally examining his artistry. You gasped with delight at what you saw. Feitan had drawn a skull, similar to the one on his cowl, on each of your ring fingers.

“They’re perfect! Feitan, I love it! Thank you!” you exclaimed. He was about to answer you but was dumbstruck when you planted a kiss at the corner of his lips before bringing him into a bone crushing hug.

“I’m just so excited! We look so good!” you continued, eventually pulling away from him with a big smile. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to show everyone!”

You ran off, your bunny slippers thumping against the hard floor. Feitan brought his polished fingers to his face where they rested against the spot you had just kissed, letting a lovestruck grin rest on his face.

Your lips were even softer than he dreamed of.

#feitan portor x reader #feitan portor x female reader #feitan porter x reader #feitan fluff #feitan x reader #hunter x hunter feitan #feitan portor #feitan x you #soft feitan x reader #feitan portor fluff #feitan x reader fluff #hxh x reader #hxh x y/n #hxh x you #phantom troupe x reader fluff #phantom troupe x reader #hunter x hunter x reader

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erinwantstowrite · 5 months ago

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Hello!!!! Who is everyone dating in LoF (if they're dating anyone at all)?? :D

AHH good question!! I have a general idea for most characters, but for some I have plans :3

As for dating:

I honestly have no clue with Bruce, but that's just how it is all the time, isn't it?

Dick is dating Wally, because Birdflash for the win!! But he has dated Kori in the past, Babs, (and etc) and they're still good friends to this day :)

Jason I'm still debating on. I like him and Roy and I think it's a popular ship? I haven't looked too far into it. I also hear that Jay, Roy, AND Kori are a ship and that's so so so good

Tim and Kon are in their "will they won't they" where everyone else knows they're dating and they also know they're dating but they don't bring it up at all. Also might have a YJ polycule just for funsies, don't really know atp

I need to read more about Damian and Flatline (AKA Nika) but from what I've seen so far they are. ADORABLE. Like so freaking cute I can't stand it

Cass and Steph are also dating- if anyone is worried about a detail that was in a previous chapter that would make that WAY weird, I went back and edited that. My mistake, y'all, that's on me.

A lot of people asked about Lanky and Shoes and this is my formal announcement: Yes, they are in love!!

As for other characters, it's up in the air. It really depends on what I see everyone ask about the most (but final decision is left to me :3). If I see that people like a certain ship and it's good, I could go ahead and mention it in the background, etc.

And for Peter: Ned.

A lot of people have looked at me strange for this one, but I thought it would be fun to explore that dynamic. I know Ned isn't MJ, or Harry, or whatever other ship people like, but I think they're cute. Some people stopped reading because of it, but I don't want to go back on it... So I don't think I will. I understand where most come from, it's not their cup of tea, but others were just plain nasty and I had to delete their comments on the fic itself, tiktok, etc.

Right now, they're best friends!! Ned is definitely aware he has a crush and is ignoring it, but Peter has no idea. That's 'cause they're both younger in this fic and I think right now they have more important things to worry about than Love. It's more of a puppy crush thing right now, more subtext than plain text.

But later on in the story, it's going to be explored. I may or may not write them becoming a couple or putting a label on it, but it will be talked about. It really depends on where the story goes. But I am of the belief that romantic love isn't the only type of love that can be written about, and at the end of the day, LoF is about the various forms of love and grief.

I think a good way to term Peter is biromantic asexual? I'm not too sure about the terminology here, so take that with a grain of salt. I'm pretty sure bisexuality is on the ace spectrum? Like he's still 14 and he's got a lot of time to figure that out. In my head that's just how it is.

I hope to have a lot of representation in LoF! There's a lot to explore and being apart of the community, I know how important it is. And I hope I don't actually have to moderate my comments because of it, that would suck

#erinwantstowrite #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #leap of faith ao3 #leap of faith catch me if you can #leap of faith

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lukolabrainrot · 1 month ago

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Hi there. So I've been firm in my belief that Luke & Nicola are gonna announce their relationship by telling us that they are already MARRIED. I've been conversing with a friend on here and we both agree there's been clues/crumbs that just might support the theory. Some might think it's too soon, BUT I just think their relationship was never a normal dating/courtship. Them being TOGETHER is 4-5 years in the making. Anyway, sorry it's long, but here's our thoughts on possible clues that these two may have tied the knot:

Many of them come from secondary sources, but I found these nuggets too hard to ignore. So here it goes:

8/22 N shares Polin photo. My interpretation of this photo is that this is the pivotal scene where Colin reads her letters and starts to forgive her. Penelope professes her love for him later that day. I think this particular photo was to signal they had worked out their differences and were together. I most definitely could be wrong, but I took it as a positive sign.

(I think 8/22/since deleted) JVN shares TT song and dance to Oh Happy Day. Well that's suspicious...

8/28 N and JVN like Evan Ross Katz Insta post about Catherine O'Hara meeting her husband on set and being married for 32 years. Hmmm?

8/28 Bridgerton Netflix drops the cute Lukola-coded media video on Insta.

8/29-8/30 I saw maybe 3-4 random comments on a few Insta and TT posts mentioning Cabo. In fact, there was a comment on L's Spain post up until recently that said "do Cabo next." So weird and probably not true, but I couldn't stop thinking about Cabo.

8/30 JVN posts the song "They Went for the Gun" from the musical Chicago to TT. I kept thinking what an odd song choice when talking about your remote work team. If you're a musical fan, you know that this is the routine where Richard Gere performs the puppet dance number with Renee Zellweger. The song is about convincing the media to buy in to your narrative by turning them into your puppets. I thought this could be about the JD photo gate distraction or maybe L/N were getting married and they wanted us to think otherwise? Or, this could mean absolutely nothing, lol.

8/31 This is the morning we all saw the JD in the ocean/pool story. OMG everyone panic - he's in Malta with N! I wonder if JD was excited to be on vacation and accidentally posted the pic to Insta and that set off the whole day of possible distractions? Right after, JVN posts a we're home and here's a garden update story. (I almost always wonder if his garden updates are jokingly about L/N status.) Maybe it was previously recorded, and he used it to possibly provide cover for JD's slip-up?

I know my theory is off the rails, but I kind of like the possibility of it. Maybe L/N went to Cabo for a long weekend wedding around 8/30-9/1 with just a few close friends and family? You know JD and JVN would be there. I'm not one of those photo date, location and time truthers. It seems like that is never accurate. The previously mentioned JD photo looked like a pool to me, and it reminded me of this deep blue-colored one that is at the One & Only Palmilla in Cabo. This resort has been featured on many episodes of Real Housewives and N loves that show. I also thought the Insta story from N's work colleague in Malta would be really thoughtless and unprofessional if she was actually there at that exact time. I hope it was an intentional misdirect.

8-31 Days before Chupi has been teasing their new Future Awaits Diamond Arrow eternity band. They have posts pairing it with the Claddagh ring. They release it early on this date. It looks very similar to the one N is wearing in her Polin post from 6/11/21. Maybe it's her new wedding band and she's already married? Squee!

Anyway, this is crazy delusional but it was fun to think they might have been breadcrumbs. Maybe L/N got married quietly in Galway(because she'd definitely want her mother there and her Irish roots/traditons are important to her, and now L) Spain when no one was suspecting it. Regardless, I hope Netflix paid for the wedding if there was one. Thanks so much for letting me share. I hope we find out soon! The rings are still the biggest clues of all. 🥰💍👀

This is all speculation... but interesting theories...

