#if god let my ass draw things on time id be too powerful. so have a late vday drawing. sowwwwy

[liyrical]

post-valentines chocolate munch

[threepandas]

Bad End: Restructuring

The blast doors on my office were stronger then the ones on most bunkers. They matched the one's on the company dorms AND my personal rooms. Thing is? They weren't designed to hold out forever. In fact, I was pretty sure they were a pretty bit of security theater, just to let us fleshys feel safe.

We weren't.

Not a single moment of a single day.

The pay was unmatched. But then again, it'd HAVE to be, with the mortality rate. The morbidity rate on top, too. You didn't take a job like this unless you were crazy. Or, you know, desperate. College loans, man. They get you over a barrel and don't let up. But a few years of this? I'd be clear an free~

Few MORE years? I'd ever have a tasty little nest egg to fall back on, in case of emergencies. I just... you know, had to play it smart. Be really, REALLY careful.

No slacking off. No getting comfortable. Vigilance and best manners. Then we all get to go home alive. Because what's out there? In the Labs? Those guys can pop diamonds like we crush packing peanuts. Highest grade, fancy ass, metal bars of specialty blend metals? Tied up in pretty little bows.

They may LOOK like some sort of waifish boy band... but God, they are NOT. They are really, REALLY not. And their "personality" matrix program thingies? Apparently still a work in progress. A LONG work in progress.

People have fucking DIED.

But does management care? Of course not. Pay out some life insurance. "It was an accident on the job". And "of COURSE steps will be taken to insure to never happens again". Ha! My ass, it is. And my ass, they are. They aren't doing SHIT. Nor are they GOING too. They're in too deep with this project, whatever it is. And us?

Well WE'RE expendable.

Just the cost of doing business.

I watch bleeding edge technology move like dancers, room to room. The wall of screen lighting up my cramped little office. The mini-fridge hums and the fan whirrs, filling the silence. I try to spot FM-036 on one of the screens. I can't find him and it makes me nervous.

He might be hiding. Trying to be polite, in his own way. Since there was an incident.

I FUCKING TOLD Ric not to call them "it"! I TOLD him! It aggravates them. Provokes. You don't DO that with something... some ONE, with that much physical power. 36 put their fist through his SHOULDER. And the God damned wall! He might LOSE his arm, which? Given their ability to calculate better then most supercomputers?

Was probably the point.

I notice one of the androids messing with a computer in a lab. Fuck. I lean forward, hating drawing their attention but knowing I have to do my damn job. I press on the speaker system for that room after a quick glance at the ID on their jumpsuit.

"FM-047, could you please not touch that? I know you are aware that you are not supposed to tamper, meddle, or otherwise engage with the researchers notes or electronics."

The android stop typing. Their head rolling up and to the side to look directly at the camera, their body perfectly still. The angle borders on impossible. Almost owlish, nearly snake like. All perfectly smooth movements effortlessly controlled. Joint not limited by human designs. His face is bemused. Pleasant.

"Of course, night gaurd. My mistake. Thank you for correcting me." He replies, something almost like laughter, nearly like mocking, but not quite, in his smooth voice. They always sound like they are... HUMORING us. Working around us.

It sends a jolt of cold fear though my veins.

I... I REALLY hate talking to the androids.

Pity, they seem to like talking to ME.

"I was unaware you were on shift tonight. I will update the others. It's good to hear your voice again, you seemed nervous, last time we spoke."

Yeah. Because you were asking PERSONAL QUESTIONS. Oh, sure, they had dressed them up as "We're so CURIOUS about Humans~☆" but I wasn't an IDIOT. You Did NOT, under ANY circumstances, try to bond with the machines. NO chatting. That was lesson number one from my trainer.

And Frank? Frank had seen too many "but THIS time it's DIFFERENT! We're FWIENDS~!" Incidents end in unspeakable carnage. Lost too many noobies. We DO NOT chat! With the machines!!! DO. NOT.

"Ah~, you made her nervous again, FM-047" came from a different screen. I flinched. Jerked back so I could see it. Oh god. "Besides, I told you. The calculations showed she wasnt going anywhere. The 'money' is too good."

The androids had stopped. Turned, in some cases unnaturally, to stare up at the cameras. At me. It was a blatant show of how interconnected they were. How distance meant nothing to them. How... how enmeshed they were, in the Lab's systems.

COULD they see me?

I didn't want to know. I NEEDED not to know. If only so I could continue to sleep at night.

They smiled, clearly hoping I'd engage. I wanted to. God did I want too. Wanted to demand "what calculations" and for them to STOP looking at me like that. But I didn't. With tense muscles I careful lifted my finger from the speaker system's button and leaned back. Crossed my arms like I was hugging myself.

Do. Not. Engage.

Remember what Frank taught you.

My... my office felt so claustrophobic. Painfully small. Across the screens before me, matching faces huffed laughs of condescending amusement. Some out right DID laugh. Bright and mean noises that echoed in silence of the night.

Humans? Frank had observed (and I kinda had to agree) were beneath them, in their minds. Flawed little flesh creatures. Annoying. It was something the scientists were trying to correct. Pretty sure they fucked up. Badly. And long, long ago.

Watching over these guys? Felt like watching over a sea of identical demons. Pretty, cruel, and incapable of human understanding. Fond of tormenting the nearest human for sport.

"Tell us, night gaurd, are you afraid?"

Oh that's just PETTY. Fucking cliché as shit, too. I mean, YES, obviously. But STILL. And... and you know what? Fuck it! Frank, gave me his number for a reason! I scramble for my belt. The communicator there. It barely rings.

"Mph, m'awake! Wus happin' kid? Come on, talk to me."

I ramble. Knees dragged up on my chair, curled in a ball. Frank's low, old man, rumble a soothing focal point. These guys are so creepy. I HATE that they KNOW that. Gleefully will TRY to be, sometimes. Can BACK IT UP.

"Hey, hey. I'll stay on the line, okay? You just need to make it to morning shift. They're are creepy lil shits, but they can't get past the doors. I'll come get you myself, okay? Walk you right back to the dorms. You're going to be okay, sweetheart."

I nod, even though I know the old man can't see me. Manage to crackle out a "Mmmhmm". The androids haven't stopped staring. The worst part? Is they realistically DONT HAVE TOO. Can stay, perfectly still, like statues... forever, if they wish.

Watching.

With those "I'm laughing at you" grins. That "aaaw, how PATHETIC" expression. As though I were a wretched little animal to be observed. I ask Frank to tell me about his new show. It's... it's something about socialites, right? Historical? He's glad too. Filling my office with the sound of his voice. It's gonna be a long shift.

I don't notice, high up on the wall, near the back of my office?

A security camera that I do not control. It's red light on.

The company has to be sure it's employees aren't slacking, after all! Aren't up to no good! But don't worry, THAT camera is connect to a database the androids shouldn't be able to access! Because we told them not too.

And THAT'S IT.

No one will learn of the security breach until its far, far too late.

Now? They watch as I watch them.

And it's just the beginning.

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 8

What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3

In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken

[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]

AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9 DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.

Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”

“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”

“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”

Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”

Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)

Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?

A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.

Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.

But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.

His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.

And grief.

Damian recognized the grief.

Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”

His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.

------

Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.

Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.

“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”

Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”

“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”

Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”

“Yes.”

------

When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.

His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.

He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”

One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.

His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”

“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.

Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”

“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”

“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”

“What?”

“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.

Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”

“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”

------

Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.

Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.

“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.

He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--

She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”

“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”

“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason.”

His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”

Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.

She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”

He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.

“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”

Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”

Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.

Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”

------

Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.

Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.

But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.

He only had to last that long.

Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.

Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.

“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”

Shit—

Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.

Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.

He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.

“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.

He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”

“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”

A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”

“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”

Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.

Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?

But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.

He could ask the question now.

He could.

He didn’t.

“Why did you take me?”

Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”

“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”

“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”

“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”

“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”

Use him? What did she mean by—

Oh.

Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.

“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”

“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”

Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.

No.

Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.

[valleynix]

Oh God, i completely forgot to mention in my last review about my feelings towards Miranda! I was so caught up with theories and my love for Cass and all the other things, so it slipped my mind, but here i am! Again. Sorry if im being too invested and write too much, id probably get bored of myself already(:

So. I know Miranda is like the main villain and all, but since last month ive been reading a lot about her, watching, investigating and im not embarrassed to say i love this character almost as much as i love the Dimitrescus. It pains me to see so little fics written about her as the main character, truly. Yes, she's the villain, yes, she's hurt a lot of people, killed a lot, but so did the sisters? The Lady D? So if we can redeem them, even if their motives are just hunger, sure as hell we can forgive Miri her urge to bring her daughter back. Her daughter! And now im embarrassed to say that id probably do the same thing if a had a chance to bring my loved ones back, even if i dont have kids rn. Sad, but true. I think most of us would try to.

So what im trying to say, is that when i first started to read LPA i was like yes, Miranda can go to hell, but now, when i got the whole picture and i really know the character the game gave us i have to say i love her a lot and that now i have to shove my feelings for her out out the window when i read such works where she's supposed to be hated. But its okay really, im used to it by now:D

And so im really disappointed to see how little fics are out there about Miranda and mcs being together, bringing Eva back, loving each other dearly (because i certainly would!), caring about each other. Where mc makes her feel better, wiser, truly happier. Ive see like one fic about that and thats just it, no more. Thats so sad and makes me kinda want to write something myself but im too busy with finals right now.

But anyways, even if Mother Miranda is a bitch sometimes i love Miri dearly. And i get why she receives hate so much (not literally but you get the idea) but i just love her as a character. I even started drawing her portrait on my wall right next to Dani's and let me tell you - her wings are a missive pain in the ass even tho i adore them. All those little feathers and lights they reflect, jeez, so hard to pain! Still worth it tho.

And she's so divine and so godly and strong and beautiful and powerful. And she's so smart! God, she's so smart. And when she grins evilly just like that-

Again, sorry for rambling, just wanted to get this out of my chest.

As always, sending my love for you and for LPA. Stay safe❤️

i could literally never grow bored of you; your reviews/asks/messages are the highlights of my day <33

as much as i've said i don't like her and call her a feathery bitch in my writing, miranda is still a very intriguing character. like, have you read her lore? homegirl was deadass about to kill herself because she lost her daughter and couldn't save her. also, i imagine a lot of the extent she goes to in order to revive eva is because of the mold, since I'm assuming it definitely alters peoples' minds and makes them cruel (like the bakers in RE7)

a lot of people in fics, i've noticed, tend to make her out to be a 2D antagonist who does horrible stuff just because she can. in LPA (and later in TPtM), I've tried to give her very good reasons for what she does. losing her loved ones over and over, being unable to revive them, no matter what you do... that takes a toll on people, and miri's been alive for over a century, if I'm not mistaken. she's just traumatized and wants her family back

but, you're completely right. we forgive lady d and her daughters for being cruel and write off their horrible actions, but many can't do the same for miri? she has motives behind her actions, even in canon, and she's a very good villain. she deserved more screen time than what she got

we need more fics of miranda and the mc being together and being *happy*. she deserves it after everything she's gone through. she deserves to hold her daughter again

i'd definitely love to see your paintings one day! I'm sure they look lovely and you probably capture them so well <3 i can only imagine how difficult the details of her feathers are, but you've got this! and, maybe when you have some free time, you could be the one to write that happy fic with miri and her love?

you never have to apologize for speaking your thoughts, i love hearing them. come to my ask box or DMs anytime you like, and stay safe and healthy during your finals. you got this <33

[onebizarrekai]

Meme Waker: That Final Thing

okay aight here we go here’s the big idea compilation you’ve all been waiting for or something like that

since I’ve finally accepted meme waker’s inevitable fate, I’ll share what I’ve had laying around about it. prepare yourself for a wild ride.

first of all, what existed of the planned character key:

Nightmare = Link Dream = Aryll Cross = Tetra Ink = The Entire Pirate Crew Granny Gertrude = Grandma Horror = Quill Killer = Medli Color = Komali Dust = Makar XGaster = Tingle (yes, you read that right) Fresh = Fado (?) Geno = Laruto Blueberry = Niko Error = Ganondorf Giant Flying Chicken = Helmaroc King Core Frisk = The King XChara = Zelda

So XChara was going to fill the role of Zelda–basically, what was going to happen was that when Cross and Nightmare reached sunken Hyrule, which was replaced by the Omega Timeline, they encountered Core Frisk and with their magical Core Frisk powers that apparently exist, separated XChara from Cross’s body. Because Error was hunting him down for whatever villainous reasons (I dunno, maybe he wanted to find Overwrite or something), XChara was going to spend the near remainder of the comic hiding in the Omega Timeline from Error. It was a pretty neat reference to the fact that Error doesn’t know where the OT is.

Unsurprisingly, considering when I was working on this, Nightmare and Cross may have eventually started dating. They were going to kiss during a fight that involved them accidentally rolling down a hill and then likely spend the remainder of the comic referring to each other as boyfriends, with no further indication of romance between them. I never really mentally decided whether I was actually going to incorporate this or not.

In moments where someone needed to present a musical instrument, Cross was going to play a keytar.

There is a very high chance that the entire comic was going to end up being an elaborate prank set up by Ink and Error.

After being rescued from the Forsaken Fortress, Dream was going to get crossbows and… I dunno, maybe be useful with them sometimes. One consideration was that he was going to complain about being stuck in a glorified retirement home and request joining the party.

Nightmare was going to have a fake ID with the name “Nathaniel Meyer” on it.

When Nightmare eventually pulled up the Gaster Sword, he was basically going to do a magical girl transformation and get a new outfit. I was considering holding a contest where people would submit new designs for Nightmare before I realized that I may have wanted to do it myself. Meanwhile, Cross’s design change at the same time was going to pertain to the fact that he had such a hard time with his uniform that he just wanted to start wearing normal clothes.

When XChara was separated from Cross, it would indicate that Cross can’t use the hack knife anymore, so I had to think of a new weapon for him. I considered giving him arm mounts with knives in them for no reason other than being extra, but I was probably just going to end up going with a regular sword.

Nightmare and Cross were going to be mistaken for missionaries at some point due to Nightmare introducing Cross as his ‘companion’.

Nightmare’s fake ID is actually a driver’s license. Cross questions how he could get one when he’s only fifteen, and Nightmare responds with “what can I say? I live in the country.”

The Giant Flying Chicken was going to evolve into the Cyborg Giant Flying Chicken before Nightmare and Cross fought it. It was already a robot, but someone decided it would be fun to make it look more robotic for some reason. Maybe too many people tried to eat it.

Because Blueberry was going to replace Niko, that meant there was going to be a form of challenge that he would present to Nightmare and/or Cross. They were probably just going to play Dance Dance Revolution.

The dress that Granny Gertrude gave Nightmare was actually going to be infused with magical powers. Either Nightmare could only access the power of the Triforce when he’s wearing the dress, or it was going to be a piece of equipment that turned his sword into a fire sword.

Nightmare was going to come back to the Village of Old People to see that his grandmother had conquered it with capitalism.

Dragon Roost Cavern was going to be replaced with a Pokemon gym.

When Nightmare supposedly kicked Error’s ass at the end of the story, he was going to say something along the lines of “Because fuck you!” and it would be the first and only f-bomb in the whole comic. Nightmare would proceed to say that it was the first time he’d ever said fuck and that he felt dirty.

The Triforce of Courage was just going to be called the Triforce of Porridge for exactly zero reason.

Some incarnation of Buffmare was going to exist in the comic, but only in a sequence taking place in Nightmare’s imagination.

When Cross realized his backpack was missing, it was because I realized his backpack was missing. I forgot to draw it. I decided that the backpack actually fused with him to create a Zelda-style magic pocket.

Nightmare was going to try to control a seagull with the command melody, but he was accidentally going to start controlling Cross instead and make him run into a tree.

The Tree Spirit was going to hold official interviews for placeholder guardians in Dream and Nightmare’s absence. These placeholder guardians were going to be Neil, the overenthusiastic French furry, and Ccino, the local emo kid who is absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit, and exclusively because they were the only ones who applied for the job. Neil was going to have an ulterior motive of becoming Gaston’s successor.

Neil and Ccino were eventually going to ‘get together’, if you can even call it that, and for no other reason than shitpost reasons.

Nightmare may have had a showdown with the Giant Flying Chicken while riding the Great Charizard from Dragon Roost.

Another possible concept for whole story was that it was a bad self insert fic written by a younger version of Nightmare, but it’s really unlikely that I would’ve gone through with that.

Nightmare and Cross may have needed to go on a fetch quest to find Ink’s brush in the ocean because they accidentally lost it, but honestly that would’ve served nothing for the progression of the story. Because XGaster put a tracker on Ink’s brush, they were going to have to enlist his help.

and that about wraps up my notes, now let me throw what I had sitting around of a script draft–reading this was a trip because I forgot that literally 60% of it existed:

(inside the mountain)

Cross: holy shoe, EVERYONE has wings? how is this a thing??

Cross: I’m frickin jealous

Chief: Oh. You must be. Those guys.

Horror: yeah man, I enlisted their help to capture the Chicken Terror, but then they were all like yo, it’s a robot!


Chief: horror robot or not I told you that we weren’t going to capture the chicken terror for food because we’re not cannibals we don’t eat birds

Horror: but

Horror: we’re hardly even birds!

Chief: you know your job Horror. now get back to work. your actual work.

Horror: But… being the mailman sucks!


Chief: Do I need to confiscate your axe again?


Horror: OKAY FINE. I’M GOING. (flies away in a huff)

Chief: AND DO YOUR GODFORSAKEN LAUNDRY!

Chief: I apologize for that… so, how can I help you two today?


Nightmare: You guys have like, some pearl thing or something? We need to like, collect three of them in order to… save the multiverse… or something like that.

(Camera dramatically darkens.)

Chief: It’s just as the prophecy foretold…

Nightmare: oh god what

Chief: You see, young whippersnappers… legend tells of a great hero that would rise up and save a bunch of people in times of desperation that they don’t even realize are desperate. the great hero would travel far and wide in search of the Pearls of Shiny to finally retrieve a great weapon that he would use to strike down the evil that few knew existed. also the hero would have a sidekick wearing stupid clothes.

Cross: EXCUSE ME

Chief: THAT’S JUST WHAT THE PROPHECY SAID

Nightmare: okay, y’know, I’m just gonna roll with it. where can I get the pearl?

Chief: Well… that’s where the hard part comes in. You see, the pearl belongs to my son… but he’s been acting like an edgy teenager lately.

Nightmare: Great…

Cross: Is there a reason he’s being edgy? Maybe there’s something we can do to appease his hormones.

Cross: Free food works like a charm for me.

Chief: No, it’s more complicated than that. When one of our people becomes of age, they climb to the top of Charizard Island to receive a scale from the Great Charizard that will allow them to grow wings.

Nightmare: the… great charizard.

Chief: But lately, the Great Charizard has been throwing inexplicable temper tantrums. No one can get close to him anymore. And with my son being of age, he’s decently pissed off about this.

Chief: We’re thinking that the Great Charizard is displeased about something, and it is also causing our shortage of food.

Nightmare: Wait, you worship something named after a Pokemon?


Chief: Anyway, perhaps you two will be able to talk some sense into my son. Maybe he just wants to talk to someone his age that isn’t Horror or Killer.

Nightmare: What kind of names are those?


Chief: There’s a letter that I wanted my son to read, and I’ve given it to Killer to hold onto. You can go get it from him upstairs in the first room near the stairs, just tell him I sent you. He’s the little guy in the short shorts, you’ll probably recognize him when you see him.

Nightmare: Can’t you just call him here?


Chief: No, it is of upmost importance that you experience a basic fetch quest in order to become a great hero, because those fetch quests will become needlessly complicated before you even realize it.

Nightmare: ?????

Nightmare: I can’t even tell if you’re joking or not–

Cross: dude let’s just go get the letter

(scene transition)

(Killer dramatically turns around and it zooms in and says his name SSB style)

Nightmare: Wait, why do you get a dramatic introduction?


Killer: Dayum. New faces.

Nightmare: Why is everyone ignoring my questions??

Killer: (needlessly sensual voice) So, what brings you here? (walking closer)


Nightmare: (backs into wall) NO BUENO

Cross: You have a letter or something?


Killer: Oh. Yeah. Chief gave it to me for some reason. Yo, catch.

(He chucks it like a ninja star. Cross catches it between his hands in front of his face.)


Killer: Ey! You actually caught it!


Cross: I’m a trained ninja.

Killer: So like, who are you guys?

Cross: I’m Cross. He’s Larry.

Nightmare: NIGHTMARE. MY NAME IS NIGHTMARE.

Killer: Aw man, I know the feel of having a really lame name and wanting one that’s cooler.

Nightmare: No. Like. My name is actually Nightmare. My senile grandma called me Larry earlier today and this loser picked up on it.

Killer: There’s no need to lie. I understand.

Nightmare: I’M NOT LYING!

Killer: anyway make sure you get that letter to Color there’s something I have to do–

(Killer zips out the door behind them.)


Cross: what even the frick?


Nightmare: that guy freaks me the frick out.

Nightmare: literally. I felt like he was coming onto me.

Cross: you’re imagining things.

(SCENE TRANSITION)
 Cross: all right Nightmare I literally do not trust your ability to communicate with another person in a way that will make them feel inclined to give us something so just let me handle this okay

Cross: okay better yet wait outside the room

(Nightmare makes a less than amused face.)


Cross: it’s for the greater good

(Cross walks into the room.)

Cross: hi my name is Cross and

Color: LEAVE

(Cross immediately exits the room.)

Cross: this is a lost causeNightmare: what

Cross: go make him bleed with your words

Nightmare: dude isn’t this the part where we give him the frickin letter

Cross: (pauses) :o

Cross: OH RIGHT

(Cross takes the letter and goes back into the room, leaving the door open)

Cross: oh yeah this letter is for you it’s from your dad or something

Color: Oh, wow. Can’t even be bothered to talk to me in person.

Color: Give me that thing.

(Color stares at the letter. It’s actually a letter from Killer filled with really bad pickup lines and other really creepy compliments.)

Color: What the hell, you said this was from my dad!

Cross: We thought it was–??

(Killer teleports in behind them, scaring the shit out of Nightmare)


Killer: Suuuup~

Color: Killer I swear to god.

Killer: Here’s the actual letter, though you might not be happy with it.

(He flings it at Color and it lands in front of him. He reads it over, rolls his eyes and throws it in the trash.)

Cross: So uh… I don’t know what the letter says but apparently we’re prophesied heroes collecting a bunch of pearls to save the multiverse and the pearl you have is–


Color: Can everyone just get out of my room already?

(everyone just leaves)

Nightmare: What even was the point of that stupid fetch quest?

Killer: Oh yeah, can you guys help me with something? Just a smalllll favor. And I can’t ask anyone else because I’m not supposed to do it.

Killer: I need some strong, reliable people…

Nightmare: Don’t touch me.

Killer: It’s just a small favor! And I mean actually small, it’ll take like two minutes.

Nightmare: I have doubts about this.

Killer: Great! Meet me out back by the spring.

Nightmare: Wait which side is the back–

(Killer is gone)

Nightmare: Cross which side is the back.

Cross: I don’t know??

(after spending twenty minutes going through the various exits trying to figure out how to get there)

Killer: What the hell took you so long.

Nightmare: Directions would’ve been helpful. There wasn’t even a freaking map anywhere in there!

Killer: The hollow is like the size of a middle class house! How difficult could it be to find out where to go?!

Nightmare: IT’S A DOME THERE IS NO BACK

Cross: OKAY, what matters is that we’re here, what the heck do we do now.

Killer: Okay, okay. (steps backwards) Look, if you look around here, it’s all a dried up spring. The Great Charizard was throwing a tantrum, a boulder fell down and it coincidentally plugged up the spring for the third time this week, which is literally our main source of fresh water. I’m honestly getting sick of this so I’m going to climb the mountain and see what’s going on because everyone else is too scared to do it.

Nightmare: God. You’re not gonna make us go with you, are you?


Killer: Oh, no way. I just need you to throw me up that cliff over there so I can get into the cavern that leads up the mountain.

Nightmare: Can’t you fly?

Killer: Not thirty feet straight up. Do these noodle arms look like they can manage that?


Nightmare: Whatever. But quick question. How the hell does one throw a person.

