#i promise i'm not making it up when i say this character is from physics-based motorcyle game dlc

[tenpoints4andy]

a wild SynDI appeared!

[skyahri]

Unplanned |Naruto Men X Reader| HC

Characters: Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Shikamaru Nara, and Kakashi Hatake

Summary: Pregnancy scenarios 'cause I can.

Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy. Bad words. All fluff.

Masterlist Ko-fi

- - - - -

Sasuke Uchiha

He isn't the kind of guy to outwardly dote on you.

He's never been good with words or physical touch, more so preferring quality time together. You sleep in the same bed, eat meals together when it's convenient, and lounge around together when time allows.

When you come home from a last minute doctor's appointment with some big news, none of that really changes.

He assures you that he's happy, that he loves you, and this is all wonderful, but that's about all you're going to get out the emotionally constipated man.

However, while words may not be his strong suit, actions certainly are.

It's become painfully obvious that you are never allowed to go anywhere alone ever again.

He's like a shadow, following you everywhere and anywhere you decide to go. It doesn't matter that you're just running to the market- he's coming with. Ino invited the girls over for a dinner party? Cool, he'll walk you there, hang around in the shadows outside, then walk you home.

When questioned, Sasuke only says that he doesn't trust other people. Already knowing how he is, you don't push him any further. (Not that he'd entertain you if you did.)

People notice pretty quickly. He's not subtle and it's not exactly common for the Uchiha to be so openly clingy.

You wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret for a little while longer. You knew that his status would make the whole thing bigger than you'd like and it was still so early, only about eight weeks in. But people were becoming more and more insistent with their questions.

"Seriously, did something happen? He's been watching you like a Hawk for the past month."

"It was cute at first, but now it's straight up creepy."

Sakura and Ino dramatically shiver at the notion. You laugh, imagining how unsettling this all must look from the outside.

"It's fine, I promise. He's just been a little overprotective since he found out I was pregnant."

They don't register it at first. They just nod in understanding and move to sip their tea. You can almost see it click in their heads before they slam down their cups and start freaking out.

"Wait, WHAT?"

Naruto Uzumaki

"Congratulations! Based on the ultrasound, I'd say you're about five weeks along. It's still early, but you can see a tiny sac right here-"

Your mind is going a thousand miles a minute, thinking of everything and nothing as the doctor points out the tiny, centimeter-long blob in the picture.

Naruto had been bugging you for the past three weeks about a smell. He swears it's nothing bad, just that Kurama is insisting that your scent has changed and- blah, blah, blah. You never could get any more information out of him, which just left you to eventually cave and visit the doctor. Animals have instincts for a reason and who were you to ignore them?

Turns out, that damn fox was right.

After a half-hour lecture on what you can and can't do anymore, you were handed a goodie bag of essentials and sent on your way.

You barely remember the walk home. Your mind was completely blank as it tried to process the news. It wasn't until Naruto was standing in front of you in the doorway to your home that you finally snapped out of the trance.

You stared up at him. His eyebrows were knit together and he was asking if everything was alright. He pulled everything out of your hands and not-so-gently set them on the floor.

"I'm pregnant."

His eyes blew wide and not even a second later he was smiling, pulling you into him and spinning you around. It's over just as quickly as it started. He's setting you back down on your feet and looking you over, mumbling a few hollow apologies for manhandling you. He takes a deep breath, that lopsided grin on his face never leaving.

"You're pregnant."

Just those two words have all the fog clearing from your head. Reality is forced onto you in an instant. In any other situation, it might have made you dizzy, but right now you couldn't be happier.

"I'm pregnant."

Shikamaru Nara

He really should've seen this coming.

Honestly, with how careless he is with protection, it's a wonder how you hadn't gotten pregnant sooner. A year and some change of not bothering with condoms and lazy, half-assed pullouts had finally come to bite him in the ass.

Although he knows this is all going to be horrifically bothersome, he can't find it in himself to be all that bothered. No, not when you're standing in front of him so nervously, little tears gathering on your waterline as you hold out a slip of paper for him to take.

He pulls you into a hug- a very tight, very intimate hug. One of his hands is on your lower back, pressing you into him, and the other is in your hair to cup the back of your head. He can feel the stress start to melt from your body as you relax into him, your arms moving to loosely hold him back.

"I'm sorry. I know this wasn't exactly planned..."

It definitely wasn't planned. He didn't like to think about things too hard. The only talk about the future he'd engaged in was a brief confirmation that you were both interested in pursuing each other exclusively and that neither were against marriage and kids.

But even though this was sudden and unprompted and definitely not what he was expecting when you asked to talk with him privately, he just couldn't find it in himself to be anything other than pleased. Sure, he would've liked to wait a few years and it preferably be after he'd properly proposed and married you, but none of that is deterring him.

He loved you. He didn't say it as often as he probably should, but that didn't make it any less true. You were easygoing and passive and fit into his life with no resistance. His friends liked you, possibly more than they did him. You liked to cook and he never had to worry about you causing trouble.

This was fine.

Not troublesome in the least.

"No, this is... good."

Kakashi Hatake

He was positive he was sterile. He'd have to be after all the injuries and trauma he's sustained, right? Four years and not a single scare, yet here you were, apparently three months pregnant, handing him a report from the OB's office.

He couldn't even form a sentence. He just sighed and sat back onto the couch with his eyes closed. It's only eight in the morning, it's too early for this, not that there'd ever be a great time.

"I knew you weren't going to be thrilled, but now I'm starting to get nervous. Can you please say something?"

He held his arm up and gestured for you to come towards him. When he could feel you brush against him, he grabbed your wrist and carefully yanked you onto his lap. You let out a relieved, albeit hesitant, chuckle as he slowly wrapped himself around you, his head finding solace in the crook of your neck.

The two of you stayed like that for a little while until he let out the loudest, most dramatic groan you'd ever heard leave his mouth, followed by a mumbled 'are you sure?', to which you rolled your eyes.

"Yes, I'm sure. Here, you can see for yourself."

You unfold the paper and pulled out a few pictures. He shifts you around so you're at a better angle before he takes them into his hands. It's obvious that he has no idea what he's looking at- just that the blob is already baby-shaped and very, very intimidating.

You point out some of the obvious things, the head and feet and such, before moving down to the very last photo at the bottom.

"And that little spot right there means that we're having a boy."

"I thought they couldn't tell the gender until later."

"It is later, Kashi. Fourteen weeks."

He lets you take the pictures from him so he can set his hand on your stomach. You'd mentioned gaining a little weight recently, which he honestly hadn't noticed, but now he's wondering how he could've missed it as he brushes his fingers over the slightest most obvious bump in your usually flat stomach.

He must've been zoned out for too long, because you're calling his name and setting your hand over his. He hums, a slight acknowledgment that he's heard you, but you know he's not actually listening.

He's too busy thinking about diapers and bottles and late nights and early mornings. How his son is going to be in the same class as his student's kids. How Gai is going to be a hundred times more annoying in the coming years.

But then a single thought completely derails his spiraling. He wonders what your baby will look like. If he'll be a morning person like you or like to take naps like him. If they'll accel in genjutsu or not, because while he certainly does, you most certainly don't.

He's spent time with Kurenai and Mirai. While raising a person definitely seemed difficult, he couldn't deny that Kurenai was happy. Actually, despite Asuma's untimely death, she's the happiest he'd ever seen her.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just... thinking about how annoying it'll be to tell everyone we're expecting."

"Seemed more like panicking to me."

"... shut up."

[katalyist]

Life series!Grian a survivor not a traitor

Alternative title: I thought about Life series!Grian for too long again and because Tumblr doesn't have a character limit I'm putting my thoughts on the Internet.

I'm not normal in how while watching Cleo's secret life final episode there was a silent agreement that Grian was no loyal when they had that conversation with Scott when they were trying to convince Gem to be on their side.

"I mean, don't ask about Grian's loyalty"

And Scott response was "I have never seen a man drop a pair of sunglasses quicker in my life. As soon as Joel dropped, the bad boy glasses were off"

To which Grian responded "My boys died, what did you want from me?"

Like how is Grian seen has someone that betrays or isn't loyal to his teammates? HE IS LOYAL, HE IS JUST TOO COWARD. He has never betray a teammate first.

Look, for example to third life: He promised Scar his life, and altough he warns the rest of players at the beginning about the scams Scar was doing, he always do what Scar did, he helped him, he create traps and didn't thought on betraying him until Scar betray him first, until Scar did it, when he recovered he was so mad and just jump to them shouting out that Scar was a traitor. AND THEN when Scar apologies and offers Grian to have the win he refuses because he still considers Scar his ally, and then the cactus ring happens and he feels bad, he feels bad for killing Scar, I don't think a traitor would be that bad to the point of killing themselves

Then in last life, where he killed two of his four teammates and started his reputation as "allies killer". First of all, when he turned red he had the oppurtinity to just turn on them, sure, he went back to the nether and threat Mumbo, but it was mostly joking and I think the most messed up thing was how afraid he was of not having any teammates that he was willed his best friend but couldn't find the courage on himself. The next episode he has already a plan to go back with his team AND get Joel out of red, like- he planned a way to be back with his allies and get his new ally (that if I had to remember you, was the one that killed him, but Grian was perfectly with him because he understands it was for the red impulses) out of red. Once he gets his yellow life back and goes back to the southlanders for a happy teammate reunion and discovers Jimmy was exiled he doesn't hesitate in saying he doesn't want him back because he betrayed the southlands; they have the votation, he says 'no' inmediatly and is surprised that other people said yes but doesn't oppose to it.

When Mumbo and Jimmy turned red he didn't try to kill them until their few attempts of murder, he did not attack Mumbo when he tried to end cristal him, he didn't attack them, even when they had that terrible attempt of a trap for him and Martyn. He attacked them when Jimmy physically tries to punch him to the trap that he looses the little patient he had left and kills him and then Mumbo for trying to stop him. Then Martyn betrayed him because of the boogeyman curse and when Grian finds Impulse he sounds so wounded because of that but even then he doesn't try to go for him, he makes a plan with Impulse to put a Wither on the base of team B.E.A.S.T because they were one of the biggest threats. Once Impulse died he was back with Joel and he didn't betray or left him, even when he had the opportunity to join bigger alliances than him.

With that out of the way we arrive to the fatal Double Life, I feel that this is the catalyst of Grian's character misinterpretation, mostly because of the cheat situation but: 1, that him and Scar and soulmates doesn't mean they are allies (see the two pair of soulmates that were literally divorce) and 2, he really tried to protect Scar and be a good ally. He made a base, he warned Scar to not go to places he could die and he even trust him with the sugar cane, when he lost it he trust Scar the sand he isn't even that angry or dissapointed on him. It also applies to BigB, he was a great ally with him too! He gave him sugarcane, cookies, tnt, they didn't attack eachother and the only reason why he killed him was because he forgot BigB was soulmates with Ren in his red madness, he even had a funeral for him and apologise for killing him. That is not traitor behaviour if you ask me.

