#if you wanna give your character a heart attack they might easily throw up with the combo of nausea + chewing aspirin lmao

[silvercap]

Fun fact I forgot I knew: chewing aspirin is fucking gross. Do it, obviously, in cases of suspected heart attack, but the taste is like battery acid mixed with sand. It's super tangy, not bitter like you'd think! In case you were curious

[ramzawrites]

Idea: Chaotic Creeper Hybrid!Reader holding something, that can conduct electricity, up while a thunderstorm is happening. They’re just screaming "strike me down Zeus!" while panicked SBI is trying to stop them. Tommy probably cheering reader on?

Strike me down, Zeus! - Creeper!Hybrid!Reader and SBI

GN

Pairings: none

Characters included: Philza, Technoblade, Wilbur, Tommy

Warnings: cursing

Series: a request :D

Summary: When Y/N ran out to get intentionally hit by lightning, of course their family runs after them to make sure they don’t die! Well, Tommy was excited to see if Y/N could indeed be charged up like a proper creeper seeing how they were a Creeper Hybrid, but that was just Tommy being Tommy. Philza, Wilbur and Techno though were very much intent on saving Y/N from their own stupidity.

Words count: 1365

Authors Note: Thanks for the request! It was fun writing something more lighthearted and shorter :D Would love some feedback on this one!

„Come on! Do it you coward!” Y/N frantically yelled out as they climbed up another hill, still holding firmly onto the trident.

The rain was making it a bit harder for their feet to find solid ground to climb but somehow, they managed to get on top of the hill. Their clothes wet and caked in mud, but they made it on top of the highest place around at least. Ignoring the worried and scared yells from their adopted family.

Well, everyone but one was worried. The youngest of the group was cheering them on. Throwing his fists in the air as he peeled his eyes for what might happen.

Philza opened his wings and jumped up into the air. Trying to get closer to Y/N but still making sure to stay away from them as they swayed around his trident.

“Give that back to me, kid!”

But Y/N just turned around, looked him in the eyes and begun jumping in the air, holding the weapon high above their head.

Another lightning struck down somewhere but nowhere near Y/N which seemed to infuriate the Creeper Hybrid even more “Fuck!”

As Phil landed close by them, but not too close to avoid being accidentally struck by lightning as well should it indeed happen, he stretched his hand out “Give me my trident back, Y/N! You will fucking die!”

Y/N just turned around and let out a sharp hiss, their eyes lighting up similar how Creepers do right before they blow up, but Y/N stopped themself. They could emit something like a blast but it hurt them as well, so they often just used the flashing as a threat.

After all they have blown themself up in the past just to prove a point, so it wasn’t an entirely empty threat.

Now the group consisting of Technoblade, Wilbur and Tommy arrived as well. Having to climb up since none of them could fly like Philza.

Technoblade tiredly rubbed his face as he stared at Y/N who was still swinging the trident into the air, jumping to reach further up.

“Y/N do you really wanna die like that? It would be a pretty cringe death not gonna lie.”

He loved his sibling but, man, sometimes they were a handful.

Before Y/N could even defend themself Tommy chimed in “No! Do it, Y/N! You can kind of blow up like a creeper so why shouldn’t you be able to charge yourself like one!”

Of course, Tommy would encourage them even more. The two were hunkering down an hour ago and the rest of the family just assumed they were scheming, which in a way was true but the others didn’t expect them to discuss what would happen if Y/N, the resident Creeper Hybrid, got struck by lightning.

Wilbur was biting on his lower lip. Trying to hide an amused smile and instead put on a worried expression. As much as he revelled in chaos like the others, this was a bit too dangerous “Come on. Just get back home. I’m freezing. Aren’t you freezing?”

With an almost incredulous look on their face, Y/N’s gaze pierced through Wilbur cool and relaxed façade. This really spiked his worry now. They weren’t just doing this for fun or to cause chaos, no, they were deadest on doing this.

“For real! Let’s get home!” he tried to reinforce his statement but Y/N’s head turned back around into the air.

Staring at the black clouds as the rain continued to fall. Their clothes wet. Didn’t even bother putting on a jacket. Just standing their in their simple clothing with their arms far above their head.

Philza took a step closer. Y/N was compared to the others further up on the hill but also surrounded by a drop all around them. So, realistically they could properly do something, but it was dangerous with them swinging around a weapon that also worked as a conductor during the storm.

“Y/N! This isn’t funny! You will seriously get hurt!” Philza urged them again.

Suddenly the world lit up again, closely followed by a loud crash. Lightning struck again but sadly, or luckily, nowhere near Y/N.

Y/N let out a frustrated yell “Come on! Strike me down Zeus! Do it you coward!”

Tommy groaned as well, directing his eyes towards the clouds as well “Seriously! Do it you pussy!”

This earned him a soft slap against the back of his head by Techno who just shook his head like only a disappointed older brother could. Naturally, Tommy responded with sticking his tongue out just like only a younger brother could.

While those two were dealing with each other, both Philza and Wilbur saw their chance. Lightning just struck that meant they had a small window to get to Y/N.

The two ran.

Wilbur slipped for a second on the wet grass but caught himself before he lost balance, following his father who was running towards his, frankly idiotic, kid with a determined expression. Brows pulled deeply down.

Y/N only noticed how Wilbur and Philza were running towards them when it was already too late. Both had their hands outstretched and crashed into them. Pulling them down into the mud, wrestling the trident out of their hand.

“That’s unfair!”

“We are saving your life, idiot!” Wilbur grumbled as he gave Philza his trident back, “Now, home.”

Wilbur didn’t often act as a proper older brother, only occasionally bringing out the “older brother voice”, but Y/N still tried to get back up. Trying to lunge for the trident. Steal it back. Fortunately, Wilbur caught them and just threw them on his shoulder which left them only able to drum and punch him in his back.

He immediately made sure to slowly jog the hill back down. Ignoring the writhing and yelling Y/N who just wanted to satisfy their curiosity! How dare he! How dare he care about their wellbeing and make sure they would be fine!

“What? You went down so easily, Y/N!” Tommy yelled out surprised as he watched Wilbur pass him and Techno, earning himself another soft slap to the back of his head. It didn’t hurt but did bring the message across.

All the while Philza was sighing, clutching the trident, slowly following his children down. Sometimes he wondered what he did to live through this kind of chaos while only on one life left.

“I’m gonna blow you up, Wil!” Y/N hissed as they continued to try to get out of his grip.

This time Techno softly bopped them on the head “Don’t even try it. Stop having a temper tantrum you are too old for this. It’s embarrassing. Besides, we are just making sure you are alright. I’m sure we can find other more safer ways to test out if you can become a charged creeper, well, charged Creeper Hybrid.”

This seemed to calm them down a little bit. A spark of hope burning in their eyes only for them to pout and look away “I mean, I guess.”

“But not today! You gave me an Ender damned heart attack, Y/N! Never do that again.” Philza spoke up, still making sure to keep the trident out of Y/N’s reach.

Y/N had to concede. There was no way they could get out of Wilbur’s grip like this, especially while they were surrounded by their family. Instead, they made peace with the fact that they wouldn’t get to test their theory today.

Still pouting once they were back inside their home, now in clean clothes and sitting close to the warm fire as Philza and Techno prepared some hot drinks for the family. Wilbur grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around himself while also enveloping Y/N. All of them being frozen from the storm outside.

Even still, they all got colds afterwards and Y/N felt a tiny bit guilty, though this got thrown out the window as soon as Techno announced he would start on helping researching ways to test Y/N’s hypothesis.

Wanting to do it correctly and as safely as possible.

It didn’t surprise neither Techno nor Y/N when Tommy asked to help as well, even if only to use the knowledge to plan up more schemes with them.

[uwuwriting]

Anger issues w/ Dabi, Bakugou and Aizawa

Request: I’m the type of person who doesn’t get angry very easily but when I do I’m really scary and people back off. Can I request Dabi, Bakugou and either Shiggy or Aizawa with a girlfriend who is just like that and the first time they see her angry they are so confused like how did their quiet s/o turn into the devil. Thank you. 

Lmao I’m like that as well. Big mood. People underestimate me and think they can walk all over me just because I’m polite. Bitch nah imma stab you in your sleep in 2-3 business days. Love ya.💖💖💖

masterlist

rules

warnings: cursing, some violence, threats *creative ones as well*

Dabi/Touya Todoroki 

-Baby was the equivalent of the pikachu meme. 

-You were both chillin at his place watching TV.

-Actually he was laying down, head in your lap as he played Among us on his phone while you changed channels in an attempt to find something interesting to watch. 

-As you were mindlessly zapping through the channels you stumbled upon an interview with none other than the number 1 hero, Endeavor himself. 

-Your finger froze over the channel button as you stared at the hero in front of you. 

-You felt Dabi stiffen in your lap, his character staying still on the screen as his father’s voice bounced off the walls of the small apartment. 

- “Doll could you change th-” 

- “I’m thinking of retiring, yes. My family is my top priority and I would like to spend some quality time with them. Family is very imp-”

- “Shut your clown ass up!”

-The remote went flying barely missing the TV as you launched it at the hero’s face. 

- “If I have to hear any more bullshit coming out of your mouth I will march to wherever you are and beat you to a fucking plump got it?” 

- “Babe he can’t hear you.”

- “I don’t give a shit! He will hear me when my hands are squeezing his WINDPIPE!”

-And with that you shot up from the couch, sending Dabi rolling to the floor in the process. 

-Marching out of the living room, he heard the door slam shut and then a muffled scream before the only sound was the words coming from the TV.

-He had whiplash after that. 

-He didn’t know what exactly happened but he was glad in some weird way. 

-He knows that you don’t get angry easily, hell he couldn’t get you to snap at him even when he tried his best. 

-Sure he irritates you but you have never actually snapped like this before. 

-Your calm and collected nature calms him down so seeing you curse and be so violent all of a sudden got him riled up. 

-Making his way to your shared room he opened the door finding you curled up on your bed with an angry expression on your face. 

-Nose scrunched up, mouth in a scowl and  brows furrowed. 

-Letting out a small chuckle he took his place behind you bringing his lanky arms around your waist as he turned you around,your nose barely grazing his, eyes burning holes in his chest.

-He brought his forefinger in between your brows and made small circles at the spot, watching as your facial expression relaxed a bit but the scowl was still there. 

- “Stop thinking about it you’ll get a headache.” 

- “I wanna punch him in the dick.”

- “I wanna do that too but it can wait.” 

-Kissing your forehead first he started trailing little pecks all over your face, being satisfied by the small giggles he could get out of you. 

-This is why I love you.

Bonus: 

- “That was the hottest thing I have seen.” 

- “You are getting dommed tonight, lover boy.” 

- *flustered burned boy*

Bakugou Katsuki 

-He is the one who is angry in your relationship.

-We’ve been new. 

-You are his damage control, you can always calm him down and put some sense into him. 

-Most of the time he listens to your every word. 

-So everyone assumed that since you put up with his shit without batting an eyelash, never showing a sign of anger, you can’t get angry. 

-That your anger was that little puff of your cheeks and scrunch of your nose that Bakugou adores. 

-No one has ever seen you angry so you don’t blame them. 

-But everyone has that one thing that just makes them snap *for me it’s Endeavor*

-You were training with class 1-B when that dickhead Monoma decided to fuck with your boyfriend. 

-They were fighting, throwing insults at each other non-stop when Monoma decided to be a dick. 

- “Why are you even in this class huh? You would be more useful to the villains. It would be so easy for you too, I bet you don’t need much of a push to join them, don’t you Bakugou.” 

-Bakugou may not like talking about it but you know. 

-The thoughts that haunt him. 

-He was kidnapped and saw his idol be brought down because the League believed that he would make a great entry to their group. 

-His own mind works against him sometimes, reminding him of the looks of fear most of the people in his life have when it comes to him. 

-He hates it. 

-What breaks him even more though is being reminded out loud about those thoughts. 

-Having them confirmed by someone else. 

-He had stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the other boy in pure horror when he saw a flash of color and Monoma was now laying face down a few feet away. 

-You were panting, hands clenched in fists as you stared at the boy in outer disgust, a vein popping on your forehead. 

-Bakugou was silent watching your shoulders frantically going up and down, pure rage emanating from your demeanor.

-In the blink of an eye you were on top of Monoma, lifting him off the ground, a snarl escaping your lips.

- “You fucking piece of shit I’ll fucking stab your parents if you say anything like that again!”

-Everyone was shooketh.

-Absolutely terrified but still shooketh.

-Monoma scrambled off the moment you let him go spewing apology after apology. 

- “Baby you okay?” 

-How the fuck was your voice back to normal? How was it so soft as if nothing happened? As if you didn’t just pin down and threaten someone. 

- “Y-Yeah I’m fine.”

-The class was afraid of you for the next four months. 

Bonus:

- “Baby, you got so fired up.”

- “No one talks shit about you!”

- “I know but wow that was hot.”

Aizawa Shouta 

-Shouta is used to the comments made about him. 

-People doubt him as both a hero and a teacher at times and he has learned not to let it get to him. 

-He believed that you had closed those comments off as well, you didn’t show any signs of them bothering you at least. 

-Sure you might make a small comment whenever you hear something but you never snapped at someone. 

-He knew that you prefered tranquility, it was his calm nature that attracted you in the first place *and the fact that he was smoking hot*.

-So when you actually snapped at someone he was taken aback and super turned on. 

-Like wow that woman right there giving someone a heart attack is his wife? 

-Wow.

-You were both at a hero conference, meeting up with some of your old colleagues to catch up and to get some insight in the hero industry. 

-Yall wanted the tea. 

-You two were attached to the hip, never leaving each  other's side as you enjoyed yourselves. 

-You were  chatting with a retired heroine who had helped you in the past when you heard murmuring coming from behind you. 

- “I heard that one of his students got kidnapped during the summer.” 

- “Of course he would let that happen, what could he possibly be a reliable individual? He was a delinquent and a vigilante, irresponsibility is in his blood.” 

-Shouta felt you stiffen as your gaze shadowed over.

 - “Kit- um Y/N?”

-The two continued dissing your husband and you tried to calm yourself down, you really did.

 -But they made it really really hard.

- “He went on live television and gave excuses for that whole ordeal.”

- “You think he was trying to pass the blame?”

- “Of course he was! He has no sense of dignity, leaving his students to fight while he slept and then letting one of them be kidnapped like that.”

-Now he started getting scared because your grip on his arm had tightened and you wouldn’t look at him. 

-He thought that you were having a panic attack and it's OUR panic attack so the convention would have to deal with two UA teachers breaking down.

-But then you let go and a sweet smile appeared on your face as you made your way to the duo.  

- “It comes from the bottom of my heart when I say that I need you to sit you maniac ass down and be quiet for the rest of the fucking night because don’t think I would hesitate to beat your punkass in front of all those people. If I hear Shouta’s name come out of your lips again I will personally make sure that you won’t be able to formulate words for the next five fucking months.”

-Not even a peep came out of those two for the rest of the evening, their eyes always darting between you and your husband, cold sweat running down their spines every time one of you made eye contact with them. 

- “Y/N, kitty, that wasn’t necessary.”

- “You talk shit you get wrecked, period.” 

Bonus: 

- “Come on Shouta we’re going home.” 

- “We’ve only been here for an hour, kit-”

- “You are either blowing my back out or staying here, choose.” 

- “Home it is.”

TAG TEAM AY:

@the-arcana-fan-fic​ @angelwritings​ @axerrri​ @reinyrei​ @dnarez​ @bemorefiction​ @threeamwriting​ @dark-thoughts-and-red-roses​ @ezoyscorner​ @letscheereachotheron​

[heyheydidjaknow]

Can I have a lighthearted chapter? No, I cannot. Can I upload at the due date? Also no. But you can always count on me to make characters suffer. I would say that I'm sorry, but then I would be a liar.

Chapter 8

“Will you shut up?”

Donatello looks up from his computer. “Huh?”

Raphael’s eyes do not leave his magazine. “You’ve been muttering under your breath for the past hour and it’s starting to get on my nerves.”

“You’ll live.”

“You won’t for long if you don’t cut that shit out.”

He sighs. “Are you ever content with just leaving me be?”

“As your brother? No.” He sets the article down. “You’ve been acting weird all week. Usually, I could not care less, but you wreck enough shit without the added benefit of being distracted.”

He looks back at the screen. “So, I’m a ticking time bomb to you?”

“Yes.”

He looks back at the screen as he tries to think of how to answer. “It’s just that…”

“Oh, wait, don’t tell me.” He smirks. “You’re all depressed because your girlfriend has a life.”

He goes red. “I don’t care if—she’s not my girlfriend, first of all.” His voice rises.

“Sure, sure.” He stretches. “You know, typically, girls aren’t into guys who obsess over them.”

“Look, I’m worried about her!” He sets the computer down.

He blinks. “Why?”

“Are you kidding?” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “She killed a man!”

“Yeah,” he nods, “and I’m pissed I wasn’t the one to do it. What’s your point?”

“True,” he smiles cooly. “What you fail to consider, however, is that the rest of us aren’t psychotic.”

“I’m hurt.” He places his hand on his chest. “I will have you know that I’m definitely sane.”