I don't think they are already married, but what does everyone else think?

The rings definitely mean SOMETHING about L/N 👀

#lukola theories #just some thoughts #purely speculation #claddagh ring #WHAT ARE THESE TWO CRAZY KIDS UP TO 👀

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redishflavor · 11 months ago

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if you saw the other one no you didn't

someone's John dory ask got eaten and I can't find my previous draft on it 😔

A/N -> I'll be starting school soon again so I won't be able to write as many fanfics as right now, but still send it requests! I just won't be able to publish them as fast as before 😅

but anyways (this is way longer than my last one damn)

John dory x reader headcanons

okay let's get one thing straight

this man has been in the wild for over idk how many years

he probably is secretly touch starved

and he's probably really bad at flirting

let's say this is after the events of TBT, so he's back in society again (probably)

hes bumped into you a few times and during those few times it was just some small talk here and there

but then when he bumped into you again he decided to flirt

with a terrible pick up line

after he said that he gave a look that was like "Yep, still got it"

he does not got it

you just looked at him, looked away and snorted

he thinks it's working

it might be

without him asking, you gave him your number on a peice of paper

there was a small not under the number (yall choose idk what to put) with a small heart at the end

(ur stinky but funny ❤️) (I sorry I had to😭😭)

he didn't read the note, he js put it on his wall in a frame

he was the first to text you

just a simple "Hi this is John dory"

and you know how some people type something but not send it?

he did that

"PLEASE PLEASE DATE ME 🙏🙏" then he deleted it to respond 'normally' to your text

after a few weeks of talking to each other you were the first to ask if he wanted to go on a date

he probably has never responded so fast to someone on his life

I js had to add this but he probably lost his other glove bc Rhonda ate it

anyways back on track

the first date you two went on was at a small Cafe (idk I panicked😭)

you two talked about a hunch of stuff but then settled on the topic of bands

one of your favorite band was BroZone

his eyes visibly lit up at the word BroZone

asks a bunch on questions like "who's your favorite band member" or "what's you favorite song"

takes his SWEET TIME telling you he's THE John Dory from BroZone

so many questions from both him and you

but after that date he offers to walk you home

and that's also how he got your address

a few more dates later he's the one to make the first move

a small text saying to meet him up at the Cafe they had their first date in

hes already there looking a bit flustered

after you two sit down he asks if you want to date

and that's how yall start dating (I am so sleepy rn guys)

every now and then he would send small gifts to you like flowers, candies, anything that reminds him of you at almost any store he goes to

he likes compliments, both giving and receiving them

when he's spending the day at your place he likes to cuddle with you

or hold you in any way

hug, hand holding, any touch basically

LOVES when you kiss him

like pepper him with kisses and he's melting

grab a bucket and mop he's gone

when he first introduced you to his brothers they had many questions

when Poppy met you (probably through Branch)

you two both bonded over dating a member of brozone

as you and Poppy were fangirling over them JD just looked at you lovingly

like he almost forgot his brothers were there

he loves you too much

he also gets you free tickets and backstage passes to every single one of BroZone's concerts

you've never missed a single concert

and you have way to much merch (mostly JD's merch) (and it's signed with his signature)

I think I might end it here bc I'm running out of ideas and any longer to post this would end up taking longer to post because school starts in like 2 says for me 😭😭 anyways I hope this was good for whoever asked this and again so sorry I lost your ask! I hope you have a great day/night!!

#x reader #brozone x reader #trolls 3 x reader #john dory x reader #john dory #trolls 3 #trolls headcanons

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papayatori · 9 months ago

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Don’t blink! (P1)

LN4 x fém!reader

Warnings: none 🤭

Intro: Y/n, an amateur photographer who was simply skimming through emails, hoping to find some sort of work, accidentally stumbled upon a job offer from the McLaren F1 team. After working closely with the two drivers she had grown up watching and hearing about her entire life,(and almost throwing up on the floor a couple of times), y/n has slowly started to realize that her love for McLaren, and possibly her love for photography, had slowly started to morph into love for a certain driver.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Four years have gone by rather quickly since I moved out of my parent’s house on the countryside. I’ve moved onto London to be a part of their photography schools. I’ve been posting my photos since I was able to get a hold of a camera, praying that I might be accepted into one of their schools once I graduated, and I suppose it all paid off.

Funny how life works, huh?

I opened my laptop, hoping to sort through some of these unopened spam emails, possibly even find some sort of job offer somewhere. I took a sip of my coffee and began reading through the unopened heaps of trash.

I skimmed through, barely giving them a second thought before hitting the ‘delete’ button in the side.

“YouTube, Tumblr, McLaren-“

I nearly spat out my coffee. I swallowed deeply, coughing a little on the inhale.

“Sorry, what?” I asked no one in particular.

At first I thought it was an ad of some sort, as I was known for buying McLaren merchandise whenever I had the extra funds. Genuinely, I thought I read the email wrong.

“A job offer..?” A smile made its way to my face, one that held all of my nerves on full display.

Why the hell was McLaren asking me to do a photoshoot of their team?

…

Here I was, standing in the offices of the McLaren F1 team, waiting for someone to tell me where I needed to go. I took in the shiny white floors, the huge windows overlooking the scenery outside, the McLaren’s in display in the lobby for all to see their beauty.

I was about to throw up all over these pristine, white floors.

Before I spilled my breakfast all over the floor, I was ushered into a room near the middle of the building, one that was large and full of lights and professional equipment that once again made me question the need for an amateur photographer like myself. I looked around the room with my jaw to the floor, seeing stars over just how much fun someone could have with all of these cameras.

I really don’t have much of a life, do I?

“You know, I don’t know how to use any of this stuff, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to figure out, but I figured you’d probably be able to work it better than I could.” I turned to the sound of a somewhat familiar Zak Brown.

My dad, before he retired, worked alongside Zak closely at McLaren Automotive. Ironically enough, I’d never really met the man who ran my favorite F1 team until this very moment. I had heard stories of all sorts of great things happening behind closed doors, got all of the latest McLaren news from my dad, and had never even set foot inside this building before today.

“I think i know just about as much as you do when it comes to all of the fancy equipment.” I said, gesturing to my small camera bag on my hip. “This is about as far as my knowledge goes when it comes to these sorts of things.” Zak smiled.

“Feel free to use it. Your dad used to tell me stories about your ‘photo shoots’ with the family, ‘heard those could get a little crazy.”

I laughed at that, remembering the silly holiday get togethers me, mum, and dad used to have. I remembered the time when I had them both on the porch swing for a photo, and right as I went to take the photo, my dad would blink every time. He had done this so often that I had started to wonder if he was doing it on purpose.

A loud laugh ripped me out of my memories. I realigned my gaze with the two young men that had just entered the room, the first one tripping over the second one’s leg. He locked eyes with me as he fell to the floor, grin fading only slightly as he did so. We stayed locked for a moment that felt like years, just staring into the each other. That’s when I recognized him to be the only person I was nervous about meeting.

I nearly threw up again.

“Nice of you to finally show up.” Zak joked with the two.

Lando looked up in surprise, as if not quite realizing Zak was standing on the other side of the room. Oscar just continued laughing at Lando’s shocked state on the floor. Lando stood up with a sheepish grin that they both sent my way. They acted as if they weren’t famous racing drivers who could have anyone they wanted.

As if they were the nervous ones.

“Hello.” I sent a small wave in their direction, praying Zak would step in and save me.

“Lando, Oscar, this is y/n. She’s going to be doing the shoot today.”