And then finally Limited Life (my excuse and the real season I wanted to talk because I haven't left that bread bridge), the season where Grian is in his most loyal teammate arc of all. He is a coward of course, he plays safe always, in every single season, and that is what ends up being one of the reasons why Joel ends up dead. The bad boys were too reckless and idiots (in an affectionate way, I love them) for him to not fear for their lives constantly, and yes they almost felt apart, but that was after Jimmy killed Grian. Grian left Jimmy get the kills, they were trying to save him, when Tango (the boogeyman) killed Jimmy he didn't took the two hours from him because that would had permakill him, at the end Jimmy didn't die because of him, he just slip from the platform. They had the funeral and all, he left diamonds at his grave as an offer.

With Joel it is a little different, Grian didn't betray him, he didn't kill him, but he wasn't there because he was afraid of dying, in the middle episode 7 Joel wants to murder the family because they wanted to kill Jimmy "It wasn't their fault he died" trying to persude him to not do that to which Joel answers "I'm gonna send Scar a message" and Grian almost begs "No Joel, you got to be careful or I'm gonna be alone. I'm gonna be a singular bad boy" but he doesn't follow him, he doesn't go to kill people with him because they don't have a plan and it's obvious they will die.

Grian is a survivor, when he notices things are getting ugly he looks for a way out. When Joel goes on his murderous rampage after they talk to BigB he reunite again with him and Pearl to offer himself as a ally, making a list of all the things he is useful for, selling himself because he knows he will be alone at the end of that episode and alone players are easy targets. At first he wants them to become bad boys, he doesn't want to leave the mark, but they refused, and a survivor has to do what they have to do. He isn't even hiding why he wants to be friends with them and they don't have a problem with that.

"I have already kind of accepted he's gonna die in a way" he says while making a trap for the nosy neighbours while watching how Joel died (again)

"I mean, you completely abandon him at this point" Pearl points out (and if I watched Pearl more I could talk about how Life Series Pearl seems to have really trust issues with people that is so confident in leaving allies behind because she keeps repeating how Grian is not with Joel, she is so 'I will die for you', and it was prove in the final of secret life, I love her so much).

And Grian doesn't deny it, he does try to excuse his behavior with a "Joel reaches a point where he just loses his mind completely and he was way past that a while ago. Jimmy's death has kind of got an adverse affect on him" just to be silent a second, finish placing the TNT cards and going "But I will have to go and see if he is okay in a minute"

He cares about his last truly ally even when he knows Joel will die, Grian can't just stand still and wait for it to happen "I'm gonna have to go and see if Joel is okay. He must be on less than an hour and if I don't say bye, I'm gonna regret it"

And once he is with Joel again he doesn't hide that he has allied with the nosy neighbours from him. It is the first thing he tells him actually "I've just been like making new friends because you have lost your mind". That is not betray behavior, that is not 'I'm gonna back stab you' or 'I'm leaving you now'. And Joel gets it, he gets that Grian is too coward to confront people directly, that he is not a pvper and accepts him like that. And then they have this conversation on Skynet while trying to get kills for Joel:

"Yeah, do you know what would be really funny? If I just knocked you off right now but I won't, I won't, I won't do that"

"I would do that for you. I would do that for you. Bad boys for life"

HOW IS THAT NOT LOYALTY? Grian, the one that is afraid of death, willing to die for his ally? Without hesitation answering that yes, he would do that for Joel. We have the hole "Kill me Joel. KILL ME" dialogue and scene after that even. Grian didn't wanted Joel to died, when he has five minutes Grian tries to tell him to kill him again before Joel denies. When they are going to see who Joel can kill is when he starts hesitating because he would lose two hole hours to get Joel back to just one hour, he is balancing saving his allies with keeping himself alive and at the end Joel's rampage ends up killing him and Grian is without his bad boy.

He enters in full survivor mode and downplays Joel's death in front of everybody but contradicting his discourse of 'It was getting expensive to keep him alive' once everyone is gone he tells Pearl and BigB they should have a funeral for Joel fully knowing they weren't his allies. He makes Joel a grave too, like they did with Jimmy and says some words for him. How could that not be loyalty? The last episode he uses the bad boy skin, all season he forgot to use it and had to be remember by the others to use it, and then he puts it even if he 'isn't a bad boy anymore' to honor his allies.

I think the most close he was to betray an ally was when at the end he enacted the sword and ally with Impulse and Etho whitouth talking it with Pearl and it ending with both Etho and Pearl killing eachother to be in peace. When they first met after Grian enactes the sword and Pearl goes to kill he tries to stop her, but he doesn't defend her (or Etho), he just tells them to stop. Grian character just... always leaves his allies do what they want? even if it is not the best for them, it is something he does with every one of his alliance really, he does his own and they do his own, Cleo actually points it out on their last episode while they are talking to the heart fundation and Grian gets bored and goes to do his plan to get Gem and Cleo is like 'yeah, he does his own things, don't pay attention to him'.

In Secret Life he was also truly loyal to the roomates, in part I think because he was afraid of loosing his only oportunitty to get some friends after three episodes of loneliness. Grian is always so desesperate to make allies every season, make people like him because it would mean someone would fight for him. The rommates is a very solid team and he reassures himself and they how he made the correct decision. They are not as attach as he was with his bad boys (that, talking about them, he had this weird no-alliance with Joel, changing hearts and not really attacking eachother until the very end) but it is stable.

Grian includes them in his plans, if they are not on board he respects it, but when he thinks it is something that can protect them he insists. He insists they should go to Joel's platform where he hide from the zombie apocalypse because it is the easiest to defend and they were chase by the people with more health on the server. When Etho died they took it seriously, when they are scaping he goes first through the portal that belongs to Gem, Impulse and Scott because "No point both of us dying" he could have left Cleo go first to be more safe but he didn't, he tries to make a trap to get Gem and the Scotts and he tells Cleo to back off because they would get hurt if they stay to close because he will manually activate it.

My conclusion? Grian is not a traitor, he has never betray his teammates until they cross the line first. He is a bad teammate? Oh, totally, not because he won't provide his allies with supplies or plans but because the moment it becomes dangerous, too risky for his constant safe plays he distants himself because he doesn't like risky plays, he is an expert in the 'long game' even if he won't win anything with it, he also has some kind of honor (if you want to put it that way) he won't attack the weakest unless he is corner to do it to keep himself alive, he always goes for the biggest alliance, the people with most hearts, the people with most potential of giving to bring them down with the rest.

As always thank you for reading how normally sane I'm about Life series Grian. Again, I write this mini kinda essays on the fly and don't check facts too much but Grian himself implying he is not loyal had me "are you sure about that?" and then this was write on my drafts. Thanks for coming to my Grian talk!

[genericpuff]

Webtoons Is Making Moves - So Should You.

We all saw it coming ages ago and now it's finally here. There's no more beating around the bush or doubting if anyone is "reading into it too much", Webtoons' use of AI in its more recent webtoons is not an accident, not an oversight, but by design, it always has been. And I guaran-fucking-tee you that the work that already exists on the platform won't be safe from Webtoons' upcoming AI integration through scraping and data mining. Sure, they can say they're not gonna replace human creators, but that doesn't change the fact that AI tools, in their current form, can't feasibly exist without stealing from pre-existing content.

Plus, as someone who's tested their AI coloring tools specifically... they're a long, LONG way away from actually being useful. Like, good luck using them for any comic style that isn't Korean manwha featuring predominantly white characters with small heads and comically long legs. And if they do manage to get their AI tools to incorporate more art styles and wider ranges of character identities... again, what do you think it's been trained on?

Also, as an added bit that I found very funny:

Um, I'm sorry, what fucking year is it? Because platforms like WT and Tapas have both been saying this for years but we're obviously seeing them backpedal on that now with the implementation of in-house publishing programs like Unscrolled which have reinvented the wheel of taking digital webtoons and going gasp physical! It's almost like the platform has learned that there's no sustainable profit to be had in digital comics alone without the help of supplementary streams of income and is now trying to act like they've invented physical book publishing!

"The future of comic publishing, including manga, will be digital"??? My brother in christ, Shonen Jump has been exclusively digital since 2012! What rock have the WT's staff been living under that they're trying to sell digital comics as the "future" to North Americans as if we haven't already been living in that future for over ten years now?? We've had an entire generation of children raised on that same digital media since then! This isn't the selling point you think it is LMAO If anything, the digital media market here in NA is dying thanks to the enshittification of digital content platorms like Netflix, Disney+, and mainstream social media platforms! That "future" is not only already both the past and present, but is swiftly on its way out! Pack it up and go home, you missed the bus!

Literally so much of WT's IPO pitch is just a deadass grift full of corporate buzzwords and empty promises. They're trying so hard to convince people that their business model is infinitely profitable... but if it were, why do they need the public's money? And where are all those profits for the creators who are being exploited day after day to fill their platform with content? Why are so many creators still struggling to pay their bills if the company has this much potential for profit?

Ultimately even their promised AI tools don't ensure profit, they ensure cutting expenses. The extra money they hope to make isn't gonna come from their content generating income, it's gonna come from normal people forking over their money in the hopes that it'll be turned around, and from Webtoons cheapening the medium even further until it's nothing but conveyer belt gruel. Sure, "making more than you spend" is the base definition of "profit", but can we really call it that when it's through the means of gutting features, retiring support programs, letting go editing staff, and limiting resources for their own hired freelancers who are the only reason they even have content to begin with? That's not sustainable profit or growth, that's fighting the tide which can and will carry them away at any moment.

I'm low key calling it now, a year or two from today we're gonna be seeing massive lawsuits and calls to action from the people who invested their money into WT and subsequently lost it into the black hole that is WT's "business model". This is a company that's been operating in the red for years, what about becoming an IPO is gonna make them "profitable"? Let alone profitable enough to pay back their investors in the spades they're expecting? The platform and its app are already shit and they're about to become even worse, we are literally watching this company circle the drain in the modern day's ever-ongoing race to the bottom, enshittification in motion, but they're trying to convince us all the same that they're "innovating".

Webtoons doesn't want to invest in its creators. We as creators need to stop investing in them.

[piracytheorist]

Been thinking about Nightfall wanting to "awaken the heart buried within Twilight" and I'm like... how exactly is she planning on doing that? It doesn't look like she really understands Twilight, she only sees the idolized image of him that she's built in her mind.

Her only ambitions driving her to perfection (and, to her credit, she does actually achieve a great level of physical discipline that a spy needs to survive) are the ones of her ending up as Twilight's real wife and life partner. She doesn't seem to share any of his dreams, she doesn't even seem to appreciate a possible world where children are happy - which is Twilight's core motivation, so ingrained in him that he kept fighting for it even when he hadn't actively thought about it for a long time.

The reason Yor and Anya are the ones awakening his feelings is because they are way more connected to his ambitions and motivations. Anya reminds him of himself and how important it is to him to protect children's innocence and happiness. Yor has similar motivations, and he actually, canonically thinks of her as someone suitable to inherit the world he wants to create, and maybe I'm taking a bit of liberty here by saying he probably wishes he'd had someone like her to protect him when he was young and defenseless.