“See, this is why nobody comes to you about their problems.” He leans his head back. “You ask why I’m down, and you immediately give me a hard time.”

They both turn their heads toward the entrance as their two other brothers walk back into the lair.

“How’d it go?” Raph gets up to meet them.

“You didn’t miss anything.” Leo sits down next to Donnie, glancing at his laptop before staring at the empty television screen. “Nobody was there.”

“Really?” Donnie’s eyes tear away from his computer screen. “Nobody?”

“Man, it was weird.” Michelangelo stays standing. “It was, like, two bots and then nothin’.”

“That is incredibly suspicious.” The tallest brother saves his work. “You used the stuff, right?”

“Worked like a charm.” Leonardo stretches. “So, what’d we miss?”

“Donnie bitching about not talking to his girlfriend for a whole week.”

“Can it,” he hisses.

“Donnie,” his brother speaks from next to him, “I’m sure that Y/N is perfectly fine. If you’re worried about her, you can and should go check on her.”

He groans. “If it were that simple, I would’ve done that by now.” He holds his head. “But what would I even say?”

He sighs, “I’m not going to say the same thing every time.” He gets up. “Mikey, you try. I’m going to go meditate if anyone wants to join.”

“Hey!” Mikey sticks his tongue out at him. “How come I have to do it?”

“Because Raphael is as cuddly as an eel.”

Raph glares. “Do you wanna go right now?”

“See?” He walks off. “And I did it last time. Your turn.” They hear the doors to the dojo slide closed behind him.

Mikey sits down in Leo’s spot. “If you want,” he offers as his brother walks off to the dojo, “I can try talking to her.”

“Would you?” He sighs. “I’m not good at this sort of thing.”

“For sure, man.” He gives him a thumbs up. “What are brothers for?”

“If you don’t make him do things,” Raphael warns, “he’s never going to learn to do them.”

“Man, he’s our bro.” He wraps an arm around his neck. “You can’t just leave your bro out to dry.”

“The hell I can’t.” He gets to his feet. “You guys have fun with that. I’ll be in my room.” He walks off, taking his pet turtle with him.

“Don’t listen to him.” He shoots his brother a thumbs up. “I’m sure everything will work out.” Mikey hopped to his feet. “Be back in a bit.” He waved, running out of the lair. “I’ll be back in ten.”

--

The look on his face is less than reassuring.

“Well?” Donatello, who has been checking the time religiously, is sitting at the door like a dog waiting for his owner. “How did it go?”

He smiles tightly. “I have good news and bad news.”

He groans, holding his head in his hands. “Just tell me.”

“Well,” he says hesitantly, crouching down in front of him, “she’s not dead.”

“That isn’t exactly a high bar to hurdle.” He takes a deep breath. “What’s the bad news?”

He pauses. “She’s… freaked out.”

“On a scale of one to ten,” he asks slowly, “with one being—”

“Nine.” His younger brother nods certainly. “At least a nine.”

He stands up. “I should go check on her.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what to do.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I think I made things worse, actually.”

“What else is new?” He runs out. “Tell Leo I’m going out,” he calls over his shoulder. He does not wait for a reply.

He does not blame himself entirely for the events currently happening; he is well aware that her inclusion into their mess was not willed by him. However, a part of him can not shake the belief that he and his brothers have, by virtue of their lifestyle, caused her more pain than he had ever wanted. A part of him, still, believes that he or someone else should have bitten the bullet; of them, you should be the last person in line to murder.

‘I should’ve said something, done something.’

He lands down on your roof, starting to scale down the building. You have left your window open: he can see your floral curtains fluttering in the autumn breeze. Artificial light streams from your apartment as soft music plays from inside. He lands on your windowsill carefully, reaching in past the curtains to knock on your wall. “Y/N?”

He hears the music shut off the shuffling of bedsheets, three steps. You pull the curtain open.

You have not slept in a week. You have continued to go to school, scared as to what would happen if you did not, but you have not eaten or drank in a while either; more accurately, nothing has stayed down. You have contributed these things, easily, to the newly introduced variety in your nightmares. You wonder, now, if seeing his body would have been such a bad thing; your head has conjured up every possible position he might have fallen in, anyhow. At least, if you knew, you would only have one image torturing you as opposed to the seemingly different variations your head could come up with.

Donnie is not a psychologist. He has never been able to fully grasp the subject as much as the others in the scientific field; all of medicine, for that matter, has, regrettably, been hard for him to wrap his head around, what with how different he and his brother are from humans, physiologically. His master was the closest he had to an actual human until you had shown up, but he was hardly exemplary of your typical human. However, be it by what knowledge he does have or by the way you hold yourself, he can easily tell you are off. The color in your face is gone, the bags under your eyes larger than he has ever seen them on you, and every move seems oddly sluggish to him.

“Oh, hey.” You smile tiredly. “If you’re here about Michelangelo, he was just here a few minutes ago.”

“I’m not.” He climbs inside. “He got back to the lair ten or so minutes ago. Are you alright?”

Your eyes are flooded with black for a moment, a wave of numb pain and vertigo washing over you as you spread your stance slightly, not wanting to trip over your own feet. You hold your face in your hand as you steady yourself. “Totally.” You wince as you nodded. ‘Let’s not move our head more than we need to.’

Years of attentiveness and common sense tell him that you are blatantly lying. “What happened?”

“Huh?” You close your eyes. “Oh, nothin.” You take a couple steps back, slowly sitting back down on the bed, which was covered in packets. “Please,” you insist, “make yourself comfortable.”

He shuts the curtains, crouching down in front of you to look your features over more closely as he tries to identify what, exactly, is wrong with you. “Am I allowed to touch you?”

You look down at him from your seat. “I mean,” you sigh, “you _can_, if you want. Just not anywhere a general physician wouldn’t touch, alright?” You give him a half-hearted thumbs up. “I trust you to know where you can and can’t put your hands.” You highly doubt that he has any bad intentions, really, but you want to make your intentions clear.

“O-oh, of course,” he nods quickly. “I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t—well, not that you wouldn’t—” his face went red. “I-I mean—”

“Dude, relax.” You roll your eyes good-naturedly. “Take a deep breath or I’m gonna the wrong idea.”

He does “S-sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck. “That was weird.”

“You’re all good.”

He presses the back of his hand against your forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” he notes, still red in the face. “Did you eat anything you normally wouldn’t?”

You give him a thumbs down. “I’ve only had soup. Do you want some?”

He blinks. “Soup?”

“Yeah.” You look back at the kitchen, where a pot of soup is sitting on the counter. “Ran out of leftovers a couple days ago.”

His eyes widen. “Days?”

You nod, wincing as you feel your brain pounding against your skull. “Yeah,” you sigh. “It’s been hard to keep things down. Glad I ran out, actually; I think I got a—”

He cuts you off. “How many days do you take between meals?”

You pause. “Now?” You shrug. “One meal every day or two.”

“Day or two?”

“Again,” you repeat, very confused as to why he looks as though he is about to have a heart attack right then and there, “it’s been hard keeping stuff down lately.”

“How are you not dead?”

You blink. “I beg your pardon?”

His voice rises as his speech sped up. “How many cups of that do you eat in a sitting?”

You sit up properly. “Maybe three or four and a couple pieces of toast?”

He looks about ready to pass out. “Are you insane,” he cries, an octave higher than usual.

You cover his mouth with your hand. “Shut up,” you hiss. “You’re gonna wake my neighbors up.”

He stops talking, grabbing your hand and pulling it off his mouth. He gets up, muttering something about being ridiculous as he pours you an unusually large bowl of soup and placing it in your lap. “Eat.” He stands there, glaring at you pointedly.

You are, admittedly, surprised by his icy, commanding tone. You do as instructed. “You act as though I’ve poisoned myself,” you point out between bites. “It won’t kill me, you know.”

“I’m not a licensed dietitian,” he informs you, clearly upset, “but the recommended caloric intake for a woman is approximately four thousand calories—”

“That’s wrong.” You are already halfway through the bowl. “It’s two.”

“Do you seriously want to get into a debate on something science-related right now?” You are genuinely scared by his expression; every word sounds oddly lethal, as if they themselves could kill you.

You swallow, standing your ground. “We can look it up, if you want,” you offer. “I know for a fact I’m… right…”

He has glared directly at you. It almost shuts you up.

You quietly eat the rest of the bowl. You set your spoon down with a gentle clatter, clearing your throat as you try to ignore the way he was staring at you as if he were trying to dissect you with his eyes. “Done.” You showed him the empty bowl.

“You genuinely see nothing wrong with your dietary choices?”

You shake your head, immediately regretting it. “I know it’s unhealthy, but not to the same degree you seem to think it is.”

“And you honestly believe that you only need to eat two thousand calories to be healthy?” His tone was softer now, likely in reaction to how quickly you had recoiled.

You nod hesitantly, ignoring the way your head pounds.

He pauses. “We’ll talk about that later,” he decides. “For now, I have to ask: why can’t you keep food down, exactly?”

You lean back, placing the bowl on the nightstand. You stay like that, closing your eyes. “I just keep seeing it,” you explain simply. “Hearing it, too; it’s kinda like tasting really bad and then having the aftertaste stuck on your tongue, but for memories. Or like doing something embarrassing and, every once and awhile, having something happen to remind you of it.”

“It? Oh.” As soon as he says the words out loud, he knows what you are referring to.

“Yup.” You pop the P. “I dunno if you knew, but it doesn’t splat.”

A heavy silence smothers you both, despite the sounds of the city.

You feel the bed shift. Your eyes glance over at the man lying next to you, hands folded across his stomach as he stares at the ceiling.

“I honestly don’t know what to say.” He sighs. "I wish I knew how to do right by you.”

“You don’t have to—”

He cuts you off. “I want to, though.” He rubs his face with his hand. “I want to be able to invent something that makes things easier for you, to keep you from getting hurt.”

“Dude, it’s fine.” You punch his arm lightly. “I’ll be fine, eventually. Just not right now.” You smile weakly. “But, hey? At least my dreams have a bit of variety, right?”

“Dreams?”

You chuckle tightly. “It turns out my head is rather creative when it comes to ways the body can bend. I almost wish I had seen the bodies; then they could all be consistent.”

He groans. “See, it’s stuff like that that makes me feel bad about not being able—not that it’s your fault,” he back peddles. “I just—”

“Stop stressing so much,” you cut him off. “That’s my job. Don’t put yourself into a tizzy on my account.”

“How could I not?” He threw his hands up in the air. “I care about you, Y/N. I’m obviously going to care if you’re alright.”

You pause. “My mental stability should be the least of your concerns right now, what with Shredder and all.” You close your eyes. “The only reason he hasn’t beaten you and your brothers within an inch of your lives is that I knew where he’d be when. All things considered,” you roll over to face him, “my having bad nightmares is a small price to pay.”

Another silence.

You sigh. “You should probably get going.” You pull yourself onto your elbows, leaning forward onto your knees. “I gotta stake out Shredder’s lair tomorrow so you guys know when to come in.”

He sits up next to you. “Y/N, I—”

“You should stop worrying so much, alright?” You smile gently. “I have some sleep meds if your dad needs them.”

He opens his mouth to say something, pauses, closes it again. “Alright.” He stands up. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“You didn’t.” He didn’t.

He stops in his tracks.

You rest your head on your legs. “Yeah?”

“Will we see you tomorrow?”

You purse your lips. “I don’t know,” you admit. “I’ll definitely call you, though; it’ll be something of a feat to hijack a hijacked chemical truck.”

He looks back at you. “Please, be safe.”

You nod.

“Eat, too.”

You nod again.

“And drink?”

You roll your eyes teasingly. “Yeah, Dad, I’ll eat.”

His face flushes again. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You got it, buddy.”

You look so small.

‘I did that.’

He climbs onto the windowsill, hesitating to leave. “Goodnight.”

You wave lazily. “Goodnight, Donatello.”

He climbs out of your apartment.

You wait a minute or two before you close and lock your window. You pull the curtains shut properly behind him, walking back to the kitchen to put the food away.

You sigh, doleful. “Sorry.”

--

You were maybe thirteen years old. It feels like longer, but you were most certainly in middle school

Driving home after school one day, you had stared out the window, the radio playing something you half paid attention to. You don’t remember, now, what prompted the conversation—you figure it was some sort of assembly you had mentioned—but, somehow, the question of what to do if you were tied up in the back of someone’s car had been brought up. This was not an unusual line of conversation, considering your family’s conviction that you would be kidnapped someday, but you remember it specifically because, after he brought it up, you had run the scenario over in your head what felt like a thousand times.

“It depends on where you are in the car,” he had said. “If you’re in the back seat, you have to reach forward and try to choke the driver out, if you can’t get the doors open.”

“And if I’m in the front?”

“Ram your body against his. Get a hold of the wheel and swerve the car.

The line of thinking had confused you. “But,” you countered, “then the car would crash; we would both get hurt.”

“You have a better chance of surviving a car crash than whatever would happen to you once you get to wherever you’re going.”

You two had not spoken for the rest of the drive.

Now, you stare ahead at the road, eyes occasionally glancing at the man in the driver’s seat as you try to come up with a plan. You wish, now, that you had gone with your initial instinct to call instead of sending Leonardo a text message; who knows when he will get it?

“I feel almost sorry for you,” the man sneers. “You would be better off getting killed in the explosion than what’s going to happen to you.”

You say nothing.

“Hey?” He barks out a laugh. “You’ll get to see what happens to them.” He sighs happily. “I can see it now. The smoke, the fire, the smell.”

You eye the door. ‘Locked. Shit.’

“Those freaks won’t know what hit them.” He leans forward, staring at the truck in front of them. “Shouldn’t have messed with us if they didn’t want to meet their maker.”

‘Could I even survive it?’

“You know somethin’, kid?” He grips the wheel tighter. “I gotta give ya some respect; not a ton of kids would’ve come this far. Personally,” he shrugs, “I would’ve killed you right then, but Shredder wants more out of ya, apparently.”

‘Would he?’ You shift your feet to your right.

“I’ll thank you for one thing, though; I was getting sick of that pompous asshole.”

‘I just gotta get his hands away from the wheel. There are people in the back of this van. They’d survive, right?’ You fight to keep your breathing steady.

“For someone who hangs with those freaks, you ain't slick, hangin on the street corner.”

‘They’re ninjas. I gotta believe they’d be fine.’ You shut your eyes, stealing yourself.

“How you got Bradford is be—hey!”

You slammed your torso against him, eyes squeezed shut.

“What are you, fucking suicidal?” He yelled, trying to push you off.

You pull away, slamming one foot against his cheek and stuck the other into the wheel. You hear honking as you desperately bang your foot into what you pray is his body. You feel the car speed up as he screams obscenities at you. You force the wheel away from you as hard as you can.

The next few moments are a blizzard of broken glass, voices, and blackness as the metal deathtrap tries to shake the life out of both of you.

You figure that you must have passed out a second, for the next thing you remember is the smell of gasoline.

Your eyes snap open. You look over at the man stuck half out the window. You reach back, trembling hands fumbling with the buckle strapping yourself in. You slam yourself against the front window as you hear it click open. You use your arms to pull yourself through the hole, the rope slicing against a stray piece of broken glass.

Your head is spinning. The only thought currently on your mind is to get away from the car.

For some reason, you find yourself unable to stand. You, instead, crawl, dragging your body desperately away from the wreckage. You do not feel yourself doing it, ignoring the glass shards sticking themselves into your palms and under your nails, the way they slashed into your stomach and sides as you drag yourself over them completely irrelevant as you claw towards the sidewalk.

You hear the explosion.

You pull yourself into an alley, waiting for the ringing in your ears to stop as you hear the conflict happening a few blocks down. You swallow your vomit as you stare forward blankly, the smell of smoke filling your nostrils.

Another.

You fall forward, tears filling your eyes as the pain settles in. You do not know what happened to your legs, only knowing for sure that they could not and would not support your weight. Every muscle and every tendon is vibrating. Your hair sticks to your body as your clothes soak in some sort of warm liquid.

You do not like that smell.

‘Why is everything spinning?’

You hear yelling, the screeching of wheels against asphalt.

‘I’m going to die.’

The sentence repeats in your head over and over again as you lay there in the alleyway.

‘I’m going to die here.’

You do not know why you are shaking right now.

‘I don’t want to die here. Not now.’

“Help,” you beg. “Please, God.” You feel a sob rise in your throat. “I don’t… wanna…”

You hear screaming.

“Help,” you breathe.

You black out.

Table of Contents

Chapter 7

Chapter 9

[an-odd-idea]

A Bad (Good?) Day

By @an-odd-idea for @baloobird

Rating: G

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark

Summary: Tony is having a bad anxiety day.  Peter might have an idea to help

Warning: Fairly detailed description of an anxiety attack

It was a bad day.

Tony wasn’t sure why it was a bad day, exactly, but it was. It was a bad day in the way his heart beat faster than he knew it should, even though nothing was happening. And the way he hadn’t eaten all day, because he was honestly feeling pretty fragile in the not-throwing-up department. And the way his hands felt weak, although he could easily chalk that up to the fact that he hadn’t eaten, so maybe that part didn’t count.

And the looming sense of dread. That was always fun.