Lando stood up finally, proud and tall, eyeing me like he had to prove himself to me. He sent me a grin, one that would tear my heart to pieces if I saw it too often, and then walked towards me. Oscar seemingly got the memo and followed him along after a short pause to assess the situation. I smiled at Lando as he extended his hand out for me to shake.

“Nice to meet you, darling. I can’t wait to start.” His grin never left his expression as I took his hand.

Had Lando Norris just called me darling?

He squeezed harder than I thought he would, leaving a burn behind where his hand had previously been. The expression on my face must have given me away, the heat rising in my traitorous cheeks would never let me get away with the butterflies from his touch. Not to mention, this bastard knew what he was doing.

Though, I didn’t exactly mind.

I suppose my face had started to turn a darker shade of crimson than I had thought , because Zak sent him a look that I could only recognize as the ‘protective father’ look.

Lando’s only response was a challenging grin.

“Shall we get started, boys?” I asked, hoping to draw attention away from me.

“Where do you want us?” Oscar spoke, giving his hand for me to shake as well. I smiled, thankful things were working in my favor for the moment.

“Follow me.”

…

For the next three hours, Lando, Oscar, and myself we’re running around the studio and attempting to find some sort of style that worked for the boys. I had gone through the rack of clothing multiple times and had only gotten a few decent pictures of the two in the process. I had started to wonder if we’d ever get any actual progress on the task at hand.

It is exceedingly difficult to focus on the task at hand when you keep making eye contact with Lando Norris.

Lando and Oscar had insisted that we all take a break for a while, which I had spent mostly rummaging through the clothes provided. Lando was lying on the ground in front of the backdrop. I couldn’t help but take a glance every now and then, watching the way his chest moved as he breathed, minding the perfectly placed curl on his forehead. He looked too incredibly peaceful for me to be rummaging around over here instead of taking the given opportunity. I stood up, grabbing my camera and walking slightly over to the side. If Lando was finally at peace, I should be taking advantage of this. I took a few snaps from the side, wandering from different angles and catching him in his state of beautiful tranquility.

The LN4 girlies were absolutely going to love these.

At about the same time I had finished with Lando, Oscar stood up to unzip his leather jacket, saying something to Lando in the process. I smiled.

“Don’t blink.” I mumbled to myself.

I had not only, single handedly taken the perfect photos for McLarens Instagram, but also taken the perfect photos for the fan girls on twitter.

I saw this as a win in my part.

“Alright boys, I think I’ve got what I need.” I triumphantly raised my camera in the air, receiving two incredibly confused looks from the boys.

“I thought we weren’t finished?” Lando looked up at me with an almost saddened expression, standing to come see what I had gathered. I showed them both the photos, casually skipping over the ones of Lando that I had taken last minute. He didn’t need to see those.

“Holy shit, you’re better at this than Zak described.” Lando gave me a goofy grin that made me blush.

“I can’t take all the credit. You both helped me out in the end, I thought I was finished!” We all laughed a bit, feeling the tension ease as we came to a close.

“Well, if we’re done here, I’ve got a date tonight with my girlfriend, I’ll see you all later?” Oscar said, pulling his jacket back over his shoulders. I smiled.

“It was nice meeting you! Have fun.” He smiled back, sending a wave to the both of us. As he walked out of the room, Lando’s attention was redirected back at my camera. He plucked it out of my hands, skimming through the photos on his own.

“You know, for someone who knows so much about us, I don’t even know your name.” He gave me a sideways glance, insisting I speak.

“My name is y/n.” I said with a smirk. “And I don’t know all that much about either of you, I’m only here for the job” I heard him chuckle from beside me.

“Even so, you know a lot about how to take pictures of someone without them realizing it” he smirked, shoving the camera back in my direction, revealing the breathtaking photos I took of him on the floor earlier.

I really didn’t think this part through.

“I mean, I had to use an opportunity when it came to me. Twitter is going to love those.” I tried to play it off as if I had taken these with the intention of work rather than just attempting to capture his beauty.

“I’m sure you know loads about that.” He winked at me.

With a groan, I attempted to snatch the camera back, though his hold held firm. I gave him an annoyed look, even though I was slightly amused.

“You’re only proving my point further, darling.” I tried pulling the camera again, hoping to have better luck this time. I mentally cursed his stupidly attractive hands.

Accepting defeat, I let out a sigh.

“What do I have to do to get that camera back from you, Lando.” I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms slightly. He tilted his head as if to show he was thinking. His lashes fluttered as he blinked, revealing his beautiful green eyes, the ones any girl could find themselves lost in in a matter of moments. I felt the butterflies settling in my stomach as he finally replied, pulling me from my daydreaming.

“I think it’s a little unfair that Oscar is going on a date tonight and I’m not. So, let me take you to dinner. Then you can have your camera back.”

I blinked a few times, clearly confused.

“Im sorry, tonight?” I asked, starstruck.

“Well, I was thinking so, yeah. Unless you don’t really want your camera back.” Lando smirked a little in my direction.

My mind was racing, why was he asking me to dinner? All he had to do was hand me the camera back. Everything would have been settled then, and I wouldn’t have to see that breathtaking smile in person ever again. I wouldn’t have to look into his eyes or feel the butterflies that he somehow caused me to have. Hell, I’d just met the guy.

Oddly enough, I was about to go on a date with him.

“Alright, but I want my camera back.” I went to pull it from his grasp one more time, expecting to have it back in the safety of my pack.

“After the date.”

My jaw dropped to the floor. Was I hearing him right?

“Okay, after the date.” I agreed, only to see him take the bag from my side, place the camera in it, and place the bag on his shoulder. I rolled my eyes, opening my mouth again. “I have my own terms, however.”

He gave me a playful glare. “I didn’t agree to that, ma’am.” I chuckled, my hands finding my hips.

“It wasn’t a suggestion sir.” I mocked him with a playful grin. “You buy, I’m still in school. I think it’s a fair offer.” Shaking his head and trying to conceal his grin, he extended his hand.

“Deal.”

#don’t blink #f1 x reader #mclaren #lando norris #landoscar #lando x reader #lando x you #mclaren f1 #mclaren formula 1 #f1 x y/n #formula 1 #oscar piastri #zak brown #f1 x female reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 x you #f1

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kyra45 · 1 year ago

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Pet donation scams

What is a pet donation scam? - This kind of scam is most commonly done with cats though on occasion a dog is used. When someone is doing this scam, they have went on a private group or public site and saved the post there such as it’s images,story, and the owners name. The scam is that when they repost it to here, they have edited out any real fundraiser method and replaced it with their own fraudulent one. They don’t actually own the cat/dog but have copied the real fundraiser just enough to pass it off as their own pet. Nothing in the post tells you it’s someone else’s pet as they really want you to trust them enough to send money without looking too much into it. While the images and story are legitimate, the other information has been purposely removed. Nothing given goes to the animal in need.

Was there an ask sent? - Commonly found by asks that are sent requesting private answers. Recently, these asks tell you they don’t want people thinking you was pressured into sharing the post and people might be weird about it. Really, they just don’t want people seeing your answer when the ask is searched because you’d see how many others have got it and may have called it out. These asks are designed to guilt trip you and shame people who call them out but usually gives it away their not being honest since no one would ask you something like that. You might get this ask by sharing a trending/popular post.