So, without even trying, just by being themselves, Yor and Anya connect with him and awaken all the emotions that have motivated him as a spy from the very start. Nightfall has literally dedicated her entire existence to becoming the perfect partner for Twilight, but in her effort to become perfect she has completely lost what actually matters to the man behind the Twilight spy persona. In fact, she may have actually ended up at the opposite side. She believes that after the war Twilight will want to reminisce over old times and tour old battlefields with her when we as the audience keep getting hints that he finds no pride or happiness in being a spy, other than having the chance to protect the world.

Nightfall is hard to relate to not only because she's mean and selfish. It's also because she has dedicated herself to a false, empty promise that was based on Twilight's fame. I'm guessing Twilight never shared his inner feelings and motivations that drove him to become a spy, so Nightfall has no idea how much of a sensitive person he really is, beneath all the masks he puts on. And she's doing all that in an effort to make him notice her, praise her, and eventually choose her as his romantic partner, but everything about it is hopeless.

In a way it's a very interesting way to present her character, as she's willingly becoming a Satellite Love Interest, and everything about her plan, from mistaking Twilight's motivations and personality, to treating Yor and Anya horribly, to reaching for a goal the audience knows is unachievable shows why you can't be like that in reality. I could even say it's a commentary and satire of Satellite Love Interests, making a brilliant example of how such characters can work if they're consciously written that way.

(Anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

[buggitino]

more headcanons about sebastian solace from the hit game pressure roblox

back on my bullshit and i promise i only talk about The Situation a little bit

☆ his third arm is more sensitive than the other two (i'm thinking that either the USHD doctors fucked something up during the operation OR it grew in wrong, nerve endings closer to the epidermis and whatnot, something like that)

☆ just hates being touched in general, he’d rather initiate that contact (need an update where he gently —> not very gently shakes expendables off (depending on whether and how much they’ve annoyed/flashbanged him) when they climb him) ☆☆ part of this is due to trauma, he cant trust anyone to touch him without hurting him ☆☆ the other part is that he’s got that fucking dawg in him (i’ll get to this in a second)

☆ unlike what his new voice lines are starting to suggest about his character (i’m not gonna talk about zerum again because i think everyone knows what's happening at this point and ive already thrown in my two cents) he does NOT hate the expendables. literally his first line upon meeting him in his shop has him calling himself your friend (as strained of a connection as it may be, he could very easily not offer items, not share documentation/info, and just take the expendables data and hoard anything he picks up to make it harder for them to get to the crystal) (like yes, it's a mutually beneficial relationship but if sebastian didn't care about or sympathize with the expendables to some extent, it wouldn't be). i really do think he just has a short fuse (i'm not going to bring up trauma again, however-) and says things he doesn't mean (e.g. “they deserved it. and frankly so do the rest of you.” (im coping with the mischaracterization of these new lines leave me alone)) as a means of protecting himself and pushing the expendables further away (both physically and emotionally)

☆ he’ll act like a brat once they’re done, but he lets younger expendables sleep in his shop (he cares about them but would never in a million years let them know that) ☆☆ if a younger one comes in with a bunch of adult expendables, he’ll treat them all the same but will secretly slip the younger one some extra batteries, gauze, something unnoticeable (he feels especially responsible for the younger male expendables cause they remind him of his little brother)

☆ sometimes he thinks he can hear his family's voices on the radio, just under all the static, calling out for him like a search party would. he used to cry over this but he almost got caught once by an expendable coming into the shop so he does his best to tune it out. it’s hard. guilt pulls at his stomach every time he hears a clip of his family, begging for him to come home, to respond, something, anything, and he ignores it.

☆ autism (cause i said so) - i'm including this one for the sole reason that he does the dinosaur thing with his third arm and generally keeps his hands clasped together in the secret dinosaur position (he just like me fr) ☆☆ hates bright lights (the only light he uses/allows in his shop is the one he emits) (its a very soft/warm hue as opposed to the bright fluorescents throughout the rest of the facility) (not to bring up the flash beacon, obviously nobody likes getting flashbanged and he's got angler eyes but sTILL)

☆ he used to hate eating fish (pre-op) and now he’s pissed cause it’s all he has available and the DNA changes made it so fish is the yummiest tastiest thing in the world (i like imagining him actively fighting the urge to eat whatever fish he’s cooked in one bite cause he refuses to acknowledge that he's changed on a level that isn't physical/appearance-based)

☆ calls grown adults “kiddo” (even the ones that are older than him) ☆☆ he gets a certain kind of joy from seeing the 40/50/60 year old expendables try to figure out just how old he is after they get called “kiddo”. it’s extra fun for him when they’ve clearly already heard the rumors and/or gotten a glimpse of his file

☆ the ring is just an accessory, a bracelet on the floor or in a locker he found and liked. assumed nobody was gonna claim it and kept it (shoutout to @/lotus.eaterr on tik tok for this one!!!!)

[dullgecko]

Ehh this might be ehh but like it popped into my head and won't leave, like Fabian and riz are dating and like yeah sometimes make out if riz is up for it mostly in Fabian room where they won't be like walked in on and at least once one of the other bad kids I wanna say fig or Kirsten burst in to tell Fabian something and for one neither of the boy are paying attention so it startles them a riz just stealths and once he realizes it's just one of the girls he refuses to come out till his blush goes away the girls aren't helping with that thou

"HaHA! Get DUNKED on, The Ball." Fabian laughed, lifting his hands in victory in an imitation of his little pixilated character on the crystal-game screen before leaning back comfortably on his beanbag chair. The goblin to his left making an exaspirated noise but the fond look he gave the fighter betrayed the fact that he wasn't all that annoyed.

"Look, I'm going to blame the fact that my hands are sore today and leave it at that." Riz put his controller down so he could pull off his compression gloves and massage at his aching fingers, kneading at the thick scars running across his hands in an effort to loosen them up slightly after an hour of playing games in Fabians room.

"No excuses, you lost so it's time to pay up." Fabian tapped at his cheek, hinting for the kiss he'd been promised if he won their little two-person tournament.

"I have the sneaking suspicion I've been tricked and that you've been practicing while I wasn't here." Riz heaved himself to his feet, only slightly taller than the half elf while standing even though Fabian was sitting on the floor.

He had to lean down slighly to press a kiss to Fabians cheek, hands resting on his shoulders for balance as he did so. His tail slowly swishing from side to side behind himself in a way that made Fabian want to grab and play with it.

"No, never." Fabian lied, holding onto the goblins hips even as Riz pressed another kiss to the corner of his lips and leaned more heavily against him. "I'm just naturally excellent at it."

"Right, the fact that the save file I saw on the main screen has twelve more hours on it than the last time I was over is a coincidence." Riz pressed their lips together properly, successfully cutting off Fabians counter argument as he leaned his weight fully against him. Pushing him further back into the beanbag chair and purring quietly.

Riz wasn't often keen for so much physical intimacy but he found himself in a bit of a mood today, tilting his head to deepen the kiss and flicking his tongue out to press into the other boys mouth. Growling encouragingly when Fabian ran a hand along the base of his tail in a way that made him shiver and buck forwards. He reached a hand up and massaged along the half elfs ear in retaliation, Fabian groaning into his mouth and rubbing harder at the goblins tail.

He wanted to go further, would have gone further if there wasn't a loud click of a camera shutter and a sudden flash from directly behind Fabian. The rogue jerking away from him as his ears perked up high in surprise, iris retracting down to thin slits in the microsecond Fabian could still see him before he was suddenly gone. Misty stepping away into some hidden corner of the room leaving Fabian confused, goblin-less, and maybe just a little keyed up in a way that made him have to readjust the front-tail of his belt to hide himself.

"Wh-?"

"Okay, you two are adorable but you should really lock your door if you're getting all hot and heavy in here." Fig teased, leaning over Fabain so he could see her when he flopped his head back against the beanbag chair to see what had startled his rogue so much.

"Oh for fucks sake." Fabian sighed, rubing his hands over his face and taking a deep, calming breath. "For starters, you should knock before barging into someones room. Secondly look what you did. You've made him pull his disappearing act on me."

Fabain glanced around the room, not seeing any place in particular he thought Riz would have bolted to. "Riz it's just Fig. You can come out."

"No." A quiet voice answered from somewhere over near Fabians computer desk, earning a snicker from Fig which just made the shadow-y corner hiss back in response.

[ckret2]

i wish to know about how you characterize amorphous shape. amorphous needs more attention. (same with the other henchmaniacs without lines, but i prefer focusing on the character my brain has decided i am.)

I characterize them as approximately 14~19 separate individual shapes from Bill's home dimension that got combined together into one hive mind. That's why I refer to Morph as "they"—I'm not using "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun, I'm using it as a plural pronoun, they are literally multiple people.

How they got combined into one body will get explored later in the fic so I'm not gonna spoil it; but it happened during the destruction of the second dimension.

The polygon parts of them weren't all squares to start out with, but after a trillion years they found that most of the time it's easier for them to simplify themselves into a form that tessellates tidily. They can shapeshift and separate though, so they can return to their original shapes when they want, like:

(that's not literally the exact shapes they were, just concept art of what changing to their original shapes would look like.)

They're Bill's top scientists. Also, his only scientists. Not all of them were scientists, but when you've shared brains for a trillion years, you pick up each other's knowledge, and anyway over a dozen minds working on the same problem at the same time makes brainstorming faster. They're to blame for the interdimensional portal.

Any time Bill attempts to conquer a new dimension, he's gotta try to persuade the people inside that dimension to make him a portal; and in order to do that, he's got to pass those people portal blueprints; and in order to do that, he needs portal blueprints that both, a) work correctly in the physics of the dimension he's contacting, and b) can be built using the technology, natural resources, and construction techniques available to the natives. He wouldn't send portal blueprints that only work correctly with linear forward-moving time to the do-over dimension where spontaneous time loops randomly form, and he wouldn't send a design that can only be powered by nuclear fission to a culture that's barely discovered coal.

For a long time, Amorphous Shape were the guys Bill turned to for all those portal blueprint modifications. Any time he found a promising new dimension with a sufficiently gullible-looking species, he'd go in with Amorphous Shape so they could study local physics and technology and adapt the blueprints to fit local conditions.

By now, Bill & company have made SO many blueprints for SO many universes with SO many kinds of technology that when they find a new universe, they can typically tweak a design they already made rather than start from scratch; and Bill's been studying the blueprints for so long that now he thoroughly understands the science behind them and can draft & modify them himself, so he doesn't need Morph's help so much. He mainly consults with them to double-check the math before tossing the blueprints at a dreamer or to assist on really strange cases like that one dimension with a form of physics based entirely on the letter M.

Right now, Morph's bigger long-term scientific concern is the slow degradation of the Nightmare Realm and finding ways to help Bill shore up the crumbling reality; and implementing emergency quick fixes whenever something small falls apart, like a black hole threatening to destabilize the fabric of reality around several nebulas or knots tangling in wormholes because the ends are fraying.