He didn’t even know what he was dreading; that was the worst part. Not for lack of trying, as his brain was clamoring to fill that void for him, but he carefully blocked it out. If he could just get through for a while, maybe he’d be in a better state by the time Peter showed up, and that would at least be something.

He was not in a better state by the time Peter showed up.

Peter, thankfully, was his normal chatty self, and Tony felt himself relaxing slightly as he was forced to focus on the new distraction from his unease. That was good, he thought. Maybe he’d be able to get out of it soon.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, and as soon as he had gotten used to the new level of input, the anxiety came creeping back. That was fine; it wasn’t as if he hadn’t dealt with this before. Tony busied his hands again with the wires he was replacing, not liking how weak they felt.

“Are you okay Mr. Stark?”

Tony frowned. He thought the kid’s senses only applied to immediate danger?

“Never better,” he replied. “Yourself?”

He offered a less than convincing smile, and Peter narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, I haven’t slept much and I’m a little out of it, but it’s all good.”

Peter didn’t look entirely satisfied, but he didn’t press further, and Tony was grateful. Anyone who found out how anxious he was at the moment would assume there must be a cause, and he’d definitely sound crazy trying to explain that there wasn’t. People always thought there must be a cause, like public speaking or spiders or-

Aliens.

Tony’s heart faltered. Well now there was a cause.

He threw his mind into reverse and tried furiously to push the thought right back out, but it was like trying to snatch a piece of fruit out of a blender that was already running. Ordinarily it might not have been, but on a day like this he was already lost the instant the thought had occurred to him.

“Hey Mr. Stark?”

Dammit. “Hm?”

“Have you ever seen Emperor’s New Groove?”

Emperor’s New Groove? Tony braved the churning mess his mind had become, but he came up empty. “Can’t say I have.” Did he sound normal? He hoped so. “Do I need to?”

“If you want to.”

“Well, give me the rundown.” He definitely didn’t sound normal.

“Well it’s about this guy who gets turned into a llama...”

Peter went on. Tony wondered when the chitauri would come back, or when the new aliens would come. Because one way or another, the aliens were coming, he could feel it in his bones. They were going to show up in the sky, and the world would panic, and he wouldn’t know what to do. He’d have no idea what to do.

“So then they have to go get the thing to change him back and it’s a big adventure, but really funny,” Peter concluded, and Tony mentally kicked himself for missing most of it.

“Sounds great, kid,” he lied. He wished he didn’t sound so winded, but air was a precious commodity as he forced himself to take slow breaths when all he wanted was to start panting.

Peter beamed. “Wanna watch it with me?”

“I’d love to.” God, what was going to happen to them?

“Cool.” Peter took him by the arm and started tugging him toward the elevator.

“Wait, now?”

“Sure!”

“But we’ve...” Actually, watching a movie might be perfect. He’d have at least an hour to get his thoughts under control without Peter observing him. “All right.”

“You’ll love it.”

Tony forced a smile and allowed Peter to pull him into the elevator. Did aliens have elevators on their ships, that they used to transport prisoners to execute them or experiment on them or whatever aliens did? Tony stared at the numbers of the floors going by. If they did, he hoped he’d take this ride alone. If he made himself the biggest threat, he might.

“I can hear your heart, you know.”

Ah.

“Mr. Stark?”

“I’m alright.”

“No offense, but you’re a liar.”

Tony was pretty sure that being a human stethoscope was cheating, but he couldn’t argue.

“Would watching a movie actually help? That’s just what I thought of,” said Peter.

“Honestly I have no idea. I might need some time to just... think.”

“Just be scared?”

Tony sighed.

“Come on, I have an idea.” Peter took him by the hand and pulled him along again when the doors opened. “Do you think Miss Potts would mind if we borrowed her nail polish?”

“What?”

“It works, I promise. I’m good at this.”

“Sure, as long as we don’t set it on fire. Got in trouble for that once.”

Peter gave him a quizzical look.

“It’s fine.”

Peter was still holding his hand, and Tony gripped back a little harder than was probably necessary. He wondered what Peter would think when the aliens came. He didn’t think to question the kid’s plan any further while they went in search of nail polish.

“Pink is good,” said Peter. “Usually I do clear cause Flash makes fun of me enough already, but it’s nice to be able to see it.”

“And what are we doing with pink nail polish?” Tony asked, once Peter sat him down at the table and took a seat across from him.

“I’m gonna paint your nails.”

Tony withdrew his hands.

“Or you can do mine first. I know it sounds weird but it really, really works, and you don’t have to leave it.”

His tone was pleading, and Tony tried not to imagine what he might say when they found themselves surrounded when the aliens came. He offered his hands.

“Good.” Peter patted the back of his left hand where he had put it flat on the table and opened the bottle of polish. Tony wrinkled his nose at the sharp smell. “So it’s kinda weird; you can feel the cold through your fingernail if you pay attention.”

“And that helps?”

“Yep.” Peter leaned studiously over the table and swiped pink polish onto Tony’s smallest nail with the tiny brush.

Tony looked over his head at the wall. If the aliens came, when they came, he didn’t want to think about what would happen to Peter. Or Pepper. Or Rhodey. He had to admit he was afraid for himself too, or at least for what the others might see.

“Here, you do mine first,” said Peter, pulling him out of his thoughts again. “You have to pay attention or it doesn’t work.”

Tony accepted the tiny brush from him and hesitated, hovering over his finger.

“Don’t worry about doing a good job.”

He was definitely going to worry about doing a good job. Tony carefully brushed the color onto Peter’s nail. It was weird the way the brush slid, much smoother than he might have expected for how sticky nail polish appeared to be. It looked decent, too, not bad for a first try. The next one definitely wasn’t.

“You have to get more,” said Peter. “It doesn’t hold much.”

Tony dipped the little brush into the little bottle and wiped it delicately on the slender neck like he had seen Pepper do, and went for another try at Peter’s ring finger. It was quite nice, actually, how the color swept out smoothly under the brush. If he watched hard enough, he could get his mind to focus on that, and his anxiety was left to stew quietly in his chest for a while. Honestly it wasn’t much of an improvement yet, and he felt rather like throwing up, but at least he didn’t have to think about it as much.

“Look how it goes swoosh, Mr. Stark.” Peter must have been eavesdropping on his heartbeat again. That really wasn’t fair.

“Swoosh?”

“Give it.” Peter took the brush back and grabbed his hand to paint a long stripe of polish down his middle fingernail. “See? Swoosh.”

“Uh-huh.” Tony took the brush back and continued, long smooth strokes of pink polish that were, honestly, strangely calming to watch.

“You have to say it.”

“I’m not saying it.”

“C’mon, just once.”

“Not on your life.”

“Please?” said Peter, and Tony didn’t even have to look to feel the puppy dog eyes he was making.

“Fine. Swoosh.”

It was such a strange word coming out of his mouth that he caught himself on the beginning of a laugh. Peter, being Peter, dissolved into fits of giggles, and his laugh was so irresistible that Tony actually cracked a genuine smile.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Sorry!” Peter squeaked, clearly not sorry at all. “You don’t usually say stuff like that and it sounds funny!”

“I’m sure it does.” But Tony’s chest felt lighter as he finished painting Peter’s fingernails a shiny pink.

“Now I do yours. See if you can feel how cold it is.” Peter took the brush and Tony’s hand and made him lay it flat on the table. “But if you don’t pay attention I’ll make you do ‘em yourself, so watch.”

Tony watched. He was definitely breathing easier now, and if he focused on the sweep of the brush, he could almost ignore the still-irregular flutter of his heart. It felt like a dying moth.

“Can you feel it?” said Peter.

If he concentrated, Tony found he could indeed feel the cold of the polish through his nail, unless he was just imagining it. “Barely.”

“Isn’t it weird?”

“A little.”

Without any trigger, the thoughts from before were flooding right back in. They were like that sometimes, and Tony should be used to it by now, but he still found himself floundering because he didn’t want them to come back, he didn’t want them to come back.

“It’s okay.” Peter picked Tony’s hand up off the table and held it lightly to paint his thumb nail. “You know, it’s always hard to make it nice on your thumb because it needs more paint, but I think I did a good job, look.”

“Uh-huh.” It felt hard to get a decent breath again.

“I know you’re freaking out again, but that’s okay. If you watch how smooth it is, it helps you take smooth breaths.”

Tony watched, and he tried. Fortunately, it was a bit easier to control the same thoughts the second time around. He kept breathing. The nail polish was still weirdly cold, and Peter’s hand was warm, and the brush was a little bit mesmerizing if he watched closely enough. He tried to push all the other thoughts out.

“I still want you to watch Emperor’s New Groove,” said Peter. “It’s really good, and it might help.”

“Let’s do it,” said Tony, not one to argue at the moment.

“Good.” Peter repositioned his hand slightly to finish painting the last two nails. “You find it while I put this away. Don’t touch anything or it’ll smear everywhere.”

“Got it.” It was funny to be the one following Peter’s directions, but they seemed to be working again, so Tony wasn’t going to complain.

“Done!” Peter stopped to admire his handiwork. “I think you look nice.”

“I always look nice.”

Peter snorted and left with the bottle of nail polish. Holding his still-drying hands awkwardly apart, Tony made his way to the couch and asked FRIDAY to pull up the movie. Rather than give himself a chance to slip back into any of his old thoughts for a third time, he examined his hands, noting the place on his right middle finger where a small bubble in the polish had apparently been. It was interesting to look at; his fingernails were never shiny and pink, and they didn’t often have craters in them either. It was a good distraction, anyway.

“I’m back!” Peter hopped onto the couch next to him, and Tony was pretty sure its life expectancy had decreased significantly as soon as the kid had been introduced to his own life.

“FRI, start movie.”

Peter scooted closer, and Tony moved his arm to let him lean against his side.

“Will I turn you pink?”

“It’s probably mostly dry now.”

Tony wrapped his arms around Peter and squeezed him tightly. He was solid, and something about that helped Tony’s heart feel a little more solid too. Not so much like a dying moth now.

“Are hugs good?” said Peter, with his eyebrows raised in such a hopeful expression that Tony would probably have said yes no matter what.

“Hugs are good.”

Peter gave a satisfied little nod and leaned a bit more heavily against him, putting his head on Tony’s shoulder. “Now you have to actually watch.”

Tony wasn’t sure what he actually thought of the movie, but Peter cracking up next to him definitely made it a good one in his book. If he could just stay right here, in whatever headspace he had found now, that would be good. It was far from perfect, but it was good. He drummed his fingers absently on Peter’s arm.

“Are you still doing okay?”

“I thought you could just read that with your weird senses.”

“Well it’s nicer to ask as long as you’re gonna tell me.”

“Then I’m good.” Tony laced their pink-nailed fingers together. “I think I owe you a thank-you.”

Peter shrugged. “I get like that too sometimes, and it really helps for some reason, so I thought I’d see if it would help you.”

“It does.” Tony hugged him a little more, not liking the idea of Peter in the same state he’d been in earlier. He dropped a quick kiss to his forehead for good measure. “Thanks, kid.”

“You’re welcome.” Peter snuggled more fully into Tony’s arms like he was made to fit there. “Look, we’re almost to the best part!”

“Haven’t you said that six times already?”

“They’re all the best part, but this is really the best part.”

Tony ruffled Peter’s hair, and it was a bad day, but maybe part of it could still be considered a good day.

[olderthannetfic]

Escapade Vid - The Untamed

I could say this was my attempt at meta on an underappreciated character and that's why I wanted to vid Wen Ning…

Nah, I just think he's hot.

Wen Ning has this adorable babyface and big eyes. Just my type. And then he got a goth makeover and became a creepy zombie, increasing his hotness by ten thousand times. The Living Dead was everything I wanted except for dubcon possession porn, and it both irritates and cracks me up to see how many people find it OOC and badly made. I agree the colors are an abomination though--but more on that later.

I like Wen Ning the best because 1. He's hot and 2. He's one of the most competent characters and compromises his morals the least. Mianmian might be one up on him given how her story turns out, but in a whole series of craven idiots, I like the suicidally moral characters, especially when they're competent.

And also JC. Because I like his face. (What? I never said my Untamed feels were deep.)

I wanted to make this vid last year, right after Escapade. I spent forever finding a song, and I'm glad I did it then because it was a nightmare. I can find love songs easily, but I don't really care about WN/WWX, nor would most love songs fit that. It's clearly one-sided, but WN is also clearly totally happy to follow him around forever. Happy love songs are out. Pining angst is out.

WN is also motivated by high ideals more than specific family feelings. WQ wants to protect her family. WN wants to repay his debts. WN is a shy doofus on the surface when we first see him, and he acts flustered around most of the older characters, but this is deceptive. I feel like the most revealing scene is when he pops up at Lotus Pier, ready to grab JC and take on his entire clan. In what universe was this a good idea? What is he even doing there? Why did it actually work???

I wanted a song that encapsulated WN's quiet stubbornness. The trouble is that like 99% of popular music is either about romance or about being a confident badass, and most of the confident badass music is "Fuck you, ex boyfriend, I'm stronger now". I did not want an ex boyfriend song. A bunch of other songs are macho, flexing dudes talking about how they'll win the sports competition. Obviously, that was out. There are a very few songs like Try Everything, but they're awfully perky for covering Wen Ning's entire story, including him getting, you know, gruesomely murdered.

I honestly can't remember how I found the song I picked. I was probably listening to Happy Hanukkah on endless repeat and saw it in the Youtube sidebar. (Look, it's a great song for all times of year. Shut up.) Matisyahu has many amazing songs that build and move in ways ideal for vids.

I then sat on this source/song combo for a year because, well, it sure was a year. But when we got close to Escapade, I realized I wanted to finish it for the con.

Clip choices:

I'm not going to include the full lyrics on their own since they're in English and on every lyrics site. Instead, I'm putting the relevant bits between my explanations of what I chose and why. A lot of it came together quickly. I knew I wanted to include cute WN moments, like him being bullied by kids, and they wouldn't fit in the main narrative, so I had to put them in the intro.

Feel like the world don't love you They only wanna push you away Some days people don't see you You feel like you're in the way

I had a lot of trouble with 'push you away' since, generally speaking, no one does push him away. However, this is a vid from Wen Ning's own perspective, so it felt like an acceptable match to use the part where Wen Qing tries to leave him behind as they go on a hunt. She's objectively correct to do so given what happens, but Wen Ning is clearly upset that she tried. He doesn't want to be protected, especially at the cost of other people's safety.

Today you feel as if everyone hates Pointing their fingers, looking at your mistakes You do good, but they want great No matter what you give they still wanna take

I was very clear from early on that I wanted to use 'mistakes' for what Wen Ning is actually upset about: ruining Jin Ling's life. Of course he feels super guilty about what he did, despite it not being his fault, but the specific fallout Wen Ning is going to care about is a kid's feelings, not the political drama. That gave me the idea for what to do with 'good' and 'great'. More than most characters in the series, WN is not impressed by the power structure or reputations--scared, yes, but not impressed. WN likes bringing people food, at little things that are quietly good, and their society does not value that. (Cf. everything about Jiang Yanli's betrothal before Jin Zixuan catches feelings.)

'No matter what you give' I used for a shot that is probably not going to read as anything in a convention vidshow. He's bruised up, so I was hoping it would read properly visually. The actual context of the shot is WN having been thrown in the dungeon for being a traitor to the Wen. And yet, when the Wen are defeated, does he get a pardon? Nope, ignominious death. It really didn't matter what he did: these factions are all thoroughly corrupt and the entire system is garbage. It's all power-hungry assholes and sanctimonious prisses ripe for manipulation. All that mattered was that he was a Wen, and the Wens were either on top or being exterminated.

Give your love and they throw it back You give your heart they go on attack When there's nothing left for you, Only thing that you can do, say

The next part is WWX being an ungrateful little bitch. He's understandably stressed, but it still cracks me up that he's all up in WN's face and WN is literally only there to help him. WN might feel an obligation, but WWX sure isn't earning it here.

'When there's nothing left' I wasn't sure about. WN hitting rock bottom is arguably when he gets killed or maybe when they're in the burial mounds, but that didn't work with my structure. I chose to put a montage here of all the times that WQ tells him to stay safe by ditching WWX. I sympathize with WQ, but as WN comments in one of these scenes, he's following their own family code that she taught him. WQ cares so much about protecting WN (and the rest of their little part of the clan, but let's be real, it's mostly about WN) that she's willing to collude with a mass murderer just to keep him safe. Maybe it's only because he's a younger sibling, but WN seems to see things a lot more clearly. I laugh every time he's like "Uh huh, uh huh" as she lectures, and then the next scene is him running off to do something dangerous again.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior, Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

For this round of the chorus, WN is burning his Wen clan membership in a fire, and the heroic thing is running away, living to fight another day. WN has no ego, nor would ego be helpful here.

Buuuut, equally, being an actual warrior means hurting people, and while he was literally mind controlled into murder, that still couldn't have happened if he hadn't been already involved in violence and fighting. Violence you regret is also part of this life, and so is accepting responsibility for your actions. (Sure, he's very literally not responsible here, but WN doesn't know that at the time and doesn't feel that even later.)