Killer: I weigh like fifty pounds. It shouldn’t be that hard. Also, if you’ve noticed, the wind is rapidly changing directions, so you’ll probably have the best effect throwing me when the wind is blowing that way.

Nightmare: Mhmm. Sure. Let’s just get this over with.

(Nightmare crouches down and Killer fuckin walks onto his shoulders)

Nightmare: Hey! Watch it!

(some way or another he throws Killer and Killer barely makes it to the cliff, face planting into the ground)

Nightmare: Well I guess that worked.

Killer: THAT WAS TERRIBLE!

Nightmare: YOU’RE WELCOME! COULD’VE JUST USED A DAMN LADDER!

Killer: NOBODY OWNS A LADDER HERE BECAUSE EVERYONE CAN FLY!

Nightmare: Then how the frick do people get up this cliff?!

Killer: THERE’S NORMALLY A BRIDGE BUT IT BROKE AND PROBLEMS LIKE THESE ARE PRECISELY WHY I’M CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN TO BEGIN WITH! ALSO I’M LEAVING BYE. (turns and leaves)

(cricket cricket)

Cross: Nightmare we should probably follow him.

Nightmare: No.

Cross: What else do we have to do. We solve their problem, Color can get his wings and then he stops being emo and gives us the pearl out of the goodness of his heart.

Nightmare: I’m not risking my life for this! If that guy is willing to do it himself I’m going to let him do it!

Cross: Dude, look at that guy. He looks about at capable fixing whatever the problem is as Ink is at providing emotional support. If this happens to be anything like a video game, we’re the only ones capable of solving anything. Besides, what else are we supposed to do? Hang around and wait for something to happen?

Nightmare: All right, fine. But how are we supposed to do something? It’s not like we can climb up a thirty foot cliff.

Cross: No, but we can swim, right?Nightmare: What?

(Cross draws a line around the rock covering the spring. It dematerializes into red squares and water starts to spew out of the spring. They both run back towards the side and climb up the cliff they came from)

Nightmare: Dude, what the hell was that?

Cross: I can draw lines around things with my sword and they do that and go away.

Nightmare: … do they go somewhere?


Cross: I dunno.

(Meanwhile in Xtale, a boulder slams into the floor and almost crushes Fresh because of course he’s there)

(The spring fills up)


Nightmare: You know I’m starting to have second thoughts about this swimming thing seeing as how I’ve never actually–(Cross kicks him into the water)


(LATER)


Nightmare: YOU ASSHOLE I ALMOST DROWNED

Cross: You’re exaggerating.

Random Dude: STOP RIGHT THERE!


Nightmare: who.

Random Dude: YOU AREN’T GOIN ONE STEP PAST THIS POINT! YOU’RE LIGHT YEARS FROM FACING BROCK!

(nightmare squints)

(comic suddenly goes into a battle sequence)

Nightmare: whoa whoa what the hell is happening

Cross: oh my god it’s pokemon NIGHTMARE IT’S POKEMON

Nightmare: I DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON CROSS THREATEN HIM

(Random Dude sent out MEWTWO)

Cross: DEAR GOD

Cross: LISTEN THERE’S A HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING WE’RE NOT TRAINERS WE DON’T HAVE POKEMON

Random Dude: tHEN WHY ARE YOU IN A POKEMON GYM HUH

Cross: Uh… touring?

Random Dude: OH

Random Dude: I SEE

(The Random Dude returns his Mewtwo.)

Random Dude: THERE HAS BEEN AN UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING

Cross: Say uh, you didn’t happen to see a scrawny dude with wings pass through here, did you?

Random Dude: Oh yeah, he went into the next room and took the elevator to the top.

(silence)


Nightmare: Why are there always elevators.

(two seconds later, they reach the elevator and there’s a dude standing in front of it)


Nightmare: um excuse me we need to use the elevator

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: excuse me I said move

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: HELLO

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: MOVE ASSHOLE

Cross: I think it’s a preprogrammed NPC.

Nightmare: UAGGGGHHHHH

(Nightmare throws himself into the person, but he slams into the STEEL WALL OF NPC)

Nightmare: CROSS TELEPORT HIM AWAY

Cross: wait are you serious what if that freakin kills him I don’t know where these things go

Nightmare: YOU SAID IT YOURSELF HE’S AN NPC

(Cross shrugs. He draws a line around the NPC and the NPC disappears)

(one elevator ride later)

Nightmare: (chokes) oh god

Nightmare: the altitude

Cross: nightmare this island is still lower than ink’s house.

Nightmare: PSYCHOLOGICAL ALTITUDE

(fwip)

Cross: Oh look, it’s that guy from earlier.

Nightmare: Got captured somehow. Why am I not surprised?

Killer: YOU KNOW WHAT SCREW YOU GUYS

(A really buff guy abruptly slams into the ground)

Buff Guy: FEAR MY WRATH, FOR I AM BROCK! LEADER OF ALL THINGS ROCK HARD

Nightmare: Look man, we really don’t have time for this, just let the shota hoe go, we’re just checking up on the huge-ass Charizard up there.

Killer: excuse me

Brock: I AM THE LOYAL GUARDIAN OF THE GREAT CHARIZARD! You can only pass if you defeat me!


Cross: what the hell is even happening anymore

(Loud gym battle music as the gate at the entrance of the clearing slams shut)

Nightmare: LOOK WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS WE DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON

(Brock war cries as he sends out a very anime geodude)

Nightmare: can someone please tell me I’m hallucinating all of this

Brock: WELL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE POKEMON, YOU’LL HAVE TO USE A RENTAL

Cross: What? But rental pokemon always suck.

Brock: YOU MUST PROVE YOUR WORTH SOMEHOW! AND BECAUSE YOU’RE SMALL CHILDREN YOU OBVIOUSLY CAN’T PROVE IT THROUGH SUMO WRESTLING.

Nightmare: I’m fifteen!

Cross: Nightmare I think you’re missing the point.

Killer: Good god, just let them through and let me out of here, they’re the heroes of prophecy.

Brock: PROPHECY

Brock: GOODNESS ME I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT

(Brock returns his geodude)

Brock: YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING

Nightmare: That would have worked?

Brock: BUT! IF YOU WANT TO FREE THIS TINY FELLOW HERE, YOU MUST COMPLETE A DIFFERENT CHALLENGE! FOR YOU SEE, HE TRIED TO PASS THROUGH HERE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION!


(Killer rolls his eyes. Nightmare squints, literally pulling a notebook out of his shirt. He writes something in it, walking up to Brock and holding it up. It says “Let the guy out of jail you dick”)

Brock: AHA

Brock: WELL

Brock: I CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT

(He stomps his foot on the ground and the bars in front of Killer go up)

Brock: DON’T BE CAUSING TROUBLE NOW KIDS


(He ascends back into the sky)


Cross: I’m not even going to ask. That entire conversation felt like a drug trip.

(Killer dramatically throws himself onto Nightmare)


Killer: I knew you would come around, my knight in–

Nightmare: Why did I assume that you had become any less creepy in the last ten minutes. Why did I even do that?


Killer: Because your heart told you to.

Nightmare: Dear god stop touching me or I will literally pick you up and slam you into the floor.

Killer: Feisty. Anyway, I figured out why the Great Charizard is freaking out all the time. His tail is hanging down into the room below him and something is chewing on it like all the time.

Cross: What? Then why doesn’t it just, I dunno, pull its freaking tail out of the room like a reasonable creature? Or maybe take care of the problem on its own?

Killer: The Great Charizard is like a five year-old. It’s self aware, but it expects all of its problems to be solved by everyone else and throws tantrums when that doesn’t happen.

Nightmare: Well that’s stupid. Why does everyone act like it’s some holy being then?

Killer: Because it’s a massive, terrifying dragon that can breathe fire?

ok unfortunately this is where the script ends but I hope you enjoyed that

oh yeah, and some extremely old art that I found:

as well as a brief consideration to make the characters human before deciding that I just didn’t want to work on the comic anymore.

basically you will notice that most of this doesn’t have a solid outline, and you’d be right: I never actually planned it that meticulously. I mostly just winged it and threw stuff in over the course of time and never even really planned anything close to a definitive ending beyond “maybe it was a prank”. sorry if this is like… anticlimactic, but it’s all I could find!

[moldisgoodforyou]

stuck with me

gif from @toesure​

warning: mentions of physical/emotional abuse from jj’s dad, drinking, cursing

wordcount: 1.8k _

He knew it was stupid. He knew it was stupid, but he did it anyways. When Charlie dragged JJ to the graduation fair to get fitted for his cap and gown and the standard 10-pack of graduation announcements, he had scribbled out his dad’s address on one of the announcements and shoved it in the mail. It took him about a week to work up the courage to even place the envelope in the mailbox, but he figured it was worth a shot. 

He forgot about it until a couple weeks later, when he saw an all-too-familiar number pop up on his caller ID as he walked home from class. He wasn’t in the mood already, after probably failing a test he had just worked his ass off to study for. JJ let it ring for one beat, two beats - then took a deep breath and answered. “Hello?” 

His dad’s gruff voice rang out on the other end of the line. “Are you asking for money?” 

JJ sighed, bracing himself as he kept walking, opting to take the long route. “No, no, Dad, just wanted to tell you I was graduating.” 

All he heard was a scoff. “Well good luck with your debt, just paying more money to the big man.” 

JJ ran his hand through his hair, getting frustrated. “No, I’ve been on scholarship. I don’t owe anyone anything.” 

“You’ve been wasting time for four fucking years is what you’re doing, while you could have been getting a real job and working hard to repay me for raising you.” Luke shot back, raising his voice. “Do you know how much money I wasted on you?” 

JJ grit his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. “Forget it, Dad, just wanted to tell you I’m gonna graduate. All on my own.” 

“That girl still wasting her time on you too? She’ll leave you too, just like your mom, once she knows how good-for-nothing you are.” 

“Don’t talk about Charlie.” JJ bit out, ready to snap. 

Luke laughed and the sound alone made JJ’s skin crawl. “Call me when you want to pay me back.” 

JJ barely kept his composure at the dial tone. There was nothing he wanted to do more than scream, but he bit the inside of his cheek hard instead, picking up the pace as he walked off-campus. He didn’t realize he bit hard enough to draw blood until he grimaced at the metallic taste filling his mouth. His heart was racing, fists curled, as he stormed further and further away from campus in an effort to calm himself down. He spotted a dingy bar in the distance, half the lights in the neon sign missing, and nodded to himself. “Just one drink,” he told himself, speaking out loud. The bar was known as a seedy, run-down place that only locals went to - it was far enough away from campus that no students would step foot in there. 

Before entering, he turned off his location on the Find My Friends app and powered off his phone, stashing it in his backpack. He ordered an old fashioned and sat at the end of the bar, tracing his finger over the scratches in the wood counter. 

Three hours later, Charlie had called JJ four times, worried. They had plans to go out for dinner, at a place that finally took their reservation after a month, and he knew she had been looking forward to it. She texted a few of his friends to check in, but they all replied that they had no clue where he was. 

Four hours later, JJ was sufficiently drunk and the bartender, a woman old enough to be his mom, had closed out his tab and was serving him way-watered down vodka sodas. “You got someone to drive you, sugar?” She asked, concerned about the kid before her that was drunk at 4pm on a Tuesday. He frowned, nodding, but just rested his head down on the counter. “Should I call someone?” 

JJ lifted his head slightly to speak. “I’ve got a girlfriend. Should prob’ly call her.” She nodded, pushing him a glass of water. “You do that.” JJ groaned and fished out his phone from the bottom of his backpack, powering it back on. He sighed, running his hand through his hair as he saw the six missed calls and multiple texts, and called Charlie. 

“JJ? Where are you, what’s going on?” She asked immediately. 

He broke upon hearing her, his voice faltering and words slurred. “I need you, baby.” 

“Where are you?” She repeated, already grabbing her keys. “Never mind, I’ll find your location. Stay on the phone with me, J?” 

“I’m sorry.” He paused. “I’m sorry, I just - I was upset.” 

“It’s okay, hon, I’m coming.” 

She stayed on the phone with him until she got to the bar, pulling her jacket a little tighter around herself as she entered. She spotted JJ right away and he met her eyes, offering a sad smile. Charlie walked over and sat next to him, holding his hand. “You alright, J?” He looked down at his empty glass and swirled his finger around the rim. “Nah. Not doin’ so hot.” 

She caught the attention of the bartender and flagged her down for the check. The woman came over, passing her the receipt (which had about three drinks missing on it). “Is this your girl?” She asked JJ, sending him a wink. He nodded, offering a half-smile and squeezing Charlie’s hand. “Yeah, lucky me, right? She’s out of my league.” Charlie rolled her eyes and pulled out cash, slipping it to the bartender. JJ noticed right away and frowned, grabbing her wrist. “Charlie, don’t, I got it.” 

She shook her head. “I got it. Let’s just go back to mine, okay?” He paused, processing. “You don’t want me to pay you back?” She shook her head again, standing. “Of course not.” She looped his arm around her shoulders and her arm around his waist, giving him support as they walked out of the bar. Once they were in the car, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, soft and sweet. “Is my place okay?” 

“Are your roommates home?” He asked, frowning. “No, they went to dinner.” She replied, starting the car. JJ’s face dropped as he realized why she was in a dress. “Oh, fuck, that was tonight, wasn’t it? That’s why you’re all dressed up?” Charlie faltered for a moment. “I - um, yeah, but it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.” JJ set his jaw and ran his fingers through his hair, exhaling. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Charlie. God. He was right.” 

Charlie frowned, her grip tightening on the wheel. “He?” JJ was silent, turning to look out the window. “JJ, who are you talking about?” JJ shook his head. “Don’t wanna talk about it.” She sighed quietly, her worries confirmed. “Okay. That’s alright. Um, are you hungry? Should I make us something when we’re home?” He shrugged. “Not really.” She bit her lip, not knowing how to talk with him. “Right.” 

The rest of the drive was quiet until she pulled into the driveway and glanced over at him. He hadn’t taken his head off the window and his eyes were shut, his chest steadily rising and falling. “J?” She asked quietly. He stirred, opening his eyes. “Oh. We’re home?” She frowned and got out to help him out of the car. He stumbled when he stood, but cooperated with Charlie. “I’m sorry ‘bout dinner, baby.” He offered, leaning on her as they went inside and up the stairs. “It’s okay, J, it’s not important.” 

He frowned. “No, it is important, it’s important to you and I fucked it up.” Charlie shook her head, insistent, and sat him on her bed. She moved to go to her closet, but he grasped her wrist gently, pulling her back. “Can you just sit with me?” She nodded and sat, looking him over with concern. “If you want to talk about it…” she offered tentatively. 

“Not really.” He replied, leaning into her side. She turned and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. He took a big exhale, resting his head on her chest. Charlie stroked his hair softly. “I got you, hon.” She whispered. She heard a soft sniffle and frowned, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “J?” He barely shook his head, his breathing becoming unsteady as he cried harder. She held him tighter, frowning. “It’s okay. It’s okay, J,” she murmured soothingly. 

He lifted his head after a little bit, cheeks wet and shining from his tears. Charlie swore her heart broke. She kissed him, gentle, and he responded, hard and needy. She rested her hand on his cheek and wiped away some fresh tears with her thumb. “I’m sorry.” He mumbled, meeting her lips in another kiss. “Don’t be sorry. Was it your dad?” She asked outright. 

JJ’s face crumpled and he looked down, not meeting her gaze. “I sent him a graduation announcement. It was stupid. I brought it on myself. He thought I was asking for money.” 

Charlie stayed quiet, knowing he would open up on his own terms. 

He swallowed before continuing. “He just - he said I was just wasting my time at college, and that you’re gonna leave me. When you realize how fucking worthless I am.” 

Charlie shook her head quickly, kissing him to cut him off. “That’s not true, J, you know that. I know that.” 

He shrugged. “I dunno.” 

She frowned, putting her hands on either side of his face and forcing him to look at her. “Listen to me. I don’t know anyone that’s worked harder through college that deserves this more. You should be so fucking proud that you’re graduating. You’re incredible, JJ, I love you more than you could ever imagine.” She kissed him soundly to make her point. “You’re mine, hon.” 

He pressed his forehead to hers, listening for a moment, then threw his arms around her, hugging her fiercely. She snaked his arms around his waist and pressed a gentle kiss to his neck. He held her tight, like she was his last connection anchoring him to peace. “I’ll make dinner up to you.” She laughed softly. “That’s the last thing I care about, J.” 

He pulled back from the hug, only to lean in and kiss her again. “I’ll make you proud. I swear I will.” 

She nudged her nose with his. “You already do, J. Every single day.” He offered a small smile. “Yeah?” She smiled back, kissing him softly. “Yeah. You’re stuck with me, J, don’t forget it.” His smile grew bigger and he kissed her cheek. “Wouldn’t want to be stuck with anyone else.” 

[kpopfanfictrash]

The Supers and the Not

Member: Jimin (BTS)

Prompt: Okay. The original request was for Cyborg!Jimin, but I made a few tweaks. I’ve been recently intrigued by this Stephen Hawking excerpt, where he warns about the future of designer genetics v. humanity. So.... Jimin is not a cyborg, but a genetically engineered superhuman. AND, GO. (OH, + this dialogue: “Are you warm enough?”)

Rating: PG-13

WC: 3,637

↳ part of my 30K milestone drabble game

The term superhuman has held many meanings throughout history.

In comic books, superhumans are superheroes. They are beings who use their powers for good, who protect society from unnatural adversaries. The term has changed greatly since then. When science grew bolder and human curiosity surged, the word superhuman began to transform. It became a label; one which separated a new category of human from old.

The supers from the not.

Back in the old days, designer babies (as they were called) were edited merely for defects. Scientists easily identified potential genetic diseases like sickle-cell or Huntington’s, sending in nanotech to modify and fix the code. Obviously, there was debate around this and obviously, humans were wary – but the benefits were proven to outweigh the cost.

Scientists did not stop there. No longer did they research disease, but the human psyche itself. As the map of human DNA filled in its corners, their research became riskier, more complicated and far more exciting. Once all human defects were eliminated, what else remained but the good traits?

Good traits – which could become great.

The first superhumans were not called super. Super was a nickname generated by an overenthusiastic media before they grasped what their existence truly meant. The supers were a class of human beings all on their own – able to see further, hear better, run faster. They were taller, more beautiful and far more intelligent. This was the real kicker – humans have survived extinction based on their wit alone. The appearance of supers meant regular humans could no longer compete.

The so-called supers were turned against the not.

You are not super. Your parents could not afford you to be. While many your age were conceived in a tube; their embryos tested, operated on and perfected; you were conceived the old-fashioned way, with a virtual roll of the dice.

Still, you have always done well for yourself. In a world where you were born at a natural disadvantage, you have always managed to survive. Survival is truly the best-case scenario given your circumstances. Always, you have harbored the unique ability to assess a situation, determine its risks and choose the right outcome. Some call it luck, others skill, but you know it for what it truly is – the only option.

Take now, for instance.

Currently you sit in a white, pristine lobby on a white, pristine couch in front of a white, pristine receptionist. She keeps glancing your way, wrinkling her nose as though you have a strange smell. Warily, you shift in your seat and wonder if somehow you do. Maybe her sense of smell is so acute she can pick up on an aroma you cannot.

Or maybe she is only an ass. This option seems more likely to you.

When the door to the waiting room swings open, you look up. A woman holds it ajar with her hip, checking the hologram hovering above her wrist. 

“Y/N?” she asks, sounding utterly bored.

“That’s me,” you say, rising to your feet.

Swiftly, she looks your way and wrinkles her nose. “Follow me.”

She turns, the door nearly falling shut behind her. You are forced to run in order to catch it, barely grasping its edge before it closes on your hand. From behind you, the receptionist snickers and, glowering, you step through the door. The hallway beyond it is equally pristine and white.

The assistant is already halfway down the hall.

“So,” you pant, practically jogging to keep up with her stride. “The ad didn’t mention what specifically I would be doing. Do you have an overview?”

For the first time since meeting, the woman smiles. Paused in the middle of the hall, she looks at you as though you are something to be pitied and you repress the urge to slap the look from her face.

“And yet you still answered the ad. Most peculiar.”

Drawing yourself to your full height – which is still several centimeters below hers – you glare. “As though I have a choice,” you say coldly. “There aren’t many jobs left which accept normals.”

“Pity.”

She walks past you, opening a doorway you had not yet noticed. The seams of it blend into the wall, barely even noticeable unless you have super vision. The room beyond seems darker than the hall. Finally, the walls surrounding you are not white – it takes you a second to adjust to the lighting.

“He’s waiting,” the assistant says, as though you are a gigantic waste of her time. Maybe you are.

Walking forward, you hear the door fall shut behind you. The new room is utterly silent, nothing to be heard but the sound of your breathing – and his. Your potential employer stands behind a large desk, as though this were a formal gathering of businessmen, and not a rather sketchy job interview.

Fuck, supers are beautiful. 

It is hard not to be dazzled by his outward appearance. A sculpted jawline, bright gaze and sharp nose – standing before him, you feel rather meek in comparison. Before you can speak, the man clears his throat.

“Sit,” he says, waving at the chair opposite. “Please, Y/N, sit. Are you warm enough? Sometimes the temperature of this room is far too cold.”

Of course, he would need confirmation of this. Most supers can sustain greater temperature fluctuations than normals. It is one of their many improvements.

Warily, you take a step closer. “You know my name.”

He smiles politely. “You did fill out an application, you know.”

“I know.” Stiffly, you pull the chair back to sit.

Silence stretches between you, both of you staring and trying not break first. Finally, he speaks. 

“How silly of me.” Chuckling good-naturedly, the man ducks his head. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Park Jimin, but you may call me Jimin.”

“Most supers prefer to be addressed by their surname.”

Jimin’s smile falters. “Yes, well… Ah. All the same, I prefer to be called Jimin.”

“Alright.” You say this as though it is neither here nor there. “Jimin, it is.”

“Wonderful.” Jimin flicks a hand over his desk. A blue hologram appears. “Down to business, then. You’re probably wondering why my ad was so cryptic.”

Uncaring, you shrug. “Not really.”

“Why not?” Jimin pauses. “That would have been my first question.”

He seems genuinely curious and in response, your gaze narrows. The underlying implication is obvious – you normals do not think things through before acting. Not in the same way they do. Normal thought is somehow ages behind that of the supers.

Gritting your teeth, you lean forward. “The ad didn’t surprise me because, based on prior experience, supers tend to be vague about illegal requests.”

Jimin’s cheeks color. Slowly, he lowers his hand and the blue hologram fades. “I see.” Quickly, he glances at the door you entered from. “You’ve answered this kind of ad often, then.”

“Not a question.”

“No, merely an observation.” His gaze becomes shrewd. “I can see you don’t trust me.”

Not wishing to implicate yourself any further, you remain silent.

Jimin arches a brow. “Well, do you?”

“No,” you say simply. “I do not.”

“I can hardly blame you for that. My kind can be… well, cruel to yours.”

Again, you say nothing. Part of survival is knowing when to hold your tongue. Part of survival is knowing when to play the part of the lower, sub-species and when to let them know you understand.

“I need you to trust me, though,” Jimin says quietly. “I need you to trust me, since I’m going to be very, very honest with you.”

Despite your best interest, his words pique your curiosity. Supers do not often care about honesty. 

“It will be difficult to undo years of training,” you note.

Jimin laughs. The noise escapes before he can help it. “Yes,” he muses, leaning back in his chair. “I suppose so. Perhaps it would be good, then to tell you who I am.”

“You’re Park Jimin. You’re a super.”

His eyes are dark brown with flecks of gold at the center. The effect inspires warmness, emotion and you trust absolutely none of it. Everything about this man is designed to draw people in. Idly, you wonder how much his father paid for it.

“True,” Jimin says. “But I am also Park Jimin, of Park Enterprises.” Launching into what can only be assumed to be his Wikipedia biography, he continues, “My father is Park Jiwoo, researcher and entrepreneur. I have no siblings. I am 169 cm tall, which is considered below average for a super and I –”

“Okay, none of that matters to me,” you interrupt, waving your hand. Jimin ceases talking immediately, blinking owlishly and you wonder if this is the first time he has been interrupted. “God,” you groan, slouching low in your seat. “You supers are all the same, aren’t you? Listing facts and figures like that’s all people care about.”