If Bill is like the self-appointed god of the Nightmare Realm, Morph are something in between a demigod and a high priest: they don't have any reality-altering power themselves, but they do understand and influence reality far beyond any mere mortal and their petitions to the god to do this or fix that keeps local reality functioning.

Talking to them is like talking to a committee or a mob. Most of the things they say are collectively agreed-upon by the members of the hive mind, and so tend to have the careful precision of a department issuing a public statement rather than a regular conversation; but when something happens to get a majority of them mad, they get mad together and egg on each other's anger, and tend to immediately snap into confrontation rather than sit back until they calm down

They don't have a lot of hobbies they all share, so they tend to dabble in and drop a wide variety of hobbies rather than get really deeply invested in any. More likely to spend their spare time seeing what the other Henchmaniacs are doing and tag along on that than try to decide what to do on their own. Bad habit of just going back to work when they're bored since at least they can all agree that's productive.

They haven't gone on a date in billions of years and are not happy about this. They don't even have all the same sexualities, much less the same types. They need to go on a date with like a minimum four people simultaneously to balance out the fact that they'll be variously attracted to/repelled by any one singular date. Finding four people who cover their separate tastes and are all willing to go on a single date with "the same person" is pretty hard, especially when you're workaholics living with the most hated person in the multiverse and don't get out much.

Zealously, desperately loyal to Bill. They've spent a trillion years telling themselves that Bill's gonna rescue his devotees from the Nightmare Realm and claim a new dimension for them. By now it's become easier to pretend he's a flawlessly honest leader who'd never lie to them (unless he has a very good reason) than to grapple with his massive failings as a person and consider that maybe they made a mistake older than universes in following him. Any time one of their components starts to mentally doubt one of Bill's decisions, they're shouted back into conformity by the rest who are ready to offer justifications and explanations for anything he does. Can't do deep thinking on a difficult topic if you don't even have privacy in your own head.

If Bill ever wants to screw with them he can say "Morph, you're four of my best friends" and leave them going crazy trying to figure out which of their components he likes and why he doesn't like the rest. But Bill doesn't mess with the shapes much. Only if it's, like, really funny.

There used to be more surviving shapes in Bill's social circle, but over the eons they left one by one, until now it's just down to Morph, Kryptos, Hectorgon, and Bill; each time the shapes lost another member, it became harder for the remainders to consider leaving. Morph are no more capable of contemplating lives without Bill, Kryptos, and Hectorgon than you are of contemplating a life without bones. The feeling is mutual all around.

The rest of the Henchmaniacs could get fucked as far as they care.

[ananke-xiii]

little convoluted thought that ends beautifully, I promise.

So Purgatory Dean/Benny and Summer of Love/Demon!Dean Dean/Crowley stories are structurally very similar and I would even go as far as saying that they are the fundamentally the same but I can't because Dean/Crowley is a deterioration of Dean/Benny in the sense that while Benny did indeed help Dean, even though he had an ulterior motive, their relationship was based on more or less equal footing (Dean had more power in their dynamic) and respect of the terms of agreement.

Both stories have two more characters in them, i.e. Sam and Cas but their function is not the same. While Sam's is a sort of wake-up call for Dean to go back to reality, Cas is the one who bookends these two stories. Both Purgatory arc and Demon!Dean arc are closed when Dean and Cas reunite.

Now.

These two arcs are basically about Dean escaping reality. Which means he doesn't like his reality and probably needs/wants something more, different or for the first time out of it. Purgatory is pure and easy, Crowley's summer of love is fun and free. And yet they both REALLY end when Cas is back into the picture.

Mmmmm.

The fact that Dean wants/needs more and that his heart desires something he can't or doesn't want to admit is not something I'm making up. This is literally the core theme of both s10 and 11. S8 Purgatory is about the realization that there is indeed something that Dean needs and perhaps even wants (he's very adamant about it in Purgatory where he could feel "pure" and where purity means black and white mentality and free killing) but s9 tells him that he can't have that. Not having all of his wants and needs met dangerously leads Dean to a dark path from s9 onwards when he tries to symbolically go back to Purgatory via Mark of Cain (black and white mentality, more black than white lol, free killings without guilt, fake and consuming feeling of being in control of your life if you only have that ONE thing.... ((the blade, the imaginary lover, the stripper etc))). Of course it doesn't work because Purgatory was real but it was also a different place than the everyday world where its rules don't apply (no free killing for you here, Dean. Well, more or less, only your usual).

S11 pointedly ends with Amara telling Dean she gave him something that he needs, his mother. Which is true for all human beings: maternal love is indeed the primary need to be nurtured and cared for. So Amara did learn one thing or two about humans after all. And since we're here, she presumably didn't have to give Dean what he wanted because he could get it himself.

Because if his stints in Purgatory and demonhood were Dean looking for something he needed and wanted that ended when Dean reunited with Cas... and now Dean got what he needed because Amara didn't have to give Dean what he wanted because he could get it by himself... Would that mean?! Yeah, it does.

We're back again to "the one thing I want I know I can't have". It's always about desire, not limited to the physical sense but desire for that something or someone that you want. And maybe even get.

Which made me think of this beautiful poem by Fyodor Tyutchev (ACTUALLY, thinking about this poem made me think of the rest, so this post should be read end to beginning lol):

The Dull Flame Of Desire

I love your eyes, my dear,

their sparkling dancing fire

as they suddenly rise

to embrace everywhere

like lightning in the wilderness -

but there's a stronger charm

when your eyes are lowered

during passionate kisses

and in their downcast lashes

glows the dull flame of desire.

[boyrobott]

i fully get it bc i know what u mean about original astro boy manga being silly with it vs pluto being relentlessly sad. but i do think it's really important to say that pluto's themes draw on a LOT LOT LOT of stuff present in the original manga! like, the stuff about hate making a robot closer to a human/allowing them to kill a human despite most robots being physically unable to is pulled directly from the blue knight story. the original greatest robot on earth story that pluto is based off is about pluto struggling with not wanting to be a robot made only for killing bc he had a nice time hanging out with uran and doesn't wanna make her sad. epsilon still dies saving his adopted human son, and atom ends the story mourning for all the robots who got killed for goji to prove a point. the moral (which multiple characters say) is that what makes a robot OR a person strong is their love and humanity not their killing power, and it is both stupid and perpetuating the cycle of violence to force robots to hurt each other. the robot hate group man in pluto is inspired by the villain of a segment in astro boy tales part 2&3 where he literally is in a group wearing kkk hoods and does a whole pr attack about robots killing his son because he is campaigning to remove their rights.

and it's not just the stories pluto references! hell, in basically half the stories at minimum a robot is forced by a human to do a crime, the police go 'dang i guess we gotta take the rights of all robots away and destroy them for scrap :(' and atom has to find the human responsible so that doesn't happen (the third magician, electro, and his highness deadcross are some good examples). the plot of the story robot land is atom struggling with wanting to save a bunch of robots being beaten up and worked to the bone by their creator, but he can't because robots are still technically property and helping them escape would be stealing and therefore illegal. in the little intro comics tezuka drew in the collection, he literally says 'yeah this is about the vietnam war being awful' about like fully three different stories. and that's just off the top of my head!!

'what makes a person, where is our empathy, why do we quest for vengeance when it only sucks us into a cycle, have we lost our humanity' are literally the most important core themes of astro boy, which is why it's so so impressive for kids comics that are still broadly super super cute and funny!

legitimately sorry for putting a huge wall of text in ur inbox because i know it's unsolicited and probably uncool. but astro boy is super important to me and so is the idea that a story can be goofy silly child adventures and also explore dark and serious themes? so i had like. a moment when i saw ur post lol. i get it if u dont wanna read all this etc but i wanted to i guess encourage u to give the manga a second pass even if u aren't into pluto at all. there's an insane amount of stuff there that really really legitimately is that deep

Okay, may I just say, I'm absolutely loving your impassioned defense of the manga here. You're bringing so much ride-or-die energy to the table right now, and I'm loving it. But I've been slowly reading through the manga over the past few years, so I... kind of already know all this??? That's pretty much the whole reason I made the joke in the first place -- because there are so many similar storylines and themes between the original manga and the Pluto series, but the individual tones literally could not be more different. The fact that a grim dystopian anime about the horrors of war and the true meaning of humanity is saying the same exact things as a fun, lighthearted, campy manga series?? Sorry, but that's just hilarious to me.

I can definitely see where the misunderstanding came from, but I promise, you do not need to defend the manga to me, LMAO.

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

Spring, 2020 - JAG Headquarters Naval Base San Diego

Chapter 6 Part 1 of You Are My Soulmate

Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader

Description: After too long, it's finally the day of your inquiry. You're to be judged by a panel of your peers and with the COMPACFLT presiding. You're filled with nerves. Of course, Lieutenants Marks and Greybanks have your back as do the Daggers. One conversation with Rooster gives you hope, hope that your soulmate doesn't hate you, and hope that this inquiry will finally go your way!

Disclaimers: Misogynistic speech. Mentioned Homosexual Relationships. Angst. Flagrant disregard for protocols or Authority. Angst. Anguish. The author has no idea how Navy inquiries go (so take all the legalese with a grain of salt).

This content presented in this story is for audiences age 18 and over only. MINORS DNI. I will not be accepting tag-list requests from Blank or Ageless Blogs for this story.

Warnings: Female!Reader

Word Count: 4414

A/N: Hehehehehe! Now that I've gotten my wicked little giggles out of the way, I hope you're all ready!

But first! A disclaimer! I'm neither a law professional nor in the US Navy. In this more than any chapter for this story I've written, I implore you to ignore the pseudo-legalese and my fragrant lack of knowledge regarding military inquiry protocol.

And now to the fun part! We're going to get revenge on an odious little bird in this chapter! (Yes, I mean a particular character!) His number is up and everyone is very eager to see him BURN!

I'm sorry this chapter wasn't out at 6 PM EST like usual. What can I say except life happened?

AO3: Cross-posted Here!

Wattpad: Cross-posted Here!

My Masterlist

Previous Part | Series Masterlist | Next Part

Tinkerbell

The courtroom is far less imposing than you were expecting. The walls are beige and unadorned. The truly imposing people in the room are your opposing counsel and the fact that this trial is being presided over by the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Tom Kazansky. You’d think that facing down the COMPACFLT and a panel of fellow Lieutenant Commanders would take all of your attention, but you’d be wrong. The focus of all of your attention, and well, the attention of everyone else in the room, is on the cocky man sitting in the witness box. He's under oath, having promised to ‘Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, but looking at his face, a part of you cannot believe he will do so. Whatever truths spilling from his mouth are likely to be false, nuggets of information so twisted and cruel that you can’t even hope the panel of Lieutenant Commanders in the room can make sense of it. The picture he’s painting of you is far from flattering, after all.