There's some things you should let go, They're only gonna pull you down, Just like weight on your shoulder They are only gonna make you drown

I swear The Untamed has the best casting for a variety of face types. I recognized everybody from the moment they appeared… Except for Su She. Whom I forgot entirely and couldn't recognize at all. Doh.

It wasn't till I was clipping the whole series for this vid that I realized that the reason Wen Ning gets possessed here is that he's the only one to notice Su She's plight and go to his aid right away. I think on first viewing, I read it as him just getting possessed before he could get in the air, but that's not what's happening at all. His dumb ass stayed behind to try to help someone. Seriously, fuck Su She. They live in a grotesquely shitty power structure, but WN responds in admirable ways, while Su She just whines that he's not on top.

We all swing high, we all swing low, We all got secrets people don't know We all got dreams we can't let go, We wanna be brave, don't be afraid

WN's secret is that he gets possessed so easily and why. WQ is refusing to tell WWX in this scene, but he has figured out something is up and gives her a talisman for WN, which shows up later in the plot to great emotional effect--though not in this vid, alas.

The butterfly reveal was one of the first things on my timeline as I recall. I have Many Feelings. Also, this is me, so yes, I totally ship them. >:D

WN and WQ showing up to accept responsibility is kind of a dumbass move, but it's definitely brave. I enjoy how WN just keeps barrelling through the plot in a way that should mean he's the cute woobie who dies early on to prove the world is bad… and that instead leads to him being one of the strongest fighters, making it through the series, and finding A-Yuan again. (Though, okay, he did that first thing also. Heh.)

I ended on Jin Ling because I was so struck on rewatch at how the juniors first meet Wen Ning.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior, Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

I dimly recalled this fight, but it wasn't till I was clipping that I realized just how much focus each of them gets and how WN is literally strangling them and such. I just remembered him fighting people, not who. It's hilarious how quickly after this (in their timeline) we have doofus woobie WN being cute and them being like "He's my murder zombie! ♥"

For this chorus, I focused on that change. WN is rescuing them. "Yesterday" is their scared faces. Here, being a "warrior" is apologizing to JL. And maybe WN doesn't really owe an apology, but JL does deserve one. Almost no one in the series seems to give a shit about how JL is feeling.

And then my favorite scene with my two faves! WN is finally telling JC what he has probably wanted to for ages. WN is a wuss when it comes to himself, but he gets righteously pissed when someone else is being mistreated. The yesterday he's letting burn here is his promise to keep quiet… along with viciously burning down every bit of self perception and hubris JC ever had. Ouch!

Your heart is too heavy from things you carry a long time, Been up you been down, tired and you don't know why, But you're never gonna go back, you only live one life Let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go,

Bless the sequel movie for literally being entirely about Wen Ning's internal struggle. The way he breaks free of the bad guy's hold is by accepting the past and letting go of his guilt over things he can't change.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior,

He's just so hot in this movie! This first chorus is him coming out of the hallucination, having beaten his self doubt and then beating on the villain.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

Okay, in actual canon, JL mostly joined them because he was competing with LSZ like the bratty little asshole he is, but I wanted to highlight how JL got over himself enough to join the other juniors on team WN. Also, WN defends both him and LSZ in this scene in ways he couldn't back then.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior,

This I wasn't planning on at all. As I was clipping the whole series, I was thinking that WN's possessed footage here wouldn't be narratively useful since he went and got taken over again, but when I rewatched for visually impressive stuff to use interstitially, I realized that--holy shit--he's defending Jin Ling in this scene. And he succeeds. I included both a shot of Jin Zixuan, which everyone caught in the vidshow, and a shot that nobody mentioned: Wen Ning's bloody fist after ripping JZX heart out to go with Wen Ning's bloody hand on the sword in the present as he struggles to keep it from Jin Ling. Here, fighting like a warrior means keeping the sword off of JL, even if WN can't defeat the spirit or resolve the entire situation himself.

ALSO I HAVE MANY FEELS ABOUT JC JUMPING IN FRONT OF JL.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

Sometimes, WN is not that sweet. He traps this dude in a hell of his own making instead of letting him kill himself because Wen Ning can be a vindictive little bitch. And then he strides off into the matte painting sunset.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Other vidding notes:

I totally wanted to do something with Chinese characters, but there wasn't really space, and after much dictionary-searching and asking, it's clear that Chinese does not use morality metaphors involving a compass pointing true north. But that effort was not wasted since I needed a good font for my other vid.

Vidding The Living Dead turned out to be a pain. I had completely forgotten it was in another aspect ratio. The shots look much more beautiful before one crops them. That said, none of them are that beautiful because the entire film has this atrocious green color filter over it. It's like they're all wading through mud at all times. Ughhhhh. I spent so long trying to fix the color on that final scene to be at least a little pretty for my vid.

Still, the film had exactly the emotional tone I wanted. It very much skewers the fanon that WN is entirely the bashful wimp he appears to be on the surface when we first see him. It makes overt the change that we see over the series. It's also fundamentally different because it's a situation where WN is the senior person and in charge of someone. We've seen him babysit a small child, and we've seen him around the juniors with lots of people of his generation also there, but we've basically never seen him out from under WQ and WWX's thumbs. It's only natural that he's acting more authoritative here. His smackdown of the villain is very much in line with how he treats JC during the golden core reveal. WN is not a forgiving guy when he thinks someone has been selfish and awful.

Throughout this vid, there are shittons of color, speed, and motion effects. I don't normally use a lot, but it turned out to be a lot of fun this time. I should find another project to use effects on.

The vid:

Available on AO3.

[noethicalconsumptionunderdisney]

Hogwarts Sorting Profile: Alex Russo

Alex Russo is the quintessential Disney Channel Anti-Heroine of my generation, and a fascinating character to look into, so who better to start this series?  Here I’ll be using the SortingHatChats system so I can really dive deep into how characters think and act.

I’m gonna start with Alex’s Secondary for this one, because it’s the easiest to argue for, it’s something she wears on her sleeve very proudly, and something a lot of viewers pick up on pretty easily.  Alex Russo is a Slytherin Secondary par excellence.  

It’s not so much the fact that she’s good at talking circles around people, manipulating them, and “winging it” in general, it’s the fact that she revels in it.  She’s in her element when she does it, and you can tell she’s a natural at it.  For a few brief examples, she tricks the dragon-seller into taking the wrong case in “Curb Your Dragon,” she talks her dad into letting her learn to fly the magic carpet, and she convinces Justin to let her be an understudy in the school play by twisting him taking their dad’s advice into “Dad’s making all your decisions for you,” and that’s just in the first few seasons.

But Alex doesn’t see herself as duplicitous or immoral for this.  When Brad, another Slytherin Secondary, might get to go to the World Summit instead of him, Justin calls Brad a kiss-up and a schmoozer, but Alex sees it a little differently:

“He’s not a kiss-up, he’s just good at getting what he wants.  That’s one of the things we have in common.”

For her, it’s about knowing what you want and knowing how to get it, nothing more and nothing less.  Saying whatever you have to say is just what you do.

Another, big way this manifests is a preference for improvisation over preparation, specifically when it comes to magic.  Knowing the right spells certainly helps, but Alex doesn’t see the value in reading or studying, often preferring to throw herself into a situation and use whatever spell she can think of to get out of it.  When she thinks Uncle Kelbo is offering to be her teacher, she jumps at the opportunity, and when her dad is upset, they have the following exchange:

“Dad’s great with Justin and Max, but I don’t think I’m reaching my full potential with him.”

“Well!  I don’t wanna stand in the way of your full potential.  Maybe Kelbo should teach you!  Maybe you’ll actually show up on time for his lessons!”

“I will, Dad, because you know what I was thinking, is that I learn more by doing than I do by learning!”

Of course, Kelbo doesn’t want to do it, and Jerry is a better wizard than him, but I don’t think Alex was wrong for wanting to try a new approach.  After all, in The Finale, she takes all the points in the round dedicated to solutions to situations she’s had to get out of, and she’s the one who ultimately thinks of a way to defeat the griffin when they are thrown into a bad situation to save Harper and Zeke earlier in the episode (more on that later).  “Not thinking” works for her— that is, thinking on her feet rather than thinking ahead.  Alex isn’t about to waste her time untangling a complex knot, when cutting it will achieve the same result.

So anyone whose single-house sorting for her is Slytherin, I understand.  She’s definitely adaptable enough, and certainly cunning enough, to qualify for it. 

However.

Alex Russo is NOT a Slytherin Primary, and I will fight you on this.

Sure, she is definitely self-serving a lot of the time, and has loyalty to her loved ones in spades as well.  In many lower-stakes situations, you can see her taking the “easy way out” instead of doing the responsible thing, and she certainly has little use for rules a lot of the time.  But in high-stakes situations, she sacrifices her own well-being with very little thought to what consequences she’ll have to face later… or even when she knows she’ll be punished.  Hell, sometimes her schemes go so terribly wrong that after finally setting them right, she’s relieved when she gets a scolding, grateful that the balance has been restored… and that the world is just again.

(Now, I personally don’t believe the Wizards of Waverly Place world is a particularly just one, but Alex trusts the world she lives in more than I do, so I’ll save my own thoughts and feelings about that for another post.)

Not only is she not a Slytherin Primary, she has a fundamental issue with people doing “good” because they’re expecting a reward for it.  Good is something you do for its own sake, not because there’s a ribbon waiting for you on the other side.  The speech she gives the Happy Helpers in “Alex Does Good” says it all, really:

“You guys think you’re helping the community, but you’re hardly doing anything.  And you do it for selfish reasons.  Now, I know I can be a little selfish too because I don’t help a lot of people.  But I know when I do.  I do more than this, and I don’t expect anything in return.  I don’t even do it to make myself feel better.  I do it to make the other person feel better.”

So where does this selfless streak come from?  For Maggie in that episode, or her friends, her family, or love interest, you could still argue there’s a Slytherin loyalty at play.  But many instances of her saving the world contradict this.  In “Wizards Unleashed/Alex Saves Mason,” she tells Justin, within earshot of the country wizards, that there’s nothing she won’t sacrifice for Mason… but it’s a ruse.  She doesn’t sacrifice her family’s portal; instead, she finds a way to bring Mason back without sacrificing anything, her cunning Slytherin Secondary coming in handy once again.

We see another, even clearer example of the same phenomenon in “The Good, The Bad, And The Alex.”  I have a lot of issues with this episode, as I’ve expressed previously and will probably express in the future, but it does, IMO, firmly establish Alex Russo as an Idealist at heart, cutting off a close friend when she “realizes she’s evil” in a way that is literally ice-cold. (And no, I do not apologize for that pun.  Lbr, if y’all are watching Disney Channel, you’ve heard worse.)

Which leads us away from the question of what Alex isn’t, and back to what she is.  I would argue that while self-preservation and self-interest are not necessarily the core of her morality system, her morality is based from her inner self: her thoughts, feelings, and moral impulses.  Deep down, often buried intentionally under a “devil-may-care” persona, Alex is a Gryffindor Primary who believes that when the world needs her to, she has an obligation to do the right thing no matter what the cost.

“Alex Tells The World” is the perfect example of this.  She’s led to believe that the government has captured countless wizards, and she is told to lie low and do nothing by her family.  But this bothers her too much, and unable to leave the fate of the wizard world to chance, she defies the rules and the people around her and exposes magic, believing it’s the only way to save everyone.  

Her Gryffindor Primary is far from unblemished or naïve— she often doubts herself, internalizes the criticism from those around her, or believes that other people are better examples than herself of “The Right Kind Of Person To Be” (namely, Justin).  Why not consider her Burned then?  

The thing with Burned Primaries is they tend to act differently, change their behavior based on those doubts.   Alex doesn’t.  So while she may be a little charred, possibly teetering on the edge of burning at times, she never quite does it, because she still goes with her gut when the chips are down, even if she’s a bit more hesitant than some of her counterparts.  

And while Justin may often try to convince Alex to follow the rules, there’s also been plenty of instances where Alex is the one trying to convince Justin to do what’s right — the Rosie arc, The Movie when he forgets her, The Finale when their friends are in danger — and all self-doubt and comparisons aside, she’s still not afraid to disagree with him when she knows in her heart what’s right and she wants him to do it.  He may be someone she looks up to, looks to for guidance oftentimes, but he’s not the basis of her morality— that still comes down to her.

One last thing I want to touch on: Alex has a saving-people thing.

Now, a lot of the time the thing Alex is saving people from is something she caused in the first place. But I’m not getting into that because we’d be here all day.  Thing is, though, even when it’s not something she was responsible for, she still feels a moral obligation to set things right.  

When Jenny Majorheely begs her to help undo a curse TJ caused in “Art Teacher,” Alex isn’t even supposed to let her know magic exists, and yet she still dumps “undo” dust onto her just in case her story is true (which, of course, it is, leaving her without an art teacher and causing the conflict for the rest of the episode).

When Alex has done everything she can in “Wizards vs. Angels” to save her brother and stop Gorog’s plan, Rosie convinces her to come back by saying, “There’s still good in you.”  Alex reluctantly agrees that there is, and can’t ignore it, coming in guns blazing with a pair of rental wings and a hard landing, and even battling her brother, all to get the world’s Moral Compass back where it should be.

Nothing shows this better than The Finale, though.  While Alex is warned that she could risk her spot in the Wizard Competition, all she can think about is getting Harper and Zeke back safe.  Justin and Max are more reluctant to risk their powers, but Alex’s certainty sways them.  Not only that, she distracts the griffin by taunting it to attack her, before cuing her family to tie it up together and defeat it.  Later, when the competition is back on, Alex helps Justin out of a tree root instead of running through the finish line and tells him, “I don’t wanna win this way,” once again choosing heroism over self-interest.  Far from expecting anything for it, she tries to stop Justin from telling everyone what happened.  I don’t believe it’s because she doesn’t care about the Wizard Competition, though.  It’s because other things matter more to her (and possibly, on a subconscious level, she’s internalized the idea that he “deserves it more,” but this is getting pretty long, so I’ll save that for another post).

And while “Alex vs. Alex,” aka the Epilogue, is another example of her fixing her own mistakes, she fixes that mistake by wishing away her wizard powers, cancelling out the existence of her evil self.  Although she comes to the crystals later fully expecting her powers to be reinstated, in the moment, she’s only thinking of stopping evil.  In the words of Steve Rogers, she “makes the sacrifice play” when there’s no metaphorical wire to cut, or when that wire-cutting requires great personal sacrifice in order to happen.

Conclusion:

Alex Russo is a Gryffindor Primary and a Slytherin Secondary.

Her Slytherin Secondary, “the end will no doubt justify the means” method of resourcefulness, quick wit, improvisation, and yes, deception and manipulation, is what she thrives on, relies on, and what gets her out of (and into) most situations. 

Her Gryffindor Primary is her moral core and what drives her towards her more selfless and heroic endeavors, and what reins in her more selfish tendencies, even if choosing what feels right over what others tell her gets her in trouble sometimes.

In an earlier (I think now deleted) post on sortinghatchats’ tumblr, they talked about the “volume” of Primaries vs. Secondaries having an impact on characters as well.  I think this absolutely applies to Alex.

Her Slytherin Secondary is extremely loud, and comes across in pretty much everything she does.  Her Gryffindor Primary is a small, quiet ember burning inside her at all times, covered up by ten layers of irony, sarcasm, and selfishness, occasionally flaring up into a full-on inferno when there’s been great injustice or when people are in danger and need help, and then quieting down back to that little flame again, to be covered up and put back in her (metaphorical) pocket until she needs it again.  One side may be easier to spot than the other, but both are equally important to understanding who she is.  She may be unapologetic about her own self-interests, but when the chips are down, those interests come second to her sense of right and wrong and she’ll drop everything — her powers, her life, and sometimes even a friend — in service of the Greater Good.

(Justin, on the other hand…)

[thorne93]

Unforeseen Chasm (Part 51)

Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together.

Word Count:3608

Warnings: Language, fighting, lost control of powers OFC, reader argues with loki, heart to heart, hurt reader, feeling out of place, homesick loki,

song for this part: Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my novels). It’s a collaboration with the amazing @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​. It started as a funny “What if…?” and it evolved and got huge. This took two years to write. We are both proud and happy and we hope you enjoy it. It follows from Thor 1 to Endgame in the MCU. Some of the timelines may be off in order to fit certain people, and some characters may show up earlier or in different ways than they have in the movie. But for the most part, it follows the MCU. It also has a bit of crossover with some other Marvel characters throughout the story.

Masterlist for Unforeseen Chasm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and Shannon were sitting on your beds, playing on your phones when you heard what sounded like a stampede in the hall. Both of you peered up curiously. 

“What’s going on?” Shannon called out. 

A young girl, Julie you think her name was, answered with excitement, “Tony Stark and Loki are fighting in the gym! Logan is referring!” 

Your eyes met Shannon’s and the two of you made a mad dash for the ring as best you could. You two wanted to fly, but with the toll the transfusions were taking, that just wasn’t possible. So you scrambled along as fast as you could down the hallway to the gym. 

Just as you walked in, you saw Loki land a hard punch on Tony’s jaw, sending him to the mat face down. As Loki moved toward Tony though, Tony turned and kicked him in the stomach with a hard grunt. The motion made him wheeze as he fell to his knees, gripping his stomach. 