Jimin bristles. “That is what most people care about.”

“Not normals,” you say, softening a tad. “Not humans, really. Tell me something different. Tell me something personal.”

The blue light from his desk makes him seem almost haunted. Likely, the lights in his room are intelligent; designed to reflect his mood and adjust appropriately. You wonder what they glean from him now, since he seems stressed in your gaze. Dark circles shadow his eyes, his grip tense on the table before him. Uneasily, you wonder what a super could have to be worried about.

“I don’t really know what you mean.” His brow puckers. “Do you want my government ID number, or something? That’s personal.”

“God, no,” you choke out, trying hard not to laugh. “If you gave me that, they’d just think I stole it.”

His lips lift in a ghost of a smile. “You’re right, they would.”

“I know I’m right. I want something different. I want to hear about…” Glancing around, you wonder what could possibly make you trust this man. What could possibly make you relate to this super. There are photographs on his desk – a family photo, which is interesting. Looking up, you meet Jimin’s gaze. “Tell me the last time you cried.”

“The last time I… cried?”

“Or, can you not?” Politely, you cross one knee over the other. “Are you supers so far removed from humanity that you no longer feel? Were your tear ducts removed along with your defects?”

“I can still cry,” Jimin mutters, gaze heated.

“Then, prove it. Tell me.”

Slowly, he leans back in his seat. “Last Thursday. 10:12 AM.”

“And what happened to make you cry?”

“I learned information which scared me.”

His honesty catches you off guard. Either Park Jimin is a very good actor, or he is telling the truth. He truly does look fearful, which does not bode well for you. Fearful people tend to make bad decisions – and fearful supers tend to make cataclysmic ones.

“What information?”

Jimin shakes his head slowly. “I can’t tell you that. Not without you trusting me. Not without me trusting you.”

“Then, trust me.”

“You say that like it’s so simple.” Jimin slowly exhales. “Meeting you like this goes against everything I stand for. There are so many things which could go wrong... I have done the probability calculations over and over – twice while we were sitting here – and it is ludicrous to think I might find the solution, when –”

“Jimin.” Quietly, you interrupt.

He pauses before he looks up.

You meet his gaze. “Why am I here?”

Jimin’s expression morphs from stoic to helpless. “Because... you’re normal.”

“And?”

“And,” Jimin says, closing his eyes. “That means you are immune to the problem.”

The way he says problem sends a chill down your spine. He speaks as though he has exhausted every option and this is his last resort – and likely, you are. That is what tends to come from meetings like this.

This is not your first meeting from an unlisted number. This is not your first interaction where a person has disguised their voice while answering the phone. It isn’t your first time meeting someone in an unknown location and receiving details of a task said person needed performed. 

You do what you must. You receive payment. You survive.

This seems different, though – Jimin seems different.

With his eyes closed, Jimin looks almost human. You suppose that he is, but not in the same way you are. His skin is flawless, the milk of it dusted with blue veins and dark lashes. When he opens his eyes, you expect the illusion of his beauty to fade. It does not.

“What’s the problem?” you say, pushing these distracting thoughts aside.

“It’s easier… if I show you.” Reluctantly, Jimin reaches out to pull up a hologram. Blue strands of DNA twist before you in mid-air. “There have been many accepted edits of the human genome. Some are more progressive than others. The ampliointelligens procedure, for example, is the most widely known. It is where –”

“A person’s intelligence is increased,” you interrupt, bored. “I know. It’s Latin.”

Jimin quickly covers his surprise. “Of course. Anyways, the procedure was considered the first of the… super procedures. The ones which diverted from genetic correction to genetic improvement. And, as with any new field… there were errors.”

“Errors?”

This fact is news to you – nothing about mistakes was reported to the public, which explains Jimin’s trepidation on the matter. In the entire history of the supers, there has never once been any admittance of error. Their strength is their narrative, after all. The supers deserve their positions, their wealth and their influence because they are better. Because they can foresee things normal humans cannot. All of this fails to be relevant if they are proven to be imperfect.

“The concept of intelligence.” Jimin uses air quotes on the word. “Is hard to understand and even harder to change. Gene editing is simple. Take something like Huntington’s disease – we know the genetic defect which causes it. We can simply screen the DNA, cut out the harmful bit and replace it. That’s an over-simplification of the procedure of course, but – there’s low risk of something going wrong.”

“If you say so.”

“However, with something like intelligence… there’s still debate about which portions of the human genome are the most impactful. There are several accepted versions of the ampliointelligens procedure because of this disagreement.”

Hearing him say this, you blink. Again, this is news not known to the general public and you wonder why Jimin is telling you this – any one of these tidbits would be worth a fortune if the supers have covered them up for so long.

The surprise on your face must be obvious, because Jimin then sighs. “The variables increase with intelligence. There isn’t one DNA strand to consider, but millions. Trillions. Each tweak a surgeon makes has far-reaching repercussions; ones which geneticists admitted were impossible to know definitively at the time. And yet…”

“And yet, people underwent the procedure.”

“People were greedy. They are greedy,” Jimin corrects with a tick to his jaw. “Once a reasonable procedure was created, people wanted it – no matter the cost, no matter the risk. If there was a chance their children could be super, they took it.”

You notice Jimin says the word super with a bitterness usually reserved by your kind. This surprises you, if nothing else. He doesn’t seem to enjoy what he is any more than you do.

“So.” You tap your fingers against your knee. “Back to the problem you mentioned.”

You assume this problem is why you’ve been asked here. There’s something Jimin needs and the sooner he asks it of you, the sooner you can leave. The sooner you can cease sitting before him, becoming oddly charmed by a man you despise.

He nods. “We’ve known about a mutation for years, but it has recently transformed into something insidious. One of the ampliointelligens procedures is the cause of this mutation. The DNA edit takes over, it spirals out of control and overpowers the human ability to empathize. This leads to rash decision-making, high levels of narcissism and the inability to relate to others. It can be… crippling.”

“Narcissistic and unable to relate?” Pressing your lips together, you keep them from twitching. “However will you separate them from the rest of the supers?”

“It isn’t the same,” Jimin says, a bit heated. “Supers can empathize, even if they place less value upon emotion than normals do. Supers still factor in an emotional response.”

“How noble.”

“You don’t understand.” Jimin leans forward. “Those afflicted by the mutation are incapable of decision-making – and what’s worse, they control every major resource in the country. Yes,” he says, spotting the look on your face. “The problem is bigger than just supers versus normals. If this disease spirals out of control, there won’t be a world left to save.”

“Is that what you intend to do?” you ask, unable to help yourself. “Save the world?”

“I intend to try,” Jimin says quietly.

Maybe it’s this that convinces to you how serious this is. Jimin stares, brow furrowed, and you get the idea he doesn’t lie very often. Slowly, you tilt your head and observe him.

“How many?”

His brow furrows. “I’m sorry?”

“How many supers are afflicted?”

Staring at you, Jimin seems to sag in his seat. If he had a glass of alcohol in his hand, you imagine he would drink it. 

“About half the existing supers underwent the affected procedure,” he admits. “And it does not seem to be a question of if, but of when.”

“Oh.”

“Take my father, for instance,” Jimin continues, not looking away. “He began to exhibit symptoms last Thursday morning. I, on the other hand, have yet to show any.”

“How…” You pause, licking your lips. “If the procedure is as certain as you say, how does the public not yet know? How has it been kept quiet so far?”

“Those in power have methods of silencing.”

Not wanting to know more than that, you glance away. “I take it you think these methods will not remain effective for much longer?”

“I do not.”

“So, then why am I…” Glancing sharply upwards, understanding dawns. “You want me to be your guinea pig. You want to perform experiments on me because I’m immune. Because I’m normal.”

“Lord, no.” Jimin winces. “At least – not in the manner you speak of. I would like to compare samples of our DNA, yes. I’d like intelligence testing, brain scans – all of that would be on the table, but what I need you for most is observation.”

“Observation. Like, me in a glass room and a strait jacket?”

“It’s the other way around, I’m afraid. I need you to observe me.”

“You?” 

“Like I said.” A sliver of desperation seeps into his tone. “I have no idea when my mind won’t be… my own. I’m seeing firsthand how my father has changed. I need someone neutral – someone not prone to the problem themselves – to weigh in.”

“And that person… is me?”

“Based on this meeting, I think so.” Jimin meets your gaze. “Y/N, has your intelligence ever been tested?”

“Are you serious? Intelligence testing is reserved for supers. Surely, you know that. Normals have no need to be tested.”

“And yet,” Jimin says calmly. “Since you entered this room, you’ve corrected me multiple times, synthesized complicated arguments and even translated Latin to English. Whatever you are,” he says, leaning forward. “It is more than what you let on.”

He sounds so self-assured in this statement, you almost believe him. Pushing the idea away, you glance at the door and gather your thoughts. No matter what choice you make, there’s no good way out. You were stuck from the moment you agreed to this meeting. Jimin has revealed too much to you – and yes, information is power, but not the kind that you hold.

Knowing weaknesses about the supers places a target on your back. Slowly, you return to him. 

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” you say softly. “If I don’t agree to your terms, you’ll just send people after me when I leave.”

“No. I won’t.”

“Why not? I would, if I were you.”

“Because.” There’s something hard, something unreadable to his gaze. “I really need you to trust me.”

Variables flash through your mind, a fight or flight instinct warring in your bones. Eventually, you ignore all of it and instead, listen to the voice which whispers in the back of your mind. 

“Find,” you say slowly. “I’ll do it.”

Jimin sags into his chair. “Thank the fucking gods.” He sighs. “I didn’t really have a Plan B.”

“You didn’t?”

“No,” Jimin says. “I’m afraid this is my final resort.”

“Then, why –”

“I think that’s enough chit-chat for today.” Pushing back his chair, Jimin stands from his desk. Pressing a button on the side, a noise buzzes in the hall. “I think it’s time you reviewed the terms of the contract. One of my assistants will show you to your rooms.”

“Rooms?” 

Without thinking, you stand as well.

“Of course,” Jimin shrugs. “You’ll be staying with me for the duration of the work period. Everything is outlined in the contract – which you will have until the end of this week to make amendments to. Will that be that satisfactory?”

“I…” Blinking at him, your mind reels. “Yes.”

“Good.” 

Clasping both hands before him, Jimin morphs back into the image of super. Banished is the distressed man you saw briefly but still, he lingers around the edges. 

“I look forward to working with you, Y/N,” he says quietly.

The door opens to reveal the tall assistant from earlier. She glances in surprise from you to Jimin, as though she did not expect you to stay.

Seeing her reaction, your smile broadens. “I look forward to working with you, too, Jimin,” you announce, walking towards the door.

It is mainly for the benefit of the assistant, but you cannot help but realize there is some truth to the words. Despite all you have said, that voice still exists deep within you. The one which usually warns you of danger is unusually silent in his presence. This unsettles you for a moment and then you walk past, stepping into the hall.

  © kpopfanfictrash, 2019. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[ayankun]

WandaVision episode 6

FIRST OFF

Whenever I go back to pause things for clues, and find exactly what I’m looking for, I don’t feel justified, I feel that much more insane:

It’s really hard to make out, but I had an alright look at it on my folks’ QLED, and it’s definitely a flying saucer doing an alien abduction on what looks to be a person inside an old CRT TV (with some kind of robot head/boombox on top???)  There are secret aliens in this show, you guys, the facts don’t lie.

HmmmMMMM I wonder if Agnes is as innocent as she looks:

Also, I didn’t see that she was wearing the brooch in this ep, and I was majorly disappointed in that.

Two things here:

No, that’s not a twins joke.

Another Moonmen Confirmed

I know green is his color or whatever, but that hat is literally 10 years ahead of its time

Also, I took the playing-DDR-at-home scenario at face value, and only on the first rewatch did I realize it was a very pointed turn-of-the-century reference.  I am an Old.

There’s a good, subtle Rule of Threes in this ep.  The Setup:

The Sokovian Halloween flashback works on so many levels.  It’s so funny:

The fact that they went trick-or-treating at all

The “speaking Sokovian”

The treat being a fish

They have to share the fish

The concept that this event gave them an infectious disease

“You probably suppressed a lot of the trauma” -- it’s a good sitcom joke but.  the trauma is the joke.  The joke IS THE TRAUMA!!!

Elizabeth Olson is a dream with all her wonderful faces she has this ep.

Vision’s unsettling passive-aggression-sitcom-cooperation whiplash is WOW, consider me unsettled!!!!!!  “Be. Good.”  UGH.

(Just noticed one here, but there are a number of continuity errors in this episode, enough to be distracting later on, and is this a deliberate choice?  Please let it be deliberate.  I didn’t watch a whole lot of Malcolm in the Middle, is it known for its continuity errors?

)

“It’s their first Halloween.” LOLOLOL they are TEN YEARS OLD and this is their FIRST halloween I LOVE IT

DOUBLE RED HERRING CONFIRRRRRRRRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agent Jimmy Woo accidentally identifying himself as the sassy best friend added 20 years to my life.

Found.  FOUND.  Not “created,” “manifested,” “willed into being using my insane witch powers.”  Third Party Confirmed.

I like that it’s the 90s and we can swear on TV now.  “Hell” “kick-ass” “damn it” “fu---dge”

I think the most biting part of Vision finding the whacked out folks is that the soundtrack just kind of ... ignores that anything’s wrong.  Yeah, it’s kinda-spooky Halloween music, but it’s still 100% in-world kinda-spooky-sitcom-Halloween-episode music. 

OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE AD:

As a 90s child, let me tell you, this is a blisteringly accurate representation of children’s marketing from the period.  The shark is wearing sunglasses AND he has a surfboard!!!  And he’s selling you yogurt of all things!!!!!  This is the supreme distillation of what being a child in the 90s was like.

How disappointed I am that they went with crab instead of lobster.

Heard it through the grapevine that this is a representative of Wanda’s imprisonment on the Raft.  That happened in Civil War, right?  So the next ad is The Snap?  We’re running out of iconic decades, too. so, hold on, new thought.

90s: Civil War

00s: Infinity War

10s?????: Endgame???? or?????????

??: Whatever happened between Endgame and WandaVision, given that the ads are stepping forward through Wanda’s IRL life events!!

I don’t want to know how many episodes are planned/announced, but I don’t know what to expect from the format after they run out of decades from which to draw.  Maybe there are only one or possibly two “sitcom” episodes left.  Maybe after that it just breaks down and they can pick and choose from the worlds/styles we’ve already established.  That’d be p neat.  A very unique kind of chaos.

god she’s so cute

Okay, somebody explain to me Pietro.  I honestly walked away from last week thinking he was just some townsperson chump, but then I was reminded that this is the Quicksilver actor from all those X-Mans movies I never watched, soooo people are saying Multiverse Confirmed?  But, if this is X-Mans’ Pietro, then why did he die the same as MCU Pietro?  Or is he literally MCU!Pietro’s corpse, given that he looked all dead same as when she saw Vision’s corpse?  If MCU!Pietro, then why different face???

????????????????

Also I found him highly suspicious, what with all the questions he was asking.  But the only sort of person who would truly want to know the answers to those questions would be someone who already had them ... so I think he was just asking on behalf of the audience, and the delivery was all wonked out.

Rule of Threes - The Reference:

Ok, real talk, whenever computers/networks/data/encryption/servers/mainframes et al come up in mainstream media, I just look away.  I don’t need the kind of psychic damage that comes with such egregious mishandling of the topic.

That being said, does Hayward having eyes through the barrier mean that he could possibly be involved in getting it set up?  Because look.  If Hayward-after-Hayward’s-Villianous-Ends is one antagonizing force, then is there really room for the Third Party (Confirmed) antagonizing force that’s lurking in the negative space silhouette of the Inciting Incident?  With Wanda as the Red Herring antagonizing force, that’s just.  There’s just too many villains, alright?  We gotta start merging these plotlines.

(then again, when I just said “eyes” I realize probably understanding the true nature of his new secret “CATARACT” project will clear a lot of things up.  I’ll wait for enlightenment)

Agnes’ license plate in this episode is 0A1-B2C, which I think is a reference to the way reality is getting pared down to bare bones at the edge of town.  Note that this is not the same license plate number as seen last ep.

ALSO, I drove home behind a NJ plate just an hour ago, and was staring at it for a long time, trying to fit it into the puzzle before A) realizing that this was Real Life and not part of the show and B) WTF is a NJ plate doing in front of me in California.  In any case, I can confirm that NJ plates do not appear to have this number-letter repeating format.

So let’s talk Agnes.

Demonstrated knowledge of the situation in ways others haven’t (”There’s the star of the show” “kids, you can’t control ‘em”)

Shows up when needed most (explained as being Wanda’s doing, but is it)

When Wanda was having her babies, though, who was trustworthy enough to be summoned?  Was it Agnes?

Wanted to babysit REAL BAD

Was in the opening credits framed possessively with the twins

Doesn’t appear to have an IRL identity according to Jimmy’s crime board

Keeps talking about her husband but we’ve never seen him.  Highly unlikely that he’s real

Was the one to find Sparky “dead” - internet thinks she was lying to Wanda about how or possibly if he was dead (I’m trying not to read the theories, so idk exactly what the angle is there)

In an episode where everyone is wearing their original comic outfits, Agnes is dressed as (and laughs like!) a witch

She name-drops Wanda as the one controlling everyone; Norm (or the guy playing Norm) only said “she” and “her” -- meaning Agnes?

Naughty

So we’re 99% sure Agnes is Agatha Harkness, right?  I never read no comics, so I’m taking the internet’s word for it, but from what I can tell, I think we must be right.  If that’s the case, then I’m thinking it’s not impossible for her to be pulling some strings around here (giving Wanda a justification for her “that wasn’t me” doorbell ring, for example, and pulling a double red herring on the fact that she shows up whenever the narrative Wanda her nefarious scheme calls for it).

To devil’s advocate myself, though, we also have Monica’s word that it was Wanda in her mind, lessening the impact of Agnes falsely confirming what Norm only implied.  Also she’d have to be acting for Vision’s sake (and ours) and, if so, then what did Vision’s brain-touch really do, and how did she know he’d find her there, and what did she intend as the result of that interaction etc etc.

If Wanda’s (or Wanda + Third Party Confirmed (Agnes??)’s) powers aren’t enough to sustain the simulation of life on the edges of town, how much worse is it going to be now that there is even more area to try to control???

I don’t know if this is strictly an intended read, but the idea of Halloween as a fun, scares-for-entertainment’s sake type holiday, the rounding off the edges of concepts like “skeletons and ghosts are what people are after they die, let’s decorate the town with them and have a good time” kind of is a haunting parallel to the nature of Wanda (et al) covering up the horrible truth of the situation with this happy-go-lucky sitcom glamour.

How much does one hate seeing Vision giving his life for the greater good (the greater good) for the second time?  In other news, I think I’m seeing some specifically Mind Stone type energy-colors coming off of him, and very little Wanda type energy-colors.  Third Party Confirmed.

Also, I was thinking from last week that perhaps Hayward’s Villainous Ends included capturing the reanimated Vision to be one of those Sentient Weapons his organization is all about, but I Do Not Think his reaction to seeing that sought-after prize disintegrate in front of his eyes really matches up with that theory.  Again, will be patiently waiting for Jimmy to check his email to see what CATARACT is all about!

Rule of Threes - The Payoff:

Also, anyone ID the movie playing in the background?

Ok, final thought.  I watched this about four times today, and on the big-ass TV at my parents’ house finally paused and got up close to see what that white shape is in the reflection.  Thought it might be a skull, but, it’s worse.

These caps do not contain enough data to verify my claim, but I PROMISE YOU it’s a TV

A square old thing with a round screen and antenna on top. 

I SWEAR to you, when I looked into the TV, into Wanda’s eyes, only to see the reflection of a TV, of her looking at me looking at her I had a visceral fear reaction.  Like.  LEGIT nauseous skin crawl.

(All the other episodes have ended with our POV as the fourth wall, from the general (or exact!!!) position their household TV is known to be.)

This is my favorite show Of All Time.

[sandalwoodhusbands]

sooo.... new chapter when? 🤠

my dear tata tata, now that i'm finally done with finals (🥳🥳🥳) and our government has slowly but surely been lifting up the confinement my friends are very set on dragging me out of my house every day for the past week.

that means chapter 4 will be pushed back until monday probably (i'm very sad about it) but maybe i could interest you in some good old sexy elu times?

-

(also on ao3)

“Like this?”

“Stay still.”

“Make sure to get my good side!”

“Oh my God,” Eliott laughs, falling backwards on the bed as Lucas flexes his arms with a scrunched-up expression. “You’re such an idiot, fuck.”

“Hey! Eyes on the star here.”

Eliott huffs out another quiet laugh before sitting up. He brings his phone up to eye level, waiting until the lens focus on Lucas’ figure, and taps. Snap after snap, Lucas changes position every few seconds, each more ridiculous than the last one, and Eliott’s sides hurt from laughing this much.

He thinks this is the most fun he’s had in months. With them in their tiny apartment, loud laughter echoing against the walls, the summer sun disappearing behind the buildings.

Lucas sticks his tongue out, and Eliott’s eyes crinkle with something akin to happiness. He takes another picture.

This fucking boy, he’s gonna be the death of him one day.

“Are you sure this is my good side?” Lucas asks again, throwing him a glance from where he’s staring at the window. “Yann laughed at me when I showed him my student ID card last semester.”

“As if you have a bad side. And Yann is a tasteless moron.”

Eliott watches as Lucas’ lips twitch.

He manages to take a picture before Lucas is turning around, one arm already poking out from under the t-shirt he’s wearing. Eliott gives him an amused look, but Lucas just shrugs, getting out of the t-shirt and throwing it at Eliott.

Eliott catches it easily.

“I got tired.” He says, the corner of his lips quirking up. “I wanna try on something else.”

“Be my guest.”

There’s mirth in Lucas’ eyes when he turns to look over his shoulder. “Well yes, aren’t I half the owner of this apartment?”

Eliott rolls his eyes with amusement. Still, he doesn’t miss one second of Lucas walking away from him.

The grey sweatpants he has on are loose around the ankles. They look soft; incredibly soft, drawing the curve of his ass perfect, and the waistband hugs his waist in a way it has Eliott wondering if his fingers would warm over if he slipped them under it.

There’s only so much a man can do when the guy you’ve been committed to for the past few years bends over right in front of your eyes. With no fucking shirt on. He’s not even ashamed when he feels something stir inside his pants, mouth going dry at the sight of Lucas’ spine arching up.

He wants to run his hands across that smooth back. Cover his shoulders with kisses and let his mouth trail down until his lips are swollen. He wants to pull him apart with his tongue, and let Lucas do the same to him. There’s no self-preservation when it comes to them; they take, and take, and take until the air in the room is sucked dry.

He’s never been this stupid for anyone before, ever.

“Holy shit.” Lucas’ voice cuts through Eliott’s mind. “I had forgotten we had this here.”

Eliott frowns as he watches Lucas disappear into the wardrobe completely. “What are you-?”

And his thoughts die at his mouth.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” Lucas asks with a smug grin. His hands go to smooth down the brown jacket draped over his body, pulling it open enough for Eliott to catch a glimpse of his nipples.

The phone gripped between Eliott’s hands slips onto his lap.

He watches entranced, irrevocably captivated by the expanse of sun-kissed skin standing right before him. The jacket looks huge on him, hanging off his shoulders loosely and reaching past his hands. A protective flare raises inside of him at the sight of Lucas wearing his old jacket, a sense of possession that he rarely, if almost never feels.

Lucas’ whole body is a masterpiece. His toned chest makes Eliott’s lips tingle from afar, his flat stomach begging to get a set of teeth sunk into it.

“So?” Lucas asks again. There’s humor in his voice, but Eliott knows where to look. The faint pink on top of his ears isn’t just from the heat in the room. “Are you gonna take a picture or are you gonna stare at me forever?”

Eliott smirks.

Holding his phone up to his face, he frames Lucas in the middle of the shot. He notices the second Lucas sees right through him. Right through the screen, he sees Lucas’ eyes drop down for a second, gaze dancing by where there’s a bulge right between Eliott’s legs.