How much content is on the account itself? - When checking the blog out that sent you the ask or has the post shared by someone you follow, keep in mind how many posts the account has overall. Usually there’s only a few trending/popular/fandom posts shared and then the pinned post itself. Their archive is usually turned off so you can’t see this; But scrolling for a few minutes should mean you’ll find the last post quickly. Turning on timestamps should also show you the posts were all shared at the same time too and they don’t have any tags either.

Have you asked them questions? - If unsure of the account’s legitimacy, I suggest asking them a few questions about the pet: How long have they had them? Do they have older vet records of past visits? Can they show you a recent pic of them holding their name on a paper near the cat? Would calling the vet itself be possible for donating? Any of these would be answered easily by someone who actually owns the pet. But those who don’t own them won’t be able to answer or properly.

What is a quick way to spot this scam? - Check the date of the pinned post. It’s usually only a few hours old, a day old, or even a week old. Another way is searching the bio to see if it’s been stolen off someone else. Look at the vet location and then press/hold or hover over the link they give you. If the country doesn’t match the state, it’s likely not the real owner of the pets link. As these suspicious accounts tend to impersonate the actual owners closely in order to look legitimate.

What to do once you figure out it’s a scam? - Warn anyone who doesn’t know it’s a scam and has shared the post unless they’ve called them out. Report the account for phishing (Report -> Something else -> Illegal uses or content -> Phishing), block them, then alert your followers as well. Keep in mind scammers will always delete/hide any replies/reblogs that have called them out.

—

If you like this guide, feel free to check out my blog as I report on these scams nearly daily among other kinds of scams that I post about. If you like my hobby, feel free to drop some pocket change as thanks! However, all I really want you to do is share this post to help me bring awareness of tumblr scams. Send it to people who might not know what a pet donation scam is or link to it in posts you make! Thanks. Hope this information is helpful!

#scam #long post #longpost #how to spot a scam blog #pet donation scam #pet scam #psa #important information

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ponett · 1 year ago

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I have now finally seen the Mario movie. It was Pretty Good. Here are my wordy thoughts on it. (I am going to spoil the entire movie. Duh.)

In many ways, the Mario movie does what I wish the first Sonic movie had done. They just took the characters and the premise and the world from the games, and made it a straightforward animated adventure movie. It's bright and colorful and remixes things JUST enough to include fun elements from multiple games, and it doesn't make Mario get adopted by James Marsden or whatever. It even has the music!

That's all you really need, right? Right...?

I'll get this out of the way up front. Chris Pratt was fine. He's fine

If anything, it really feels like they did the movie a disservice by letting us hear so little of the Mario voice in the previews. It took one scene for Pratt to disappear into the role for me. It was totally fine. If anything, I found Charlie Day's normal voice coming out of Luigi WAY more distracting, even if I did like him in the role.

Everyone else was pretty good, for the most part. Jack Black was obviously very good as Bowser, but I'm biased. Seth Rogen does the Seth Rogen laughs as Donkey Kong, but I thought DK was fun, too. (I liked his little rivalry with Mario where he was just constantly giving him shit.) The only casting choice I truly hated was Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong. I hated every line that came out of his mouth. He sounds atrocious. Just the worst. I swear to fucking god if they do a DKC movie and we have to hear him for 90 minutes

I did think Peach was lacking, but that was on the script, not Anya Taylor-Joy's performance. It's cool to see Peach fight, but it's one of those all too common instances where the writers put so much effort into making the main girl kick ass and be an effortlessly confident girlboss that they forgot to give her an actual personality. Not that I'd point to Super Princess Peach and its mood swing superpowers as positive representation or anything, but there's a happy middle ground, surely. Shrek was 22 years ago, just having the princess do flying kung fu kicks isn't enough.

Okay. With the voices out of the way, let's talk about the big picture:

It's way better than the words "Illumination Mario movie" implied, and I mostly enjoyed my time with it. The spirit of Mario is there 100%. But I'd also describe it as "ruthlessly efficient."

This was perhaps the main complaint critics had, and they were absolutely right. People have responded to these totally average reviews with "Well, what did you expect? Shakespeare?! It's MARIO!!" Like, yes, I would prefer it if the movie I paid to see had writing that was good instead of bad. What a shocker. My issue isn't that it's not "high-brow" enough. The problem is that it feels mercenary. It feels like an editor went through and deleted almost every line of dialogue that isn't some form of exposition, at the expense of the pacing. Any scene that's not a montage or some sort of action is kept as short as they could make it, with barely any room for embellishment, character interaction, or anything other than the bare minimum word count to hit all the typical Save the Cat Hollywood screenwriting 101 story beats to the letter. There aren't even as many jokes as you might think (and the ones that are there are extremely hit or miss, including a lot of the slapstick with Mario himself).

Mario and Peach's little arc together in the front half of the film is probably the worst example of this pacing. Even having read reviews that complained about how fast Peach goes from meeting Mario (by her admission the first other human she's ever met) to deciding to train him as the new savior of the Mushroom Kingdom, I was SHOCKED at how fast it was. They don't even lampshade it.

Peach takes Mario straight into the big training sequence where he learns how to use mushrooms and jump over platforming obstacles. Peach is apparently already a hypercompetent platforming pro and a great fighter, so there's no clear reason why she's taking the time to train this random guy to be half as good as her when the world is in danger. Then they set off on their adventure, Toad joins them, and we get a VERY brief travel montage. It's about thirty seconds total - just long enough to give Peach a line about how she wants to protect this beautiful world of hers to try and give her some stakes. We get the genre-mandated nighttime campfire heart to heart, which is exactly long enough to have Mario say he misses Luigi and to have Peach give the two sentence summary of her origin story and not a second longer. Then they reach the Kongs, and their big journey is complete. (They barely interact for the rest of the movie.) So much of the movie is like this - always ready to get on to the next scene as soon as a new one starts.

I'm not criticizing the script because I expect The Super Mario Bros. Movie to be a prestige drama - although there are certainly halfhearted attempts at a dramatic arc. The stuff with Mario's family was a fun enough idea, but again, ruthless efficiency. We get one quick scene with them at the start to give Mario some pathos, because I guess Save the Cat said he's gotta have some pathos. And then Mario gets his dad's approval amidst the action of the final battle in Brooklyn to resolve his arc, just so the movie can end as quickly as possible once Bowser is defeated. (Despite now having the approval of their family and their community back in Brooklyn, Mario and Luigi move to the Mushroom Kingdom off-screen without a single word dedicated to this decision, because that's where they live in the games.)

Look. I am not comparing it to The Godfather. Don't give me that shit. I am not asking for an extra half hour to explore Mario and Luigi's childhood trauma. I am not asking for the complex inner workings of the Mushroom Kingdom monarchy. I know this is gonna be a basic Hero's Journey adventure for kids. It just feels like it's turning down so many opportunities to have a little fun with the characters, to let them interact and play off of each other, to let there be some adventure on this adventure. This is the first time we've gotten to see these characters interact with fully voiced dialogue in a very, very long time! "Yeah, it's not High Art, but it's FUN!" Stories are fun! Character interactions are fun! The script could be having so much more fun!! It is adamantly against making the Story parts of this story-driven movie any more Fun than they functionally need to be!!!

Mario, Peach, and Toad's journey to find the Kongs is shorter than the training montage that precedes it. After the opening, Bowser mostly just sits in his castle and waits for the third act to start. Luigi's there, too, but he only gets one scene with Bowser and then the movie mostly forgets he exists until the climax. He doesn't even get to try and sneak out of Bowser's castle and get up to hijinx. He's just there to be a motivation for Mario, so he sits in a cage for half the movie. It's the bare outline of a script with action scenes added in.