“What are you doing?!” you boomed out, your emotions flaring. 

Logan upon seeing both women knew exactly what could happen so at the top of his lungs, he shouted, “Everyone OUT! I don’t want to see a single student in here right now.” His deep voice making a rumbling echo in the room.

There was a collective “aww” made by the students. A few were actually aware of the reason behind it so they helped lead the others out and back to their schedules.

“You heard the guy!” Wade puts up his macho man act on. “Scram!!” He crosses his arms and he give the students a look.

“What is wrong with you two!” Shannon yelled but the two men were too busy trying to continue fighting. “Y/N, we have to stop them they’re going to get hurt and I can’t heal them in this state I'm in. I'm not sure how much more I can see before my powers try to take over.” She looked to her friend and just as she finished her sentence, her powers (as if called upon) activated causing her to rise up into the air. Her eyes had begun glaze over a milky white then suddenly became swirls of red and purple.

“Holy shit,” you muttered, fear wrapping around you before your eyes darted to the two men. “Hey! Knock it off!” you screamed at the two. They finally heard you, both of them turning to you before their eyes traveled up to Shannon, floating in mid-air.

“Umm, boys it looks like we are in for some trouble. You better stop your fight now,” Logan said as he saw his close friend being controlled by what she was trying to get rid of.

“Looks like you two are in for a world of trouble now!” Wade grins seeing his badass of a friend get ready to do her thing. “Give it to ‘em  cupcake!” He roots for her.

Knock it off Wade!” Logan gets closer to the other man and smacks him upside the head.

“Shannon!” Tony yelped when he realized that she was up in the air, unable to control what was happening.

“Y/N?” Loki said in a confused tone, eyeing you.

All you could do was stare at him. What on Earth was he doing?

“Enough! You two are acting like children,” came Shannon’s booming voice that echoed and made the lights flicker and shake from the sound. “What is wrong with you two?” Her hands were filled with two growing energies and she was ready to throw them to split the two apart.

“Shannon, sweetie, you need to get down. You're not strong enough to be doing this right now.” Tony took his gloves off and was walking towards the edge of the ring. “Babe, I’ll stop, okay? Look, I’m going to get out of the ring.”

“You shouldn’t have been in there in the first place, Anthony Edward Stark.” she was visibly upset and he knew that she only ever called him that when he’d done something wrong. 

In the very same instant, Bruce was entering the room and noticed everyone looking up and he panicked seeing Shannon in mid-air when she was in no condition to be doing so. “Shannon, get down you’re going to get hurt!” 

As if his words were a command, she closed her eyes and grabbed her head and just like that she was falling. 

“Shannon!” came from all but Loki’s mouth as they all rushed to reach her before she hit the floor.

The first one to actually reach was Bruce and was able to catch her in time, he saw just how much doing something as being up there had drained her of any energy she might have been getting back from her rest.

“Nice catch Brucie, guess the fun's over for now,” He pats the man on the shoulder. “Let me know when she wakes up so I can see her.” Wade pulls out a sucker from his pocket and walks away.

He nods his head and looks down at Shannon. “Y/N, we need to get back to the room and check her status. I may need you to do another transfusion if necessary,” he said looking at her after making sure he had a good grip on Shannon. “Come with me. We need to hurry.”

You bit your lip. “Alright, fine, yeah, just tell me what you need.” 

“Bruce, is she okay?” Tony had jumped down from the ring and was at the Dr.’s side in an instant. “Here, I’ll take her you can go ahead and get things ready.”

“No, I think you’ve done more than enough, Tony.” He frowned at the man. “Logan, go inform Hank that I need him down in the room. We need to do a complete check on her.” Without a second glance, he walked out of the room and hurried as carefully as possible to get Shannon back into her bed. “I hope you didn’t over do it, Shan, what the hell were you thinking?”

“B-Bruce?” Her voice was hoarse. “What happened? All I remember was telling Y/N something then things went black.”

“It’s okay, I’ll explain when we get back to the room, okay?”

Shannon nodded her head and she leaned it on his chest.

All four men and you had followed Bruce back to the room adjacent to the Med Bay. Just as Shannon was put back in be,  Hank entered the room with the equipment and Charles soon after showed up to find out what had happened.

“Can someone please explain what occurred?” Charles looked to the men but they all seemed to avoid looking into his eyes.

“Tony and Loki were in the ring, fighting,” you explained evenly. “I think Logan arranged it. I’m not sure why they were there to begin with, but by the time we got there, they were bloodied and bruised. I think the sight upset Shannon too much and her powers overcame her and she collapsed from mid-air. Bruce caught her though.” 

“Her vitals aren’t stable,” he informed everyone in the room. “The best I can tell is that she’s suffered from an attack. Something much like a heart attack or anxiety attack.” 

“Logan, I presume you have something to do with this.” Charles looked over at him. “Why am I not surprised, really to these lengths you’d go.” He shook his head.

“It was better than letting these two idiots duke it out in the middle of the hall causing a commotion,” was his response. “Dr.Banner notify me when she’s woken up. I wanna say I’m sorry for causing all this.”  And with that he walked out of the room.

“You got it, Logan.” Bruce tucked a strand of hair behind Shannon’s ear unaware of the look Tony was giving him. “Are we ready for a full scan, Hank?”

“Y/N,” Hank started and your eyes darted towards him as you chewed your nail. “I hate to ask this. I know you did a transfusion today, but I’m going to need another one. Her body is a wreck right now and I need some more of your power to sort her cells out. Do you think you’d be up for it?”

You nodded. “Sure.” Easily, you lifted your hand and let the power stream out of you and into your best friend. With each second, you could feel yourself getting tired, weaker, your legs were close to giving out, but she needed this. For a moment, the words of Frigga and Thor echoed in your head about needing to be in Asgard, that you drew your power from there.

Tony could see just how much of a toll this was on you. He hadn’t been around when you would do the transfusions and knowing you’re doing a second one on the same day he felt guilty. None of this would have happened if he had kept his mouth shut, but he was too frustrated with what he had seen earlier. He walked over to you and helped steady you so that you wouldn’t collapse.

“Here let me help you,” was all he said as he held you up.

“I’m okay, Tony, I can still stand, I might need help getting to my bed though.” You pointed towards where you had been sleeping lately. “Thank you though.”

“We’ll talk later, okay? You need to rest,” Tony replied and helped you to your bed. All the while Loki just stood there watching the whole thing. He hadn’t said much since he said her name in the ring.

“Thanks, Tony I look forward to our chat,” you replied. You looked over at Loki, seeing him look anywhere else but at you. 

“Looks like Shannon is back down to a good level. I suggest these two women be left alone for the time being,” Hank told the other people in the room.

“Alright this should be enough for now, Y/N. Why don’t you go get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours?” Bruce suggested.  He turned to Charles. “She’s stable again, since she’s had two transfusions in a day, we should wait until the next one. Her body may not be able to resist going into a semi-comatose state.”

“You’re right. We’ll give them both a longer time to recover before continuing.” Nodding his head towards everyone else, he left the room.

“I’ll let Gambit know he won’t be able to visit this afternoon so you can relax okay?” Bruce told you as he checked your vitals once you were comfortable on your bed.

“He’ll probably still show up later but it’s fine, thank you though.” You smiled at the man.

“No problem.” He walked away letting them get situated.

Before you could sleep though, you needed a word with your boyfriend. You pushed him out of the room and in the hall, closing the door behind you.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” you demanded of Loki, not hiding the anger in your tone.

“Me? I could ask that of you. I thought you were bedridden?” he accused angrily. 

“I am,” you insisted. “Who told you I’m not?” 

“I saw it with my own eyes. You were holding, I don’t know who,” he informed. 

“Remy? I was dancing with Remy. Is that a crime?” you asked. “Besides, what the hell does that have to do with beating the shit out of Tony?”

He looked off, pressing his lips together. You knew that look, he was trying to calm himself before he answered. “I saw you with that man and I… Stark and I may have exchanged words right after.” 

You shake your head, pinching the bridge of your nose. “You have to be joking. After everything I’ve done? After risking my life, after almost dying for you, after sacrificing living a normal life for you, do you still think I would love someone else?!” 

His eyes turned hard as they focused on you. “And you’re really that blind? I’m not worthy of your love. I’ve nearly gotten you killed. Had you imprisoned. Because of me, you’ve been outcasted by all your friends and family. It makes sense for you to love anyone else but me.”

All you could do was shake your head before quietly confirming, “Yeah, it does.” 

With that, you turned on your heel to race to your room, your heart racing and tears threatening. 

----------------------------------

Loki stood in the hallway dumbfounded, questions if maybe his self destructive ways had finally come back to bite him in the ass. Just as he picked up his ego off the floor and headed out the door, Tony approached him and slapped his back. 

“Now that we’ve gotten the testosterone out of our system, what do you say we go get drinks?” 

Loki stopped, completely stunned. “You honestly want to go out on a social outing with me?” 

��Sure, why not? Not like either of us are wanted here right now. Come on, I’ll drive,” Tony offered in his usual casual laid back way. 

Loki seemed incredulous, but after the unusual day he’d already had, he succumbed and climbed into the flashy sports car, and he actually admired it. 

Before too long, they wound up at a bar far on the outskirts of the city. Tony didn’t want either one of them to be recognized and he knew if he went anywhere in Manhattan or the surrounding boros, they’d be spotted in an instant. He wanted to be left alone for once.

“So, Reindeer Games, what happened to make you want to fight?” he asked as he sipped a cherry merlot. “Something happened with you and Y/N/N?”

“Not directly,” Loki muttered as he toyed with the full glass in front of him. “I…She’s dancing with some man. I don’t know who he is. She shouldn’t be dancing with anyone but me. I thought she was bedridden. She looked so…” He stopped, getting angry, and felt odd telling Tony all of this. “Why do you care anyway? It just gave you an excuse for us to be violent with one another again.” 

“Hah! If I knew any better I'd say you're jealous of that guy, but fear not, he won’t do anything.” reassured him. “I won’t say that I care, because I don’t, at least not one hundred percent.” He stopped to phrase it right. “But for the sake of Shannon and Y/N things are tough.”

“I realize that, Stark, thank you for the incredible insight,” he snapped and rolled his eyes. “How do you know he won’t do anything?” he suddenly questioned. “They looked fairly comfortable to me. Remy…” he mused with distaste. “That’s what she called him. I think he’s her friend from childhood. So yes, if you must know, Stark, I am jealous. She’s been here for weeks and I haven’t seen her. Then when I do come to visit, she’s dancing closely with...him.” He scowled. “She looked so… comfortable. So happy…” 

“And why on earth did you decide today of all the times you could’ve come to see her, did you choose today?” He still couldn’t understand that. “She’s asked for you constantly, as for Remy they’re like brother and sister.” He took another sip. “They only ever had each other when they were orphans so it's normal for her to feel comfortable around him, they also happen to share the same powers and he lives at the mansion.” He went on explaining their relationship to try to ease Loki about the situation.

Loki’s jaw clenched. “You’re right, I know, I just…” He tried to keep his temper in check. “Wait, why were you angry today? You were looking for a fight more than I was. What had you so bothered?” he questioned, turning the tables. He knew it was silly to be jealous, but how could he help it? You were free now, in more ways than one and you could, if you so chose, find a different mate than him. You were no longer confined to a cell with Loki. You could very well leave him in pursuit of another now. 

“Well...I.. listen, we’re still talking about you and Y/N don’t try changing the subject,” he tried to push it back to him, but he knew the other man would continue to ask, so he told him anyways. “With Shannon having been at the mansion so much, Bruce took it upon himself to become her nurse of sorts and I found them enjoying some time out in the gardens. She was relaxed in his lap listening to what he was saying and if what I’m thinking is true, then Banner has grown feelings for her.” He shook his head never would he have thought he’d be here with the god having a touching moment of honesty.

“Ah, I see. So the green eyed monster has hit us both, then hmm?” Loki noted, a little amused. “ As for you and Shannon, I’ve never seen a woman so enthralled by anyone. She puts up with all of your… you-ness, and still comes back to you every day, happy. I don’t know either of them too terribly well, but I don’t think either would ever set out to hurt you. People can’t help how they feel, and if they’re both ignoring said feelings for your sake, which I assume and think they are, then you have nothing to fear. Shannon is your wife. I was at the wedding. It was… lovely, for lack of a better word. Your love doesn’t have a threat.” He played with the glass some more, still not drinking. “I am just worried… I’ve outstayed my welcome in her life, if that makes any sense.” 

To be honest, it felt good to talk to someone. Thor wasn’t around, and he couldn’t confess how he felt to you, because you’d just assure him you still loved him. So it was nice to vent to someone other than you, confide in a new person… a new confidant.

“You honestly think that? That your time has expired? You couldn’t be more wrong she’d be devastated if you left.” He looked at the man next to him. “There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to prove to you that you’re all she needs, but there’s been so much that you haven’t even had a chance to digest it all because I'm assuming this is all too much, right?” 

“You can say that again,” he muttered. “I just wish… I wish we didn’t have to be here. Asgard is our home. Despite my feelings towards Odin, Thor is still my brother and Y/N’s parents are from there. She’s from there! I guess I just always thought we’d return home to Asgard one day. Not stay here… But it’s clear she enjoys her life on Earth.” He twisted the glass between his long fingers, spinning it on the bar slowly. “I suppose for the first time together, we want two different things.” 

“Well why not take a break from being here and go back home?” He figured some time away would help clear his mind. “Talk with Y/N and see if you two want to go there for a little vacation and come back when you're ready?” He turned to the bartender and asked for one more glass of wine. 

“You’re suggesting I tell Y/N I want to leave her home, and go back to mine? Won’t that send the wrong message?” 

“Well not if you dont explain why,tell her you miss Asgard.” He shook his head. “She'd like to go visit too is my bet.” He raised an eyebrow.

Loki conceded with a sigh. “I may do that, and if she doesn’t want to come back with me, then perhaps I should go back on my own, just for a little while.” 

“There you go! Let me know what gets decided and I’ll get the paperwork ready and approved.” He clapped the dark haired man. “How long would ya like to be out for? Granted I can't give you more than a few weeks due to your probation.”

“Give me however long is allowed,” he requested. The more the thought on it, the more he wondered if perhaps you really were better off without him. Tony hadn’t explicitly said it, but he got the notion in Loki’s head that maybe you belonged here on Earth, and he belonged on Asgard. He didn’t want to leave you. It would kill him, but he wanted you to have a chance at a happy life, and that wasn’t possible with him in the picture. You’d said yourself that it made sense to love anyone else but him. So this was him, doing the noble thing for once, and stepping aside so you could have a good, normal, happy life with Remy, or whomever you chose. “I never thought I’d say this, Stark, but thank you… for the drink, the talk, and what the hell, even the fight.” He let a warm smirk creep onto his face as he glanced sideways at Tony. 

“You know what? I could say the same thing for you. Looks like we can agree on something.” He laughed. Who would have thought that after everything that has happened he could sit down with the guy and talk like old friends. “You want to get one more drink and get back to the city?” He smirks back at him.

“Sounds good, Tin man,” Loki said, trying to hide his smile, and failing miserably.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag List: @essie1876​ @magpiegirl80​ @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​ @iamwarrenspeace​ @marvel-imagines-yes-please​ @superwholocked527 @missinstantgratification​ @thejemersoninferno​ @rda1989​ @munlis​ @thefridgeismybestie​​ @bubblyanarocks3​​ @igiveupicantthinkofausername​​ @kaliforniacoastalteens​ @feelmyroarrrr​​ @kaelingoat-blog​ @friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo​​ @damalseer​​ @heyitscam99​​ @yknott81​​ @sorryimacrapwriter​​ @glitterquadricorn​​ @xxqueenofisolationxx @little-dis-kaalista-pythonissama @bittersweetunicorm​​ @alyssaj23​​ @sea040561​​ @princess76179​​ @thisismysecrethappyplace​​ @sarahp879​​ @malfoysqueen14​​ @ellallheart​​ @breezy1415​​ @marvelmayo​​ @random-fluffy-pink-unicorn @cocosierra94 @hardcollectionworldtrash @capsmuscles @marvelloushamilton @paintballkid711​

Loki: @lostinspace33​​ @ultrarebelheart​​ @lenawiinchester​​ @esoltis280​​ @tngrayson​​ @wangdeasang​​ @harrymewmew @jayfantasyatyourservice​​

UC: @lokis-high-priestess​

[zankivich]

The Arrangement: CEO’s Son/Dom!Shawn x Black Sub Reader Chapter 5

Hiya! This is the chapter when we get to figure out a little more of why Shawn is the way that he is. I’m not interested in villains for villains sake; I’m interested in complex characters in need of healing and kindness and also to maybe fight for themselves a little bit. I think this is gonna get very interesting if the thoughts in my head are anything to go off of. Also I try not to bug y’all too often but I am very very poor at the moment so if you did want to buy me a Kofi right here. That would be life changing. Ya girl got bills. K bye. 

WARNINGS: sex without a condom (gotta wrap it up folks), a mini panic attack w/o much description, and just some general softness. 