As Hawk tells it, you’re a temperamental female AMDO Lieutenant Commander with a penchant for throwing hissy fits on the job and sabotaging successful male pilots just out of spite for their physical prowess. It’s a convincing tale and makes you want to sink into the seat of your chair next to Commanders Marks and Greybanks as he smirks vindictively at you. As if he hadn’t dragged every inch of your leadership through the mud when he went through the events of the first AMDO inspection of the year, now you know there’s something else he has to mention for this trial. It hasn’t mattered how often Commanders Marks and Grebanks objected to Hawk’s rendition of the first AMDO inspection of the year. Admiral Kazansky had sustained all of the objections, but it seems to have been too little, too late. Nobody on the panel of seven looks remotely convinced of your innocence anymore.

“Moving on then. What, Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor, did you witness on the morning of December 18th at approximately 0530 AM?” Commander Wilson of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps is stern as he asks the question. When you’d expressed confusion to Commanders Marks and Greybank, you were informed that this was standard operating procedure in the Navy. The courtroom, for lack of a better word, is hushed. Whether you like it or not, Hawk has everyone on the edge of their seats, hanging onto his every word.

“I saw the Lieutenant Commander and the Lieutenants having words, Commander.”

“Which Lieutenant Commander and Lieutenants, Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor?” It’s unsurprising when Hawk points to you as well as Bradley and Jake sitting in the gallery and states your full names. You were expecting this; both Commanders Marks and Greybank had prepared you for it. However, you weren’t expecting to see Bradley in the courtroom or the remaining Daggers. This closed inquiry indicates whether you will face a court martial. The only personnel in the room are those necessary for the defense or the prosecution. So that must mean that the Daggers are being called either as witnesses for the defense or a witness for the prosecution.

It hurts, seeing the new scars crisscrossing over Bradley’s face and the fragile way he shuffles in his seat as Hawks’ testimony enthralls the court. You, on the other hand, feel like you’re going to throw up. That distinctly sick feeling continues as Commander Wilson asks question after question, all of them intent on crucifying you. If he were in an F-18, you’d have the crosshairs on you and hear the tone of the missile lock. A victorious smile, poorly concealed, is on Hawk's face as his prosecution finishes questioning and takes their seats. Now, Commander Marks takes over the questioning for the defense.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor, we've heard what happened on the morning of December 18th. Why were you on base that early?”

Commander Greybanks leans forward when Hawk scoffs and starts scrawling notes on the legal pad before him. “We were scheduled to begin training at 0800 hours sharp. But I wanted to get some additional time on the flight simulators, so I was on base earlier that day.”

“Then why were you in Hangar Two, Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor, when per your earlier statement, you were going to the Simulation Center on the opposite end of North Island Naval Air Station?”

You let a furtive smile curl your lips for the first time since the inquiry began. It’s fleeting because you probably shouldn’t be smiling, but the hope that question gives you is enough. Hawk’s expression makes you feel even better because he looks like he’s taken a sip of curdled milk from an expired carton.

“I was just on my way to the Simulation Center from the locker room when I saw the lights on in Hangar Two. It was 0530 in the morning, ma’am. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else there. So, I dipped in through the back door to ensure nobody was messing with the proprietary Naval technology inside the hangar.”

There’s a distinct tremor in Hawk’s voice as he says the words. It almost feels like he’s worried about something - hopefully, something that the Commanders will uncover.

“What about the conversation the Lieutenant Commander and Lieutenants were having piqued your interest, Lieutenant Junior Grade?”

“I couldn’t quite hear it, Ma’am, but it was something to do with Lieutenant Bradshaw’s jet.”

Hawk takes a sip of water from the glass in front of him before he continues.

“I was not close enough to hear exactly what was wrong with the jet, Ma’am. But Tinkerbell was under the jet looking at the landing gear - the front landing gear in particular.”

“So what did you hear, Lieutenant Junior Grade?” Commander Marks is sticking to the facts, not letting Hawk philosophize in a manner he’d clearly like to if the way he swallows with each statement is an indication. She’s also quite content to let Hawk’s continued use of your callsign rather than your rank slide. It bothers you because you’ve earned your rank with blood, sweat, and a not-insignificant quantity of tears. But she must have a reason. Both the Commanders must have a reason because Hawk’s clearly discomfited at Commander Marks questioning him instead of Commander Greybank.

“As I mentioned, Ma’am, I heard nothing until Lieutenant Bradshaw got loud. He mentioned something about wanting to still fly.”

“Then what happened?” 

“Tinkerbell happened, ma’am.” There’s a distinct snarl on his face as he says your name. “She refused to let Lieutenant Bradshaw fly.”

“Was Lieutenant Bradshaw’s absence explained before that day’s exercises?”

“It was ma’am, by Tinkerbell of all people. She explained it as an acute mechanical failure on the front landing gear - not that I believed her.”

“And what happened after that?”

“Nothing, in particular, Ma’am. We flew in our assigned patterns through the morning and into the afternoon. It was the first hop after lunch that something out of the ordinary happened. Lieutenant Bradshaw came on comms at half-past two that day. He told us he’d been cleared to fly by Tinkerbell and that he’d be joining us up in the air.”

You feel like you’ve been sucker-punched again. Suddenly, you’re back on the tarmac, jet fuel exhaust wafting past as you scream into the comms. That panic, that pain, that feeling of hopelessness, and the fear is washing over you again.

“Twenty minutes later, I was watching a fireball burst against the side of the mountain. Tell me why it was that one of the US Navy's best aviators had to crash because one female AMDO couldn't do her job properly?”

“The defense has no further questions about the incident occurring on December 18th, Admiral Kazansky.”

“Very well, let’s take a half-hour recess and convene back here at exactly quarter past 11. We’ll resume with the questioning of Lieutenant Bradshaw at that time.” The Admiral looks tired - it can’t be easy presiding over inquiries.

The moment you are dismissed, the Commanders lead you to a secluded bench in the open central hall of JAG headquarters.

“That was rough.” It’s a matter-of-fact comment and not one that either of the Commanders is expecting a response to.

They let you sit in silence for a minute, at most, before Lieutenant Greybank hands you a bottle of water. “Do you still intend to testify to the status of your soulbond with Lieutenant Bradshaw?”

“If I need to.” You sigh, noticing the Daggers spreading out through the courtyard. Jake and Javy look like they're searching for you. So does Bradley - which you are not expecting. “It’s my last resort, sir, ma’am. If we need to mention my soulbond and soul-markers to sway the panel, then we will. I’m not ready to let my career go without a fight.”

“Alright. We’re going to go talk to Commander Wilson. I feel we have a few more pieces of evidence to submit to the Admiral and the panel, then.” You stand and salute the higher-ranking officials as they walk away before sitting back down as you let your eyes flutter closed. 

It’s warm in the sun-roof ceilinged room. If you ignore the chatter of people at the coffee cart across the way, you could almost delude yourself into believing that it’s the middle of summer. More importantly, you can believe that all of this is behind you. You let yourself relish in the heat and imagine a summer day where you're curled up under the lone oak tree in your backyard. There are birds chirping, and if you focus, you can just hear the soft susurrations of the ocean over the wind rustling through the grass.

Your fantasy comes crashing down around your ears when a body settles onto the bench next to you. You know who it is before you even open your eyes, the soulbond buzzing like a hive of agitated bees under your skin just in his proximity.

“Hi, Bradley.” Your face feels hot as you take in his face.

“Hi, Tink.” He sounds so subdued, so lost as he greets you.

“Are you doing alright?” You blurt the words out before you even think about them. You've meant to ask it since you heard he woke up.

“I'm okay, Tinkerbell.” He chuckles then, something soft yet mirthless. “Gotta take it one day at a time. Though I think I'm officially not a looker anymore.”

The scars are arresting, slanting bright red, and standing out from his still-golden skin. But they're not ugly; far from ugly, in fact. The new skin growing over the burns is pink and tender, the color of his lips when he bites on them as he's deep in thought. They make him look mature, almost otherworldly, sitting there in his white dress uniform with his cover perched on perfectly coiffed curls.

“That's a lie.” You’re so tired of hearing the lies, of the stress, and of the sleepless nights, more like exhaustion, that the words trip out of your mouth unbidden. Your brain catches up with your mouth just a touch too late, but before your mortification can set in, rich laughter fills up the space between the two of you.

“Tell me what you really think; why don’t you, Tinkerbell?” Something about being this close to Bradley Bradshaw makes you feel brave and bold.

“It makes you look mysterious.” His laugh makes you smile.

“I owe you an apology.”

“I have to apologize to you.”

You start speaking at the same time he does, your voice tapering off into shocked silence when you hear that he’s saying the same thing you are.

“What do you have to apologize for, Bradley?” Your voice is quiet as you stare in shock at him. He looks just as confused as you are. 

“I could ask the same thing of you. But if I do, I’m pretty sure we’ll be asking each other questions until this recess is over.” He smiles softly at you. “Why don’t you go first?”

Your voice is even softer because now Jake and Javy have found you and are standing within earshot. “I need to apologize to you, Bradley. God, I should have ensured the flight crew knew not to leave your jet unattended. I should have had a member of my team remove the ignition or disable the flight computer. Something, anything. Because seeing you crash like that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It was the worst thing I’ve ever felt.”

“I’m so sorry, Bradley.” You’re sniffling when you fall silent, rooting around in a pocket for a tissue.

You get handed a handkerchief, starched and pure white instead. 

“Sweetheart, you’ve got nothing to apologize for. I’ve been rude to you since the night we met. Truly, it’s because I was jealous.” He runs his hands through his hair in a frustrated motion. “That first night, I don’t know if you remember it, but when I met you at the bar, I could have sworn I felt something special. Something miraculous. I thought you were my soulmate. Then Jake found you in the aftermath of that bar fight, and I saw red. In those few moments, you shook me to my core. I’d sworn I would never find my soulmate, and I promised that if I ever found my soul, I’d never let them go.”

Your heart feels like it’s in overdrive. Did he just say what you think he did? There’s no way. How has he never realized that the dreams he’s had are about you?

“But I did. Sweetheart, I let you go that night, then again every time I saw you on Base. I never should have let you go. Please forgive me. You deserve so much better than the platonic soulmate you got, sweetheart. But I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I promise you that.”

You know you’re in a nightmare now. What about the dreams made it seem platonic to him? Maybe his dreams were different from yours because you’ve ended up naked in nearly all of them! But you can’t focus on that when your career is at risk.

“So you know?” Your voice is a little accusatory, a little angry, and a little sad. “You knew I was your soulmate, and you didn’t say anything?”

Your words make the sheepish grin on his face drop. “I-I…” But you don’t let him stutter out platitudes and even more apologies.

“I’ve been looking for you for most of my life, Bradley!” Your hands shake as you twist them in your lap, crushing the handkerchief in your fingers. “You…. only you. I thought you could never hurt your soulmate. The thoughts have been consuming me for months. What will you do if he dies? What will happen if he doesn’t remember you? What if he’s not yours? Why? Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you think it was okay to leave me waiting? To leave me not knowing?”