Aside from the fact that it's Jack Black singing as Bowser, I feel like this overly-efficient script might be part of the reason why the "Peaches" scene stands out so much. It's a moment that didn't strictly need to be there to keep the plot moving or to provide an action setpiece. It's not even a reference to another Mario thing. It's just a fun and memorable little character moment that's there for its own sake. That's what the movie needed more of. To stop and smell the roses more often. To play in the space.

To be clear, this isn't a unique problem with this movie. Critics have been noting for years that second acts are disappearing from big Hollywood movies in favor of the Act I plot setup and the Act III action, even though Act II is supposed to be where you get to explore your actual premise. And lots of animated movies give me this exact same vibe of being too "screenwriterly," or feeling like they had an executive breathing down their necks and demanding changes based on focus testing. But these common issues are why I come away mostly feeling like the movie is on the better end of "average," rather than totally blowing my mind. You have seen this movie many times before, just not with Mario in it.

And, of course, there's the music. The score by Brian Tyler based on various classic Mario and Donkey Kong tunes (frustratingly all attributed to Koji Kondo) is absolutely beautiful, but it's unfortunately frequently overshadowed by the licensed music. Everyone already complained about things like the use of Take On Me in place of a lovingly arranged DKC medley, but it feels illustrative of the tug of war the movie is caught in the middle of, between wanting to be a lavishly faithful Mario movie and wanting to be a generic tentpole animated adventure movie. Every single licensed song used is the most obvious, overused song they could have picked for the scene. It reeks of cynical executive meddling and it took me out of the movie every time.

But there really was a lot of care and love put into this movie - more than probably any other video game movie ever made, not that that's a high bar. I don't want to underplay that too much amidst all my complaints spurred by the absolutely insane response to the reviews.

Aside from the countless background references that people will be picking apart for years, touches like the Captain Toad tune playing in the background of Toad's introduction or the Mario Kart 8 menu music playing in the kart garage really help bring it to another level of authenticity. I also enjoyed seeing some more obscure Mario enemies that felt like they were picked more for being fun to animate than for being nostalgic and marketable. No matter how many times I sarcastically pointed to the screen and deadpanned "reference. reference." I am not immune to noticing these things and smiling. I am not immune to the DK Rap. These alone don't make the movie good, but it's nice to have a video game movie that feels like it was made by people who like video games.

Most importantly, the animation is great throughout. It's leaps and bounds ahead of other Illumination work, and it's the best the Mario cast has ever looked. They even made Donkey Kong handsome, somehow. They're all so squishy and expressive, and they move so fluidly - especially in the action scenes. I particularly liked the more kinetic ones like the aerial Banzai Bill chase and the Mario Kart sequence. Truly, the Mad Max-inspired car battle on Rainbow Road where Mario literally does the speedrun shortcut is this movie firing on all cylinders.

Other, more hand-to-hand fights nail the Popeye-esque vibe Mario should be going for. He's an underdog who gets the shit kicked out of him by bigger, stronger opponents until he gets his signature powerup and turns the tables on them. My favorite animation of all probably came from the use of Cat Mario to turn the tide in the DK fight. They had so much fun making Mario move like a cat. Again, it feels like a choice made because it'd be fun to animate rather than just a nostalgia move.

It's that animation and that attention to detail that carry the film, really. They elevate it from mediocrity into being a fun watch for a fan like me, albeit one I couldn't help but pick apart with Anthony as we watched it at home. I'm glad I saw it, but there's a lot of room to improve with the inevitable sequel. I hope they do. I can't deny that I had fun with the movie, but I hope next time that fun is partially because of the script instead of in spite of it.

Stray thoughts:

Overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie a lot more than Sonic 1, but probably not as much as Sonic 2. Not that these movies need to be pitted against each other.

I hated the Luma. I hated how hilarious they clearly thought the Luma was. They have the fucking Luma break the fourth wall to end the movie and start the credits. This is going to be a deep cut for fans of bad animated films, but the whole time I was just thinking of the little fish from Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss who's just the director's kid saying random nonsense. You know I'm right

I rolled my eyes at the "our princess is in another castle" joke and several other jokes that would have been dated in a gamer webcomic 20 years ago but I guess they had to be there

How much of Brooklyn did Bowser's giant floating castle take out? We know 9/11 happened in this universe because the Freedom Tower is there, hasn't New York been through enough

I can't believe there's a Diskun easter egg

The dog is the most Illumination character design in the movie. It felt like it wandered on set from The Secret Life of Pets

Mario being a gamer and playing Kid Icarus of all things just made me remember this tweet:

Yes Anthony did get mad at me for being thirsty for Bowser

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dear-ao3 · 9 months ago

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okay i just got into f1 at the end of the last season. Can you explain some things to me- a hesitant Mclaren fan??

Basically why is the team so good this year and if Zak has proven the success of rookies, why don’t more teams follow suit? i’m so curious and also i wanna know everything abt Oscar and his war with Alpine?? Is Zak the team principle? why is he always there if not??

This one isn’t abt Mclaren and even tho i know it’s controversial i still don’t really understand but; What exactly happened in Abu Dhabi 2021??

alright so i typed up this whole thing once and then tumblr deleted it so now you’re getting the shorter and more annoyed version, apologies

here we go, more drama this time mclaren edition

zak brown is the ceo of mclaren racing. some ceos are also team principals (horner, i think toto?) but he is not. he’s also not an Owner i don’t think. but basically he’s the ceo of all branches of mclaren racing including f1, formula e, indycar, super e and esports. admittedly, he is a more involved team ceo. like he appears regularly on their social media pages and at the races and on the pit wall and all that, but he’s not the team principal. that’s andrea stella. andrea is in charge of the f1 team, zak is in charge of all the mclaren teams.

teams need three things to do well, good drivers, good car and good team. supposedly this year mclaren has all three.

lando and oscar get along and have proven they are both good drivers. they are on the younger side (lando is 24 and oscar is 22) and i think they’re the youngest driver pairing on the grid, but they have both proven they can do the job. they are also willing to work together, as in, none of them threw a fit if one had to pass the other and also they’re in it for the team first, personal success second. which is key. you can’t have your drivers feuding cause then they do stupid shit (ie nico rosberg and lewis hamilton)

oscar and lando have both driven the car at this point and they said it went well. but most people say the first test goes well. however, they started shit last year and then made upgrades to get better so the general hope this year is that they will start good and get better. i think lando said in one of his interviews that he was something along the lines of cautiously optimistic (he doesn’t like to say he’s confident because then it looks bad if they suck) but we will know more about the car at pre season testing this coming week.

as for rookies. not everyone signs them cause they’re a risk. and if you’re a big team with an good name and reputation then you might not want to risk it. this past year there were three rookies. nyck devries who failed to score a single point at alpha tauri and was swapped out mid season for daniel ricciardo. logan sargent who scored only one point and it was because two people in front of his dnfd. admittedly he was in a williams, but his teammate manages to score 20 something points so. and then oscar, who i think finished with 80 something points ans a few podiums. oscar was in the better car so he naturally did better, but also he still could have flopped tremendously. and that’s why a lot of the bigger teams like to have the new guys proven themselves first in a shit car cause then if they’re in a good car they’ll really do well. signing a rookie tho is a risk, as it’s been a rare occasion for them to win anything or even podium in their first season. and that’s not great if you’re trying to win a title.