*Shawn’s point of view*

He’s in the studio. It’s his happy place. He remembered being eight years old, just barely big enough to climb into the seat, but finding something magical about the sound board. His nanny used to pick him up from school and he would beg her to take him to where his dad was working. They only started letting him go once they realized he’d stop throwing temper tantrums. He thrived there. He listened quietly and he learned about how to track vocals, how to create rhythms and what actual sound waves could look like for a vocal. And then he was thirteen, and his dad brought this guy in.

He was in baggy jeans and a green sweatshirt. His guitar had a plus sign on it, and there were scratches against the body where he’d strummed too hard. The sound guy told him his name was Ed Sheeran. He was there to sing for his dad. That day changed his life forever.

He went from playing soccer every day after school, to playing guitar and creating covers. His dad happily put him in the guitar lessons and the piano lessons and the vocal lessons. It was the outlet he never knew he needed, but couldn’t live without. Shawn was always thoroughly convinced he hadn’t been destined for much. Was never smart in school, never particularly passionate about anything either. And since the day he was born, all he knew was that his dad was powerful and his dad had money, and that meant one day he would have the same. Not because of who he was or what he accomplished, but because of who his dad was. Music changed that for him.

“Hey, pull back on the reverb?” He suggested to the producer. “It’s clouding the vocal. Trust me.”

There’s a guy in the booth. His dad’s new golden star. Niall Horan. His first album had done twice the numbers they anticipated, and so after a North American tour to test the waters he quickly pulled him in to try and do it again. That’s why Shawn was there of course. To oversee the creative vision, and “provide feedback”. What it really meant was, his dad knew he could determine what was good and what was bad, so why waste his time when he could have Shawn do it. As far as his dad was concerned, he should feel lucky that he was even allowed to be a part of the process.

“Aye, this is just isn’t feeling right. I’m coming out.” Niall said from the booth in his thick irish accent.

There’s a room of writers, but it’s actually pretty organic in comparison to some of the other artists under his dad’s belt. Two of them are friends of Horan’s from home, who had followed him along for the ride. He plops down on one of the couches and reaches for a guitar. His fingers pluck absently at the strings and Shawn can’t help but glance over there instead of filling out whatever dumbass report his dad was asking him to fill out. There’s a redheaded woman on the couch who started playing alongside him. Another guy uses his lap as drums, and they just start jamming with each other.

It’s electric. It’s that thing that made his stomach lurch like he was at the top of a rollercoaster. It’s what left him more at home in his own skin than anything else ever could. The energy in the room actually shifts. He swears he can feel the music. Like actually feel every strum in his fingertips as if its his hands on the guitar. It’s authentic and real and they’re just playing for fun.

But, somewhere in there he remembers that this is all he’ll ever get. Just watching from the sidelines while everyone else gets to play. It breaks his heart. It makes him sick to his stomach. So sick that he leaves abruptly in the middle of the session crashing outside and choking desperately for air. This is what he got. A noose that always felt too tight, with the hope every day that he just might get the chance to breathe. This was it for him.

***

*Y/n’s point of view*

Shawn: I need you.

y/n: That’s gonna be a little difficult. I’m in Miami, remember? First show of the tour for Grande.

Shawn: Well when are you coming back?

y/n: I’m staying through the first week of shows to make sure all the kinks get worked out. No pun intended.

Shawn: I don’t think I can wait that long.

You were walking past the merch booth getting set up and stopped to chat with some of the people working it. You had a lot of respect for merch booth people, depending on the show--and the pop shows were always the worst--shit could get hectic and fast. They deserved tons more respect than they got, and you were happy to show them some.

You peered down at your phone and read Shawn’s text over again. It felt a little off, even for him. You had gone stretches of time without hooking up before. There were times where he needed to be in LA while you stayed behind in New York, times where you had one show in one city, while he had one in another. It hadn’t been a problem before. You always just found time when the two of you available, and went from there. Shawn hadn’t ever pushed it further than that before.

y/n: everything alright?

Shawn: my dad is satan

y/n: well retweet sis! We been knew that.

y/n: Sorry. I wish I could be there to relieve the stress. If you wanna hop on a flight and meet me in Miami feel free lol

You head for the sound check, checking in to make sure that that stage was being set up, so that  meet and greet could go off without a hitch later. You nearly trip over one of Ariana’s dogs and die, but other than that it’s fine. There’s hours and hours of labor that have to go into a show before the doors ever open, before those kids every step inside to see their idol get up on the stage. It’s your job, along with a host of other incredibly talented and hard working people, to make sure that those hours seamingly don’t even exist. You don’t mind it. Back in the early days you used to go on whole tours to make sure your artists were taken care of. It wasn’t until you turned thirty that you realized slowing down a little bit was in everyone’s best interest.

When you’re not needed you set up in an office space to answer emails and check in with the office. The afternoon passes quickly, and before you know doors are opening up, and the kids begin to pile in. You’re backstage making sure the band and Ariana are good to go, when the tour manager comes up to you looking panicked and confused the way he always did.

“Hey, y/n! Sorry to bother you, but can I borrow you for a second?”

You clap hands with Ariana wishing her luck she won’t need before heading off with Mike.

“What’s up, Mike? Everything okay?”

He nodded. “Yea! It’s just that I got a call from the head of security at the back of the venue, and there’s a guest for you who doesn’t have a pass.”

“A guest for me? I don’t have any guests tonight. Did they catch a name?”

“It’s uh...It’s Manny Mendes’ kid? Shawn?”

“What?!”

Mike winced. “He uh, he told them you personally invited him. Guy must be charming, or they probably would’ve turned him away.”

Charming, your black ass. He was a nuisance is what he was.

“I didn’t personally invite him anywhere! Take me to this dumbass, please.” You groaned in frustration.

The whole walk there you’re just trying to figure out how the hell he managed to get here that fast! Who takes a back handed joke, and then actually follows through it? Shawn fucking Mendes. This man was going to be a thorn in your side for the foreseeable future. God, was he lucky his dick was big.

Sure enough, at the back of the venue at one of the stage doors, Shawn is sitting there with a couple of security guards. His hands rest easily in his pockets, and he’s telling them a fucking joke that has them laughing their asses off. Where was the justice?!

“Hey. Took you long enough.” He chuckled reaching for a duffle bag at his feet.

What was he moving in?

“Shawn what in the hell are you doing here?”

He stared at you incredulously. “You told me to come!”

“I was kidding! How in the hell did you get here that fast anyway?”

“Honey, we have a private jet. Surely that’s not surprising to you. What are you gonna turn me away at the door right now?”

Mike is still staring at you with nothing but confusion on his face. He probably had no idea you even knew Shawn Mendes, let alone enough to accidentally invite him to Miami. This was bad. This was bad, bad, bad.

Your gritted your teeth. “He is very unfortunately with me. Mike give him a pass.”

“Are you sure th--”

“Mike just given him the damn pass.” You sighed turning on your heel to disappear back inside.

Shawn keeps up with you easily with his obnoxiously long legs. Mike power walks behind the two of you ear piece and ipad still blaring.

“Mike you can run along before curtain call. I’ve got things here.”

It’s not an option. It’s a directive, and he quickly follows it leaving you alone with your headache of the day.

“You really call the shots around here, aye?”

“Little bit. Follow me.”

You lead him to the little office space you have in one of the green rooms, and quickly close the door before more people find out that the two of you are together. He takes a seat on one of the couches like he belongs. You want to pull your hair out.

“What in the hell Shawn?” You groaned. “We have rules. Very specific rules.”

“I know. Look, I know! But you offered, okay? And I couldn’t...I wasn’t gonna wait a week. I need this. I need you.”

That certainly was a little more honest than the two of you typically got with each other.

You paused to take a better look at him, and it isn’t the prettiest sight. The smile and witty laughter from outside was a thin facade to the bags beneath his eyes and the frown that’s evident now. He looks a little pale, like paler than usual, and if you didn’t know any better you’d say he hadn’t been sleeping well. You did know better. In fact you were starting to realize that maybe you knew him a little better than you gave yourself credit for.

You took a seat on the table in front of him, your legs knocking together in the small amount of space between you.

“What’s going on? And don’t say it’s just cause you’re stressed.”

He peered up at you, his fingers tapping anxiously against his thighs.

“Since when do you care? That’s not exactly within the parameters of our relationship now is it?”

You rolled your eyes. “Not all of us go through life only living based off of what we can take from others. I know it’s a wild concept to you, but some of us? Some of us can actually be decent human beings.”

“Great so I’m a piece of shit and you’re a saint, is that it?”

“Why are you trying to fight with me? Don’t be a child; stop deflecting. Just tell me what the hell is wrong, and maybe we can fix it.”

“You can’t fix it, y/n. I’m stuck. I’m always going to be stuck okay? There is no fixing me.”

He looked exhausted. And it wasn’t the hard day at work exhausted either. This looked bone deep in him. You couldn’t tell if this was something you’d just never noticed, or if he was letting down a wall for you to see behind for the first time. Whatever it was, you didn’t like it. There wasn’t time to work through why that was, or what it meant for you to care enough to want to fix it. You just knew that you didn’t like it. That’s all that mattered.

You reached forward, your fingers pushing at his knees to make more room for you to straddle his lap. His hands immediately came up to rest on your ass, and you slid your hand over his heart. It was beating like crazy. He just needed to slow down. He needed you to help him slow down. When you kissed, his fingers dug a little more deeply into the flesh of your ass. He groaned softly against your mouth and pulled you closer. It wasn’t necessarily that you didn’t kiss at all in the time that you spent together. Shawn had no problem dominating your mouth. It just so happened that in a relationship built on dominating your body there were a lot of other things you could be doing than kissing.

His lips were still heavenly though. He knew how to tug at your jaw, how to pull you in closer and run his tongue perfectly along the roof of your mouth. It was as intoxicating as all the other things he seemed to be able to do with his body. Only instead of quickly moving to the next phase the way that he usually would, he kept you there a while longer. His lips moved against yours and your arms wrapped tight around him. You could feel his shoulders release beneath your touch, could feel his hands relax against your ass. By the time he flips you to lay your body down against the couch, fingers already tugging to get his jeans down his thighs, your lips are buzzing, and you feel kind of lightheaded. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Tell me what you need.” You whispered against his lips. “Tell me how to please you.”

“Need to be in you. Right now.” He muttered reaching beneath your skirt.

His fingers found their way between the fabric of your underwear, gently nudging between your folds where you were already wet. He tugged the thing band down off of your legs and tucked them into his jean pocket.

He groaned softly plunging his middle finger inside. “You’re always wet for me. Know exactly how to be good for me.”

He curved up and to the right, rubbing quickly against your walls to get you where you needed to go. This wasn’t about foreplay. This wasn’t a scene. There was no plan here. It was frantic and a little messy. But you liked it. You liked it more than you knew what to do with.

“Are you my good girl?” He panted jerking his finger up and down to touch the thing inside of you that made you thrash.

“Yes. Yes, I am. Please, Shawn. Please?”

“The faster you cum, the faster I can get inside this pussy.”

His bicep tensed and his breath came out in harsh pants against the side of your neck. His fingers won’t stop, won’t let up, and your body gives him exactly the reaction he wants every single time. It’s like magnets. Like he knows exactly how to touch you to make you scream. And you do. Always.

His thumb rubs circles on your clit and your body practically melts. Your back arches and your moans get higher as your orgasm hits. Not one to ever be outdone unless it’s by himself, Shawn withdrew his fingers and immediately pushed his way inside of you. The stretch alone in conjunction with the weight of him pressing you down into the couch was enough to heighten your orgasm to a place it’d never been before.

“You’re so fucking tight, shit y/n.”

“I can’t fucking breathe--Shit! it’s so good!”

The arm of the couch provides a kind of leverage you couldn’t get if you prayed for it, and Shawn’s taking full advantage. There’s something different in the way that he handles you. He’s a little more desperate than you’re used to. His hips are less skilled precision and more broken lunges. But you love it just the same. Push your hips up against him chasing something similar, chasing a high that will take you both straight off that cliff together.

“I love being inside you.” He whimpered against your chest. “Nothing feels like you. Wanna give it to you so good.”

“You do. You fucking do.”

His teeth sink into the flesh of your shoulder and it drives you up a fucking wall. You dig desperately into the couch with your heels and cry out for him. It’s fast and dirty and not at all like what you’re used to. It’s just him, just him in all your senses. And you just wanted to give that back to him tenfold.

“Want you to cum for me again. Want you to come while I shoot my load in your pussy.”

“O--Okay. Okay I’ll cum, just please keep fucking me just like that. Please, just like that”

He pushes himself up onto his knees and moves your thigh up so that your knee is pressed against the arm of the couch. His dick doesn’t even make sense at this point. It’s like amnesia. Dick amnesia. But, he does this thing where he twists his hips every time he pushes his way back into you, and it makes you cum like a waterfall. And the second you’re cumming, his thrusts deteriorate into quick, rugged slaps against your sex. When he peaks, it’s euphoria for you both. Absolute Euphoria.

For a while neither of you move except for the pounding of your hearts in unison with one another. You can’t feel your toes, and it’s so sensitive to feel him inside you in this way. It’s not just good sex it’s a feeling that he gives you in wide abundance. You feel complete with him on top of you. Sated and fulfilled and taken care of.

“Wow.” He chuckled leaning down to kiss you roughly. “That was incredible.”

You giggled. “Yea. We’re good at that. Real good.”

He slides off your body and disappears into the bathroom for a few minutes. He comes back with some damp paper towels and cleans tenderly between your legs.

“It’s not my egytpian cotton, but it gets the job done.” He chuckled.

He already looks entirely different. There’s color in his cheeks and his eyes have that obnoxious sparkle shit that they do. You like him a lot better when he looks this way. And there’s a part of you that feels a sense of pride at being able to bring that out of him.

“Thank you, kind of.” You snorted softly.

You fix your skirt while he pulls his jeans back up. You can’t help but notice you managed to yank the neck of his t-shirt horribly out of place somewhere in the midst of your climax. The least you can do is grab him one of the merch shirts. It hits him in the face when you toss it, but that’s at least a few more seconds you have to calm the hell down.

“What’s this?”

“Figured we didn’t want people asking questions. Put it on, I’m sure there’s still some more of Ari’s set left.”

His eyes widened a little and he stared back at the t-shirt before looking back up at you.

“You want me to stay?”

It’s your turn for your eyes to widen and for the ground to become more interesting.

“You don’t have to obviously. You got what you came for. Ari, just puts on a really good show.” You mumbled.

“No I--I’d love to see the show. Haven’t seen her since Coachella.”

He changed quickly out of his t-shirt, sliding on a God Is A Woman shirt instead. The outfit change is a good one in your estimation.

“Great now give me my underwear back.” You murmured resituating your lanyard that got you in everywhere around your neck.

“Oh. Yea, no.”

You looked up at him and there he was leaning against the same part of the couch that he’d rammed you again not ten minutes ago. His long legs crossed in a similar fashion to his arms across his chest. That confidence was just obviously roaring in his system all over again. He was back, just like that.

“Excuse me?” You asked, eyebrow raised and pointed.

“I’m gonna keep them. Kinda want you to think about the fact that you won’t have any panties on all night, and I’ll be the only one who knows. Every time you have to yell at someone to do their job right, every time someone from the crowd bumps into you, it’ll just be you and I who know that you’re my good little girl. So I’m gonna keep them until I’m ready to give them back to you.”

And just what in the fuck does someone do with a speech like that?

“Yea….okay.”

You leave the greenroom behind in the hopes that no one will be able to tell what was done in there that night. Instinctively you reach for his hand and tug him along behind you to get the pits. It’s a sold out show, so there’s definitely a hell of a lot of people there, but you make it work nonetheless. With only the first half of the show missed anyway there’s still plenty of talent left for him to see.

At first you thought that you needed him to see what you were capable of. Ariana was all talent, all vocals, and iconicism, and magic. But, it was you that brought it all together, you who coordinated every little piece to make sure it all ran together without problem. Before you met Shawn, before ever deciding to do the little arrangement he schemed for the both of you, there had been a need to prove yourself. It came with the territory as a woman, let alone as a Black woman in a white male dominated industry.

Something happens in the middle of the show though, when the moon hangs from the ceiling, and her voice is belting out through the whole arena. You peer up at him watching the show, and there’s no ego to be had. It’s not like when other music execs come to visit shows, and they're just looking for a way to upstage you. He’s just there. Enjoying every note and letting the vibe of the crowd fill him in that way that you loved and cherished about live shows. It’s the first time outside of the bedroom that he eases the tension for you, that he gives you a sort of metaphorical pat on the back to say, “you don’t need to stand tall. Put that away for right now.”

You take a deep breath and let your head rest against his shoulder before there’s even room to think about it. Before you lose the moment, before the tension finds a way to ease back into your body, he wraps his arms around your waist from behind. Ariana keeps singing. The crowd keeps screaming. And he doesn’t let up until the lights come back on.

***

“Where are you staying tonight?” You asked, trying to pay attention to the break down of the venue happening around you.

“Wherever you’re staying I guess.”

You peered over at the way that he was leaning against one of the barricades, still dressed in his God Is A Woman shirt, with a smirk upon his lips.

“So fucking cocky, all the time.” You snorted. “I’ve got a lot of work left to do here. I’m always the last to leave from a show.”