One big hand covers your cold fingers, carefully disentangling the kerchief. “I was scared, sweetheart. Terrified. I don’t have a good track record with soulmates. My parents were soulmates, and it destroyed my mom when my dad died. Here I am, doing the same thing he did. I couldn’t put another soul through what my mama went through. So when I got my marks, I pushed them to the back of my mind. I ignored all of the signs that a girl could be my soulmate - including the night I met you. You were the hardest to ignore, sweetheart. I wish I’d never done so because that wouldn’t have given Hawk a reason to target you like he did.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make, Bradley. That choice was mine. How dare you rob me of the choice of having the happiness your parents must have felt? This is my life, too, Bradshaw. Platonic or Romantic, you had no right to do that.” His gasp is audible as you look right into his eyes. “But I forgive you. So long as you promise never to do that again, we’ll be okay. But you’ll only get a second chance, not a third one.”

You stand up, carefully folding up the kerchief and pressing it into the breast pocket of Bradley’s suit. You dip down and gently kiss his cheek, tracing your fingers over one of the new scars. “As far as Hawk is concerned, I don’t think there is a single thing you could have done to stop him. He’s hated me since I told him off during the AMDO inspection - something I was well within my rights to do. This inquiry will prove that. I know it will. Give ‘em hell, Bradshaw.”

You’re smiling as you rejoin Commanders Marks and Greybank outside of the room, especially since you hear Bradley, Jake, and Javy coming up behind you. A big hand squeezes yours in passing, and you brace yourself to go once more unto the breach.

Bradley looks worn and tired as he takes the oath. He says each word emotionlessly, like he can’t bear to go over the accident, to relive the pain he was in.

“Do you believe the Lieutenant Commander released your jet purposefully?” Commander Wilson may be expressionless, but Hawk’s not as he catches your eye across the room.

“Objection! Leading Question!” Commander Greybanks doesn’t let the question get very far, though.

“Sustained.” Admiral Kazansky rubs at his temples as he dismisses the question. “The question is struck from the record. Commander Wilson, refrain from using leading questions, please.”

“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Bradshaw, who released your jet for use that day?”

The entire room seems to lean forward in their seats. There isn’t a sound in the room. Bradley makes direct eye contact with you before he rises to his full height in the chair.

“Nobody did, sir.” Three innocuous words which set the courtroom murmuring. Commanders Marks and Greybanks look nearly elated as they confer in hushed tones beside you. But you have eyes only for your soulmate.

“Then why did you get into your jet?” Commander Wilson’s wheeling. The biggest piece of evidence against you just dissipated in front of the prosecution’s eyes.

“I wanted to fly, sir. I wanted to prove that I had what it takes to fly the mission we were training for. It didn’t feel right that I was grounded while the remainder of my squad were allowed to show what they’re made of.”

Bradley’s chuckles are self-deprecating. “Of course, nobody from my squadron had the chance to fly due to my actions.”

“You are sure that the Lieutenant Commander stated there was a problem in the front-landing gear?”

“Objection! What’s the relevance of this question?”

“Admiral, if Lieutenant Bradshaw assumed a problem with the front landing gear, then conceivably, he could have completed the training maneuvers successfully. He merely would have had a hard landing. There would not have been a multi-million dollar explosion in the hills of San Diego, nor would there have been a lengthy stay in the hospital.”

“Objection overruled. Lieutenant Bradshaw, please answer the question.” Admiral Kazansky’s turned the full force of his green eyes to Bradley now.

“Per the maintenance report the Lieutenant Commander sent to me, as well as the parts requisition forms, the defect in my F/A-18 was a defective front landing gear.”

“I have no further questions.” Commander Wilson settles back into his seat as Commander Greybank stands up. “Defense’s witness.”

“Lieutenant Bradshaw, what happened once you took off?” 

“I relayed my coordinates to the group I was supposed to be flying with and joined the exercise. Everything was fine until after the simulated bombing run. As we were flying back in formation, everything in my jet started showing error signs. First, the left engine went out. Re-igniting did nothing. Then the radar conked out. Finally, I lost control. I saw flashing red on every instrument as the plane sank lower and lower. I kept trying to salvage the situation. But nothing I did helped. I pulled the ejection cords a little too late, and the doctors told me that I was engulfed by the fireball my jet created as it made contact with the hill. I don’t remember that part, Commander.”

You’re seeing the fireball in the distance again, hearing Bradley’s comms go dark and feeling his pain. Your hand shakes as you reach for your glass of water. This must be torture, or divine retribution because you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to hear what Bradley went through without getting a little light-headed.

“I understand that might have been a harrowing ordeal. Do you believe the Lieutenant Commander caused the incident?”

“I do not. The accident was due to my own stupidity. The Lieutenant Commander forwarded the parts requisition form and the maintenance report to me that day. She also informed me when the parts were likely to be available. However, I would love to know what caused my engines to malfunction over the desert that day. Under the Lieutenant Commander’s careful watch, North Island has seen fewer aircraft malfunctions over the past six months than over the same duration every year before her appointment to North Island.”

He winks subtly at you as he says the words, chest puffing out in pride at your accomplishments.

“How do you know that?” Commander Greybank is smiling slightly as he says the words as well.

“I’ve been cleared for light duty over the past two weeks. As such, I’ve been working in the records room filing reports for the Admiralty, including the AMDO reports. It was a matter of a few hours to collect the statistics on AMDO inspections. They were given to Admirals Bates, Simpson, and Mitchell as a report.” Bradley’s smirking victoriously at Hawk, and it doesn’t surprise you at all to see how red he’s getting.

“We have a copy of that report to present to the panel as evidence.” Commander Greybank passes the documents to each member of the panel.

“We have no further questions for Lieutenant Bradshaw. However, we’d like to recall Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor at this time. We'd like to present a new piece of evidence to the panel, which we’d like him to answer some questions on.”

“Motion granted. Lieutenant Bradshaw, you may return to your seat.” Admiral Kazansky’s eyes flash with a hungry look as Bradley salutes him and the panel sharply before clambering back to his seat. This is going to be good. Hawk deserves everything that is coming to him and more.

Once he’s been sworn in again, Commander Marks hands a flash drive to the Admiral. A TV is brought out under Admiral Kazansky’s gimlet gaze, and the drive is plugged in. The video is without audio but clearly shows Hangar Two, specifically Bradley’s jet. It feels weird seeing yourself on camera like that. Does your hair always stick up in the back like that when you run your fingers through it? But you forget about that when the screen shows you leaving the Hangar and talking to Lieutenant Green shortly before 8 AM. Marissa hadn’t left you alone until you’d agreed to get a cup of coffee, at the very least, with her before training started for the day. Your knuckles are white as you clutch your hands together under the table. The camera ticks forward five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. That’s when someone enters the Hangar and straps something into the front landing gear housing. It’s small and metallic. A techno-bomb of some sort, maybe? But far more damning is how the individual fails to hide their face or their patches as they turn to exit the Hangar.

There’s panic on Hawk’s face sitting in front of the panel now. It can’t be easy to see yourself sabotage a superior officer’s plane in front of the COMPACFLT of the US Navy and twenty other higher-ranking officers, all with righteous rage in their eyes.

“In light of this evidence, Admiral Kazansky, we move to dismiss this inquiry and would request that Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor be remanded into the US Navy’s custody pending a Court Martial hearing for sabotage.” There’s a sly grin on Commander Mark’s face as she requests your release.

“What? No!” Hawk’s yell sets the already agitated Naval Personnel into whispering in earnest. “Why are you arresting me?! She’s the dumb bitch who made a mistake! She should be facing a court martial! Everyone knows that women can’t withstand the pressure of being in the Navy! She’s proof, as is that cunt Lieutenant Green. Nobody gives a fuck that they know the NATOPS of the F/A-18 as well as the F-22 and F-35! They’re just here to be diversity hires. Both of them and every other woman in the Navy, Lieutenant Trace included, are probably fucking their way to the top.”

That’s about when Nat launches herself across the room, landing punch after punch to Hawk’s person before Jake and Javy haul her away - though you’re sure they don’t until Nat’s gotten a few good jabs to Hawk’s nether region. The Daggers, as a whole, are bristling with rage. But nobody seems to be angrier than Admiral Kazansky. One firm whistle and the room falls silent.

“That is enough!” Admiral Kazansky is so angry that it feels like the entire room is shrouded in ice. “Lieutenant Junior Grade Taylor, consider this an order. Shut your mouth. You are showing yourself to be a disgrace to your wings and the US Navy. I hereby remand you into the Navy’s custody until your court martial hearing.”

“Lieutenant Trace, report to Admiral Mitchell at 0900 hours tomorrow for the consequences of conduct unbecoming a US Navy Lieutenant in this inquiry.”

“Commander Marks, your request is approved. Lieutenant Commander, you are hereby found not culpable for Lieutenant Bradshaw’s accident on December 18th. We expect to see you back at North Island in your full capacity tomorrow morning at 0900 hours sharp!”

As he stands, the entire room stands in respect and salutes, waiting until the aged man returns the salute before he walks away. It’s over. You’re free. Commander Marks and Greybanks even have cease and desist orders on behalf of the US Navy against the paparazzi on your front lawn. You can go home now. Even better, there might just be something new brewing with your soulmate. 

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN HERE, ON WATTPAD, OR ON AO3 BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE, ON WATTPAD, OR AO3, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

Taglist:

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If your username is crossed out, that means that I wasn't able to tag you!

[attorneys-against-court-violence]

This may be a mess, and I could very well be viewing this wrong, but here it goes.

I'm not sure if how Apollo's character has been handled in not the best way comes down to the change in writers/gamerunners or not, but I can't think about it for too long without being frustrated.

In AJ:AA, he was at least allowed to be outright resentful towards Phoenix for the bloody ace debacle as well as jerking him around with no regard to his feelings on the matter, which is something Phoenix NEVER apologizes for. Then Phoenix gives that nice little promise to Thalassa on how he'll look after Apollo because he grew fond of him.

And then Dual Destinies happens, which is where the meat of my complaints take place.

Apollo's best friend has been murdered and all the evidence is pointing towards another friend of his. He had serious injuries from the courtroom bombing and then got assaulted not long after. On a way more minor note, everyone's dunking on him and roasting him constantly, and *tinfoil hat moment*, he sees how differently Phoenix treats Athena compared to him. And outside of lipservice comments about what all he's been through, no one outside of Athena and Trucy truly seems worried about him.

Apollo takes his leave of absence, and everyone's reaction is basically the Surprised Pikachu Face meme.

That made me want to hit my head against the wall, because what the fuck did they expect? He's still recovering from his injuries, his BEST FRIEND was murdered, and he doesn't trust Phoenix to help find the truth. What did they really expect him to do? Maybe it was just bad writing, but I'm not sure.