when lando was signed to mclaren he had already been involved with the team for a few years. he was in f3 in 2017 when mclaren noticed him and then made him a test and reserve driver in 2018. now some people (haters) point out that Oh Lando Was A Pay Driver until he was in f1. (meaning, his dad is a millionaire and he basically backed him his whole racing career. so he didn’t have to get sponsors because he had his dad. this is basically what lance stroll does) but when he got into f1 he said he didn’t want to do that anymore because he doesn’t think that that’s what you should do in f1. some people think he only got his seat cause of this, but objectively, mclaren noticed his good performance, not the money part and in any case, his dad doesn’t sponsor him anymore. in any case tho, he had already driven mclaren cars in tests prior to getting his seat in 2019. he was also quite young. 18. but he also had a decent rookie year (not quite as good as oscar but also the car was more shit then than it was this past year).

the oscar piastri alpine drama is basically that he was alpines test and reserve driver for 2022, exactly like how lando was for mclaren. alpine was losing fernando alonso for 2023 cause he was going to aston martin and they were like oh this is fantastic we can sign oscar now and give him an f1 seat. oscar had been in the alpine drivers academy for a few years when he was in the junior leagues (which basically means that they sunk a lot of money into his career). however, aparently alpine announced that oscar was driving for them in 2023 before he had signed his contract. and oscar didn’t appreciate this.

mclaren had unexpectedly an open seat after daniel ricciardos contract was terminated early and i guess oscar had been in contract talks with them. because he tweeted this:

which is nothing short of iconic. then alpine tried and failed to sue him for 4M USD. he dodged a bullet by going to mclaren.

and then abu dhabi 2021. without getting into it too much cause that’s insane lewis hamilton and max verstappen went into the race with the same amount of points. it was the last race of the year so whoever won that race was going to win the world championship title. there a lot that happened at that race that was weird but among the weirdest thing was that towards the end of the race there was a yellow flag, and a safety car. which means that all the cars got close to eachotjer again. now, hamilton had a comfortable lead over max at this point because there were five lapped cars between them. basically, those five cars were a lap behind hamilton and verstappen. sometimes on safety cars they allow the lapped cars to unlap themselves (go around the safety car and back to the back of the grid so they’re in the correct order). and for some reason. they allowed only the five lapped cars between hamilton and verstappen to unlap themselves (which is weird and unfair) and thus verstappen ended up winning. the whole race was bonkers and batshit tho and i would highly reccomend watching that drive to survive episode because they actually show the bonkersness pretty well.

#not a tag #from saph #f1 #mclaren #edited now with the actual tweet oops

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sophistired18 · 2 months ago

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Timeskip Kryk part 2! (Sorta?)

Here's some kryk hc's/random scenarios i have if they didn't make a move in highschool and remained pining idiots :)

One thing for sure, I think they would both know that there was something there, but ofc they never talked about it. Especially bc Yaku was going to Russia. Since they didn't do anything about their feelings earlier they both tried sweeping it under the rug and act like it never happened. And ofc that pining never really goes away, but the distance sorta helps. (Not really they miss each other so much)

Kuroo is going in as an intern for the Japan Volleyball Association and sends a photo of him in his new suit and asking if he looks okay for his first day. Yaku leaves it on seen. Kuroo dies inside bc does he actually look that bad?? It makes him panic alittle, although in the end he does very well on his first day, but he's still butt hurt by Yaku's lack of response. Only until the day after does Yaku respond "You look good" and "Sorry. I was busy". This makes Kuroo get mad but also ashamed at how happy it made him feel for Yaku complimenting him.

On the otherhand, Yaku cannot stop freaking out at how fucking good Kuroo looked in that suit. After a good 10 minutes of just gawking at a poorly taken selfie of his "I'm getting over him" crush, Yaku decides his heart cannot handle this today so he makes the hard choice of ghosting Kuroo so that he doesn't accidentally blurt how hot he thinks Kuroo looks. He feels bad but it was a necessary sacrifice to save himself from falling for him all over again. Although it's too late for that bc that image was ingrained into his mind all day.

Kuroo tries not to, but he stalks Yaku's insta page for "Volleyball Research purposes". Kai tries to remind him "You know that's your friend right? You can literally just ask him how he's doing instead of stalking his story to see if he's eaten dinner yet".

Kai, Kuroo, and Yaku are facetiming and Yaku mentions that his hair is getting long. Kuroo asks if he's gonna get a haircut, but deep down he's crying bc yaku looks so cute with his shaggy bangs, please don't chop them. A week later, Yaku posts on his story his new undercut and re-styled bangs that are swept back in the same way that Kuroo is swept off his feet the moment he sees them. Kuroo realizes it might be too late to get over his best friend bc how is he supposed to when this best friend looks THAT GOOD. He screenshots the photo and has failed many times to delete it.

Kuroo sends treats and trinkets from Japan to Yaku on his birthday, which makes Yaku super happy but also super homesick. And it also makes him feel a bit bad bc he only facetimed for Kuroo's birthday. He tells Kuroo he'll send a gift for the next birthday and Kuroo says he doesn't have to, but he does anyways. So now for every birthday for the past 8 years, they've been doing gift exhanges from Japan and Russia. Yaku likes to send treats he enjoys or thinks Kuroo would like, or he'll send something he hasn't tried yet so that they can both try it and review it together over facetime.

One weekend for a business trip, Kuroo meets a very pretty lady who matches what his type in women was when he was younger. She was interested in him and he thought why not, I'm a grown man I can go on dates. The entire time he was expecting it to go wrong or for her to disagree with him, yet none of that happened. The date actually went smooth, she even shared some interests with him. He was sure that she was exactly the kind of person that he would've wanted as a partner a few years ago. But after he walked her to the train station and wished her a safe trip, he immediately called Yaku on impulse. He told him how he went on a date, which Yaku responded asking how it went. Kuroo tells him it went absolutely smooth and that she seems to really likes him. And when Yaku asks "Do you like her?" Kuroo hesitates, "I think I do?". But he wasn't sure how to answer when Yaku says, "Then why do you sound so upset?". After a while in silence, Kuroo just sighs, "I guess we just got along too well. The entire night I suppose I was searching for something else. Something more." They end the call soon afterwards, in attempt to try not to let the implications of those words sink in.

Yaku flies down to Tokyo to visit family for a few days. Kuroo tries not to freak out. He hasn't seen Yaku in 3 years but it feels like its been a decade. He knew about Yaku's departure 3 weeks in advance, so he planned accordingly to find time to hang out with him, but nothing could've prepared him for all of a sudden 4 big meetings back to back all during the week Yaku would be staying, with one of the meetings, if his presentation went well, potentially granting him a promotion. Even then, he seriously considers calling in sick. Yaku tells him over the phone that he's an absolute idiot and he should not risk a promotion for this. He ends up not being able to see Yaku at all, bummed that he didn't even have the time to take Yaku to the airport. Although based on the photo taken from a lunch that Yaku and Kai had bc they were actually able to meet up, Kuroo thinks that maybe it's a blessing in disguise that he didn't see Yaku in person. Bc now he's certain that he would've folded right then. Bc if Yaku looked that good with udon broth all over his lips in a photo, then Kuroo might just die if he sees Yaku in front of him.