“That’s fine. You want me to head up to the hotel, or should I wait behind for you?”

“You’re really staying huh?”

“Told my dad I’m doing research. I think he’s found a new intern to screw, so he’s not really checking in at the moment. I could use a little vacation.” He hummed. “You want me to go?”

You bit your lip and ran your fingers over your waist where his hands had touched. It was dangerous letting him in like this. You knew it. You had to know it.

“No I don’t want you to go.”

He smiled softly. “Guess I’m not going, then.”

“Guess not.”

“Besides if I left?” He murmured stepping forward to cup your hip intimately. “When would you ever get your thong back?”

Bastard.

It’s well past one in the morning before you get to leave. Your feet hurt and you really need a shower and the hotel can’t come fast enough. There’s a car around back waiting for you, and Shawn trails right along side you with his louis vuitton duffle bag that again just reeks of unnecessary indulgence, but you let him have it this time. The soft leather seats of the BMW and the gentle shake of the car is enough to lull you towards sleep. You were the queen of sleeping on cars. Touring life was perfect for you. What you weren’t used to was having someone beside you too as you made yourself comfortable.

“Are you falling asleep right now?” Shawn chuckled.

“I’m just resting my eyes.” you mumbled heading leaning back against the headrest, eyes closed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be plenty well rested for sex later.”

“Yea...Okay.”

*thirty minutes later*

“Honey, wake up.”

“Mmmm...No.”

“No?”

“No. I’m comfy, Ti. Leave me alone.” You whined snuggling deeper into her shoulder.

“As much as I have a feeling Tianna could kick my ass, I don’t think our biceps quite look alike. I am definitely not Ti.”

Your eyes popped open in shock alerting you to the fact that you wrapped your whole fucking body around this man’s arm and he had done nothing to stop you. The gal! The injustice!

“What are you doing? Why did you let me do that?” You gasped detangling yourself from his grasp.

He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t ‘let’ you do anything. Your body tends to have a mind of its own. Apparently even in slumber. We’re here though, princess.”

Sure enough the hotel is there staring back at you from the window. You had really fallen asleep. And he had let you.

“Shit. Okay. Let’s go.”

The hotel room is neat and pristine. You won’t be there nearly long enough to do any damage to it. Shawn places his duffle next to yours and starts his routine that he always does at night. His watch comes off. The bracelet. The rings. And it is insane the effect that it has on your body. Your spine straightens. And he turns to look at you over his shoulder, curls extra fluffy without any product in it, and it just runs through your body like a fucking current.

He makes his way over to you and his fingers skim your chin like it’s fine. Like he’s not shirtless in front of you with a six pack and perfect wisps of chest hair. You kind of wanna ask him if the women he sleeps with ever don’t want to get undressed in front of him, but then a yawn leaves your lips and that thought gets left far behind, along with the moment.

He smiled at you softly and tapped your cheek.

“Look you’re exhausted. Why don’t we just wait for the morning. It’s no big deal.”

You wrapped your hand around his wrist to keep him with you.

“It’s fine. I swear.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s really not. Let’s go to bed.”

“Shawn--”

“I said consent at all times didn’t I?” He interrupted. “You’re too tired to consent. We’re not doing it.”

Too tired to consent. That was certainly a new one.

But the way that he settled himself into his side of the bed told you negotiation wasn’t an option. And you were fucking exhausted. So, you crawled beneath the blankets and let your body relax for only the second time that night. How odd for it to be that both of those times were because of Shawn? And what the hell did that mean?

His scent was in your sheets. It was on your skin and in your nose. He was there. This all consuming force that just seemed to fill the space around him infinitely. To the point where you barely felt like you fit in the bed beside him. And yet he sometimes looked so small that you wondered how he could ever fill any space at all. You couldn’t ignore the look on his face in the green room. The exhaustion. The smallness. What was up with that? And why were you thinking of him so damn much anyway?

“You’ve gotta shut your mind down to actually fall asleep.” Shawn mumbled from somewhere in the dark.

You rolled your eyes. “Thank you for mansplaining sleep to me.”

“I’m not--just...Look, what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing. What makes you think there’s something on my mind?” You asked defensively.

“I just can hear you fucking thinking from all the other way over here. Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time?”

“I’m not stubborn!”

You had one of those out of body experiences where you actually hear yourself speak, and it subsequently proved his point. Rude.

“It’s genetic.” You murmured softly. “Sorry. I guess I uh I’m just not used to having someone else sleep in bed with me.”

“Well thank you. We fall asleep after fucking most times though?”

“Yes well there’s a difference between being fucked into a coma and just lying beside the person.”

He took a deep breath. “Do you want me to leave? I can just go get another room.”

“No it’s fine! It’s fine. I swear. I’m just...adjusting.”

“Fine. You...adjust, then. I’ll try not to breathe too much and disturb you.”

It was a long night.

***

*Shawn’s point of view*

The sun fills the room and it’s a complete and utter nuisance to him. Too early. Too bright. Too not cuddly. So he snuggles his face back into the warmth and ignores it for a little while longer. It’s the most well rested he’s felt in months. So well rested that he doesn’t want to leave, doesn’t want to be without this warmth that he’s never felt before. And why would he? Why would he ever want to leave this?

He opens his eyes and all that he sees in brown. Cocoa brown with deep red undertones that light up beneath the sunrays. It’s the first time he’s ever woken up before her, her mental clock seeming to always pull her out of bed before his dick is even awake let alone his mind. The fact that she’s asleep is a miracle within itself. The fact that he gets to look at her while she does it feels like maybe a little extra miracle on the side.

There’s a freckle on the divet in the small of her back that he’s never noticed before. Her bonnet to cover her hair is the same color as her nails and there’s a part of him that needs to know if it was a conscious decision or not. Knowing y/n, it could go either way. The covers had slid down her back and he’d wrapped himself around her at some point in the night. And it was somehow the best night sleep he’d had in so long. No sex. No ropes. No lube. Just sleep.

He wasn’t dumb. Something was different. Something had been different from the very beginning. His hooks up didn’t sleep over. He didn’t fly to anyone, ever. Hell, he didn’t even drive to anyone. Uber was practically part of his foreplay in life.  How the fuck did he end up in miami grabing her waist while Ariana Grande scerenaded them by fucking moonlight? He didn’t do this. He didn’t grab hips if he wasn’t fucking. He didn’t tell a woman he’d rather sleep then have sex with them. He needed to end this. And fast.

However . . . she was still asleep. And the sun was still just coming up. So what was really the harm in lying there a little longer? He pressed his arm back over her waist, thumb rubbing smoothly into the skin of her tummy. He’d get up in just a minute, would end it in just a minute. For sure.

*three days later*

“I will be back in less than a week.” She says.

“It will be over in no time.” She says.

“Stop fucking biting my thighs while I’m answering work emails!” She says.

After a break full of rushing her off to different rooms with locks on them in the venues so he could get his head between her thighs, it was finally over. His dad had finally called to ask why the hell his new Director of Talent Management was nowhere to be fucking found. It was time for him to leave, which meant days before he would see her again. Which was fine. Totally fine.

“So hear me out,” He argued as they drove to the final venue, he’d get to see her out. “I just think maybe Tianna should be taking me into account when she’s making your schedule. That’s all.”

She snorted. “I am not going to ask that woman to schedule dick appointments for you.”

“They’re not for just me! I’m thinking of you here too. Had I not taken off from my busy schedule to come to Miami, you might have actually combusted.”

“Women can go longer than twelve hours without sex Shawn. It’s yall who act like the world will explode if somebody doesn’t touch your dick for two seconds.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “I’m just saying it might be nice to know that you’re gonna be gone for weeks on end, ya know?”

She peered over at him from her phone where she’d been working away. She seemed to work harder and longer than anyone he’d ever met. Even more than his dad, which is explained why he couldn’t stand her.

“You could always...hook up with someone else while I’m away.” She said.

Her eyes are curious, watchful. There’s something behind the question that she’s asking, but he doesn’t know that on account of him being stupid. All he knew was that women didn’t just offer up the opportunity to sleep with other people. Even his past hook ups grew easily attached. It was his main reason for never repeating. Who was this woman?

“What makes you think I’m not, already?” He asked trying to match her eye contact.

She bit her lip. “The fact that you’re here right now.”

“Are you...hooking up with other people?”

“What if I was?”

He broke his gaze, not having it in him to keep staring at her. She was definitely stronger than him there.

“Whatever. Wouldn’t matter. ‘Snot like we’re together.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“Yea, exactly.”

The rest of the ride is silent. She was getting dropped off at her venue to continue on with Ariana through the rest of the week. He was heading back for NYC to get back to work. It would be a few more days before she flew back home. But, that was alright. He could wholeheartedly find other things to fill out his day. He didn’t need her at all.

The car pulls up to the arena and she pauses before she exits the car. She looks back at him like she’s waiting for something, like she expects him to say anything else. He doesn’t know what to say, just completely goes blank under her stare. She smiles at him.

“Goodbye, Shawn.”

“Bye, y/n.”

***

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[dibidibifiction]

Criminal In My Mind: Chapter 15

Warning: angst; foul language

Pairings: Choi Minho x Reader; Kim Jonghyun x Kim Kibum (side) Word count: 1.4k

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction made for personal entertainment of readers. The writer does not ever intend to offend her readers nor does she aim to spread false information about anyone as to pay any disrespect to the real-life persons whom the characters are based on. She also does not claim ownership to any of the images that are being used.

masterlist Chapter 14 

Y/N

“Welcome to our humble abode!” Jonghyun Oppa happily welcomes us as he opens the door to their apartment. “We’re not doing anything, come on in,” he says, catching his breath.

As Minho and I are about to walk inside, I notice that Jonghyun Oppa is only wearing a robe and showing off his bottom half.

“Uh, Hyung,” Minho notices too, now looking away.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” he immediately ties his robe tighter and runs back to their bedroom. “Kibum! Y/n and Minho are here!”

“What the hell are you guys doing?” I say loudly for the entire house to hear, scolding the couple as a little one comes running to me so I pick him up. “And with the boys home? Shame on you!” I kiss him hello.

“Relax,” Kibum shows up, also wearing a robe. “We hired sitters.”

“Where’s the other one?” I ask just as soon as another little boy comes out of his bedroom holding a tablet playing some kiddie videogame. 

“Hey! Say hello to Auntie Y/n,” Kibum orders his child who completely ignores everything around him. Then Kibum turns to me and Minho, “Ignore that one. He usually wants to be quiet and alone. That’s why he likes Taemin the most.”

I put down the little one who I was holding in my arms. “Go on and play with your brother,” I say. 

To my pleasant surprise, he proceeds to Minho instead. 

“Hello!” Minho says in a cute baby voice as he kneels down to meet the kid’s eyes, and soon enough, the other little one rushes to him too. He continues to baby talk.

Kibum and I share a look, giggling quietly. I had no idea Minho connects with kids so easily. Even though I’m not really fond of kids—except for Kibum’s of course—I think of them differently when they’re with Minho. I’m falling in love with him all over again. They’re so cute that my heart may stop beating at any moment.

. . .

It is now later on in the afternoon, and the sun begins to hide. While Jonghyun Oppa and Minho are at the dining table talking about wedding photos, Kibum and I are in the living room discussing guests, flower arrangements, and interior decorations.

“So, Y/n, as my Maid of Honor, you-”

“Wait, wait. I’m your Maid of Honor? Thanks for notifying me at your earliest convenience,” I say sarcastically.

“Why, do you not want to be? I have a lot of replacements,” Kibum says sassily as if questioning my existence.

“Of course, I do. It’s just, you never bothered to ask me,” I complain.

“Honey, we’ve been talking about this since high school. I don’t need your permission now!”

As we keep on laughing and attacking wits at each other, the guys at the dining area unexpectedly brisk walk towards the front door with panic in their eyes.

“Babe, what’s going on?” Kibum asks his fiancé worriedly.

“Minho’s mother is rushed to the hospital. Come on, we gotta go. We’re driving them. I already told the sitters.” 

The four of us hurry to Jonghyun Oppa’s car and he promptly reverses to the driveway even before all the doors are completely shut. He then speeds up to the highway.

I glance at Minho next to me in the backseat, who is obviously terrified, his hands are balled into tight fists. “I’m not leaving you, okay?” I say, holding his hand before his nails dig into his palm.

“I think I know who might have done this,” he says.

I think for a second to remember who he’s talking about. I hold his hand tightly in comfort.

When the car screeches to a halt in front of the emergency room, Minho gets off and runs so rapidly that I can barely keep up.

I follow behind him as Kibum is at my tail.

Because of how fast he’s going, I can’t figure out which way Minho has gone to.

“There!” Kibum points in Minho’s direction by the elevators, but then we watch him run towards the stairs and we follow.

As we reach the right floor, I concentrate my sight on Minho’s bouncing hair from a distance as I run after him, my legs starting to weaken. I might’ve lost Kibum since he’s always been a slowpoke.

After I turn a couple of corners, I stop. I finally spot him talking to a nurse. He throws his hands slap his head as he starts to stress out. 

“What happened?” I ask him while I step closer towards him, catching my breath.

“They’re still operating on her, they just started,” Minho tells me, his voice cracking. “Mom got shot while she was about to enter her house,” he starts bawling as he slides down the wall behind him and lets himself fall on his bottom.

“Oh, Minho,” I mumble as I start crying as well, keeling down, reaching for him to lead his head on my chest. “I’m here. I’m not going to leave you,” I reassure him.

. . .

Five hours have passed, Minho has already fallen asleep on my lap. I told Kibum and Jonghyun Oppa to head on home as they assured me to call them if we need anything.

Minho is shaken awake when somebody approaches us. “Any news about my mother?” he talks to the doctor.

“We found two bullets in your mother’s body. One near her abdomen and one on her thigh. This will take a few more hours,” he nods for he’s finished talking.

“Thank you, doctor,” I say.

“Shit, this is all my fault, this is all my fault,” Minho cries while he paces around, rubbing his hands on his face. “What if she doesn’t make it? I should’ve fixed everything between us when I had the chance.”

“Minho, no. There’s no way this is your fault,” I say to him, trying to calm him down. I reach out to him but he pulls away.

. . .

We wait for another six hours, and doctors have come and gone thrice to give us updates. I’ve also gone downstairs and back twice to buy us something to eat. Minho and I are now sitting side by side on a steel bench, my head rests on his shoulder so I try to get some sleep, but how could I? How could I ever sleep when he is in pain like this? I have never seen him this fragile. I want to snuggle him so much. I wish I could do something to take this pain away from him, even if I had to be the one who suffers.

“Why are you still here?” Minho breaks the silence but doesn’t face me.

“What do you mean? I-”

“Don’t you have better things to do? You should go home, Y/n,” he says, his voice cold.

“Minho, I love you. I will be here for you even at hard times. I wish there was a way that I can take away your pain,” I tell him, trying not to sound hurt as my vision starts to blur with tears.

“I don’t need your fucking pity. Wanna do something for me? Leave.” His voice is soft but shaking with anger.

“Look, I know this is a dif-”

“Just go, goddamnit!” he finally yells, cutting me off once again, making me flinch.

I stare at him in shock as tears fall to my cheek and lips. I shake my head at him in confusion even though he doesn’t look at me. 

I have to go but I can’t seem to do so. I don’t have the heart to leave him like this. 

But I have to. 

I stand up from my seat, my legs trembling. I turn my back to him and start walking slowly. When I get to a corner, out of his sight, I can’t help but burst out crying, burying my face into my hands. My throat is starting to hurt from trying to be as silent as possible.

I start running towards the exit when I get to the lobby. As I am running, I get startled by bumping into someone.

“Y/n?” It’s Kibum, confused and surprised, carrying a bag of food takeaway on his shoulder.

Now, I’m weeping even more.

Without saying anything else, he sighs and just pulls me into his arms, stroking my back tenderly.

Chapter 16 

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

AUTHOR REVEAL of the Chopped: Choose Your Own Adventure Fics!

We hope you all had fun Guessing the Authors, now here they are! Did you guess any correctly?

———

all dead hearts to you (Rated T) [Clarke/Raven] by @kindclaws

Theme: Canon Divergent || Tropes: 1. Ark AU, 2. Character swap, 3. One character kisses the other, and the person who gets kissed is shocked still, and 4. One character is asleep (can be cute sleep, can be drooling mouth breathing sleep, you pick) and the other is just watching them totally in love

When the countdown ticks over into the last minute, Raven forces herself to begin imagining a world without Bellamy. It’s not easy to shove aside her initial impulses to bargain with the universe, with her own rationality. Maybe her predictions are too pessimistic. Maybe they have an extra handful of minutes before the death wave reaches them and steals away their escape route. Maybe he is right outside, and he will come around the corner any second now - but she hasn’t kept her friends alive until now by being an optimist. They don’t have the luxury of hope.

The rocket takes off without Bellamy. Raven and Clarke pick up the pieces.

Don't Wanna Fly If You're Still On The Ground (Rated G) [Clarke & Wells] by @loveislarryislove

Theme: Canonverse || Tropes: 1. 4+1, 2. Character not looking for love, 3. Mistaken for a couple, and 4. Protectiveness

Clarke has always been the one person who really got Wells. She understands the pressures of his position in a way no one else ever has. She knows what it is to be a leader, to bear responsibility. She's one of a kind. Wells can't imagine a life without her.