In a similar vein, when Apollo is confronted with Nahyuta and Dhurke coming back into his life, it's treated as yet another thing to make of him about, despite him clearly not wanting to talk about them and having trauma/negative feelings associated with them. He's left in the dark YET AGAIN when it comes to Maya's kidnapping (I do like that he called Athena out on this), Dhurke DIES and no one besides Nahyuta seems to care about how it affects Apollo. Then he decides to leave the WAA for good in SOJ, everyone's clamoring for him not to go, and I'm just like, are you fucking kidding me?

Then Phoenix comes out of fucking nowhere with his "I'm so proud of Apollo" platitude, RIGHT AFTER Apollo found out that Phoenix considered him to be untrustworthy and unreliable. This is coming from a man who has used him and hid so much from him.

I love Ace Attorney, and God knows I love Apollo and his trust issues/trauma, but I wished they were properly acknowledged.

Laid out like that, yeah - most people are major dicks to Apollo most of the time. Props to Beanix for taking that uppercut on the chin - he deserved it - but that's only the beginning.

I think I've complained about how the WAA - Phoenix and Athena mainly - treat Apollo when he announces his leave of abscence. The last case he was meant to be a part of, he was blown up badly enough to need full-body bandages, passed out because of his wounds, then got hit on the head by a rock that could have just as easily killed him... and they still chew him out for leaving. I get that their focus is on him straying from the path of unconditional trust that Phoenix set up. But the man has suffered physically and lost the one person in his life he could confidently say didn't have anything to hide from him (Clay); they should not be surprised or offended in the least!

The "Phoenix treats Athena very differently from Apollo" point I have seen and I do agree with it. I do think it comes from Phoenix seeing a bit of himself in both of them and reacted in opposite directions based on his current situation. Maybe he decided to be softer on Athena because he realised he made a huge mistake with Apollo, but it doesn't seem to translate to treating Apollo that much better until he sets his mind right about Clay's death.

I guess when you've survived falling off a burning bridge into a running river, you forget that people can still be grievously hurt and might need to take time off work to heal!

That could have been an easy way to keep their concern without making them look like dicks. Phoenix could be the one encouraging a leave of abscence for the sake of recovering from the physical and psychological damage Apollo has endured, only to find he's instead fueling his own paranoia while ignoring his injuries. It's the fact that Apollo is practically torturing himself for this that should be the main source of worry, not that he's taking time off from the office at all.

Not that they aren't concerned about his mental well-being, it just comes across that like they're treating "leave of abscence" as a resignation at best and a mutiny at worst (it's neither of those things, Apollo would still be an employee under a leave of abscence).

Yeah. Yeah. The WAA's attitude around Apollo's leave really does bug me.

[witchthewriter]

𝓢𝓱𝓲𝓹 𝓯𝓸𝓻 @night-girl-301.

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐔𝐓𝐘

𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝐼 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑜�� 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑡𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑛, 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛𝑛𝑦 "𝑆𝑜𝑎𝑝" 𝑀𝑎𝑐𝑇𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑠ℎ! I think he would absolutely love your extroverted nature; the way you don't mind the spotlight. Which makes it a lot easier for the both of you to have fun together.

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

Keeps a polaroid of you in his pocket; the one closest to his heart. Only takes it out when he's going on a mission - his worst fear is the enemy finding out about you

Your name saved in his phone is 'My Bonnie Lass', and likes to reread old messages before he goes to sleep.

The two of you have had MANY adventures, and when he tells Gaz about them (nonchalantly in conversation) it's almost as if the room falls quiet.

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈

Scotland by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

(this is absolutely one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard. Without a doubt, when listening to this, it's how Johnny would feel whenever he returns to Scotland.)

𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔 

More Alike Than Different

Fake Relationship Which Turns Into True Love

Would Die For Each Other

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖

Johnny loves how easily you can lighten his mood (even though he's always been the person to do that for others). It's taken a load off his shoulders, having you in his life. Johnny realised one day that his life was actually lacking. That there had been a piece missing, and bloody aye bonnie, it was you!

𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅  

I'm not 100% sure if you know this character but I think you would be great friends with Keegan. Mysterious, funny and sarcastic, I think you two would have a chaotic brother / sister relationship. Soap knows this, but still gets jealous.

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐋

𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝐼 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑃𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑜𝑓𝑓! Hell yeah, the fast boi. He would absolutely love teasing you; even before getting into a relationship, Pietro would flirt and do his best to make you blush. It drove you mad, but you did your best not to react. That was until Wanda made him see how much he actually did like you.

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

One of the greatest things about having a speedy boyfriend, is that he can do things 100x quicker. Like clean - wash the dishes, do the laundry, vaccum. He does all this so you don't have to. You're his 'Princezná' (Princess).

You have matching rings - it's a promise ring, from him to you. Pietro gave you the ring (not quite a diamond, or too expensive) on your birthday, and then on his, you did the same.

One of the more protective significant others... he knows you can hold your own, but will not hesitate to step in when he feels like you've been disrespected.

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈

The Train by James Newton Howard

𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔 

You Fell First, But They Fall Harder

Aggressively Supportive & Protective Of Each Other

Overly arrogant, flirty x Pretends To Be Unfazed, But Is Dying On The Inside

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖

How you can keep up with him, and at times, he feels as though he cannot keep up with you. I'm not talking about physical speed here, but wit and humour and socialising. You create friendships wherever you go. People like you. And all Pietro can do is stare. Because you're the life of the party...and the light of his life.

𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅  

Your best friend would be Natasha - she would love your honesty, your knowledge and how fun you are. She would never say that to your face though. Your friendship is based on lightly teasing each other (Wanda calls it bullying and pouts unless you two say sorry ; even though no one was upset).

𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝐼 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑇𝑜𝑛𝑘𝑠! I think you two would start off as best friends and no matter how hard either of you would try to keep apart - you could never be able to. Almost like it was written in the stars, Tonks is the woman for you. Outgoing, bold, brave, loyal, determined - she's always by your side.

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

Tonks is the golden retriever girlfriend. She is excited to do ANYTHING with you and isn't afraid of looking like a fool either.

She can make you laugh even when you're in the deepest of dumps. Her presence is like laughter personified. And one of the best things is that she can change her appearance - into anything! You want a cuddle? Okay Tonks is turning into this HUGE bear!

Snores terribly loud though. A few times a week you have to shake her awake because she's snoring so loud. Only to realise she's somehow morphed into a lion's nose and that's why her snoring is louder than usual

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈

Lay All Your Love On Me by Pale Honey

𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔 

"I've made a calculated decision." (Tonks) x "You can't do math?" (You)

Chaotic Dumbass (You) x Enthusiastic Dumbass (Tonks)

The Sarcastic Duo That Can Finish Each Other's Insults 

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖

You never make her feel weird, or like she has to entertain you to keep you around. You help her see her worth (most of the time without meaning to). She feels like you're soulmates, and has actually researched about the topic secretly, wanting to know if there's any truth to it.

𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅  

George Weasley - he never fails to make you laugh, but also listen to you when you need it. He's the calmer, more mature version of Fred. And you were drawn to his demeanour, almost romantically at first. But you both decided that being friends would be a lot better. And turns out, you were both right.

[palomahasenteredthechat]

This is a long one I am so sorry in advance. To the people asking how you've known all along. I know they weren't speaking to me and I absolutely don't mean to make it sound like I'm judging anyone for not seeing it or that I know everything and what not. But to me it was also pretty obvious who he was and it's hard to wrap my head around people not seeing it when it was so clear to me personally. I'm sure the opposite is true as well! Which is why everyone is so surprised. I will admit I didn't see it immediately because tbh I think he did a pretty damn good job of hiding it at first. He's an actor after all. Also, I think he was genuinely excited at first to be asked questions and allowed to talk about his experiences. I remember the moment I first got the ick that spiralled me down the path of realizing. This is going to sound so stupid and insignificant I promise you. But 2 moments, one was an interview in 2022 when he was probably at the peak of his Eddie fame and the fans were going insane. Someone asked him if he had any advice for Eddie and he said "Get a haircut" and then shortly after he was on a panel where someone asked what he and Eddie had in common and he said very bluntly "Our face". He played both off as a joke but I felt it was more and that was the start of my side eye. AGAIN THIS IS ALL SPECIFIC TO ME AND THINGS I FELT AND SPECULATIONS I MADE PRIVATELY TO MYSLEF BASED ON THOSE FEELINGS. Both times, I got goosebumps in the same way I did when I was a kid and someone said something that I knew was going to make my Dad yell. I could physically feel the annoyance behind the words. It was like, he was getting tired of talking about Eddie. Which I understand for the most part. BUT he'd just signed on for 2 years of cons and he already seemed pissed off that all anyone wanted to ask him about was his breakout role. Which was all anyone knew him for. All the fans that loved him for playing Eddie wanted to ask about was Eddie and he seemed frustrated by that before 2022 was even over. Again, I know it was small. I know it sounds dumb. But as someone that grew up feeling the compulsive need to regulate other people's emotions, I have a sort of sixth sense when someone is feeling this deep frustration. I truly felt as though he was so deeply exasperated that people thought he was like Eddie in any way. I felt, that he felt, he needed to go out of his way to make sure people knew he was NOTHING like Eddie. Which again would be fine if he answered in a way that didn't make anyone that enjoyed the character feel stupid. It felt like it was important to him that people distinguished him from the character not because that was what was good for their realities or his personal space but because deep down he thinks Eddie sucks and would judge the fuck out of him if he was real. Which in turn, feels kind of like he's judging the fuck out of all of us that identify with and relate to Eddie, right? I know that was a lot and maybe people will read it and think I'm reading too much into things. But he's made many more comments like that over time and in general now he's much more obvious about how he feels. I can see his face fall when someone mentions Stranger Things and all he talks about when asked is how amazing all the other actors and characters are. Which is fine, he's a person that can do, say and think what he wants. I am not entitled to him talking about the thing I like. I just felt as though I noticed the exact breaking point where he started letting the mask slip and I wanted to talk about it. Lastly just wanted to say of course not every actor is going to like and want to be friends with every character they play. That's silly, it's not about that. It's about the simple fact that imo he played the part of Eddie stan so fantastically in the beginning. Didn't realize how long he'd have to keep it up and eventually let it go, hoping he wouldn't notice. I did and it was the first sign to me that something was off about him.

Wow, that was very interesting.

I think a lot of us in the fandom have experience with being very tuned into others' emotions, probably due to childhood experiences.

You explained your thought process very well. Some people got the ick from the very first Off Menu podcast, they thought he came off as pretentious. I personally loved his dry sarcasm, but I can see not everyone would.

I do remember they had Florence Pugh on a while later and they were joking about people ghosting them and then they mentioned (jokingly) Joe. I thought that was telling.

[number-one-shadisper-shipper]

Analyzing Sonic Characters' Love Languages: Shadow the Hedgehog

I'm kinda obsessed with the idea of love languages and how we all show love in different ways. So I'm going to be analyzing a few Sonic characters, starting with my edgy boi Shadow.

For Shadow, it's pretty obvious that his main love language isn't either physical touch or words of affirmation. He seems overwhelmed and made uncomfortable by touch, and while he occasionally says something nice, he has a hard time expressing any sort of care in his words.