Yaku is at a bar celebrating with some of his teammates when Kuroo calls Yaku to wish him a merry Christmas. Yaku steps out the bar and they talk about nostalgic memories, which gets Yaku teary eyed and he's glad they're not facetiming rn bc one, Kuroo can't see how much of a sap he is rn, and two, if he sees Kuroo's face he might actually bawl. When Kuroo wishes him goodnight, Yaku enters the bar with his heart too full that it might just explode. He tries to stay cheery and hang with his teammates, but at some point he had a bit too much to drink, and he just begins crying. His teammates are shocked and keep asking him what's wrong, but then Yaku sobs, they don't know what to do because he's only speaking in Japanese. The day afterwards, Yaku wakes up with a horrible hangover with no recollection of his sob session at the bar. It's only until years later that its brought up again. It was when Kuroo visits Russia for the first time, Yaku introduces him to some of his teammates, with one of them giving Kuroo a confused look that Kuroo quotes as "a life threatening mafia glare" and "He looks like he wants to skin me". It's only until a few days later when Kuroo has returned to Japan and they are all having lunch where the teammate begins laughing and says Kuroo's name as if he had a revelation. This makes Yaku absolutely confused so he asks whats so funny. His teammate pulls out his phone and presses play on a recorded video and laughs "We never understood what you were saying, but I remember I kept hearing you cry 'Kuroo'. It's only now that I realized what 'Kuroo' meant." Yaku is mortified at the video of him sobbing, and his teammates begin poking at him to translate for them but Yaku only blushes so hard at his own cries in the video. He hopes that Kuroo will never see this video, otherwise it'd be the equivalent of Yaku professing his undying love and how much he is NOT over his highschool crush. Luckily, his teammates can't understand a word he is saying and unfortunately, he can't reach the phone from their hand in the air when he tries to delete the video due to their almost 2 ft height difference.

#kuroyaku #kryk #yaku morisuke #kuroo tetsurou #haikyuu #hc's #well sorta hc's bc idk if these even count bc theyre si long and overly detailed but i digress #they're not all in order #i decided not to add the reunion for when Yaku returns in canon bc im pretty sure that one's self explanatory #basically kryk never having the “what are we?” conversation #theyre super stupid

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lesdeuxxx · 7 days ago

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ATTENTION PEOPLE: MISSING FANFIC SEARCH:

So this is going to be very incredibly confusing, but I’m searching for this fic I read a really long time ago. In light of the possibility ao3 gets banned, I’m going to save fics that I think deserve to be preserved like the literature they are. This includes fics that I read previously and really liked. However, I’m having trouble finding this Heartstopper fic I read ages ago back when I was still in the fandom and do not remember the title of. I fear it may have been deleted. But regardless, I will shout into the void and hope and pray someone knows the fic I’m taking about and can maybe send me the link. So here’s a plot recap:

It’s set during the Christmas season. Charlie is homeless. He breaks into nicks shed to steal power tools to pawn them for money but nick catches him, and feels bad. Slowly over time they become friends, and nick does what he can to help Charlie. The early chapters im blanking on but it gets interesting much later. Charlie stays with nick after a lot of convincing and they lie to nicks parents (who in this fic, are still together-nicks father is a cop.) and say he goes to truham. Christmas rolls around and nick (I think) fakes sick to stay home while his parents travel or see relatives or something, and Charlie spends a few days with nick alone in the house. Charlie also plays the violin for some reason, which nick happens to have and gifts to Charlie because he never uses it. Charlie grows insecure about “using” nick and eventually runs off, feeling as though he is a nuisance, and so he goes back to the street. His violin gets stolen by some street rats who beat him up, but nick goes out searching for him and throws the street rats off, leading to him and Charlie having to escape and hide in an abandoned apartment Charlie stays in some times. But when you think everything’s okay, the third act happens and Ben comes into play, who is a much older drug dealer who takes advantage of Charlie being in a bad position to have an abusive relationship with him. Charlie tries to go to Elle and Tao, who he met through Ben, and who try to hide him but ultimately he’s sniffed out and Ben takes him when his goons and him storm elle and Tao’s apartment. There’s some sort of fight in I think a motel and and nick gets him back. Imogen is also there, I don’t really remember when she is or what she does until the end, when we find out she went with Ben who is now technically a kidnapper, and nicks cop father has to swat Ben to take him out, and he goes to jail cause turns out he killed Charlie’s mom because she was (I think) verbally abusive to Charlie and it’s what leads to them being together.

Also, a couple random plot points I remember but don’t know where to place include:

-charlie constantly wears a thin denim jacket that later gets traded with one of nicks old puffer coats

-he runs into Tara and Darcy drawing graffiti under a bridge and joins them. If I remember correctly, Darcy was kicked out by her mom and Tara has a shit home life.

-Charlie goes with nicks mom to one of his rugby games and they talk I think

-nick and Charlie have a date where they go to some sort of Christmas fair and I think go ice skating

-Ben may or may not have been drugging and pimping out Charlie, and I think that’s like the main reason why he freaks out about Imogen is cause he’s worried it’ll happen to her?

-when Ben brings Charlie to the hotel, he shoot’s up heroin

The fic was posted during the holiday season, I do remember that. As for the year, I’m not sure, but I would say it’s likely to be either from December 2021 or 2022.

If ANYONE remembers anything about this fic, the name, the author, anything at all, please comment below. I remember it was an incredible story and I know I would feel incredible guilt if I couldn’t find it again while I’m on the hunt to preserve my favorite fics before the government might take them away from me.

#Heartstopper #heartstoppernetflix #heartstopper tv show #heartstoppercomic #nick nelson #charliespring #nick/charlie #nick and charlie #nicknelson #alice oseman #heartstopper fandom #heartstopper fanfic #a03 fanfic #fanfic #lost media

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lets-try-some-writing · 2 years ago

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I was reading the latest post on Optimus being the sparkling of Unicron and how the team reacted to it, and I can't help but think that there's probably going to be some kind of catalyst that causes the rest of Team Prime to notice how they're acting towards Optimus is hurting him. As for what that catalyst is, I have a vague idea of Optimus trying to bottle up the loneliness only for it to explode out at some point, but you can easily do something else. It's probably just me liking this AU and want to see what else goes with it.

(And if you wish to delete this ask, then go right ahead.)

I would never delete such an ask. I only tend to get rid of the ones that are too indecipherable to work with or ones that have left me with no motivation or room to be creative. With that said, here it is, the conclusion to all the angst with my boy. Previous post here.

Family

For months he fought for his Autobots as an exile, taking every hit and enduring the pain and solitude with grace. But with time Optimus began to break. Wounds piled up, wearing him down and never fully repairing due to only basic medical treatment on Optimus's part. His mental state began to collapse after being separated from his team for so long and not even having the comfort of his bond with Bumblebee to rely upon. And while Unicron's loving whispers and the Matrix were enough to keep him from fully falling to depression and wrath, it only held for so long. Everything his creator did for him and the emotional dampening effects of the Matrix were like Band-Aids on a stab wound. It was not enough.

He grew desperate for interaction, so much so that he threw himself into battle with reckless abandon. He wanted to be seen, to be spoken to, to have someone, anyone recognize his existence aside from his father. And for his desire he paid the price.

After a particularly fierce battle, Optimus took a hit to the side so bad that his internals were left exposed. He wanted to fall to the ground in agony once the pain hit him, but he endured until the team had safely done what was required. Then as they watched with wide optics, he choked back a scream and limped away, holding his internals in place with a servo as he did so. Never more in his life did he desire to have Ratchet berate him for his recklessness and repair him, running countless diagnostics and giving him a good pinch for his foolishness. As he dragged himself back to his trailer and leaned against it feeling nothing but torment, he wished that he was back at base, even the cold unfeeling one he had grown used to months prior. Anything but this solitude...