And then he’s looking right at the lenses, stealing Eliott’s breath away, and with it goes all of the composure that was left in him. Because Lucas looks at the lenses, and he wears that teasing smile that has been directed at him so many times. Because Lucas looks at him, and he lets his eyes fill with lust when his eyelids drop, and Eliott knows he’s not posing for the camera.

He’s posing for him.

And then slowly, ever so slowly, Lucas’ hand travels towards his groin. His eyes flutter closed when he grabs at his crotch, moaning softly as he squeezes before rubbing his palm over it. His blue eyes are bright on the screen, but the only thing Eliott notices are the fingers that slip under the elastic waistband of Lucas’ sweatpants.

He takes a snap.

Lucas’ thumbs toy with the waistband of the sweatpants. His fingers brush against his skin ever so slightly, and a shiver runs up Eliott’s spine when he thinks of getting his hands on him, too.

His hands freeze on the shutter when Lucas shows an extra inch of skin.

“Lucas…”

It’s said like a question. Like a breathless plead, his heart beating out of his chest as he watches Lucas reveal another inch of skin, his lower lip caught between his teeth, his hooded eyes staring at the camera.

Can I? He wants to ask. Can I do this? Should I stop?

But no words come out of his mouth, tongue tied between one moan and the next one.

“You can.” Lucas’ voice is surprisingly calm over the rushing of his ears. Eliott’s eyes snap up to Lucas’ face, finding pools of deep blue lust staring back at him. “I know you want to. I’m giving you permission.”

And what is he supposed to say to that?

So he says nothing.

He stays completely silent, taking snap after snap as Lucas starts to pull down his sweatpants more decidedly. There’s complete quietness in the room, only his ragged breathing echoing against walls, heavier and heavier the more skin Lucas shows.

His mind goes numb with want, heat growing from his chest and climbing up his neck, spreading down to his belly and making the inside of his underwear uncomfortably hot. Lucas takes it a step further, pulling down on the fabric enough to see the perfect outline of his dick catching on the waistband, and Eliott bites his lip so hard he’s afraid he’ll draw blood.

“Christ.” Eliott curses, squeezing down on his crotch with craving desperation.

It’s enough to encourage Lucas, who gives the camera one last tilted smirk before he’s pulling his pants down to his ankles.

Lucas’ dick breaks free from his pants. The pink at the tip stands out next to the tan of his stomach, and it twitches against his belly under Eliott’s stare. It matches the color in his chest, and in his cheeks and the top of his ears.

Eliott doesn’t know where to touch first.

“Holy fuck, Lucas.”

He sounds fucked out already, he realizes. And they haven’t even begun.

Fuck.

“Yeah?” Lucas asks. He’s looking at Eliott through his eyelashes, tucking his chin to his chest so a few strands of hair fall over his eyes.

There’s always that moment in someone’s life that breaks your identity in two, and from that moment on, you think of yourself as the person you were before, and the one you’re after. There’s a moment that reaches your core; that has such power over you it feels like everything that comes after is controlled by it.

For Eliott it was Lucas.

There had been a party, at the very beginning, and it says a lot about Eliott that he doesn’t remember much from it. Except from Lucas’ body under the neon lights that night. They’d been dancing, maybe with the wrong people, but they had gotten it right at the end. And then Lucas had tilted his chin up, and his tongue had been peeking out from his pretty lips when he smiled.

And Eliott knew he wanted him.

It happens again this time.

Lucas rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, and then his pink tongue swipes over the bruise he’s left there.

The phone flies over Eliott’s back.

It goes over his head, how he’s sitting on the bed and a blink after he’s so close to Lucas their noses almost touch. But it happens, and his heart beats at his throat, and Lucas’ face is warm under his palms.

“You.” He enounces the words carefully, whispering them in the gap between their mouths, feeling Lucas’ fingers dig into his arms. “Are the most fucking beautiful piece of art I’ve ever seen.”

Lucas sighs, and the breath that leaves his lips makes the hairs at the back of Eliott’s neck stand.

“Hmm.” Lucas hums happily. His hands slide up Eliott’s shoulders until they wrap around his neck, and he pulls them closer together. “Tell me again.”

Eliott coaxes open Lucas’ mouth with his thumb. He slips the finger between Lucas’ lips, pressing down on his bottom lip until he can feel teeth scrapping at it, and it’s not until he feels a hot tongue swirling circles around it that he lets go to crash their lips together.

Their mouths slide together, lips on lips moving eagerly with slick noises. Lucas’ tongue is in his mouth, and his nose drags across Lucas’ cheek when he tilts his head to deepen the kiss.

He can feel Lucas’ jaw working under his touch when his mouth parts. The grip on the back of his neck that Lucas pulls at when he nibbles at his lower lip before sucking on it. The heat between their faces, burning up his mouth until it’s tingling, and the shivers shaking Lucas’ shoulders whenever their tongues are pressed flat together.

“You look so hot,” Eliott pants between kisses. He presses harder against Lucas, until his back hits the wall, until their crotches rub together, until Lucas moans against his mouth. “Just standing like that. Fuck.” He leaves a trail of spit down Lucas’ cheek as his lips travel down his neck. “So fucking hot.”

Lucas loosens his grip at the back of Eliott’s head, grabbing the hand on his cheek before pulling it down between his legs. The second Eliott’s fingers brush against his length Lucas hisses.

“You gonna do anything about that anytime today?” He asks.

Eliott smirks against his neck before sucking a bruise behind his ear. When he pulls back, his tongue laps at the bruise softly, and he lets his lips drag down the expanse of his neck. Lucas gasps as Eliott runs one finger up his shaft lightly.

 “Is that enough for you?”

“Not,” Lucas breathes. He makes a little ah sound when Eliott’s tongue runs over the mole at the base of his neck. “Not quite.”

With the hand that he has free, he pulls the front of the jacket open, fitting his hand against Lucas’ ribcage. With every kiss pressed down further, the heart under his hand beats louder, and he makes a show of taking one of Lucas’ nipples between his teeth, staring up as he rolls it around his tongue.

“Fuck.” Lucas’ eyes are clenched shut, mouth falling open with breathless gasps. “Fuck, Eli.”

He keeps drawing soothing circles on Lucas’ hipbone, even as Lucas’ moans turn impatient and his own jaw starts to ache hallway down Lucas’ stomach. The skin is warm under his lips, smooth when he draws on it with his tongue, and it makes the swell in his lips worth it when he feels Lucas’ stomach quivering.

“How about now?” He asks, and his lips brush against the base of Lucas’ dick.

Lucas exhales. “That’s better.”

With one last kiss to the inside of his thigh he wraps his mouth around Lucas.

He hears the bang on the wall as he slides his hands down Lucas’ body, looking up to find Lucas’ head leaning against the wall. From that position he sees the way Lucas swallows when he grips the back of his thighs, just below his ass.

He hums around Lucas’ dick, taking in his mouth as much as he can. Lucas’ breathing turns shallow, flush spreading to his cheeks. His mouth falls open every time his dick hits the back of Eliott’s throat. His fingers twitch hopelessly at Eliott’s hair, hips moving in aborted motions as Eliott bobs his head up and down.

 “Lucas.” He rasps out, pulling away. He speaks between flickers of his tongue at the head, making Lucas moan loudly. “Lucas.”

“What?” Lucas pants. He looks down at Eliott. His face is red, glassy eyes twinkling with lust and mouth bitten red, shiny with spit. It’s enough to make the tent in Eliott’s pants impossibly tighter. “Fuck, what?”

Without saying anything, Eliott lets go of his grip across Lucas’ thighs, guiding his hands to the back of his head. Through his eyelashes, he watches the way a breath stutters out of Lucas’ chest as he intertwines their fingers on his hair.

He swallows Lucas inch by inch, head bobbing down to the pressure their hands make on the back of his head. The sound that comes from Lucas reminds him of a wounded animal when Eliott’s nose brushes against his belly.

“Holy fuck, Eli.” Lucas chants. He cards his fingers through Eliott’s hair, setting the pace. “Holy fuck, you’re so good.” His voice sounds breathless, out of it. Fucked out, even though Eliott is the one with a dick in his mouth. “I’m so fucking lucky.”

Eliott lowers his hands back to hold Lucas’ hips in place, digging his fingers into the swell of his ass. He hollows his cheeks, sucking, licking, humming at the back of his throat when Lucas’ body starts to get restless under his hands.

“Eliott,” There’s begging layered with desperation in his voice. His thighs tremble, and the flush in his chest gets redder with every heavy breath he takes. He’s so fucking beautiful, it feels like it might consume Eliott whole sometimes. “Baby, please. Oh my god,”

From the bottom of his fucking heart, it burns a craving that Eliott has never felt before.

He pulls away.

He shoots up on wobbling knees, trapping Lucas against the wall. Lucas makes a confused noise, but Eliott shushes him with a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His lips move frantically in search of Lucas’ mouth, hands tugging at the hem of his own t-shirt to take it off himself.

Lucas kisses back just as enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around Eliott’s middle and pressing their chests close together. His dick gets trapped between their bellies, and with every shift in their position Lucas mewls against Eliott’s mouth.

“I needed to touch you.” Eliott whispers with urgency. His hands run up and down Lucas’ sides, over the back of his thighs, under the swell of his ass. He clutches Lucas closer to him, holding him tight as he presses hard kisses to Lucas’ lips.

He’s never felt this kind of desperation; the one where your heart is at your throat, where you feel like the life will slip out of your fingertips if you don’t bury them in someone’s skin.

“Please. I had to kiss you. Please, Lucas.” He doesn’t know what he’s asking for anymore, just that his tongue works in autopilot. Everything is burning hot inside the room. “I feel like I might die every second you’re not with me.”

“Hey.” Lucas’ voice is soothing against his temple. His hands are cool against Eliott’s cheeks, his touch soft as he presses their foreheads together. Lucas’ lips cover Eliott’s in a slow kiss, and then there’s blue staring up at him. “Hey, I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.” Eliott nods. Because he does know. Still, his hands tremble on the small of Lucas’ back, and he has to close his eyes to get a grip on his breathing. “I know.”

Lucas’ hands don’t leave his face when he kisses him again, and the heart at Eliott’s throat goes back down to his ribcage. “I will be yours,” Lucas whispers to the corner of his mouth, “for as long as you’ll want me.”

Eliott clutches the hem of the blazer.

“I want forever with you.” He murmurs, one breath away from giving out to Lucas’ hold. “For as long as I can.” Lucas’ smile against his mouth is something he wants to be branded in his skin forever. He starts smiling too. “You’re mine. And I yours.”

Lucas nods into the kiss. “You are,” He agrees quietly, “And I am.” His eyes light up a moment later, getting brighter by the moment like a sunrise, and then he’s saying, “but could we now please go back to the part where I’ve got my hands in your hair and you’re about to give me an orgasm?”

And despite himself, Eliott laughs.

Lucas grins childishly at him, dropping his hands low to squeeze Eliott’s ass over his pants. The movement makes their dicks rub together, both of them shivering at the contact.

“We could,” Eliott agrees. With one hand he makes the path down Lucas’ ass, brushing a finger between Lucas’ cheeks, and looks at Lucas with a raised eyebrow. “Or?”

The black in Lucas’ eyes eat the deep blue.

“Oh.” He exhales. “Or sounds very good. Let’s go with that.”

They fall into bed laughing.

They’re laughing when Lucas shoots a disapproving glare towards Eliott’s clothed chest, complaining that ‘why the fuck are you still clothed, and how is it fair that you’ve sucked my dick but I still haven’t even seen yours?’.

They’re laughing as Lucas so much as rips the jacket off his shoulders, because ‘holy fuck, no blowjob is worth all that sweating’.

They’re laughing, and laughing and laughing, bodies rolling around on the sheets with hands on backs and smiles pressed to each other’s mouths.

They kiss each other lazily, Lucas’ hips trapped between Eliott’s legs. Lucas’ hands run up and down Eliott’s sides as he kisses him, and Eliott makes goosebumps arise with the pad of his fingers brushing lightly down Lucas’ back.

Lucas’ eyes close every time Eliott buckles his hips up, and Eliott waits readily under him to swipe the moan away from Lucas’ tongue with his mouth. Their groins rub together wetly, a veil of sweat covering their bodies and making their bellies slippery as they sway in sync.

“How do you want it?” Eliott asks. He cups Lucas’ ass, spreading his cheeks apart and squeezing, kneading it like dough. “I owe you an orgasm, you make the rules.”

Lucas’ breath hitches as Eliott’s fingers brush against his rim drily.

He rolls out of Eliott’s arms, lying flat of his belly. His eyes are shadowed by the hair falling down his face when he pillows his chin on his arms, and his stare pins Eliott to the bed as he lifts up his hips teasingly slow.

His back arches, knees spread apart sinking into the mattress, ass on full display. He lets a smirk settle over his face, and then he’s tilting his chin towards Eliott’s face. “Like this,” He breathes. His mouth is open when he kisses Eliott, and his face shines with want when he pulls back. “I want it exactly like this. I want you to cover me completely until you can’t tell us apart.”

Eliott’s response gets stuck at the back of his throat.

Fuck.

Okay.

With weak legs he climbs over Lucas’ body, a buzz thrumming inside his veins that leaves him dizzy as he reaches for their drawer.

He positions himself between Lucas’ legs, running his hands over the inches of skin at his naked back before dropping to his ass. It reminds him of a rollercoaster, the way his hands go up Lucas’ ass and then follow the curve of his arched back.

Lucas leans back into the touch, moaning brokenly when Eliott’s fingers touch the crease of his thighs.

“If you really think this is the appropriate time to worship my fucking ass, I swear to-”

Lucas’ mouth snaps closed, the feeling of Eliott pulling his cheeks apart with his thumbs enough to shut him up.

“Indulge me for a second, baby,” his breath ghosts over Lucas’ rim. Lucas’ ass quivers against Eliott’s hold, and Eliott digs his fingers deeper into the meat of his thighs. He rubs slow circles on Lucas’ skin, blowing softly. “You enjoy it as much as I do.”

“I do, but,” a surprised moan falls from his lips when Eliott rubs the pads of his wet fingers over his entrance. “But fuck, if you don’t get your dick in me soon I’m gonna pass out.”

He pushes one finger in slowly. “Patience.” He whispers. With his lips to the small of Lucas’ back, he pacifies Lucas’ gasps, and with the hand running up and down his thighs he soothes the trembling of his body.

One finger turns into two, that turns into three, Lucas’ rim swallowing him up to the second knuckle. He leaves small kisses to every inch of skin he can reach, trailing up and down paths he’s roamed before as he moves his fingers in and out of Lucas. To the curve of his ass, to the bumps of his spine, shushing with his lips Lucas’ small cries as he twists his fingers inside of him.

“I’m ready,” Lucas groans, fucking himself back on Eliott’s fingers. “Eli, I need you.”

With one last kiss to Lucas’ plump ass he takes his fingers out, wiping them on the sheets and rolling on the condom. He pumps himself with a palm rubbing against Lucas’ crack, dick hardening in his hand as a strings of curses falls from Lucas’ lips.

His heart beats fast with anticipation, mouth falling open in a silent gasp as he sinks himself into Lucas. Lucas’ breath is heavy under him, turning heavier and heavier the more his rim takes, pink and stretched around Eliott’s dick in a way it makes Eliott fear he’ll come the second he bottoms out.

“Down, down,” Lucas whines, making grabby hands behind his back. Eliott pushes closer with his hips, tangling their fingers together. “Down, I want you here.”

Eliott’s heart swells. He lowers himself down to Lucas’ request, bringing their hands above Lucas’ head and squeezing hard as he feels his dick sink deeper inside of Lucas. He mouths sloppily at the back of Lucas’ neck when he feels Lucas’ ass flush against his belly.

“Fuck,” Lucas groans out. “Fuck, it’s so much,” his head rolls to one side, cheek pressed against the sheet, and Eliott uses it as an opportunity to nose at his jaw. “So good. You’re so good, baby. God.”

His chest aches with the sweet feeling of Lucas’ back pressed to him, and he moves his hips in shallow thrusts. He’s addicted to the taste of Lucas’ skin under his lips, to Lucas’ noises ringing in his ears, this feeling of complete contentment as Lucas squeezes their hands together.

He lets their hips slap together, faster, and faster, and faster.

He can’t get enough: of Lucas pinned under him, of the sounds punched out of him when Eliott drives into him with sharp thrusts. Of the melody their skins play when they smack together. Lucas’ moans go higher and louder, and he curses, speeding up.

He notices Lucas is slipping on the bed when the thrusts turn deeper and harder, and he pulls back a little, kneeling between Lucas’ legs and guiding their hands behind Lucas’ back.

Lucas’ shoulders drag against the sheets as Eliott pulls him up.

He grips Lucas’ wrists tight, pressing them against the small of his back as he starts thrusting into him with fast jerks of his hips.

“Oh, my god.” Lucas gasps. His hips chase Eliott’s frantically, hands clenching and unclenching helplessly in Eliott’s grip. “Oh, fuck, how are you fucking real?”

Eliott pushes their palms together, squeezing their fingers. “And you’re asking me?” He pants. His eyes watch entranced how he disappears inside of Lucas, how the back of Lucas’ thighs tremble with exertion and pleasure. “You’re so gorgeous. So fucking beautiful. I’ve never met anyone like you. My baby.”

Lucas breaks free of his grip then, falling flat on his belly.

Before Eliott can ask if there’s something wrong, Lucas is turning on his back, patting Eliott’s stomach with his hands.

“Up here.” He gasps. His cheeks are red, hot under Eliott’s hands when he bends down to kiss him, and he’s saying Eliott’s name silently with strawberry lips. “Say that again. Again.”

Legs wrap around Eliott’s hips, and then Lucas is moaning wetly against Eliott’s mouth as Eliott sinks into him again. There’s fingers in his hair, running down his neck and gripping his shoulders, Lucas’ pink lips brushing against his cheek back and forth with every thrust.

“You’re my baby.” Eliott whispers breathlessly. His hips pick up speed, hiding his face in Lucas’ neck. “My baby, baby, baby. You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

Lucas cries out, tightening his grip around Eliott’s body. He trembles in Eliott’s arms, nodding at Eliott’s words.

“And no one else’s.”

“And no one else’s.” Lucas repeats. “And no one else’s.”

“Fuck,” Eliott places wet kisses to Lucas’ neck, blindly gripping at his hair, tilting his chin up. The roof of his mouth tingles, and a burning heat coils at his belly, heart stuttering out of his throat. He kisses him desperately, hungrily. He kisses him with his mouth, and with his eyes, and with his fucking soul. “Fuck, baby, I-”

And then he’s coming.

He doesn’t register anything except Lucas’ face, slack and brimming with pleasure, mouth open in a silent scream as he follows right after him. He doesn’t register the nails scratching at his back or the sound of an ambulance rushing through the streets a block away from their apartment.

There’s no room for black spots in his vision. His whole mind fills with the boy under him. There’s only Lucas, and the way he looks when they’re kissing, and the face he makes when he’s coming.

When Lucas’ voice comes back, Eliott smiles.

“I’m gonna sleep for three days after this. I think you broke me.”

Eliott bends down to steal a kiss from him. Because he’s there, and he can’t not kiss him when he’s so close.

“I fucking hope not.” He whispers between them. His fingers brush the hair off his sweaty forehead, and Lucas huffs fondly. “I don’t know what I’d do if I ever broke you.”

“Hey.” Lucas runs the back of his hand down Eliott’s cheek. “You’re mine, and I’m yours. Hearts don’t break when it comes to us two, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

There’s a moment when they just look at each other, and then-

“Eli- baby, where the fuck is my phone?”

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 253: That Good Angst

Previously on BnHA: The villain Ending, whose name in retrospect is hella melodramatic for a guy whose power is MAKING ROAD MARKINGS COME TO LIFE, kidnapped Natsuo and then deservedly got his ass kicked by three teenagers. Endeavor won the manga’s coveted Best Hug award, made up by me just now, and then gave one of the best monologues in the whole series, basically owning up to all his crimes and saying he doesn’t want or deserve his son’s forgiveness. And he didn’t get it either, which was excellent. Instead, he announced to his kids that he was building them a new home for them to go live in with their mother and without him. Meanwhile Katsuki was all, “btw I’ve decided on my new hero name,” and the ENTIRE FANDOM was all “!!!!” until he went on to say, “but I ain’t revealing SHIT until I’ve told it to Best Jeanist,” which caused everyone to collectively wince and awkwardly glance at each other wondering who’s going to break it to him. Uh.

Today on BnHA: hAHAHAHAHHA.

Sorry, I forgot to turn my capslock back off. Anyways, so we return to U.A. and everything is all “HAPPY NEW YEAR IIDA!” and “STILL ON ABOUT THAT UNREQUITED LOVE THING, HUH OCHAKO?” and “LOOKS LIKE THAT SCAMPISH IMP BAKUGOU IS AT IT AGAIN!” and all the usual stuff. We then have a complete switch of gears, and I seriously mean like the GEAR SWITCH TO END ALL GEAR SWITCHES, as we cut to Aizawa and Mic driving to Tartarus! Why are they driving to Tartarus you ask? Well it’s because they got a call from Naomasa and he was all “hey, so you know your deceased childhood friend from chapters 59 through 65 of Vigilantes? Well IT TURNS OUT I HAVE A FUNNY STORY ABOUT THAT.” Anyway so the rest of this chapter can basically be summed up as (1) LOL SO KUROGIRI WAS REALLY SHIRAKUMO ALL ALONG, and (2) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

btw the whole reason I spoiled myself in the first place was because my dumbass id was all “WE SHOULD CHECK IF THEY MENTION THE HERO NAME” and I was like “YES” and just immediately lost all self-control. like it wasn’t an accidental click or anything; I was fully aware of what I was doing. lord knows what I would have done if I actually had been spoiled about the hero name lol. that would have been so much worse than the spoiler I actually got, so yeah. just stupid decisions all around. anyways how are you

no BnHA thumbnails on the Mangastream homepage today. must mean Kacchan didn’t make any good faces. ah well

lmao the chapter is literally titled “Shirakumo.” well I guess I wasn’t spoiled much after all. I did catch a half-glimpse (I was trying not to look; like, I had my fingers covering my eyes and was peeking through them. again, I’m not really sure what I was trying to accomplish in the first place honestly) of what seemed to be Aizawa with a shocked expression on his face though, so that’s why I was so convinced Kumo was somehow coming back from the dead or something. WE SHALL SEE

MY FORMULA 1 SON!!

lol I’m having one of those Berenstein moments. like. he didn’t always have those huge exhaust pipes running out from his sides and from either leg, right? those are just for this cover. or else something new and fancy he just added to his suit. right??

anyway so yes, Iida is the color page this week, just as we all expected from a chapter titled “Shirakumo”

“WINTER BREAK WAS OVER IN A FLASH” oh man. ain’t that always the way

wow I’ve really missed U.A. like, we’re cutting to these panels of USJ and the stadium, and it’s so fucking nostalgic geez. we weren’t even gone that long

Deku’s voiceover is talking about how they only have three months left in their “tumultuous” first year. ha. tumultuous. if Deku hadn’t met up with All Might, he could have easily fallen back on a career in PR; he’s got a gift for phrasing things diplomatically

Iida is wishing everyone a happy new year! happy new year Iida!!

he’s announcing that their class will be an action report meeting, which apparently means everyone’s gonna share what they learned over the winter break

but now he’s telling everyone to come down to Field Alpha, which Mangastream annoyingly spelled out with the Greek symbol α, forcing me to look it up because I’m sorry but I don’t speak math. ?? like what is this

now Aizawa’s sliding the door open all CRANKY because he’s MISSING HIS NAP

but Mina is all smooth like,

Mina could also have had a promising future in PR. well it’ll still serve them well in their hero careers too

oh my lord

WHAT is that FACE, Iida. just what. is that an eyebrow waggle. what the fuck. he looks like the next words out of his mouth were going to be “sliding into people’s dms”

jokes’s on you Horikoshi!! you think a panel like this will stop my “stupid sexy Iida” jokes? IT ONLY MAKES ME LOVE HIM MORE

oh? someone on the loudspeaker is calling Aizawa and summoning him to the faculty room. I wonder what this could be about. probably nothing!

now we’re cutting to the changing room and the girls are admiring Ochako’s new costume!