Of the ones that are left, I think it's most likely Shadow's love language is Acts of Service.

When he first shows up, his immediate reaction to Eggman waking him up (which could be seen as an act of service) is to declare his gratitude and then save him from a robot (his own act of service).

Even trying to destroy the world in vengeance could be seen as an "act of service" for Maria.

We also see this in how he rescues Rouge, his main real friend, repeatedly.

He does this in Heroes:

In the beginning of '06, first by extracting her from Eggman's base and then catching her when she falls:

Or chasing down Eggman Nega to rescue her in Rivals:

He doesn't give that much effort for anyone else, and while I don't ship Shadouge (I think they're just besties/siblings), I get why people do. This is one the few people Shadow actually cares about, and he's willing to go the extra mile for her.

Other examples include:

In the season 3 final battle of Sonic X, Shadow pushes Sonic out of the way and defeats the Metarex himself, keeping Sonic from dying and taking the blast himself.

In the Murder of Sonic, Shadow goes above and beyond to get a gift for Amy (which might imply that his love language is gifts, but there's not really other indications of that. He didn't even think to bring one in the first place). He locks all the doors, deals with a computer even though he's not great with technology, and even has to show up at a specific time and wait for the tickets to go on sale. That's a lot of effort when he could have just done something simple.

We even see this in some of the IDW comics. (I do have some issues on his portrayal in the comics, but we gotta work with what we got). In issue #36, Shadow helps Sonic try to stop an avalanche as repayment for not listening to him during the Metal Virus, rather than simply apologizing or something else.

The Twitter Takeovers also have a lot. In the one where he's giving the requirements he for someone who wants to marry him, he has three, and two of them are acts of service (helping him with his nightly sheet ironing thing, and making him food the way it was on the ARK)

Also in the Twitter Takeovers, he tells how Sonic reached out to him when he was falling from the ARK, and even though he had to wave him away so he didn't fall too, that meant a lot to him. Sonic's act of service was important for him.

Also, he canonically helps out at soup kitchens as a way to fulfill his promise to Maria ❤️❤️❤️ which is both adorable and again, an act of service. I'm sure there's other examples, but these are the ones I could remember off the top of my head.

More than just acts of service, I would almost say that Shadow's love language is to fight for people and sacrifice for them. Although he hides behind a brash exterior, he's extremely loyal to his friends. Beyond simply doing things for them, he pushes himself to protect, defend, and fight for those he cares about. More than that even, he gives of himself and is willing to put himself on the line for others, whether it's keeping Sonic from saving him so they don't both fall from the ARK, fighting for a world he knows will betray him in Sonic '06, or wishing he could have given his life in Maria's place.

This could even be seen as stemming from his very creation. He was created for two main purposes: to help Maria's health problems and to fight the Black Arms when they came. He was created to fight for others, to give of himself to take care of people. His job has always been to help. By sacrificing of himself. That is how he loves.

[theblackestvalkyrie]

#3 - Captain America - Oneshot (Pipe Game Series)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Frustrated with your new position at S.H.I.E.L.D, you need Steve to dick you down but run into an irritating problem.

Warning: Smut, I guess? Oh, and Steve being a bitch but that’s my lil goofy baby and I love him. There is a description of y/n because she’s black, her nipples are brown. NO BETA WE DIE LIKE LITERALLY ANY MARVEL CHARACTER EVER

A/N: I'm tryna clean out my drafts y'all!

Pipe Game: 8/10

PG Chapters: Tony // Hulk //

Based on this post. 

How much trouble would you get in for killing your supervisor?

This was supposed to be the day you got promoted from some grunt agent toiling in the field on the worst assignments to the bitch calling the shots. Long gone would be the days of eating shit takeout in a rented room and getting your as beat by d-list sups, or as S.H.I.E.L.D liked to say “enhanced individuals”.

S.H.I.E.L.D liked to say a lot of things. Apparently, that included telling you that the promotion that would raise you out of the gutter and into respected territory was yours. Yet it had been almost a year and you still hadn’t received the coveted raise they had been dangling over your department. That didn’t stop you from trying to show you were capable. You would often volunteer for extra duty; cover shifts and take on missions’ way above your pay grade in the hopes that they would see your strength and elevate you.

Yet here you were still in the same place as when you first started. Your boss was still trying to convince you of the promotion that would never come and frankly you were sick of it. After a particularly shitty mission involving a  REDACTED.

*This section has been redacted by S.H.I.E.L.D. Thank you for your cooperation.*

You were on your last straw and sick of the false promises.

After storming your boss’s office for answers, he tried to give you the runaround and it was taking everything in you not to jam the nearest pencil in his left carotid artery and let the fucker bleed out.

Instead, you left work early and headed to the gym to beat the boxing bag to death. God forbid some rookie or other poor soul was in the gym because then you would really get to take out your anger on them. After changing into your gym fit and quite literally killing the bag (you unsurprisingly split 2 bags in half), you still had a burning anger in your chest.

Stomping off to your shared room with Steve, who was propped up in the entertainment area flipping through a newspaper on his S.H.I.E.L.D provided tablet, some of that anger lessened when he met your deep frown with a warm smile of his own.

“Hey honey, how was work?”

You crossed the room and threw yourself into his lap meeting his surprised lips with your own the tablet tossed on top of the rounded sofa. Lips locked and tongues dancing in an intimate dance, Steve was the first to pull away. Cheeks rosy and flushed his eyes met your own.

“I can’t say this isn’t my favorite greeting but you never answered my question.” He said breathlessly.

Grinding your plump ass on his slowly hardening cock to distract him you tried to kiss him again but he pulled back still searching for an answer as he stilled your hips from their distracting movements.

“Baby please don’t make me go through the absolutely shitty day I had when all I want is for you to fuck me through the goddamn couch right now.”

He blushed even harder and if it was possible for Steve to turn an even deeper shade of red, he would have at your frank words. It was cute in the beginning of your relationship when Steve would adorably get flustered at your graphic words and actions and it had taken even longer to initiate a physical relationship with him.

But now it was annoying when you just wanted him to fuck you like an animal.

An animal completely lost to their feral sexual needs…...and there go your hips grinding again.

Steve ran a hand up and down your back lovingly and cupped your face in a gesture that any other time you would appreciate for how gentle it is.

“You know I’m here for you right if you need to talk?” His breath hitched as your hips started circling faster feigning innocence at his words.

“You’re really gonna make me beg you to fuck me hard, aren’t you?”

Annoyance colored your tone and you sighed getting ready to get up and say fuck it to the entire thing and take care of yourself but one of his thick muscular arms circled around your waist in an effort to keep you there.

“I just wanna make sure my best girl is okay.” You nodded, half to shut him up and half in honesty, and kissed him again.

“I’m fine but if you don’t wanna fuck I can always find Bucky.” The lie slipped from your moth easily even though you both knew you would never cheat on him, especially with his brother best friend.

“I don’t think so!”

With ease, Steve stood and moved you into a bridal carry in one fluid motion making you giggle as he rushed to the bedroom. He gently tossed you onto the bed and began to strip as you bounced gently. You took off your own sweaty gym clothes starting with the open-back crop top, one of your favorite pieces.

Your breasts spilled out immediately without the cupping support of the top and your brown nipples started to harden once exposed to the cool air. It never you too long to get wet for him and today was no exception.

“Steve, I need you so bad baby”

“Yeah?”

Looming over your half naked figure he lowered himself to his knees at the side of the king-sized bed and pulled your leggings and panties down together, spreading your thick thighs like a man on a mission.

“Ugh…fuck!”

You moaned loudly as his flattened tongue traveled from one end of your vagina to the other making sure to swirl around your clit a few times. One of the things you were surprised about when you first started dating Steve was the fact that he actually wanted to go down on you and cared if you came from it. It was one of his favorite things right up there with the 1940’s lingerie you had specially ordered for his birthday and wore for him. That was the night he went down on you for what seemed like hours.

“I want you to come on my face doll can you do that?” He released your clit with a loud smack of his lips before he went back to his meal like a man starved, dipping two of his fingers into your opening and lazily pumping with two fingers.

“Harder baby, please.”

His fingers start pumping at a moderately fast pace now, not exactly fast but not slow enough for you to complain. But you needed his cock now. You needed his super serum strength to pound you through the mattress and right through to the Earth’s core and straight to the magma center.

You weren’t anywhere near release yet because you still needed it hard and fast and Steve seemed to sense this and focused his concentration on your clit for a few more seconds before letting go with a long suck as he made his way back up your body.

“Let me take care of you doll. I got you.”

The kiss you were met with was sloppy and sensual, the kind that made your toes curl in pleasure and anticipation. His thick cock sprang up eagerly from the waist band of his boxers and bounced against his chiseled lower stomach. Even in the sexual haze you were in, you could see how shiny his cock head was, how much precum was already leaking from the slit and it made your mouth water. But there was time to worship his cock later, right now all you needed was hard and fast.

Steve pressed a kiss to your temple before taking hold of his hard length and surging forward. Immediately you could feel that familiar burn as he slowly pressed forward until he was snug against your cervix just an inch or two of his length remained. Steve let you get adjusted for a few seconds before he started a steady rhythm. Again, it was nice… but you wanted it hard goddamn it!

“Steve baby go faster.”

Without missing a beat, he slowed down grinding you against the mattress and running his nose against the pulse points of your throat and nipping there, although a bite would be better.

“I know you want it hard baby but you need it soft and slow right now.”

His hips circled a few times and started up a strong pace, the squelching of your combined juices echoed the room lewdly. He was rubbing up against your walls and stretching them out delightfully making your eyes roll back.

“No….n-no I need it hard.” Your breathless moans and wants made little difference to Steve as his hips never faltered.

“I don’t want to hurt you sweetheart.” He bit back a moan at the sight or your shaking figure ignoring the inner animal inside of him that demanded he give you what you want.

You could count on one hand how many times Steve had been a bit too rough on you during your passionate sessions but the aftercare he provided more than made up for it.

The pace he fucked you at was constant and steady at complete odds with the wild haphazard sex you first had in mind. That bastard was using his strength just to keep the same speed. In the back of your lust filled mind, you made a mental note to pay him back for this later.

You could feel that familiar orgasm building up. The kind that was long and drawn up and made your legs shake. You tried to hold it off as long as you could still holding out for that angry fuck.

But Steve knew what you needed instead and pressed his chiseled body into yours pressing you deeper into the mattress, hooking the backs of your knees with his thick biceps keeping you spread open and vulnerable.

He could tell just by the tears forming in your eyes that you were holding back and he let out a short breathy laugh.

“You know I can keep fucking you all day right sweetheart? I don’t need a break.”

Your clit scraped against his bush of pubic hair deliciously and as if to prove his point you came eyes rolling and legs shaking as your cunt clenched around his girth.

“There you go dove.” He fucked you through it releasing his own cum deep inside you with a moan of his own.

All the fight had left you with your orgasm and you let out a tired chuckle at the realization as Steve kissed you softly.

“All better doll?”

“All better love.”