Optimus couldn't die in his state, not while he partially sustained himself off the power of his father. But energon loss made him delirious and all the Matrix could do was try to keep him conscious so he wouldn't fall into stasis and be left totally exposed. Unicron could sense his creation growing weaker, especially as Optimus began muttering things about being tired, lonely, or in pain. It wasn't like him, and it frightened the chaos god to see his little one in such a state. And so he did what he thought was best, he gathered up an avatar and went to the only bots on the planet least likely to blast Optimus to bits. He went to the Autobots.

Taking on the general appearance of Optimus to garner their attention, Unicron manifested where Arcee and Bulkhead were on patrol. Unicron's avatar was mostly composed of energy, not too dissimilar to Optimus's true form. He was impossible to miss, and Arcee and Bulkhead reacted as he expected. They raised their blasters in fear of his aura and prepared to flee. Unicron did not approach, and despite having a great many harsh words he would have liked to have said, he couldn't speak with his power so restrained. So instead he gestured for the two Autobots to follow him, hoping they might let go of their fear and come aid his creation.

Arcee: Optimus! What do you want!?

Unicron: *gesturing toward Optimus's general location*

Bulkhead: Hey, Prime. You good?

Unicron: *continues to gesture, looking between them and Optimus's location*

Arcee: ... You want us to follow you?

Unicron: *nods and begins walking*

It took a moment and Unicron stopping twice to usher them onward to get Bulkhead and Arcee to follow. But when they finally did, Unicron walked with them for hours upon hours in silence. They tried asking him questions, demanding to know his purposes, but Unicron in Optimus's image never replied. He simply walked on. And when the two Autobots threatened to leave, Unicron stopped and gestured more animatedly, pointing off into the distance. It took some extra convincing, but after having some sort of conversation with those back at base, they continued to follow.

Then nearly twelve hours of walking later, Unicron halted and pointed to them, and then off to where Optimus's trailer was parked. Optimus was not in view, but the energon around the area was, and it roused Arcee and Bulkhead's interest and suspicion. The chaos god did not take another step forward and stood around fifty feet back as the Autobots moved forward carefully, wary of a trap. They periodically looked back toward him, but Unicron did not so much as twitch as they began scouting the area.

By the time they finally found Optimus bleeding out against his trailer, his cloak soaked in energon and his optics flickering from his weakness, Unicron's avatar was gone. Arcee and Bulkhead were spooked, more so than they would ever care to admit. But they wasted no time calling for backup upon seeing Optimus's state. It did not take long at all for Ratchet and Bumblebee to arrive, both shocked beyond words upon seeing Optimus delirious and injured to the point of hardly being aware.

Ratchet: Optimus! Look at me! I need you to look at me!

Optimus: *delirious as pit* Rat...chet?

Ratchet: That's right, look at me. I need you to tell me what happened here.

Optimus: You... are here?

Ratchet: *gazing at the literal hole in Optimus's side* Yes, we all are. Now please, talk to me. How did you get hurt.

Optimus: Blaster... hit...

Ratchet: I don't know how in Primus's name you are still alive, but I am going to repair you. Everything will be alright.

Optimus: I... missed... you... all.

Ratchet: ...

Ratchet: We missed you too Optimus.

The team barely held themselves together as they dragged Optimus back to base and Ratchet began working on the great many injuries the Prime had accumulated. Guilt hit the entire team like a fright train as they looked over Optimus and listened to his barely understandable muttering about being happy to see them again. Arcee felt horrible, especially after Optimus smiled at her and wiped her tears away when she came to take a look at him as he lay resting on the medical berth. How had she ever seen Optimus as a monster? How could she have shunned him after everything he did for her? Even after being hurt by her over and over again, he still showed her love, and that broke any reservations Arcee might have had left. She ended up muttering endless apologies to Optimus as he lay there and continued to give her comforting touches, his smile ever present and not at all tainted with anger or disgust.

Bulkhead and Wheeljack came to Optimus a little later after Arcee had gone to cry herself into recharge from mixed relief and guilt. They stood around awkwardly for a long while until Optimus, still very much delirious from medicine given to him by Ratchet and energon loss, at last noticed them. The Prime smiled kindly and gave both their servos a reassuring squeeze. He looked overjoyed just to see them, and that alone was enough to make both wreckers regret ever agreeing to have him sent away. They ended up sitting and talking with Optimus for an hour or so, mainly listening to the Prime ramble about how great it was to see them again. It broke their sparks a little to see him so fragging pleased just to be in their presence, and ultimately they told Optimus they were sorry, earning them wide smiles and enthusiastic forgiveness. They walked away feeling regretful beyond words.

The children were enthusiastic and elated at having Optimus back and clambered onto his frame to hug him the moment Ratchet's back was turned. Optimus was equally thrilled and his frame rumbled in joy as the children got onto his chassis and made their best attempts to give cuddle up against him. There were a few tears involved on the children's parts as the younger two of the duo made their grief at him having been gone so long clear. The Prime simply showered them in affection in response, rumbling his frame and running gentle digits along their backs. They left him contented and happy, just glad to have their Prime back.

Ratchet on the other hand could hardly look at Optimus after what he had done. He felt like the worst mech to ever walk the earth and refused to meet Optimus's gaze as he patched the Prime up. However eventually as he tried to walk away and go sulk, Optimus grabbed his arm and looked to him pleadingly, his arms held open, asking for a hug. And so not having the spark to say no, Ratchet obliged and gave in, earning a contented purr from Optimus in return. The medic then proceeded to get himself wrapped up in an odd cuddle which Optimus seemed loathe to end. For nearly two hours Optimus held Ratchet like a porcelain doll, as if afraid he might break as the Prime made all sorts of comments about how much he had missed his oldest friend. Ratchet left feeling happier knowing that Optimus did not hate him, but also deeply regretful of all he had done and the pain he had caused. After all, Optimus wouldn't be in such a state if he hadn't been so foolish...

Lastly there was Bumblebee who came to Optimus fully expecting to be met with coldness or anger. Instead the moment he came near and allowed his iron grip over his bond with Optimus to slacken, he was wrapped up in a loving embrace. Optimus had not cried when meeting with the others, but finally feeling his sparkling again filled a void Optimus had known but ignored. His tears flowed freely as he hummed the song he had sung Bee when he was small and gently rubbed between his doorwings. Bumblebee who had been playing the part of tough leader since Optimus's departure broke down into tears as well. Before long the father and son were singing together, reaffirming their bond and connecting again after so long apart. No words needed to be said, both understood each other and granted the other forgiveness without a second thought.

The team heard the song and found themselves comforted. It would be a long road to recovery for all of them. But if Optimus and Bumblebee could figure it out and express their love or each other so freely, the team had inkling of hope that they could repair the damage done to their relationships with Optimus too. And while it was left unspoken for a while, the team were also well aware that Optimus was loved by his creator. Unicron had taken the time to guide them to Optimus and had watched over and reassured him when they were not present. They were certain the chaos god had quite the grudge against them.

And they were right, as even after time passed and the wounds healed, Unicron made it his biggest priority in life to frag with whoever it was that had made his creation cry. The chaos god quickly took to being a minor nuisance when the team weren't doing important work. And surprisingly, it actually brought a bit of well needed comedic relief into their lives after all the drama.

#maccadam #transformers #transformers prime #optimus prime #team prime #unicron #the sparkling of unicron au #fluff/angst #here we go #a reasonable conclusion to this part of the au #now onto the fun drabbles #if anyone has any feel free to throw them at me

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