I’ll add an ETA later where I actually analyze the changes in her costume. right now let’s just pretend like I’m aware of what actually changed. I swear I pay attention to things. by the way, why would the suitcase get heavy? her quirk can be applied to anything can’t it?

(ETA: so the costume changes are (1) an upgrade to her gauntlets, and (2) an upgrade to her headset. so anyway that’s pretty cool, even if it was really only brought up in this chapter so that we could get that SWEET YA ROMANCE DRAMA. which I know annoys some people, but at this point I feel like Horikoshi only throws it in because he’s expected to, and the way he does it is so adorably reluctant that I can’t help but enjoy it at this point lol.)

OH MY GOD

OCHAKO YOU KEPT DEKU’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO YOU IN YOUR HERO COSTUME FOR GOOD LUCK, OH MY GOD. (1) YOU ARE THE LITERAL CUTEST, (2) IT’S TIMES LIKE THIS I’M GLAD I SHIP BASICALLY EVERYTHING BECAUSE THIS IS A DELIGHT, and (3) MINA’S REACTION TO THIS IS ABOUT TO BE MY FAVORITE THING OF ALL TIME, SO LET’S COUNT DOWN TO IT IN 3... 2...

okay but before we click to the next page, I just need to draw everyone’s attention to the background of that Jirou panel, where I’m pretty sure that is Ochako acquiring Hagakure’s quirk in a moment of transcendent desperation, much like how parents are able to summon incredible strength in times of crisis to lift cars off of their trapped children and shit. we are witnessing the next stage of human evolution over here

-- oh fuck me

hello, Horikoshi? yes, this was supposed to be a cute moment of teens being teens and giggling over high school crushes. did you not get the memo. what are you doing here with this sucker punch of feels right to my fucking kidneys. why would you do that. why does this panel of Ochako make me want to fucking cry, I did not ask for this

(ETA: but like also, you see how he just instantly drops the subject less than a panel later lol. like “THERE’S YOUR ROMANCE PLOT, OKAY?? NOW BACK TO THE REANIMATED BRAINWASHED CHILDHOOD FRIENDS ARC.”)

meanwhile in the boy’s locker room! so apparently word has spread about Deku mastering Bloopwhip!

so Ojiro is evidently fucking ripped under that karate gi. Ojiro, this one corner of a panel with you facing away from the screen is possibly the most interesting thing you’ve ever done. have you considered what a costume change might do for your image. I’m just saying

lmao Deku

I have never in my life found the idea of Villain Deku even remotely convincing until this exact moment. jesus christ. Deku are you sure there isn’t a little piece of AFO horcrux soul in you right at this moment. just wondering. if it was Kaminari doing this, the headline for this chapter would be “KAMINARI 100% CONFIRMED THE TRAITOR” and even I would find myself hard-pressed to argue at this point

anyway, the hero we deserve is stepping in to bring him back to reality sob

(ETA: I’m not even going to check the bnha tag to see if there is discourse about this, because I already know!! because clearly this is a very serious panel which should be taken 100% seriously!! anyway I’m not even going to go here lol.)

it’s okay kids I’m already dialing 911. Kacchan, honey, come here. listen, we need to put you in a time out. I love you but you can’t just go around throwing your spiky headgear at people like a fucking tomahawk, and also what the fuck is that thing even made of jesus christ

sob is Deku actually fucking dead

and so, while the girls were having cute shoujo drama about a romantic All Might plush, over in the boy’s locker room an actual murder was going down

FSDKDJL

I can’t. stop laughing. I

and the way they’re all just staring at him and clearly have no idea what to fucking do at this point. “so should we just... leave it in, then?” lmao Horikoshi what the fuck kind of substance did you ingest before you went and drew this. I need me some of that

(ETA: and now that I’ve mostly stopped laughing, I would also just like to point out that he is essentially saying “I just had to stop thinking so hard about it and just do it”, which I’ve only been saying SINCE FOREVER, DEKU, but sure go ahead and don’t listen to me then!)

ALL MIGHT IS...

WHY, YOU ASK? WHO CARES!!

lol apparently it’s a pun. someone go over there and check to make sure this All Might isn’t actually a bunch of Mirios hidden underneath a trench coat

anyway so they’re completely unimpressed, because they’re all jaded fucking teenagers with no souls, and they’re asking where Aizawa is

is this the part where we slide right back into the angst after our brief humorous interlude with the kiddos. because I am ready. bring it

OOOOH HERE WE GO, LOOK AT THIS TENSION

SO HERE WE HAVE MIC ACTUALLY TELLING AIZAWA TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND IT’S CONFIRMED, THE WORLD IS ENDING

and look at Aizawa’s body language. arms crossed, fingers tapping anxiously, gritting his teeth. fucking Mic has to tell him to calm down. jesus christ. anyway so Aizawa angst is apparently MY DRUG you guys, and Horikoshi you can go right ahead and INJECT THAT SHIT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS

AHHHHHHH

OHHHHHH THAT’S GOOD. I might need someone to come and slap me in the face in another minute just to make sure I can continue here

-- HOLD UP, WHAT

THAT SOUND YOU HEAR IS THE SOUND OF MY MENTAL BRAKES SCREECHING TO A FUCKING HALT, EVERYONE HOLD THE FUCK UP WHILE I DO A QUICK MENTAL ROLL CALL OF THE VILLAIN CAST AT USJ. FUCK ME, PLEASE TELL ME HE WASN’T THE NOUMU. BUT ASIDE FROM HIM AND TOMURA, AND THE FACELESS NO-NAME VILLAINS, THAT ONLY LEAVES... OKAY MY BRAIN JUST SERIOUSLY FROZE UP WHILE PROCESSING THIS, BECAUSE NO FUCKING WAY

fuck me fuck me FUCK ME

there is no fucking way it can really be Kurogiri, can it?? Kumo didn’t have a portal quirk. but All For One, though?? but no wait because we know he didn’t have that quirk because he had to use the other teleportation one instead. John’s or whoever’s

so then the only other option is the Noumu. could this be the start of the Noumu arc at long last?! oh my godddddd I’m about to get up out of my seat and just jump around for a second to get all my nerves out. ahhhhhhh

Horikoshi knew full well what he was doing titling the chapter “Shirakumo” and then teasing us with this incredibly tense buildup, too. I have actual fucking chills

oh my god IT REALLY IS THE NOUMU ISN’T IT

I HATE AND LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SIMULTANEOUSLY, IT IS THE WEIRDEST FEELING. IT’S BOTH INVIGORATING AND TERRIFYING HOLY SHIT

I WANTED THIS. I KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE DARK. I WANTED IT SO BAD AND I COULDN’T WAIT FOR IT AND NOW IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING AND WHAT A FUCKING WAY TO KICK IT OFF I JUST!!!

AHHHHH

DON’T MIND ME PLEASE CONTINUE AND IGNORE ALL OF MY SILENT SCREAMING!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AIZAWA IS ABOUT TO LOSE HIS FUCKING MIND. HIS CLOSEST FRIEND WAS DESECRATED AND VIOLATED IN AN UNIMAGINABLE WAY AND TRANSFORMED INTO SOMETHING UNRECOGNIZABLE WITH ALL TRACES OF HUMANITY LOST, AND THIS WHOLE TIME HE THOUGHT HE WAS FUCKING DEAD. THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A THERAPY FOR THAT, PEOPLE. THAT IS THE KIND OF ANGST THERE’S NO COMING BACK FROM

ANYWAY, SO THERE’S THAT SHOCKED AIZAWA FACE I CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF YESTERDAY, NOW WITH HORRIFIC CONTEXT, AND IF ANYONE NEEDS ME I’LL JUST BE HERE IN THE CORNER SETTING MY KEYBOARD TO PERMANENT CAPSLOCK, AND UPDATING MY SEXUAL ORIENTATION TO “THE FUCKED-UP AIZAWA ANGST IN THIS CHAPTER” BECAUSE THAT’S APPARENTLY WHAT IT IS AND ALL THIS TIME I NEVER KNEW

OH GODDDDD

BRB UPDATING MY ORIENTATION AGAIN TO “MIC’S COMFORTING HAND ON AIZAWA’S SHOULDER AS AIZAWA STRUGGLES TO HOLD ON TO THE LAST OF HIS COMPOSURE WHILE TRYING AND FAILING TO PROCESS THIS UNFATHOMABLY HEINOUS THING THAT’S ABOUT TO BE REVEALED”

(ETA: and also!! the fact that either Mic’s hand is shaking, or Aizawa is shaking so badly that it’s affecting Mic’s hand on his shoulder too! either way how the hell am I not literally dead after reading this chapter, I don’t even know.)

WAIT WHAT!!!!

THE CORE?! SO WAIT, IS IT KUROGIRI THEN??? OR WHAT?!

(ETA: I know I’m just inserting random commentary all over the place at this point, but like, can we also talk about how Naomasa looks like he hasn’t slept in eleven years?? this is taking such a toll on his soul here and it’s heartbreaking.)

OH MY GOD!!!!!

I WISH I COULD BETTER DESCRIBE THIS FEELING BECAUSE IT’S REALLY SOMETHING!! I’M SO EXCITED AND AT THE SAME TIME FULLY AWARE OF HOW I’M DELIGHTING IN THE PAIN OF THESE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, SO IT’S LIKE THIS GUILTY SADISTIC GLEE AND AT THE SAME TIME SHOCK AND EXCITEMENT AND DAMN NEAR A KIND OF ELATION AT BEING FULLY TAKEN FOR A RIDE BY THIS EPIC FUCKING TWIST. IT’S GOOD SHIT

SDLKFJASLKDFJ;LKS

(ETA: so if they can trace quirk factors like this, they should be able to do it with the other Noumu they have in captivity, and also with any dead Noumus they’ve collected as well, yes? including the one that Stain killed a few months back? like, don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here trying to calculate the Six Degrees of Bakuangst for this plotline seeing as my brain, as ever, is focused on one thing and one thing only.

and so if they have managed to ID some of the Noumus, would that info maybe be on the Hero Network? meaning Endeavor would have access? would the interns then have access too? or if not, is his password something easily guessable, like Shouto’s birthday or something? will I ever stop running out of hypothetical scenarios along these lines? doesn’t seem likely as of now.)

“SEVERAL DIFFERENT QUIRK FACTORS” HOLY SHIT, AFO. THAT MANIAC. THIS WHOLE TIME MY RESPECTED DOCTOR OF MEDICINE WAS REALLY A HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT WHO GOT CONKED ON THE HEAD BY SOME FALLING ROCKS ONE DAY. THE GRANDDADDY OF ALL TWISTS!! THIS TWIST WAS CONCEIVED IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS!!

AND BY THE WAY, THANK YOU AGAIN TO THAT ANON, BECAUSE HOLY SHIT THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT IS FUCKING RAW. ONCE I FINALLY COME DOWN FROM THIS BIZARRE HIGH I’M GOING TO CRY FOR AIZAWA BECAUSE HE IS HURTING SO BAD RIGHT NOW AND I CAN’T EVEN, SOMEONE SAVE HIMMMM

WELL FOLKS. THERE IT IS. HORIKOSHI FINALLY HOOKING US UP WITH THAT GOOD ANGST. THE PLOT THAT WAS PROMISED. THE ANGST THAT WAS AVOWED. YOU GUYS I CAN’T BELIEVE AIZAWA SHOUTA WAS SHIGARAKI TOMURA’S FUCKING UNCLE THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME. HOLY SHIT

AND YOOOO I JUST HAD A BUNCH OF THOUGHTS THAT I CAN BARELY EVEN PROCESS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THIS REVELATION OPENS UP SO MANY NEW DOORS NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN THOUGH. BUT LIKE, IF AFO AND UJIKO WERE IN THE BUSINESS OF TAKING CHILDREN’S CORPSES AND REVIVING THEM AND INFUSING THEM WITH UPGRADED QUIRKS AND NO MEMORIES OF THEIR PRIOR LIVES, THEN HOLY FUCKING SHIT, WHAT IF A CERTAIN TODOROKI SIBLING REALLY DID FUCKING DIE AND HAS ACTUALLY BEEN A PUPPET OF AFO’S THIS ENTIRE TIME OH MY GOD. THIS CHAPTER IS JUST!!!

(ETA: yeah I actually have a lot of thinking to do about this one, because holy shit. I mean there must be a reason we’re getting this reveal directly on the heels of the Todoangst Arc with all of its talk about Touya and how dead he is, right? god I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. this stupid manga!!)

AND AIZAWA’S FACE. THE WAY HE’S COVERING HIS MOUTH AS THOUGH TRYING TO KEEP HIMSELF FROM BEING SICK. THE MAN WHO PRIDES HIMSELF ON HIS RATIONALITY IS SO COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED BY EMOTION THAT HE’S STRUGGLING TO KEEP IT TOGETHER. THIS IS THE DEFINING WOUND OF HIS CHILDHOOD, RETURNING ALL OF A SUDDEN TO STAB HIM RIGHT IN THE HEART ALL OVER AGAIN WITH A FRESH NEW KIND OF HORROR. MIC, YOU’D BETTER BE THERE FOR HIM AFTER THIS, BECAUSE HE’S GOING TO FUCKING BREAK DOWN IN THE CAR ON THE RIDE HOME OR SOMETHING PROBABLY, AND HE NEEDS YOU, AND YOU PROBABLY NEED HIM TOO, AND FUCK

I DON’T HAVE SPACE FOR ALL THIS ANGST IN MY HOUSE!!! BUT LIKE HELL AM I GIVING ANY OF IT BACK, IT’S MINE NOW AND I’M KEEPING IT!! I WILL FUCKING RENT OUT A STORAGE LOCKER FOR THE EXCESS!! I WILL HOARD IT ALL LIKE A GREEDY DRAGON IN MY CAVE. THIS ANGST IS MY CHILD NOW. FUCKING SUBSCRIBED, GOOD NIGHT EVERYONE

[mrsbenedictbridgerton]

The Shark

My first writing of any kind in like - years. 2K words of me playing with the toys I put away so long ago and missed.

Card shark Killian Jones has taken Mills Casino for a sweet half a million. So they send in the best woman for the job of bringing him down. But when sparks fly, can either of them keep a cool head?

Ao3

White teeth bit down upon blood red lips. Jade green eyes were framed by brows drawn into a straight line. The fingers of her free hand, the one not holding a fan of cards, drummed lightly against the emerald green baize of the card table. 

Killian Jones resisted the urge to smile. Such tells were clearly those of a novice, one not used to the high stakes of Mills Casino and certainly not the cordoned-off area in which they now played, one step before the high stakes section which sat behind a glossy back door behind her. He eyed the stack of golden chips that lay beside the tiny purse she had placed down when she sat, her long legs swivelling around the short stool, revealing the short hem of her red dress. Not short of coin, at least. He hid a smirk, this time by peeling off the black leather jacket he wore. 

The lass with the golden hair nodded, taking another card into her hand. He watched her brow wrinkle for a second. Bust. Then her eyes raised, meeting his cool blue ones, a flash of electricity racing through his veins. He took a deep breath. Aye, she was gorgeous, but so was he. Clearly he had been too long without company in his bed if only a glance from an attractive woman sent waves of heat through his body, his groin tightening and then thickening in response. Fuck. He frowned and concentrated on his cards.

This was child’s play, she thought, as she watched the dealer take her cards and her chips. Pretending to be bad at Blackjack, looking like a beginner, losing a few- hundred - dollars (expensed, naturally): piece of cake. If she were to be truly honest, the accent threw her. She knew he was British and had been prepared for the queen’s English. But the honey smooth timbre of his foreign tones had threaded straight through her the first time he’d spoken.

She schooled her features in the innocent mask she had practised that afternoon. But ignoring him, well, that had been a little harder. She’d seen a picture, of course. Mills Casino had tabs on all its high rollers, especially when they took the house for a cool half million only a week ago. Actually, Emma had anticipated having to work a little harder to track him down. Surely, he wouldn’t return to the scene of his crime so soon. But the card counting crook had. Maybe he was arrogant. He certainly looked arrogant. All dressed in black, fingers covered in silver rings, shirt unbuttoned to show an almost unseemly amount of chest hair. But that wasn’t just it. There was something there. It was magnetism. Something that didn’t come across in a security image or a copy of his ID. He radiated confidence and… heat. Even from across the table she’d had to thank her great foundation for the hiding the blush she felt when their eyes met and she saw their deep blue.

And blushing was not her. Not Emma Swan, hard ass, ex con, best damn bail bonds person on the east coast.

She signalled to the waitress and ordered a Manhattan. She didn’t often drink on the job, but this was medicinal. She needed to think straight. To relax.

Her lips caressed the rim of the glass. Images of more enjoyable uses for that mouth taunted him every time he looked in her direction. He should stop looking. He was here to work. Almost a week’s break - in honour of the nice payday he had won last week - had been unheard of time for him until now. Routine was important. Focus was essential. Mistakes - fatal. 

Tonight was for taking it easy. Perhaps it was brazen to show his face again, at least so soon. But he was almost certain his activities had gone undetected. That said he had done nothing illegal… more frowned upon. Frowned upon with fists. By casino security. He flinched briefly as he remembered his first foray into the depths that department. He’d had a swollen lip and black eye for a week. And he’d learned a valuable lesson.

She ran her finger tips along her clavicle. Her long wavy hair had fallen over her shoulder, sweeping along the low neckline of her dress, the shade of her cleavage drawing his eyes. 

Bloody hell. What was it about her? He felt… drunk. Even though his two fingers of rum had remained untouched since he sat down. The cards were turned and he lost. Again. Three hands in a row, his count had been obliterated by blonde hair and long legs. 

Enough.

He picked up his glass and downed the contents in one go. He nodded to the dealer and tossed him a couple of chips before picking up his jacket and heading for the exit.

What the fuck?

She racked her mind for the file she had built up on him.

Killian Jones never, never, left a table before he had at least doubled up. And he never left the casino floor before 3am. She glanced at her watch. It was just after midnight.

She had to get him tonight. Tomorrow, he could be gone. This was the first sign of him in days. She could just call out regular security to stop him, but Regina Mills valued discretion above all else. She did not want even a whiff of a scene. Which was why her services had been needed.

A second later, she was following him, making rapid little steps in her too-high heels as she headed for the VIP exit that meant high rollers didn’t have to walk the whole casino floor to get to their hotel room - or back onto the street.

She nodded at Tiny, the tall, bearded security officer who held open the door for her, as she made her pursuit. But she had only made a few paces along the dimly lit corridor before she felt a hand upon her wrist. A warm, strong hand. It was him, he’d been waiting where corridor intersected with another, stepping out to block her way as she halted in shock.

She thought he had blue eyes? No, they were sapphire. Dazzling sapphire. Hot, glittering sapphire.

This was the moment when she should have protested, men did not grab her without hearing a piece of her mind. Instead, she shook her arm free and stepped back.

Killian enjoyed watching her expression change - from shock to curiosity to idignance. If he said he wasn’t used to the way women reacted to him, well, he’d be a liar. And a liar he was not. Bending the truth however... 

“Can I help?” he asked, rubbing his fingertips across his lips.

She looked momentarily stunned as if she did not know what to say. But she had followed him. He’d watched out the corner of his eye as she had seen him leave. Things were getting interesting. He liked interesting.

“Are you lost, love?” he asked, caressing the endearment with his tongue, taking a step closer and enjoying her flush.

Her shoulders straightened and she smiled. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Interesting. Well then…

He reached out and cupped her cheek. “You blush when you’re winning.”

“I do not-” she protested.

His land moved lower and skimmed across the exposed skin of her chest. “Here,” he added.

He could feel the racing of her heart as his fingers moved. His own pulse answered with a similar beat. By God, she was magnificent.

This was not going according to plan, she thought, as her skin burned from his touch. The cuffs should be on already. He should have been dragged down to the security room by now. Instead she was staring, her mouth a little open, her gaze fixed upon his stubble coated cheek which his knuckles has just passed over. Would those little hairs be hard and rough, or soft? She held out her hand and touched it. Soft, she thought, kissable.

Clearly there was some mutuality in that thought. His gaze dropped to her lips. His free hand found her waist and drew her closer. Then, his mouth was upon hers.

Soft and warm and strong. He tasted like spiced rum. His musky cologne mixed with the smell of the expensive leather jacket he wore. She sank into his kiss, letting her mind block out all the (very good) reasons that this was a very, very bad idea. Convincing herself it was just a kiss as her fingers slotted into his hair and he turned her, pressing her back against the flocked wallpaper of the corridor wall, sliding his thigh between hers. His heavy arousal pressed against her hip and she ground against it. Revelling in the feeling of power it gave - well, the illusion at least.

If the urge to pull up her skirts and take her right there had been even a little stronger, he would not have been able to resist. But Killian Jones was nothing if not a gentleman and even for him, taking a lass up against the wall in a public corridor would be a faux pax. He didn’t even know her name, and such information was a bare minimum requirement for his bed partners, or not bed in this case. He let his hands caress her waist and the delicious curve of her hips, drawing under her buttocks and pulling her tighter against him, torturing himself with the sensation of bodies entwined save for a few layers of infernal clothing. He wanted her. God, he needed her. The ache in his blood since she’d first appeared was reaching fever pitch.

He moved his lips to her neck, nibbling down the soft skin, allowing his lust to cool a moment.

“Do you have a name, love?”

Name. Yes, she had a name.

The question had cracked the spell she was under. Not broken it, she still felt heady with desire and something a little stronger than lust. But her name... It was at stake. This rogue, this scoundrel, with the silken tongue and gorgeous accent was her mark. She laid her head back against the wall, took a deep breath and tried to clear her head and ignore the sensation his lips were making upon her neck.

“Yeah, I do. Swan. Emma Swan,” and with one hand she reached into her purse and pulled out the cuffs she had brought. “Mill’s Security.”

He froze, his lips pulling away from her skin as the words sunk in.

“Ah,” he sighed. He jerked, ready to make a move. But, she was quicker. In a few quick moves, she had his face pressed where she had been, his hands behind him and she was fastening the cuffs. He didn’t struggle, which at first gave her pause, until she swung him around and saw the arrogant smile on his lips.

“Well lass, if that’s what you’re into, you just had to ask.”

She rolled her eyes, “Watch it, buddy.”

“Indeed I shall,” he replied, his eyes travelling down her skimpy red dress.

She pushed him ahead of her along the corridor.

Well, this was a turn for the books. Never had he been bested in such a manner. It felt oddly amusing. Perhaps more so if he wasn’t still feeling somewhat amourous, his body protesting against the abbreviation of the enjoyable activities. He liked this woman, this Swan. The name suited her. Graceful, elegant, strong. No one messed with a swan; powerful buggers they were if you got too close. 

Well then.

He let her steer him along the corridor, taking a left before the exit, stopping at a large unmarked door. She punched a code into the security pad beside it and pushed the door open. Inside, there was a table with a chair on each side and little else to speak of. 

She nudged him to sit.

“So, Swan, not you have me all to yourself, what now?”

She might have rolled her eyes at his question but she couldn't hide the blush. “Puh-lease, you are far too into yourself.”

“Merely an avid observer of womankind.”

She licked her lips. “You sit, I make a call, I get paid and you…” She let the words hang in the air before shrugging. “Well, that’s not my area.”

He chuckled, noting the interesting shiver of disappointment that rippled down his spine. “Tis a pity.”

“Yeah,” she  hummed, letting her eyes linger on him for a moment as she reached for the door handle. She squared her shoulders. “Sit tight, revenue protection have a few things they want to talk to you about.”

One last time, she met his eyes. He fancied he saw regret. 

Then the door closed.

She made the call from the courtesy phone along the hall, cell service being patchy at best in the depths of the casino. Now all she had to do was wait, make the handover and then head home for a hot bath and a large glass of pinot. Or two.

Her skin began to rapidly cool as the fever of those moments together faded into memory. God he could kiss. And his hands… and… She flushed as she revisited the sensations. She’s almost lost herself in the embrace. If it had gone on a moment or two more-

The back of her hand pressed against her mouth. He was a fraud, a conman, a manipulator. Making people feel things was what he did. It meant nothing. Even if it had been so long since she had felt anything beyond the basic mechanics attraction. It had just been to long. That was it. 

She tapped her foot impatiently. They should be here in a moment. She should check on him. 

Hurrying back to the room, she stilled her breathing before entering the code to open it. She would just check. Make sure he was… well, something. The door opened and she peered inside. The handcuffs were on the floor, a corner of the carpet pulled away to reveal a small trap door. More importantly, there was no Killian Jones.

Mother fucker!

Brushing himself off, Killian made his way out of the underground parking lot. The cuff key he always carried was tucked away in his vest pocket. He made a mental note to send Tiny a bonus, those details about the service shafts has come in very useful.

If he felt regret as he joined the busy mele outside the casino, he pushed it away. She was just another woman, this swan. Nothing to concern himself over.

And if he paused at the next sight of blonde hair and red fabric, well, that was another matter.

[helenaswriting]

ships for @why-the-heck-am-i-here!

@why-the-heck-am-i-here: “Okay I really really want a ship thingy for marvel, Harry Potter and stranger things pls!! Imma send it here because I want to tell you as much about myself as possible 👉🏻👈🏻. (Feel free to post it still lol! Okay so my name is Bailey and I’m 5’9 (v tall) I currently have kinda short black wavy hair but I’m always dying it! Imma do pink next ;). I have green eyes and I tend to always do big thick eyeliner and smudged eyeshadow. I dress more on the oversized grunge side of the fashion spectrum, tho I would love to go more alternative. Okay now that that’s out of the waaayyy. I’ve always been described as the cool one kinda. I’m laid back but at the same time always up to do something stupid lol. I’m definitely always up for some fun but also a good ol nap. When I’m not doing anything like that I’m drawing or binging any show/movie I can get my hands on! Anime sign me up! Horror sign me up! Romantic sign me up!! You get the point. Back to drawing tho, that is such a big part of my life. I’ve been drawing since I can remember. Rather it’s just doodling or going out side with a canvas and some watercolor I’m always doing something new with art! I even have a small business. And if I happen to get a cool idea I’ll sketch it out on anything! My pets are also a big part of my life. I have a Pomeranian puppy named kuma and a GIANT Akita named Harlow. Their kinda stupid ngl but that means they take after mom 😣. Oh there’s music! I’m literally always listening to it or wishing I was listening to it, some times if I can’t I’ll start humming a song without realizing. Lastly id say I’m really touchy, I like to hold hands and get hugs 🥺. SNUGGLING IS THE BEST AHHH. Just some little facts; I’m a slytherin 🚨🚨 My favorite marvel character is rocket I’m a sucker for sandwiches My favorite color is black I always imagined myself sneaking my dog into Hogwarts as a pet (probably the Akita because 🙃) I’m a master a video games! Pokémon is my bff That’s all I can think of! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I HOPE IM NOT A BOTHER 👉🏻👈🏻”

hello!! you aren’t a bother at all and thank you for your request! i just did marvel and harry potter, if that’s alright? i’m very sorry, i just had so many considerations for stranger things and couldn’t make up my mind :( i hope you still enjoy reading these headcanons!! <3

· so, let’s start of with marvel! · as i was reading your description, i was considering many ngl, but i just have to go with bucky, because y’all would really be a power couple. · so the two of you meet very randomly, and a little cliché, at a blockbuster. (rip blockbuster btw). · you’re browsing shelves of movies, just taking a good look when you spot this tall guy, with shoulder-length brown hair, eyes on you, flustered when you spot him and you just kind of smile to yourself. · you spot the metal hand he’s hiding in his sleeve, (knowing who he was, though it wasn’t something you minded,) as you strike up a conversation with him, about the movie he’d quickly picked up when he saw you heading his way. · “the 40-year-old virgin, huh?” · “what- uhh, sorry?” · you nod to the dvd in his hand, realising that was the movie he’d randomly picked when panicking, though he wouldn’t admit he was, even later when you become a couple. · bucky and you end up leaving with each others numbers on your phones, and though he has a hard time admitting it, he’s very giggly and happy. · i mean he just got a really cute girls number, what was there not be ecstatic about? · anywho, so fastforward to after a little too many dates where he asks if you want to make it official. · it’s actually a really sweet moment. · you two are sitting at a fountain, no one around, your head on his shoulder as you just listen to the sound of the water behind you, a comfortable silence between you two. · he then kisses your lips, and you’re both feeling over the moon. · so this guy loves everything about you. · you both kind of have the same energy in a way, both laid back and though he might not have the same amount of coolness as you, you two just click and fit perfectly. · there’s never awkward silences between y’all, you’re practically soulmates, and that’s what steve and sam say too when they meet you and see you together. · if bucky has to go shopping for new clothes he always brings you along for advice, ‘cause he really likes your style and the vibe you have. · and you love styling him, since he goes along with almost everything. · for only you, of course. · bucky always hypes you up and admires your art, kissing your temples as you draw or paint, looking at your art. though he thinks your the art. · btw he absolutely LOVES your pets, and he spoils them by giving them too many treats sometimes, but he can’t help it. · yes, he is a big dog lover.  · is it just because they are your dogs and seem to have some of your personality? · maybe.  · he’s a soft boy with you, always there for you, holding you close whenever he can. · and this guy is also very touchy. · there’s nothing he loves more than laying on the couch with you, snuggling and cuddling as you watch a movie together or playing video games. · you almost always end up talking through movies, not being able to focus, but y’all don’t really mind.  · and you always kick buckys ass in video games, and when he get’s sad about losing you make up for it with kisses and loads of love <3. · he loves listening to music with you too and you showing him songs you like, since he’s not all that up to date with modern music and what’s popular nowadays. · bucky LOVES holding hands with you btw. · he only really uses lots of pda if he’s jealous of some guy checking you out, but he always holds your hand, proud to have you by his side as his lover. · he just appreciates you so much, and is so thankful that you support him and are there for him, especially when he’s going through dark episodes of trauma and PTSD. · all in all, you’re a real power couple, always strong together and you both rely a lot on each other. the trust and bond the two of you is so deep and stunning, and you’re a real dreamy, grunge couple.

· now to the world of harry potter! · okay, so honestly how can i not ship you with the obvious person who came to my mind first- draco malfoy.  · so the two of you are childhood friends and meet in your first year at hogwarts, befriending the boy. · we all know that draco is quite the dramatic person sometimes, and you two are quite different in that sense. · sure you have the same slytherin qualities, but since you’re waaay more laid back, sure up for a little trouble, but nothing with major drama, draco is the opposite. · he’s meddling himself into things that are unbelievable sometimes, getting into trouble for the most dramatic things.  · but you’re always there to help him. · you grow to be best friends, and many from the other houses judge you for that due to his reputation. · but the thing was that they didn’t actually know him the way you knew him, as a best friend, though you wanted to be more, and let’s be honest draco has had a crush on you since your third year at hogwarts. · he asks if you want to go to the yule ball with him, and that’s when you both crack at the same time to tell each other you want something more than to just be friends. · might i add draco is very enchanted by your dress, which i personally imagine to be this black or grey, puffy gown. · no matter what you would be wearing, he’d love it and think you look gorgeous. · “draco, i-” · “i have to tell you-” · “oh,” you both say at the same time. · “you go first!” · “no, you, you.” · “i insist you speak first, i-” · but he interrupts you by placing his lips on yours and god are there loads of butterflies in your stomach. · from that night, you’re a couple, but it’s not something you disclose to many people in the beginning, despite draco being so fond of pda. · fond of pda doesn’t even begin to describe it honestly. · once you’re a couple he can’t stop showering you with kisses, hugs, gifts, chocaltes- everything. · infront of anyone, anywhere. · btw he loves shopping with you and for you, and simply must give you really extra clothes worth god knows how many galleons, but he doesn’t mind at all. · whenever you gift him something it’s usual small, but very personal, and god this boy may seem tough and ready to square up, but he becomes so emotional when you give him a present- no matter what it is. · also he loves giving you art supplies, insisting on buying your watercolour paintings so he can have them on display both in his dorm but also at home, though his parents may not be to fond of it. · he’s your number one supporter and inspiration. · draco is very proud to have you, and WILL show you off whenever he can. · he thinks and knows you deserve it, for everything you put up with. · aka him. · draco is the sort of person who has a facade for most people, you being one of the only ones, if not the only one, to be able to break down that facade. · he knows that he can be difficult sometimes, since being emotional is something he’s bad at showing just because it’s something he hides a lot, but he knows he can trust you and be himself around you. · and he knows that you’re always there for him. · and draco is always there for you. · you two have a lot of fun and are always pulling pranks or getting into trouble. · on a date you two went to explore the dark forest, luckily not getting hurt, but even if it was scary, it was funny as well. · afterwards you retreated to your dorms, sitting in the common room, having movie marathons, which annoyed the other slytherins since you two hog the tv quite a bit. · he also loves sneaking up to your dorm and taking you out on midnight walks. · sometimes you take your dog along, and it’s all just very cute. · all in all, you are such a great pair, strong, fun and troublesome, yet sweet and tender.

[guernsey-island]

Please answer 1-98 >:3

Weird asks that say a lot

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?      water bottles 2. chocolate bars or lollipops?      chocolate bars 3. bubblegum or cotton candy?      cotton candy, though I don't like either very much 4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?      I don't know 5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?      plastic cups??? 6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?      sportswear I guess 7. earbuds or headphones?      I only have earbuds right now, but I like both 8. movies or tv shows?      tv shows, but that doesn't mean I don't like movies too 9. favorite smell in the summer?      the ocean 10. game you were best at in p.e.?      capture the flag 11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?      whatever I can find 12. name of your favorite playlist?      "Good Songs :D" 13. lanyard or key ring?      key ring 14. favorite non-chocolate candy?      I don't particularly like any non-chocolate candy. Too artificial and sweet :/ 15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?      Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 16. most comfortable position to sit in?      leaning back and with my legs out 17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?      white converse 18. ideal weather?      raining or a mild temperature like 80 degrees F paired with high humidity 19. sleeping position?      I fall asleep on my side and wake up on my back 20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?      Google docs heheh 21. obsession from childhood?      I was one of those warrior cats kids (no, I didn't pretend to be warrior cats at recess) 22. role model?      Snickers 23. strange habits?      popping my back, checking sunset/sunrise times 24. favorite crystal?     all crystals are great 25. first song you remember hearing?      Counting Stars by OneRepublic 26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?      hiking 27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?      reading 28. five songs to describe you?      Modern Loneliness- Lauv // Scared of Heights- Loving Caliber // backpack- slchld // By Now- Will Jay // Come True- khai dreams, Forrest., Biskwiq 29. best way to bond with you?      don't annoy me 30. places that you find sacred?      the beach when no one is there or deep in the mountains 31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 32. top five favorite vines?      road work ahead, jared 19, damn daniel, 2 bros chillin in a hot tub, x files theme 33. most used phrase in your phone?      probably >:3 34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?      that spotify ad about peter and jumping/skipping rope. IF you knew what an 8track tape was!! 35. average time you fall asleep?      ~2:30am 36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?      the pepe the frog memes 37. suitcase or duffel bag?      suitcase 38. lemonade or tea?      lemonade but tea is also superb 39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?      lemon cake bc I've never had lemon meringue pie 40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?      I don't really remember. Let's go with Mr. Rightmyer and Mr. Mikow in general (ig matrix_multiplication). or maybe the time Sami put a lamp on her head and pretended to be Shaggy 41. last person you texted?      Snickers 42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?      jacket pockets 43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?      hoodie 44. favorite scent for soap?      hmmm something tropical 45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?      sci-fi 46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?      clothing 47. favorite type of cheese?      swiss or colby jack or parmigiano-reggiano 48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?      peaches bc they're the best fruit 49. what saying or quote do you live by?      "you become what you think about" "success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal"- Earl Nightingale "the opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity" "sanity and happiness are an impossible combination"- Mark Twain "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading"- Lao Tzu "failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough" - Og Mandino 50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?      let's go with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TilHylia7rE and more recently, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voncdcV648g 51. current stresses?      upcoming exams, writing essays 52. favorite font?      My current favorites are Frank Ruhl Libre, Overlock, and Rajdhani 53. what is the current state of your hands?      good, though I perpetually have a bump on one finger from writing too much 54. what did you learn from your first job?      job?? what job? 55. favorite fairy tale?      three little pigs 56. favorite tradition?      sleeping 57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?      I don't know 58. four talents you’re proud of having?      Freestyling (ground moves and juggling), shooting knuckleballs, popping my back really well, running a 5-6 minute mile 59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?      I don’t know what my catchphrase would be 60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?      a shonen where the protagonist is trying to survive in a crazy world, become the best at something, or master some special power (examples: tower of god or solo leveling if it was an anime) OR something with a mafia 61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?      "Well, if you only knew how little I really know about the things that matter"- Elio in cmbyn the movie (think about this quote all the time) "Let us cultivate our garden"-Candide in Candide by Voltaire “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”- Sinclair in Demian by Hermann Hesse “I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”- Sinclair in Demain by Hermann Hesse “Know yourself and go in swinging.”- More than this by Patrick Ness “Just leave me alone. I’m not myself. I’m falling apart, and I don’t want you here.”- Charlie in Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Tons of quotes and references from Arthur, httyd, and other media 62. seven characters you relate to?      Lance (vld), zuko (atla), okonkwo (things fall apart), nwoye (things fall apart), bokuto (haikyuu), sinclair (demian), hiccup (httyd) 63. five songs that would play in your club?      Wednesday Girl- Elijah Who, Aso, Peachy!, Kudasaibeats, slchld // Way Back Home- SHAUN, Conor Maynard, Sam Feldt // Let Me Down Slow (Acoustic)- New Hope Club // Crush Culture- Conan Gray // All Night Long- TAEYEON, LUCAS 64. favorite website from your childhood?      animal jam 65. any permanent scars?      I have a ton of scars on my legs and knees. I ran into a cart at staples once and have a big scar from that. I have a few scars on my elbows too 66. favorite flower(s)?      columbine (CO state flower) 67. good luck charms?      none 68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?      I have no idea 69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?      I don’t know 70. left or right handed?       right 71. least favorite pattern?      cheetah or zebra print 72. worst subject?      hmmm biology but only bc I don't put in the effort 73. favorite weird flavor combo?      I don't know. I like food 74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?      I don't think I've experienced enough pain to accurately answer this question. I've only taken ibuprofen once (when I got my wisdom teeth taken out), but I didn't think it was that necessary to take 75. when did you lose your first tooth?      probably when I was six 76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?      scalloped potatoes, hash browns, Spanish tortillas, potato salad, mashed potatoes 77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?      aloe vera 78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?      sushi from a grocery store 79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?      school ID 80. earth tones or jewel tones?      earth tones 81. fireflies or lightning bugs?      they're called fireflies 82. pc or console?      pc 83. writing or drawing?      writing 84. podcasts or talk radio?      podcasts 84. barbie or polly pocket?      no 85. fairy tales or mythology?      mythology 86. cookies or cupcakes?      cookies 87. your greatest fear?      Accidentally biting off my tongue and then choking on it, seeing things in mirrors, being stabbed with a knife as I enter a hotel elevator, receiving emails 88. your greatest wish?      Happiness??? I don’t know 89. who would you put before everyone else?      Snickers 90. luckiest mistake?      I don't know 91. boxes or bags?      boxes 92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?      sunlight 93. nicknames?      let's not talk abt that,,, 94. favorite season?      spring or summer 95. favorite app on your phone?      google play books, goodreads, tumblr, kakaotalk, spotify, google keep 96. desktop background?      it's a slideshow. the background at the moment is a photo of Manarola, Italy taken by Peter Hegedus. It's one of my favorite photographs of all time 97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?      three not including 911 (so four) 98. favorite historical era?     1300s in the Mongol empire or around when the spice trade was at its peak, 1800s in America during westward expansion, 1920s, ancient egypt, Harlem Renaissance 

[stusbunker]

Known: Topside Turvy

A Supernatural Dark Fan-fiction

Featuring: Dean Winchester x Female OC, Dean x Demon!Reader

Series Masterlist

A/N: I have included dates relevant to air dates for reference points. I try not to repeat information you already know, but please ask if something doesn’t make sense! xoxo Stu

Warnings: Torture, captivity, demons, Possession, necromancy, corpse disposal/ desecration, murder, eating raw beef, autopsies, animal death, angel kills, show level violence, Slow Burn. More warnings to come. Each Chapter will have its own warnings, because I am generous like that.

Earth Date: April 18, 2013

Location: Hell, and its Earth-level operations

The king knew the Winchesters were interfering with his domain; all too soon his rage reverberated throughout every corner of Hell. Your pacifism had somehow gone unseen, leaving you to ponder their motivations in silence as you focused your energy to quell your panic over betraying the crown. Crowley worked in secret with the kidnapped prophet under the strictest of security. Today the rumors started: he decided to use a new angle to break the petulant former honor student. The king of Hell was holding a casting call. Any demon who thought they had the chops to portray the Winchesters well enough to coax information out of the paranoid prophet. ‘Potential side parts available, real talent only apply.’

Curiosity got the best of you, after a few hours you tracked down the where and when. Upon breaching the portal to Earth, you had to recite your resume and why you thought yourself qualified to audition for the challenge.

“I was tortured by Dean Winchester.” You said it plainly, as if it was a long-forgotten past, and not a constant pining at the base of your every thought.

“When were you on Earth last?” the first gatekeeper asked, unimpressed.

“He tortured me here, before my, evolution,” You used your hands, hoping your point got across. When his dead eyes blinked back, you added. “Under Alistair’s tutelage?”

“Line B,” he nodded behind him. “Follow the stairs to the vessels. The boss wants us all in meat suits for the glamor to work.”

As you found the appropriate entry gate, you shuffled along the slight incline of the dusty floor. You had yet to find anyone ahead of you in your assigned queue. As the despair began to dissipate, you knew you had left the true confines of Hell behind. The magical bindings along the fences kept you weak, unable to flee and the atmosphere slowly softened your membrane sublimating you into a shapeless cloud. The Den of Bodies reeked of fresh death, human forms deposited like unwanted toys, empty from either recent possession or the tinny aftertaste of necromancy.

You soon found a male form close to Dean’s height and followed the cramped line illuminated with an icy blue letter “B”. Slowly you adjusted to the feel and weight of the vessel, it was hollow and odiferous in a way a corpse could only be. Walking came quickly and as you rounded the next bend you eventually found the demon ahead of you in the line, which thrice wrapped around a broad chamber. Within the darkened space more servants in human skin were transforming the old warehouse into a mirage of a crumby tugboat in a forgotten American freshwater harbor. Suddenly a fresh panic overtook you. Besides the very slim possibility of being transfigured into the man that was the focus of your emotions for centuries, what were you doing here?

In the end, you improvised. You didn’t make it passed the first round of auditions, didn’t even get a chance to perform for the king himself. But that didn’t stop you from observing the surveillance goons’ schedules and precisely orchestrated operation during the days you waited in line. On a whim, after your second rejection, you hung back and hid in the Wardrobe Department like a forgotten costume change. It was the quietest space you had occupied in decades, content to wait out the auditions like a rat waiting for the carnival to close.

And what a closing night; first they sent the last of the surviving actors back downstairs. All but one of the staggered portals sealed and secured by patrols. Since the Wardrobe Den was on this side of the portals, but out of the way of their duties, it was the last thing searched. So, when you heard voices whimpering about clean up detail; you got creative. Standing you dragged a body by its feet to the top of the heap.

“Wait, I thought we were on body dispersal?” A confused elderly Asian suited demon complained.

“I got sent from deliveries, figured we would take a handful so as not to draw attention once we are done with the project,” You shrugged, grabbing another body to stack.

“Whatever, man, let’s just fry the ones we need to before the boss comes back?” The first demon’s lanky partner bought your story, helping you even out the third body on your pile. You swung around, pulling the collected stack of bodies back the way they came, hoping to find a true Exit to the outside world. There was a goddamn sign, green like toxic ooze, lighting your way. The slow trudge of dragging bodies alleviated as you found an old dolly on the wings of a loading dock.

“What are you doing?” A demon with a security uniform on asked as you plopped the last lifeless corpse on to the metal cart.

“Hiding bodies, what does it look like I’m doing?” You sighed, breathing in the outside air for the first time in a century, so close to freedom you could taste it. An unraveling sense of possibility exploded among your thoughts.

“Okay, on your way, grab some Pad Thai? The golden boy in there is getting pretty obscure with his food requests. We got another truck handling the rest of the laundry list.” He handed you a scrawled-on shred of paper. You took the assignment in slight disbelief as a dubious grin broke onto your vessel’s face. Could demons get any stupider?

Earth date: April 21, 2013

Location: Janesville, CA

It was oddly damp and cool, but out in the open the afternoon sun gave off such warmth you would have stayed out until sunset. The dead man you had been wearing since Hell had caused some trouble and you were in the market for a new ensemble as you strolled down the gravel drive toward the ramshackle homestead, just enjoying the spring day. The bull had sensed you coming, an agonizing moan tore through its massive throat before it sunk to the ground. Its fear was the dinner bell, you quickly hopped the pasture fence to play with the anguished creature.

A shotgun blast shot out in warning behind you, the old farmer calling out as he approached, “Get back now!”

The beast’s blood had soaked the dirt beneath your knees, your hands and face caked with the sticky liquid. The knowledge that this was its true death and that it had happened at your hands flowed through you, an unbridled power. The muffled shriek that came from the man’s mouth as you spun to face him was icing on the cake. You quickly approached him, the urine snaked down his jeans and on to his shaking legs. He couldn’t form words before his heart gave out with your tendon-riddled smile. You left him for his Reaper and marched to his backdoor.

“Was that really necessary Harold!” The old woman bellowed from the next room. “I swear I need to hide that gun, with your eye sight,” her voice trailed off as she looked up to see all the blood-soaked six feet of your vessel in the door way. She crossed herself, before you smoked out of the mess and into her praying throat. Hopefully, you had caused enough mayhem for those pesky little hunters to start poking their noses around.

You cleared her throat and went for the phone, dialing the emergency line. “Yes? Hello? Oh god, this man attacked Simon, and now I think Harold’s had a heart attack. Please, send help—” You waited on the line, frantically trying to give the dispatcher the details. Before the sirens were on the horizon, you walked your old vessel back out to the pasture and planted two solid blasts to the body. Your short stay in the old woman had given her quite the headache and she quickly passed out beside the telephone. You jumped into Harold before he was loaded into the back of the ambulance and taken to the county coroner.

Earth date: April 23, 2013 (Just before Pac Man Fever)

Location: Lassen County Government Office, Susanville, CA

Chloe Collins tightened the belt of her trench coat, realizing it would be too warm to use soon. Her etched blade rested carefully on her belt, hidden yet accessible in its personalized leather sheath. She checked her watch before taking another sip of her gas station coffee-hodge-podge of regular Colombian roast cut with their water and powder cappuccino concentrate. She was waiting on Roger or Geoff, not sure who would draw the short straw, and therefore would have to put forth some effort in the appearance department. While the other got lucky and was due to be scoping out the cleared crime scene. She hadn’t slept in two days when the omens came up on the radar. She had gotten into town early the night before, allowing her some rest before back-up or county offices were ready for her.

She was giving Geoff/ Roger ten more minutes, or she was going in alone, slackers. When her phone rang, she didn’t even check the caller ID. “If you are going to bail, save it, I would have been done here if I wasn’t waiting on you two.”

“Well, good morning to you too, Cease,” a rich baritone replied. She froze and pulled her face away to check her guess.

“Yup, just did the assumption ass thing, whatcha need Winchester?” She leaned back against the driver’s side door of her pick up as she listened to his very detailed request. “If you had a prophet all this time, how come you didn’t share some winning lotto numbers?”

She heard the exhaustion over the phone, the snark was to draw out the conversation as Roger had finally shown up. CC relished in making him listen to her side of the line as he stewed in apologetic, if not awkward intrusion.

“Nah, not that kind of prophet, think decoder ring. Anyway, you see anything or if you get a demon talking, send a line. Alright?” Dean wrapped up his request.

“Alright. Take care.”

“Yeah, you too.” He ended a little too sadly.

CC slid the phone into her pocket to smile innocently at Roger. “Since you’re late, you get body duty, I’m going to catch up with the Sheriff.” He rolled his eyes and nodded, letting her lead the way.

The refrigerator was nearly empty when they slid the body of the old man you rode into the middle row, chest height for easy access. You were fascinated by the vivisection and organ removal, leaving the doctor to do his job. The Sheriff was friendly despite being extremely uneasy about the details of the case. You had to hold back from giving him the scare of his life more times than you could count. “Psychopaths are bad for PR,” you heard as the evidence was verified and files were exchanged. Now, in the cold and the dark you waited, hoping you had hit all the neon warning lights that would bring somebody useful within arms’ reach.

The coroner began muttering under his breath, something about the Feds and not having time for this. He quickly brought out the focus of the investigation, the body of your escape vessel that had been dead for weeks when it mutilated a prized bull and took two blasts to the torso. Another man’s voice began asking questions, weird substances and oddities in the coroner’s findings.

“Yeah, you know what, I haven’t gotten it sent out yet, but his ears were lined with this powder,” there was scraping and shuffling before he handed the vial to the investigator. “Besides the whole, eating a cow raw thing, that was weird.”

“Right.” The stranger listened as the coroner read all the medical jargon from the report back to him. “Thanks, Doc, I think I will just check the other body quickly while I wait for my partner to finish up with the Sheriff.”

“Harold Simmons, not much weird there, poor guy,” the door opened, and you felt the tray jostle the stiff that you were squatting in. Resisting the urge to tear open the eyelids and treat both the men to their own wet shorts, you laid still, waiting for the hunter to show his true colors. The funny thing about Hell was that it hadn’t taught you how gullible and disposable humans were. The constant torture and regeneration of the soul made any act possible, but back on Earth a hang nail could practically do them in. You had yet to perfect the art of handling them properly, your own strength and distaste winning over patience and inconspicuousness. When the coroner finally shut the door behind him, the hunter dug the vial of sulfur from his pocket, cracking the safety seal and sniffing away like any asinine teenager in chemistry class.

“Blech, should have known.” Roger capped the sample and put it back among the doctor’s collected evidence on a cart.

“You know, you don’t smell like daisies either,” you replied, sniffing the air haughtily from your seat on the metal rack.

The hunter balked at you before throwing a baggie of salt at your face. The slight residue on the exterior of the plastic seal smarted, but the contents remained secure as the bag bounced off the grizzled jaw of your meatsuit and fell to the floor. You jumped from your perch at the man who was know fumbling with his phone and aiming a useless handgun at your head. You sighed, reaching out and snapping his wrist effectively liberating his weapon. He cried out, a whimper more than scream.

“Now, I don’t have to kill you,” you crooned, sliding the barrel of the gun along his jaw, “just want to talk. I was hoping some of your kind would come sniffing around.”

“I ain’t gonna talk, man, I don’t make deals,” He groaned, rocking his shatter joint on his chest. Well, he was playing tougher than you gave him credit for, which just made it more exciting.

“Oh, no, honey, I’m not here to upsell you for the soul suite of your choice,” you bent over, cold skin flush against his greasy forehead, instantly he kicked away, disgusted. A guttural laugh broke from the old man, lungs that weren’t, wheezing with the effort. “No, but how ‘bout you tell me about them Winchester boys, eh?” The toothless mouth loose with a hapless grin.

Just as you finished whispering a flash of metal caught your eye, a spell blade slashed against the sinewy forearm of your vessel as you spun to face your attacker. The flesh bubbled, the air soon filled with it. Now this was a hunter, she was crouched down, her weapon rolling between her fingers as she circled you for another opening. You had lost the gun in the distraction before her arrival. Her hair was pinned back, but it was dark and coarse, her professional full-length coat floating behind her like a cape. She tried signaling her partner, but you kicked the gun out of reach of his good hand.

You taunted her, “Look-y here boys, the big girl is bringing the hurt. Fancy blade you got there, where’d you get something like that? Two for one deal? The coat and the dagger free with purchase?”

“I fucking hate mouthy demons,” she snipped through clenched teeth.

“CC!” The man bellowed, he had left his path for the gun, instead going back to the forgotten sack of saline. The bag flew through the air and just as she caught it, you ejected from the dead man’s jaw and into the air, you aimed for the injured man in hopes to play on the woman’s sympathies. But he was somehow warded. Frustrated, you snaked back, finding her throat much more accommodating. Being inside a living vessel was like jumping onto a moving train, her thoughts and instincts fighting every piece of your presence and prodding.

“CC? Can you hear me?” All the color had drained from Roger’s face as she shuddered underneath your weight.

“My knife, Rog,” she stammered, she sure was strong. You stood frozen, willing her to grab her gun and put five rounds through the back of his skull, to scream for the Sheriff, to do a twostep; the bitch wouldn’t budge. You roamed her memories, floating through the day at the farm with the Sheriff, her annoyance that the man she was working with was late, a phone call about a prophet. Kevin Tran. A request from an old friend, a mutual acquaintance as it were. You were stopped before you could go deeper, a sharp jab of iron to her thigh shot you right back out of her tense jaw.

Fascinated and annoyed, you disappeared out of the open door and into the hallway that ran the length of the municipal building. You dove into a spherical clerk who was overseeing marriage licenses and stayed put.

“What the hell was that?!” Roger screeched.

“That,” CC panted, “was a demon, dumb ass.” She kissed the iron face of her trusty knife as it had just saved her from being a sulfur buffed surfboard. CC stood, helping the gangly man to his feet. After quickly realizing how impossible it would be to find the demon among the building full of office staff and deputies. They, instead, cooperated to ease the vacated corpse back onto the gurney-like bed he had sprang from. They worked quickly, not wanting to bring any more suspicions to the small town’s doorstep.

After a day next to the police scanner while cruising the simple farm highways in either direction, Roger, Geoff and Chloe called it a night. They would stay up in shifts, salt lining the door and windows, waiting for the murderous damnation to leave a trail of bodies. It was three days without any sign or circumstance that would warrant further investigation. They had lost it, best to move on and pray a better hunter faced it next.

The orthopedic lifts in the rubber soled shoes rubbed mercilessly against the woman’s high arches as she shuffled down the frontage road to the outdated pick up truck. She was sticky with sweat, and the dry air didn’t help her breathing. Her thin top clung to the lumps and rolls as she waddled along, hoping she would catch the Federal Agents before they left town. She had no idea how she knew where they were staying or why she needed to see them, but she hurried all the same. At the tarnished number twelve she stopped, chest heaving and permed hair clinging to her temples. She raised her doughy hand to knock when the door swung back, a gun level with her face as she lost her voice, “Don’t shoot!” came later as her eyes clamped shut and her hands raised in surrender.

“What do you want?” The female agent spat, lowering the weapon into the back of a pair of jeans, the large leather knife case obvious on her hip.

“Just wanted to stop you before you left, my name is Darlene Woods, I work at the Sheriff’s office.” The older woman’s voice was shrill and persistent. “Now, why did I come all the way here?” the woman held her hand to her mouth, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Do you need me to call someone for you? Ms. Woods? Is everything alright?” Chloe Collins rested against the motel room door, worry for the older woman only slightly overtaking her paranoia.

“Just give me a minute, dear,” Darlene looked at the ground, her hands on her hips as if her memory would surrender to her grimace. “Oh, silly me, I remember!”

And she smiled with a darkness in her eyes that Chloe knew all too well.

Earth date: April 30, 2013

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

She had been heading East on nothing but a hunch, the news stories and tips fading to white noise as she let the mile markers lead her onward. Chloe sat at the Biggersons’ counter nursing her second coffee refill. She could have asked for a box for her leftover lunch, but she was going to hit the road anyway, might as well eat as much as she could because it was who knows how long until her next stop. There was an ironic rebellion to her giving the monstrous restaurant chain her business, since they had been slowly poisoning a third of America not a year earlier while the Leviathans roamed free. One more monster invasion she had survived and now lived to enjoy their sweet potato fries another day.

Her waitress stormed out of the backroom in sobs, the entire room quieted as her predicament spread throughout the dinning area.

“Margie!” The manager chased after her from the kitchen, his face worried with a mix of personal pain.

Just then the televisions all changed to a live news broadcast, the sister franchise in flames in Santa Fe. CC watched the wreckage as the drama from the backroom became clear. Just as the news shot panned out in order to get the reporter back in the shot, she caught it: a mysterious figure amongst the flames. A tiny voice in the back of her head told her to ignore it, that it wasn’t worth her time. She promptly ignored the voice, bemusedly noting that the next leg of her trek would be much shorter than she originally thought.

CC left two twenties under her saucer and shrugged into her suede leather coat. Some days a generous tip was all it took to turn a server’s day around and Chloe had more money than time.

*^*

Next Chapter: Crowley and the Queen

[softshelltaakos]

what’s up everybody! it’s time for part 2 of my taz graphic novel review.

part one covered (most of) my beef with the writing and storytelling choices. this part is gonna cover character designs!!! you should know going into this that my opinions are not positive. this post is also a lot less analytical in tone than part 1, because art is not my forte.

disclaimer: i love the mcelroys. i truly do. taz has gotten me through some very difficult stuff and i have a tattoo. all this to say i’m not doing this because i hate them or because i like hating things. if you feel the need to message me about how i am overreacting, specifically to green taako, or about how i should just calm down and ignore it, or about how it’s sad that i’m getting so worked up instead of just enjoying the show, i’ve heard it and i don’t care. you will not be taken seriously. save yourself the energy.

there are spoilers for the graphic novel under the cut.

alright. i’m getting the elephant in the room out of the way first because it’s the most important thing to address, and once it’s out of my system i’ll feel better goofing on the rest of the designs. as i mentioned in the disclaimer: Green Taako Is Bad.

[ID: a panel focusing on taako. he’s skinny and minty green with chin-length light blonde hair and a big, pointy nose.]

now, a lot of people have made posts about this before, and i’m not saying anything new about it by any means. i’m also not the most equipped person to talk about why green taako is bad, because i’m a white gentile (i’ve heard conflicting opinions on whether or not green taako is antisemitic, but it feels remiss not to mention that there’s been discussion) and therefore not part of any groups affected by this whole debacle, but in short: when pressed for more diversity, specifically in taako’s case as a pretty large chunk of his arc involves literally inventing a mexican cultural food (fun note: that’s never mentioned in this book,) carey pietsch decided he should be green and the mcelroys were down with it. this is not an issue that cropped up when this design was released; it was something that there was already a ton of discourse surrounding, and it should never have gotten concepts drawn, let alone made it to publish.

this article by natt cuesta has been linked before on the subject, and i think it’s a good, concise explanation of why green taako is bad as well as why aracial characters in general are bad. this is a racist design.

now that we’ve gotten those ethical ramifications out of the way... i’m sorry, but it’s an ugly design, lmao. he looks like a palette-swapped version of pearl from steven universe with less character. the ONLY thing about this design that i like is the prominent lower lashes, if only because they’re the only thing that keeps him from looking entirely generic. because, like, y’all, when has anything about taako been generic?

[ID: a panel focusing on magnus. he’s a muscular fair-skinned man with auburn hair, a bushy beard, and a scar over his left eye.]

generic is a word that’s going to come up a lot over the course of this review, because i genuinely can’t think of a more apt descriptor for pietsch’s designs. it feels like she went with the lowest common denominator of every character’s design, a synthesis of all of the most popular (and most boring) ones, except in instances where that would lend any personality to a character’s design. magnus fits what brief description we’re given in the podcast: auburn hair. beard. big. and i guess that’s all you need?

i understand that by appealing to the most common and basic designs for these characters you’re inviting a lot less ire than you might by going with something more individual, so i get the motivation behind it -- or i would, if her designs hadn’t always been about this dull. but it’s bizarre to me that in a story as unique as the balance campaign, we ended up with the most basic ass Fantasy Hero lookin’ dude in the world as one of our protagonists.

i just really don’t have a lot to say about this. i’m just bored by it.

[ID: a panel of merle. he has medium-dark skin with a smooth white bun and beard.]

merle is simultaneously the design i like most out of the boys and the one that throws me the most, because i feel like he’s the most out on a limb one. which... oof. most merle designs i see give him a floral motif (i guess he has a few petals in his hair, maybe?) and big coke-bottle glasses, and i miss those things with this design, but at least it doesn’t totally feel like pietsch threw every merle she could get her hands on into a blender and poured it out on a page, although honestly, that might have been more satisfying. people do some really fun shit with their merle designs, but again, he’s. generic.

as the cuesta article mentions, with how much of an issue it was to get any of the boys to be poc in the first place and in conjunction with minty up there, this design also feels like tokenism -- an appeasement rather than an honest attempt at diversity or god forbid because the artist actually headcanons merle as a person of color. personally, i wish that she’d gone a step beyond re-coloring his skin and idk given him a natural hairstyle or something. he still feels very much like a recolor to me rather than a character who was designed as a person of color from the beginning.

i feel like he looks more like a cleric than he looks like a merle, which i feel like is pretty contradictory to who merle is.

[ID: a cutaway showing griffin, a white man with brown hair and glasses wearing a collared shirt.]

i’ve said before that it feels a little odd to talk about her design of a real person, so i’ll keep this brief, but... you know how every drawing of a basic white dude looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how that one arthur character looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how everyone is constantly messaging mysillycomics about how her avatar looks like griffin mcelroy?

how did carey pietsch manage to actively attempt to draw griffin mcelroy and miss the mark? it boggles the mind. he doesn’t not look like griffin, i guess, but he doesn’t look like griffin, either. i don’t know, man

[ID: a generic gerblin. he has yellowy-green skin, slight tusks or fangs, and weird, nubby little horn-type things.]

i hate these gerblins. they are ugly. next

[ID: two images of klaarg/g’nash. he’s a bugbear with brown fur and yellow eyes as well as a mouth full of pointy teeth. in the first image he looks pissed off; in the second he’s starry-eyed and delighted.]

klaarg is probably my favorite design in the book, and that’s just because he looks like a cute dog for most of the time he’s on the page. he’s fluffy and i love klaarg anyway, so like. did not take a lot to reach this mark. especially considering how i feel about most of the other designs lmfao

i do definitely think he keeps up the trend of looking generic, though.

[ID: an image of barry bluejeans. he looks like tom arnold, kind of; he’s square-jawed and white with thick-rimmed glasses. he also has a light brown mullet.]

i hate this. i hate the mullet. i’m sorry, y’all, i really, truly, cannot stand the mullet. i don’t feel like barry has mullet energy. i feel like it’s too powerful a move for him. it wouldn’t be a good move, mind you, but it would be a big one. i don’t know y’all it’s just bad

[ID: an image of killian. she’s a green-skinned orc woman with prominent eyelashes, eyebrows, and tusks, and straight brown hair.]

i can’t have been the only one who was hoping for a badass, visibly muscular, maybe even butch killian design, right? that wasn’t just me being a big old lesbian, that’s a pretty common theme of killian designs? i guess kudos for going out on a limb again, but then, like, take the kudos back for going out on the most boring limb possible again. i could hang with the face if her hair wasn’t so boring, but it’s... it’s so boring

[ID: an image of magic brian. he’s a drow with long white hair and an oblong face and oddly shaped nose.]

for how many of her designs are syntheses of popular ones, i..... don’t understand how this happened. i don’t understand how whimiscal and flamboyant magic brian who’s often drawn as taako-but-a-goth-dark-elf ended up looking like this. he looks like he used to play football and got his nose busted up and peaked in fantasy high school. he looks like the first quarter of a monster factory video where the thing’s just ugly but doesn’t have a personality or any endearing traits yet. he didn’t have to be the goth twink we all know he is but what.......... is this

[ID: an image of gundren rockseeker/bogard. he’s a light-skinned dwarf with dark long hair and a matching beard.]

..........listen i know they’re cousins and distant cousins at that but all of merle’s cousins are light-skinned and, like, not to say that that can’t happen but having them be anywhere near merle’s skin tone would’ve been such an easy way to help bolster the obviously inaccurate idea that this is a work concerned with diverse character designs, or rather to help ppl claim it was being bolstered, and yet

[ID: avi, a fair-skinned man with long dark hair kept up in a ponytail and slight scruff on his face.]

i feel like maybe avi is intended to be east asian so i think at this point that brings the count up to a whole two characters of color. we’re almost done with the book. cool. he’s cute, i guess, but guess what word i’m about to say again (it’s generic)

[ID: a panel of several unnamed cameo characters. from right to left: carey fangbattle, a light blue dragonborn; brad bradson, a green orc man with a long brown ponytail; and presumably lucas miller, a tan human with glasses and dark hair.]

ok. deep breaths.

first off, there’s another panel w these three as well as boyland, who looks fine, but i didn’t grab that one bc it’s harder to make out detail. carey is cute. brad is fine.

i assume the third guy is lucas miller because i’m not entirely sure who else he would be, and... oof! as you may know i can’t stand lucas miller, which has nothing to do with his necromancy or nerdiness and everything to do with the various human rights violations he commits in the small time he’s got focus as well as the fact that he’s got a theoretical redemption arc that’s not actually an arc so much as us being told he’s better now. lucas is an entitled jackass who repeatedly uses other people’s bodies and minds without their consent, from the obvious offense of using the bugbears as brainwashed chore-doers (read: slaves) to the less-oft discussed dragging of noelle and others out of the astral plane into robot bodies, again to do his chores for him. because of this, it has always sat very uncomfortably with me when people make lucas a poc, because everything about him screams Shitty White Nerd Boy to me. it sits extra uncomfortably coming from carey pietsch, given how white all of her other designs are.

it’s a little hard to tell because i took all these pics with my phone camera in my room’s lighting so they’re not super high fidelity or anything, but pietsch’s lucas is noticeably darker than any other character we’ve seen so far save merle. maybe he’s just a white guy with a tan, but all the same, it strikes me as incredibly skeevy to have one of so few characters of color be this fucking guy.

[ID: johann, a black man with an oblong face and textured dark hair.]

johann’s design is fine, although this is a similar face shape to that brian from earlier and i just. i don’t. understand it. it’s not especially interesting, but hey, at least he’s not another generic white guy.

that being said, as i mentioned in part 1 of this review, johann’s role is severely cut in this -- he’s reduced to three panels, when in the show itself he’s the one who escorts the boys to the voidfish’s chamber and inoculates them. as i mentioned in that post i understand that they shifted it some to give lucretia a more prominent entrance, but as i also mentioned in that post, they should have compensated for that. three panels.

johann is not a character with a great deal of screentime as it is, but he’s a character with a major impact. he is the reason story and song happens. his song serves as a direct foil to john’s nihilistic conversion of his own home plane into the hunger. the fact that he’s been reduced to three panels with little to no characterization at this point, especially in conjunction with the fact that he’s one of very few poc, makes me really, really uncomfortable. avi is in more panels in this book than johann is, and while i love avi and as i said i am parsing him as an asian dude, he’s also still light-skinned enough and the style is nondescript enough that there are definitely people who will parse him as white, and also, avi’s role in the story is not as big as johann’s.

it doesn’t sit right with me.

[ID: an image of davenport, a fair-skinned man with a big red mustache and slicked back red hair.]

ginger davenport with a big mustache. groundbreaking.

[ID: an image of lucretia, a slender black woman with short white hair dressed in blue layers.]

and finally, lucretia. now, i’m biased, and it’s hard for me to see a lucretia design i don’t like. i also think that this is, compared to a lot of the others at least, one of the more interesting designs in the book, at least as far as her clothes go. it’s not a long robe that would be hard to move in, and i appreciate that -- it strikes me as a pretty practical outfit while also being ornamental and wizard-y. and she’s pretty, and she’s not whitewashed, and that’s all great. i like her earrings.

all that being said, i feel like it’s not enough. luc’s hair continues a theme with merle’s and johann’s (as well as the preview we’ve seen of angus,) which is that it strikes me as very low-effort on pietsch’s part. it’s short and it’s definitely not straight, but it doesn’t feel to me like it had as much thought put into it as, say, minty green taako’s hair. we could’ve had a lucretia with a big beautiful afro, or long box braids, or so many other natural hairstyles; we got this. it’s not bad, but i do think it’s disappointing. without going looking for it and without being a person who reads a great deal about character design, i’ve seen a fair amount of discussion from black women (artists, writers, and none of the above) about the portrayal of black women as it pertains to their hair. they’re never designed to be as feminine as their white counterparts. their hair is never treated with the same amount of detail or respect as their white counterparts. it’s short, maybe curly if you’re lucky.

i’m gonna circle back quickly to killian’s hair. it’s long and smooth and kept down, despite the fact that killian is an action-oriented women and might not want it to be in her face all the time -- it could have at least been braided or in a bun. it could’ve been short! and that would’ve made sense. and i don’t mean to say that lucretia couldn’t have short hair, but she’s a very elegant woman whose dress is described as intricate. she wears business regalia. she could have any number of hairstyles, from something elaborate to something simple but more out-of-the-box than this, but she doesn’t. i found this on a quick hunt through my ref tag -- it’s a tutorial for drawing black folks with just a small selection of interesting things you can do with afrotextured hair. these resources aren’t hard to find! and i’m doing this for fun -- carey pietsch is a professional artist who was paid for these designs. if she’d put in more than the bare minimum effort, we could’ve had some really interesting shit going on, but she didn’t.

and that’s the core of the issue here. i truly do not feel like pietsch put the same amount of care into the designs for the few characters of color we see as she did into the white ones, and that’s upsetting and emblematic of a larger problem in the work: neither pietsch nor the mcelroys put in very much care at all for the fans of color who spoke up and asked for representation.i know i said i was getting taako out of the way first so the majority of the post could be goof-heavy, but goddamn, y’all, it’s hard to goof about when it’s so blatantly shitty. pietsch’s designs are boring at best and racist at worst, not to mention conspicuously lacking in anyone who is not skinny, muscular, or a dwarf. people have praised this thing so uncritically, including people whose opinions i generally really respect, as if the fact that the mcelroys signing off on green taako made it above reproach.

it didn’t, by the way. there’s no such thing as an unproblematic fav, because everybody fucks something up now and then, but even then, this is a pretty egregious fuck-up! and it was willful!

i’m not saying y’all need to burn your copies of the gn or stop listening to the mcelroys entirely or anything of the sort -- you may remember the disclaimer at the top of the post where i say i really, really love them, and more specifically, i really love taz: balance. but i am BEGGING YOU to think critically about their work. good, good boys can do bad, bad things. white people can produce work that’s racist even if they’re gay women. it’s not mean to critique the boys and it’s not homophobic (or god forbid reverse racist, which is still not a real thing) to critique carey.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the real kicker of this whole thing for me is that there’s a small fanart gallery in the back of the book. most of them aren’t labeled with the artist’s handles, just their names, but there are some truly beautiful pieces featuring diverse designs -- galacticjonah and milkychai both have beautiful latino taakos featured! galacticjonah’s is fat, too! but even after the backlash against green taako, even aside from that being the design that people are going to accept as canonical, there are pieces in the gallery of green taako, as if doubling down on it was the right move.

and by the way, yeah, i’ve read griffin’s apology. but i thought we all learned in kindergarten that an apology doesn’t count if you don’t act on it.

[tilltheendwilliwrite]

Qi Flows for Her

Chapter Five

Previous Chapter

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC x Bucky Barnes  |  Word Count: 5112 Warnings: Language, angst

Celine made sure she was last onto the jet where she took Bucky’s previous seat in the back, darkened corner, as far away from the others as she could get. She snapped the hair band wrapped around her wrist, using the physical pain to remind herself to breathe. Her hair hung forward, hiding her face. Back to the straight, dark brown of before, she listened as they murmured about the rest of what they found and looked after Peter who had been knocked out for his own good.

God… that had hurt like rejection hadn’t hurt in years.

Hunched over, she leaned her face against the wall, the metal cool against her skin. A tear worked its way down her cheek. She’d known this was going to happen, had been saying so since the beginning. Yet, she’d still chanced to hope this time would be different. This time someone would see her for who she truly was and not react with fear.

Why do I bother to hope? She snapped the elastic at her wrist again.

“Celine…” The whisper of Charles' voice only made her flinch.

“Go away, Charles…”

“Darling, I can feel your pain.”

“Pain you have a part in instigating. Go away, Charles!”

“Celine… please…”

She sighed. “What did you expect? That I’d come here, reveal myself, and everything would be tea and crumpets? Go… the fuck… away!” She gave a mighty push and slammed her shields closed.

Her inner demons were relentless after. The voices of hate and disgust hissed and wailed in her head. The self-loathing caused her to wrap her hands around her middle. She was an abomination. A freak. A thing to be feared and despised. No one wanted her. No one would care if she just walked away.

Disappeared.

Died.

The phone in her pocket vibrated.

She ignored it.

It continued to go off for the next fifteen minutes straight, becoming an annoying vibration against her thigh until she finally dug it free. “What?” she sighed, expecting Charles.

“Little girl, next time you pick the fuckin’ phone up on the first ring!” The snarling voice of Logan had her lip twitching.

“Yes, papa,” she sassed.

“What the fuck happened, Celine?” he demanded.

Sighing, she glanced through her hair at the others speaking quietly away from her. “Can’t, Logan. Not now.”

“You’re on the plane?”

“Yeah.”

“Did they hurt you?” he snarled.

“No.”

“Not physically, you mean. Dammit, Charles! I told you sending her was a bad idea!”

It almost made her smile. The Wolverine was highly protective of those he called family. “I’m a big girl, Logan,” she murmured. “I tie my own shoes and everything. I’ll be fine.”

He huffed a dismissive bark of sound. “You ain’t fine! I can tell you ain’t fine! Do I need to come kick around a few super soldiers again? Cause I fuckin’ will!”

“The way I heard it, it sounded like a draw, though Steve said you’re a heavy son of a gun.”

“He’s one to talk,” Logan grumbled.

Leaning her head back against the wall, Celine smiled slightly. “Put up a bit of a fight, did he?”

He snorted. “Decent enough.”

“Good. You were getting full of yourself again.”

“Tricky little witch,” he scoffed. Silence descended for a few seconds before he murmured, “Celine… you can come home. I can replace you if you want.”

She wiped the tear from her cheek. “Nope. Charles sent me. I’m staying until they kick me out.” No matter how much it hurt.

“Look, if you’re doing this to punish Charles cause you’re pissed, then don’t. He’s already hurt you shut him out.”

This time she snorted. “He deserved it.”

“Yeah, probably,” he chuckled. “Take care of yourself, darlin’. And if you need me?”

“I’ll let you know, Logan. Tell Rogue I miss her.”

He grunted just before the line going dead.

She stuffed the phone back in her pocket and returned to her silent reflection, feeling only slightly better.

When the jet landed what felt like hours later, she was down the ramp and into the tower as if the hounds of hell were nipping her heels. To her mind, it wasn't far from the truth.

***

Steve and Bucky watched her go, neither knowing how to fix what they’d wrought.

Peter was alright, the bullet nothing more than a flesh wound, but the way the boy had reacted to her… they’d quite literally watched her heart break.

She was far more powerful than they’d realized. So much so, she’d plucked a soldier off the mountain and ate him before throwing something, likely his soul, into... hell? The underworld? Somewhere else? They had no idea.

Were they a little disconcerted? Sure. Who wouldn’t the hell be? But were they scared of her? No. The shock had kept them mute though, something they now realized had done a lot of harm.

She’d sat, huddled and silent in the corner, gradually curling in on herself, getting smaller with each passing moment until her phone had rung.

Steve had been about to go over and force her to answer when she’d finally dug it free on her own.

The irate voice of Logan was one he’d never forget, and he’d exchanged an eye roll with Bucky. He was a gruff son of a gun, but intensely loyal and protective, especially of Charles. Clearly, that protection extended to Celine.

Logan’s accusation, the comment about hurting her, had caused both of them to stiffen in offence. Her denial and his rewording had jabbed them both firmly with guilt.

Logan was right. They hadn’t hurt her physically. Emotionally? In her heart?

Yes.

“Shit,” Steve hissed softly once the others had exited.

“More like fuck, punk. We screwed up.” Bucky sighed, making his way toward Celine’s seat where he crouched down and swiped his fingers through the dark droplets on the floor. “She’s been bleeding.”

“What?” Steve jolted, coming quickly to Buck’s side.

“Yeah. We should check on her.”

“Pretty sure she doesn’t want to see us, pal.”

“So? We fucked up. We should fix it before it gets worse.” Bucky got to his feet and headed for the doors.

They walked in silence, both feeling intensely guilty.

She'd done some incredible things tonight, but they hadn’t told her so. Had her force been a little excessive? Sure, but seeing Peter take a bullet had Steve longing to hit the asshole sniper with his shield, so he understood how upset Celine must have been.

When Natasha stepped into the corridor, blocking them from getting on the elevator, ��Steve heard Bucky sigh and tried not to echo it.

“Need something, Nat?” Steve asked.

“I hope you get it now. You'll send her on her way?”

Steve frowned and shook his head. “Why? Celine’s part of this team.”

“Really!” she snapped. “After seeing what she did? What she is?”

“What I saw was a powerful woman who was treated like a freak tonight by her own team. Me included. She's still a person. Still Celine. Her powers don't make her anything different.”

“Shit! You've got a hard-on for her too! I knew Barnes was balls deep, but I expected better of you, Cap.”

Bucky’s hand wrapped around her throat and slammed her into the wall. “You're pushing the line, Natalia,” he snarled softly. “Celine may be Styx, she may be ridiculously powerful, but she's bruised, broken, and your snide comments aren't doing anyone any good!”

“She’ll destroy this team!”

“You said the same thing of me when Steve brought me in. The ghost. The Winter Soldier. The HYDRA weapon. Fuck you, Nat! She's no different!”

She blinked at him, stunned. “She's completely different! Did you not watch her kill a man tonight by eating his life force? Was that simply my imagination?”

“And I kill people with a gun or a knife. So what?”

“You're not about to take us all out in our sleep!”

“But I could if I wanted to!” he roared. “So could you, goddamnit, but you don't see any of us trying to shove you out the door!”

Laying a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, Steve urged his friend to let Natasha go. Once he had, Steve rounded on her himself. “You've taken issue with Celine since the moment she arrived. What's the beef, Nat? What's the real problem here?”

“This is the real issue! You're both so blinded by the hot new piece of ass; you can't see the danger she presents.”

“And me, Natasha? Am I also blinded by a hot piece of ass?” Wanda asked, appearing behind them. She looked at him, and Steve felt a clutch around his heart. The red wash of power in her eyes showed how disconcerted she was feeling. “But then, I am also one to be feared, to be treated like a freak. To be caged and collared because of what I am. What Hydra made me.”

“Wanda, no… I…” Natasha shook her head. “You're different.”

“How?” she asked coming closer. “I use similar powers. I can kill nearly as easily. You also locked me up to keep me away from people because I was a danger to society. Because you didn't trust me. Celine has shown me nothing but kindness after I have proved myself untrustworthy three times,” her voice rasped with self-hatred. “I keep telling myself, I cannot control other people's fear, only my own. Tonight… I failed at both.”

She walked away, and Steve's heart cracked. It appeared many of them were regretting what happened tonight.

“Celine is part of this team. She stays part of this team,” Steve said with finality.

“Fine. But my working with her comes as a last resort. I don't trust her to have my back.” Nat spun and headed away from where Wanda had gone.

Bucky waited only until she was out of earshot before muttering, “I'm not sure I trust you'll have hers.”

“Buck,” Steve sighed.

“I ain't ever seen her like this, Steve. She's been confrontational and just…”

“Nasty,” Sam muttered, wandering down the hall. “I'll go talk to her.”

“You alright with what happened tonight?” Steve asked.

“Alright?” He took a deep breath, eyes widening as he shrugged. “Not sure I’d say alright. Am I gonna throw a hissy fit? Nah. I kinda think Scott’s got the right idea. Better with us than against us.” He patted Steve's shoulder. “Am I gonna think twice about pissing her off? Hell yeah!” Chuckling, Sam continued on after Natasha.

“That's four,” Bucky murmured, a smirk twitching his lip. “Let's go poke the bear, see if she'll forgive us.”

“I think you mean the dragon. Damn that was cool,” Steve grinned.

“Now you sound like Parker.” Bucky’s face fell as they got on the elevator. “You think the kid will come round?”

Steve sighed. “Hope so.”

She’d been so happy spending time with Peter. Having the kid look at her in fear had just killed her.

When they stepped off the elevator, they had the answer hit them full force.

“Celine! Please!” Peter was standing outside her room, one hand pressed to his ribs, the other banging on her door. “I'm sorry! Let me explain!”

“Peter? Shouldn't you be in the med wing?” Steve asked sternly.

The kid shook his head. “Not until I apologize. Not until I tell her how sorry…” Pain took his breath, not all of it physical.

“Okay, kid.” Taking Peter by the elbow, Steve held him up. “How long you been here?” he asked.

Seeing as how the kid was still in his suit, he doubted Parker had even been to see Bruce, or if he had, the kid had snuck out.

“A while,” Peter mumbled.

“And she hasn't answered?”

Peter shook his head.

“FRIDAY located Celine.”

“Celine is on the roof. Captain? It appears she's is quite distraught. She is standing on the roof ledge.”

“What?!” Three voices bellowed before all of them scrambled for the elevator. It took them to the glassed-in common room where they barreled out the door to hit the exterior stairs which would take them to the roof.

Steve grabbed Peter's shoulder. “Are you alright to go around? If something goes sideways…” He didn't need to say Peter was the only one capable of catching Celine.

“I'm good, Cap!” Peter turned to go.

Steve dragged him back. “You stay out of sight. Let us talk to her before you do anything; you get me?”

“Yes, sir!” Peter nodded.

“Go.” He gave the kid a small shove and sprinted up the stairs after Bucky. His heart stuttered when she came into view.

Hair blowing back in the wind, balanced on the balls of her feet, she stood, hands relaxed at her sides, staring out over the city.

“Celine?” Bucky called quietly.

“Doll, you want to come down from there?” Steve asked, both of them edging closer.

Her head turned only enough to show them her profile. The tear streaks were impossible to miss. “Not particularly, Captain. I like the view.”

“Sweetheart, we'd really like it if you came down from there,” Bucky muttered, moving slowly forward.

“I am not your sweetheart, Sergeant. I am not your doll, your baby, your darlin’. I am Celine. I am… a vampire. I am Styx. And I am always to be feared.” She turned to walk the narrow edge of the building.

“Celine, please come down.” Steve would beg if he had to.

She paused, looked at him, and sighed. “You believe I do this, walk this ledge because I wish to hurt myself?” A snort of derision escaped her. “I wish to clear my mind, nothing more.” She turned back to face the city, turning her back on them. “I have no wish for company, especially from those who see me as something to be despised.”

Striding forward, Bucky reached for her arm only to have her dance out of his reach. “Celine!”

“What, Sergeant? Are you here to look at me with fear again? Are you going to tell me to leave? Explain how I am too much a freak to be part of the Avengers?” Night seemed to flow into her, swirl around her. It darkened her hair and brightened her eyes. She stepped backward, crouched, and snarled like an angry animal. “Then you tell me now to go, and I will pack my things!”

“No, Celine,” Steve said, holding up his hands. He approached with caution like he would a wounded creature. “Yes, you surprised us with what you did, maybe even spooked us at first, but we're not afraid of you.”

“Yes, you were!” she almost howled. “And after you said…” She shook her head. “I knew you would fear me. Everyone fears me. I should never have hoped for anything different.”

The words were so soft they could barely hear them, but they hit harder than the Hulk.

Bucky walked toward her, hands raised. “Read me, my aura, my emotions. I’m not afraid of you, Celine. Steve’s not afraid. Sam’s not afraid. Peter isn’t afraid. Wanda isn’t afraid. Come down. Talk to us. Let us show you.” He held out his hand.

“No… no, you lie!” She gave a violent shake of her head. “I won't look! I won't! I can't take anymore! Why are you so cruel?”

Peter landed on the ledge a few feet away. “Celine, I am so sorry.”

She whipped to face him, and Bucky lunged.

His arms closed around her, dragged her from the edge and back to the center of the roof. Expecting a struggle, he held her tightly, but she only sagged, eyes wide and staring at Peter.

The curl smoothed from her hair, the colour lightened. Her eyes lost their glow, and her face fell. Instead of struggling, she turned into Bucky, turned away from Peter, as a distressed cry escaped her lips.

“No, no… you were afraid. I made you afraid. You wouldn’t… let me help…” she moaned, clinging to Bucky.

This time it was the devastation on Peter’s face which broke Steve’s heart. “Celine, doll face Peter’s sorry. He, like us, didn’t mean to hurt you. But you were pretty impressive tonight. More than we’d expected. Read us. See for yourself. It's not a joke.”

“Promise,” Bucky murmured and stroked her arm. “No one's gonna be cruel, darlin’. Give us a chance.”

She bit her lip and looked between the two of them. Such pain shadowed her eyes Steve's heart felt like it tore open for her and whatever trauma had forced her to this point, to where she felt the need to wall herself off from everyone.

A moment passed before her amber eyes filled with relief and she sagged against Bucky. “Oh…” the word flew free on a heavy exhale.

“Can you forgive us, baby?” Steve threaded his fingers through her hair, gently pulling her head back so he could see her eyes.

They were wet, as was her face, so he wiped her cheeks dry. A breath shuddered from her, and she gave a slow nod. She looked as shocked, possibly as stunned as he and Bucky had been when she’d thrown a dragon into the sky and plucked a man off the mountain.

“I thought your dragon was incredible, Celine,” Steve said softly.

“And the way you dealt with the guards on the gate, and the people at the warehouse… amazing,” Bucky smiled.

“You were really spectacular, Celine. I'm… sorry I hurt your feelings,” said Peter, coming closer. “You did… kinda startle me, what with you havin’ just, like, eaten a dude. I promise it won't make me spaz out on you next time.”

“Peter,” she whispered, hands tight to her chest.

“Hug?” he asked, holding out the one arm. The other remaining pressed to his wound.

Bucky let her go, but Celine was hesitant to reach out until Parker gave an exasperated sigh and simply dragged her in via a shot of webbing and hugged her.

“You wanna fix me now?” Peter asked. “That is if it's still okay?”

She nodded a small jerk of her head before placing her green glowing fingers on his side.

His eyes widened in surprise when the pain disappeared. “Wow. Celine, you're so awesome!” He laughed as he lifted her off her feet and swung her around.

“Peter!” she squealed in surprise.

Chuckling, he dropped her to her feet and hugged her tight with both arms. “Thanks, doll,” he drawled, bussing her a kiss to the cheek - bold little shit-eating grin on his face - and darted away. “I'll check-in with Bruce. See ya tomorrow!”

She pressed her fingers to her cheek, eyes full of tears, but a smile was twitching her lips. Turning to face them, her smile broke free. “You people are so messed up.”

Bucky grinned while Steve laughed.

“Maybe it's your previous fri-uh-colleagues who were messed up,” Steve said with a sheepish grin.

“Yeah, darlin’,” Bucky smirked, “You just needed a couple’a old guys and a kid to see you for who you really are.”

“Speak for yourself, pal. I ain't old,” Steve snorted.

“Maybe being in the ice that long just froze your self-preservation brain cells,” Celine quipped.

“Then what's Peter’s excuse?” Bucky asked.

“Young and foolish,” she scoffed. “He doesn't know any better.”

Steve shook his head and held out his hand. “C’mon. You were bleeding on the jet. Let’s see it.”

She arched a brow in wry condemnation. “After the last few days, do you honestly think I cannot fix myself?”

He arched one in return, shook his hand and said, “Just give!” It was a fair imitation of what she’d done the day they’d met, causing Bucky to burst out laughing.

Rolling her eyes, Celine stalked forward to hold her hand out palm up. “There, you see? Perfectly fine.”

Steve frowned as he traced his fingers over her palm. “What did you…” he started to ask when it dawned on him what she’d likely done to herself. “Celine…” Heart hurting, guilt filled him for what she’d gone through, those talons of hers digging into her flesh with her anguish. “I am sorry.”

Her eyes softened. “I know, Steve.”

Bucky collected her opposite hand, sighing quietly as he stared at her unmarked flesh. “I promised you I wouldn’t feel any differently and at the first opportunity to prove it, I fucked it up.”

She gave her own sigh, released their hands, and patted both chests. “You are good men, but you are only human. I am,” she shook her head and turned away, “not.”

Steve went after her, grabbing her by the elbow to drag her back against his chest. “You are as human as the two of us. Powerful you may be, but you’re still human, Celine.”

Her eyes brightened, and her hair curled. “I am not. Human’s do not feed off other humans.”

“Your mutation only makes you different, Celine. It doesn’t make you less human.” Bucky’s hand curled around the back of her neck.

Trapped between the two of them again, Steve couldn’t help but notice the heat she radiated like a furnace. People always commented on how hot he or Bucky ran, but Celine seemed to nearly double their temperature. Cupping her chin, he tilted her face up, so her diamond-bright eyes shone for him to see. “You aren’t a freak. You’re an Avenger. We’re all a little… abnormal.” He couldn’t understand how she could’ve grown up in a place like Xavier’s school and view herself so differently from the other mutants. If anything, it should have been a place she fit into fairly well.

“I believe I’m a lot abnormal, Steve,” she chuckled, the curl of her hair growing more prominent as her eyes drifted down to his lips.

Bucky’s hand went from her nape to her throat, pressing up beneath Steve’s to tilt her head back onto his shoulder. “You ain’t the one with the vibranium arm,” he said, smirk growing.

Her eyes watched his lips as well before her tongue darted out, moistening hers.

Steve had never wanted to kiss a woman as badly as he did Celine in that instant. The desire he was trying to contain roared into life.

It sent her eyes darting back to his. They blazed bright, burned into him, filled with distress and sent her jerking away from them both. “Sorry! Sorry. That’s my bad… ha, I should go.” She darted away, down the stairs before either of them could move to stop her.

Groaning, Steve thrust his hand through his hair. “Fuck!”

“No shit,” Bucky muttered, trying to adjust his pants without being overly obvious.

“What the hell keeps happening here?” Steve grumbled.

Sighing, Bucky shook his head. “I don’t know, punk, but…” a wash of red filled his cheeks, “I… kind of like it.”

“What?” he gasped, jerking his head up to look at Bucky.

The metal-armed soldier shrugged. “Feels… good having her between us. I don’t know. She just… fits.”

“Bucky…” Steve shook his head.

“I know, I know. Can’t seduce a recruit,” he huffed. “But Steve, you can’t tell me you don’t feel it. We ain’t talked about it, keep pushin’ it to the side, but we can’t fight what we’re feeling.”

“She won’t even be a friend, Buck. Besides, you just watched her rabbit when she got a hint of something off me. I’m not going to put that pressure on Celine.” Steve stalked toward the stairs. “I don’t even know what the hell is happening! Every time it's just us, you, me, her, it’s….”

“Intense sexual heat?” Bucky chuckled.

“Laugh it up, jackass,” Steve grumbled.

“I’m serious!” he scoffed. Grabbing Steve’s arm, Bucky forced him to stop. “I’m asking this in all seriousness, if she chose me over you, would you be okay with it?”

“Bucky… I… Why are you even going there?”

“It’s a hypothetical, Steve. Just answer the fucking question.”

“I’d have to be, wouldn’t I?”

“But you’d hate it, right?”

Jerking his arm away, Steve snapped, “Yes, damn it! I’d hate it!” and stormed down the stairs.

Bucky simply jumped over the rail to land in front of him. “I’d be the same way!”

Coming to a stop, Steve’s eyes closed in pain. “I know, Buck. I can’t be your rival. I won’t be. I don’t have it in me to go against you, and you know it.”

“Stevie.” Bucky’s hands closed over his shoulders, gripped tight, shook him a little. “You think I could?”

When he looked up, Bucky’s eyes were bright with emotion. The smack which came to Steve’s cheek was anything but light, yet it was full of affection, even as it stung something fierce.  

“You’re my brother, Steve. I wouldn’t ever do that to you. I love you, pal, and we’ve been through too much hell to fight over a girl, even a dame as amazing as Celine. Whatever comes, we’ll figure it out. Besides, she’s skittish as a baby deer,” he sighed. “Doubt it will go anywhere for either of us.”

Both sighed unhappily and continued inside.

***

A little panicked, Celine made her way back to her room, thankful she avoided seeing anyone else. Riding in the elevator, she allowed herself a small amount of hysterical laughter for, sure enough, she’d found herself sandwiched happily - and hornily - between the two soldiers again. Her nature had taken over thanks to her overactive libido, and she’d drawn them in.

And it had felt… good. Too good.

The spike in Steve’s chi had nearly made her moan and beg for a taste. The Captain was potent!

Bucky, too, though slightly more in control, his arousal had shivered through her. It was subtle, like the nip in the air which preceded a snowstorm but it was still delectable.

So intent was she on the near taste she’d had, something she really should be berating herself for, Celine did not notice the aura waiting in her room until her hand was on the doorknob. Steeling her spine, she slowly pushed her door inward.

The lights were on, the one sitting on her couch doing nothing to hide her presence. Natasha smirked smugly at her.

“I do not remember inviting you to my room,” Celine said cautiously, remaining in the doorway.

“You didn’t. Come in, shut the door, and sit down.”

Brow arching, Celine snorted. “I think I will stay where I am.”

Anger flared in her aura before Natasha smoothed it away. “I think… Adeline, you will want to do what I say.”

The use of her real name was so rare, Celine momentarily froze. Closing the door, she moved toward Natasha, growing angrier by the second. “So, you have found my birth name. What of it?”

Picking up a tablet, Nat read, “Born Adeline Evans to one Tammy Evans, drug addict junky, and alcoholic absentee father, Marcus Evans. Ran away from home at thirteen, wanted for questioning in the death of one Franklin Delacore after he was found dead on the floor of your bedroom.”

She refused to flinch, only sat in an armchair and crossed her legs. There was nothing there. Charles had seen to the reports, the heart attack the man had had was ruled as an accident. Her mother’s drugged up ravings were nothing more than the ramblings of a woman out of her mind.

“Lived on the street, it seems from the age of thirteen until fifteen.” Here Nat looked up. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the police were informed of the mutant Styx whose MO perfectly fits the two cold cases they have from way back when Adeline was a teenage runaway.”

“What do you want, Natasha?” Celine asked, without a hint any of what she’d said had been true.

“Oh, I’m not done yet,” she fairly purred. “There’s also the information about poor Thomas and Jacob. Nasty business that. It really would be a travesty if the new team found out what you’d done to your old team. To your friends.”

“What do you want, Natasha?” Celine asked a second time.

“What I want is for you to leave and never come back, but we can’t always get what we want, so how about what I need?”

Tired of these games, Celine snapped, “Just spit it out, Widow!” Hair curling, nails lengthening, she dug her talons into the cushioned arms of her chair.

Natasha stiffened her entire countenance sharpening. “I’ve safeguards in place, Styx, so think twice about hurting me. Anything happens to me here, or on a mission, you're a part of… all this information goes public.” She smiled, a predatory baring of teeth. “It would be a pity if the Professor's involvement in all your messes came to light.”

The cold weight of fear wrapped around Celine’s heart. “Get to the point, Natasha.”

“I see how you look at them you know. Steve and Bucky. They’re too blinded by the pretty girl to see the monster you really are. You're going to stay away from them; you're going to stay away from all my friends. You'll limit your involvement with the team outside of missions.” She got slowly to her feet, triumph and bravado coating her innate fear of what Celine was. “Isolate yourself, Celine, or I'll do it for you. Permanently.” Striding toward the door, Natasha dropped the tablet in Celine’s lap, the faces of Jacob and Thomas staring up at her from the screen.

Celine spoke softly, “Be careful, Widow. What you try so hard to protect… may not take kindly to your methods.”

“You’ll never tell them. You try so hard to be human, fit in, but you're a monster. I know it. You know it. If they knew what you'd done….” Natasha let the words hang as she shut the door and walked away.

Celine stared down at her lap and lightly touched first one and then the other face.

Natasha may have found the information on the boys, she may know some of Charles involvement, she suspected the Widow had likely bugged her room, but Natasha didn't know everything. She couldn't for there were no records of what Celine was beyond the mental knowledge shared by four people.

But the two smiling faces on the tablet in her lap, the one lost and the one…. She couldn't bear to think about it. The pain it caused was simply too great.

She placed her hand flat on the screen and ignored the tears which fell down her face as she cried for things she could never make right, and for the life she might have possibly had here.

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