She feels the same way, but differently. Sometimes that's hard, but Wells wouldn't trade it for the world.

Four times Wells almost said "I love you" to Clarke... and the one time she said it first.

The Roach (Rated G) [Emori/Murphy] by @the-most-beautiful-broom

Theme: Modern || Tropes: 1. Coffee Shop AU, 2. Mythical Creature, 3. A Dichotomy, 4. One character gives the other a gift

Since her brother's disappearance, Emori has dedicated her life to tracking down children taken by the Fae. But one day, she realizes that she might be leading the Fae directly to the barista who--though he brews a mean cup of coffee--is less than capable of defense against kindly neighbors.

dreams are just what you make them (Rated T) [Jasper/Maya] by @justbecauseyoubelievesomething

Theme: Horror || Tropes: 1. Ark AU, 2. Childhood friends to lovers, 3. One character is asleep and the other is just watching them totally in love, 4. Based on a song - Who’s With Us by Current Swell

He’s been friends with Maya for almost as long as he was friends with Monty. They grew up playing the kinds of make believe games that Ark kids needed to survive a reality of darkness and cold, grey walls. And when they got older, and Jasper’s reality started to blur and buckle, Maya was still there. Always patient. Always kind. His other friends meant well, but even Monty had other distractions in his life. Maya would drop everything and help him through an episode. It was just who she was.

Thanks for playing (Rated M) [Lexa & Luna] by @dylanobrienisbatman

Theme: Post Apocalyptic || Tropes: 1. Fairy Tale AU, 2. Road Trip, 3. Characters reuniting with someone they thought was dead, and 4. Characters hugging each other after one or both of them have been through hell

Six years ago, the world ended. A violent, deadly viral plague decimated the world, with no way to stop it. Society had crumbled, and the new world order was one of chaos and fear.

Lexa and Luna are sent out on a mission, but everything is not as it seems. Will they succeed, or will the chaos claim them?

it is new moon and twilight (Rated T) [Bellamy/Raven] by @kinetic-elaboration

Theme: Angst || Tropes: 1. Exes, 2. reunion, 3. character a catches character b crying, and 4. surprise kiss

Long separation means little, once he’s walked through the door. Two years gone, slightly more, since they saw each other in person; still they fall easily into old, soft habits again. He knows himself well with her. Only Murphy’s absence remains a jagged pit between them, a pain that spikes sometimes as a physical hurt, other times as a foggy confusion, the sense of something not quite seen out of the corner of his eye.

Bellamy, Murphy, and Raven were best friends once. Then boundaries started to blur.

Now, three months after Murphy’s death, Bellamy comes to visit Raven, his widow, at her home in the mountains on the precipice of spring.

Sail Away With Someone’s Daughter (Rated T) [Clarke/Murphy] by @kinetic-elaboration

Theme: Young Adult || Tropes: 1. Based on a song, 2. Band AU, 3. Friends with Benefits, and 4. Hiding in an enclosed space

If Abby Griffin knew that this arrangement was her daughter’s idea, she’d have a heart attack.

Which is fine, as far as Murphy is concerned.

Oh Sister My Sister (Rated T) [Bellamy & Octavia] by @teeandsnowflakes

Theme: Comedy || Tropes: 1. One is Law Enforcement, the Other is a Criminal/Suspect, 2. A terribly loud crash and one character yelling 'I'm OK", 3. Characters are not together but are mistaken for a couple, and 4. Trapped in or hiding in an enclosed space!

After years of estrangement, Octavia waltzes back into Bellamy’s life and helps him take down one of the biggest drug rings in New York, all while making all his friends think they’re in a relationship. Lovely.

our words are not yet written (Rated T) [Bellamy/Clarke] by @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold

Theme: Dystopia || Tropes: 1. Bed Sharing, 2. Hurt/Comfort, 3. Interrupted Kiss, and 4. Road Trip AU

After the rise of religious zealot, Chancellor Russell Lightbourne, life changes for the worst. The hinges of society begin to collapse and as riots fill the streets, it’s impossible to stay neutral. Bellamy Blake is more than willing to throw himself into the thick of it, but when his sister disappears he has no choice but to go after her. With a target on his back though, he also knows that he needs help.

In this new society, if you need to get around undetected, there’s one person you contact: The Princess. Bellamy does just that, putting himself on a road trip across a divided country with an unexpected ally. Clarke Griffin might have a past that would have put them at odds with each other, but now they’re the only hope that they each have to get through this together.

and then the earth spun (Rated M) [Octavia/Lincoln] by @thelittlefanpire

Theme: Holiday || Tropes: 1. Post-Apocalyptic AU, 2. Magic AU, 3. Zombie AU, and 4. Trapped in or hiding in an enclosed space

Octavia Blake thought the end of her world started when the earth went dark, but it really didn’t begin again until the zombies walked in.

It would almost be poetic, if it wasn’t so damn sad. (Rated T) [Raven/Wells] by @dylanobrienisbatman

Theme: Dystopia || Tropes: 1. Hunger Games AU, 2. Enemies to Friends to Lovers, 3. Butterflies, and 4. First Kiss

When Raven was chosen as tribute for District Three, she hadn’t expected to find love.

When Raven was chosen as tribute for District Three, she had also planned to win.

integrity, faith, and crocodile tears (trust me, darling) (Rated T) [Clarke/Murphy] by @probably-voldemort

Theme: Post Apocalyptic || Tropes: 1. Zombie AU, 2. Parallel Universe, 3. Character Reuniting With Someone They Thought Was Dead, and 4. Watching Someone Sleep While Being Super In Love With Them

Clarke was never supposed to end up in a different world with a different apocalypse.

Zombies were never supposed to be a thing outside the old movies they’d had on the Ark.

And Murphy was never supposed to be looking at her like that.

———

All the Winners can be found here.

Thank you all so much for participating this round! Now that winners and authors have been revealed feel free to blog about your fics and don’t forget to tag us!

We hope you all will join us again when we decide to host another Chopped Challenge!

[mrs-dragneel-stark-solo]

Unforseen Chasm (Part 51)

Part 51 of Unforseen Chasm

Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together. Word Count: 3608 Warnings: Language, fighting, lost control of powers OFC, reader argues with loki, heart to heart, hurt reader, feeling out of place, homesick loki, song for this part: Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my other fic series). first major Collab with my best friend @thorne93​​ what was first a simple “what if” moment turned into a two year writing session and I’ve never been more prouder of myself than when i started my first series. goes through most of the MCU plots there are some changes to accommodate for what we wanted and there is a bit of a crossover between the MCU and other characters. I hope you guys enjoy reading this just as much as I enjoyed writing it.

You and Shannon were sitting on your beds, playing on your phones when you heard what sounded like a stampede in the hall. Both of you peered up curiously. 

“What’s going on?” Shannon called out. 

A young girl, Julie you think her name was, answered with excitement, “Tony Stark and Loki are fighting in the gym! Logan is referring!” 

Your eyes met Shannon’s and the two of you made a mad dash for the ring as best you could. You two wanted to fly, but with the toll the transfusions were taking, that just wasn’t possible. So you scrambled along as fast as you could down the hallway to the gym. 

Just as you walked in, you saw Loki land a hard punch on Tony’s jaw, sending him to the mat face down. As Loki moved toward Tony though, Tony turned and kicked him in the stomach with a hard grunt. The motion made him wheeze as he fell to his knees, gripping his stomach. 

“What are you doing?!” you boomed out, your emotions flaring. 

Logan upon seeing both women knew exactly what could happen so at the top of his lungs, he shouted, “Everyone OUT! I don’t want to see a single student in here right now.” His deep voice making a rumbling echo in the room.

There was a collective “aww” made by the students. A few were actually aware of the reason behind it so they helped lead the others out and back to their schedules.

“You heard the guy!” Wade puts up his macho man act on. “Scram!!” He crosses his arms and he give the students a look.

“What is wrong with you two!” Shannon yelled but the two men were too busy trying to continue fighting. “Y/N, we have to stop them they’re going to get hurt and I can’t heal them in this state I'm in. I'm not sure how much more I can see before my powers try to take over.” She looked to her friend and just as she finished her sentence, her powers (as if called upon) activated causing her to rise up into the air. Her eyes had begun glaze over a milky white then suddenly became swirls of red and purple.

“Holy shit,” you muttered, fear wrapping around you before your eyes darted to the two men. “Hey! Knock it off!” you screamed at the two. They finally heard you, both of them turning to you before their eyes traveled up to Shannon, floating in mid-air.

“Umm, boys it looks like we are in for some trouble. You better stop your fight now,” Logan said as he saw his close friend being controlled by what she was trying to get rid of.

“Looks like you two are in for a world of trouble now!” Wade grins seeing his badass of a friend get ready to do her thing. “Give it to ‘em  cupcake!” He roots for her.

Knock it off Wade!” Logan gets closer to the other man and smacks him upside the head.

“Shannon!” Tony yelped when he realized that she was up in the air, unable to control what was happening.

“Y/N?” Loki said in a confused tone, eyeing you.

All you could do was stare at him. What on Earth was he doing?

“Enough! You two are acting like children,” came Shannon’s booming voice that echoed and made the lights flicker and shake from the sound. “What is wrong with you two?” Her hands were filled with two growing energies and she was ready to throw them to split the two apart.

“Shannon, sweetie, you need to get down. You're not strong enough to be doing this right now.” Tony took his gloves off and was walking towards the edge of the ring. “Babe, I’ll stop, okay? Look, I’m going to get out of the ring.”

“You shouldn’t have been in there in the first place, Anthony Edward Stark.” she was visibly upset and he knew that she only ever called him that when he’d done something wrong. 

In the very same instant, Bruce was entering the room and noticed everyone looking up and he panicked seeing Shannon in mid-air when she was in no condition to be doing so. “Shannon, get down you’re going to get hurt!” 

As if his words were a command, she closed her eyes and grabbed her head and just like that she was falling. 

“Shannon!” came from all but Loki’s mouth as they all rushed to reach her before she hit the floor.

The first one to actually reach was Bruce and was able to catch her in time, he saw just how much doing something as being up there had drained her of any energy she might have been getting back from her rest.

“Nice catch Brucie, guess the fun's over for now,” He pats the man on the shoulder. “Let me know when she wakes up so I can see her.” Wade pulls out a sucker from his pocket and walks away.

He nods his head and looks down at Shannon. “Y/N, we need to get back to the room and check her status. I may need you to do another transfusion if necessary,” he said looking at her after making sure he had a good grip on Shannon. “Come with me. We need to hurry.”

You bit your lip. “Alright, fine, yeah, just tell me what you need.” 

“Bruce, is she okay?” Tony had jumped down from the ring and was at the Dr.’s side in an instant. “Here, I’ll take her you can go ahead and get things ready.”

“No, I think you’ve done more than enough, Tony.” He frowned at the man. “Logan, go inform Hank that I need him down in the room. We need to do a complete check on her.” Without a second glance, he walked out of the room and hurried as carefully as possible to get Shannon back into her bed. “I hope you didn’t over do it, Shan, what the hell were you thinking?”

“B-Bruce?” Her voice was hoarse. “What happened? All I remember was telling Y/N something then things went black.”

“It’s okay, I’ll explain when we get back to the room, okay?”

Shannon nodded her head and she leaned it on his chest.

All four men and you had followed Bruce back to the room adjacent to the Med Bay. Just as Shannon was put back in be,  Hank entered the room with the equipment and Charles soon after showed up to find out what had happened.

“Can someone please explain what occurred?” Charles looked to the men but they all seemed to avoid looking into his eyes.

“Tony and Loki were in the ring, fighting,” you explained evenly. “I think Logan arranged it. I’m not sure why they were there to begin with, but by the time we got there, they were bloodied and bruised. I think the sight upset Shannon too much and her powers overcame her and she collapsed from mid-air. Bruce caught her though.” 

“Her vitals aren’t stable,” he informed everyone in the room. “The best I can tell is that she’s suffered from an attack. Something much like a heart attack or anxiety attack.” 

“Logan, I presume you have something to do with this.” Charles looked over at him. “Why am I not surprised, really to these lengths you’d go.” He shook his head.

“It was better than letting these two idiots duke it out in the middle of the hall causing a commotion,” was his response. “Dr.Banner notify me when she’s woken up. I wanna say I’m sorry for causing all this.”  And with that he walked out of the room.

“You got it, Logan.” Bruce tucked a strand of hair behind Shannon’s ear unaware of the look Tony was giving him. “Are we ready for a full scan, Hank?”

“Y/N,” Hank started and your eyes darted towards him as you chewed your nail. “I hate to ask this. I know you did a transfusion today, but I’m going to need another one. Her body is a wreck right now and I need some more of your power to sort her cells out. Do you think you’d be up for it?”

You nodded. “Sure.” Easily, you lifted your hand and let the power stream out of you and into your best friend. With each second, you could feel yourself getting tired, weaker, your legs were close to giving out, but she needed this. For a moment, the words of Frigga and Thor echoed in your head about needing to be in Asgard, that you drew your power from there.

Tony could see just how much of a toll this was on you. He hadn’t been around when you would do the transfusions and knowing you’re doing a second one on the same day he felt guilty. None of this would have happened if he had kept his mouth shut, but he was too frustrated with what he had seen earlier. He walked over to you and helped steady you so that you wouldn’t collapse.

“Here let me help you,” was all he said as he held you up.

“I’m okay, Tony, I can still stand, I might need help getting to my bed though.” You pointed towards where you had been sleeping lately. “Thank you though.”

“We’ll talk later, okay? You need to rest,” Tony replied and helped you to your bed. All the while Loki just stood there watching the whole thing. He hadn’t said much since he said her name in the ring.

“Thanks, Tony I look forward to our chat,” you replied. You looked over at Loki, seeing him look anywhere else but at you. 

“Looks like Shannon is back down to a good level. I suggest these two women be left alone for the time being,” Hank told the other people in the room.

“Alright this should be enough for now, Y/N. Why don’t you go get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours?” Bruce suggested.  He turned to Charles. “She’s stable again, since she’s had two transfusions in a day, we should wait until the next one. Her body may not be able to resist going into a semi-comatose state.”

“You’re right. We’ll give them both a longer time to recover before continuing.” Nodding his head towards everyone else, he left the room.

“I’ll let Gambit know he won’t be able to visit this afternoon so you can relax okay?” Bruce told you as he checked your vitals once you were comfortable on your bed.

“He’ll probably still show up later but it’s fine, thank you though.” You smiled at the man.

“No problem.” He walked away letting them get situated.

Before you could sleep though, you needed a word with your boyfriend. You pushed him out of the room and in the hall, closing the door behind you.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” you demanded of Loki, not hiding the anger in your tone.

“Me? I could ask that of you. I thought you were bedridden?” he accused angrily. 

“I am,” you insisted. “Who told you I’m not?” 

“I saw it with my own eyes. You were holding, I don’t know who,” he informed. 

“Remy? I was dancing with Remy. Is that a crime?” you asked. “Besides, what the hell does that have to do with beating the shit out of Tony?”

He looked off, pressing his lips together. You knew that look, he was trying to calm himself before he answered. “I saw you with that man and I… Stark and I may have exchanged words right after.” 

You shake your head, pinching the bridge of your nose. “You have to be joking. After everything I’ve done? After risking my life, after almost dying for you, after sacrificing living a normal life for you, do you still think I would love someone else?!” 

His eyes turned hard as they focused on you. “And you’re really that blind? I’m not worthy of your love. I’ve nearly gotten you killed. Had you imprisoned. Because of me, you’ve been outcasted by all your friends and family. It makes sense for you to love anyone else but me.”

All you could do was shake your head before quietly confirming, “Yeah, it does.” 

With that, you turned on your heel to race to your room, your heart racing and tears threatening. 

----------------------------------

Loki stood in the hallway dumbfounded, questions if maybe his self destructive ways had finally come back to bite him in the ass. Just as he picked up his ego off the floor and headed out the door, Tony approached him and slapped his back. 

“Now that we’ve gotten the testosterone out of our system, what do you say we go get drinks?” 

Loki stopped, completely stunned. “You honestly want to go out on a social outing with me?” 

“Sure, why not? Not like either of us are wanted here right now. Come on, I’ll drive,” Tony offered in his usual casual laid back way. 

Loki seemed incredulous, but after the unusual day he’d already had, he succumbed and climbed into the flashy sports car, and he actually admired it. 

Before too long, they wound up at a bar far on the outskirts of the city. Tony didn’t want either one of them to be recognized and he knew if he went anywhere in Manhattan or the surrounding boros, they’d be spotted in an instant. He wanted to be left alone for once.

“So, Reindeer Games, what happened to make you want to fight?” he asked as he sipped a cherry merlot. “Something happened with you and Y/N/N?”

“Not directly,” Loki muttered as he toyed with the full glass in front of him. “I…She’s dancing with some man. I don’t know who he is. She shouldn’t be dancing with anyone but me. I thought she was bedridden. She looked so…” He stopped, getting angry, and felt odd telling Tony all of this. “Why do you care anyway? It just gave you an excuse for us to be violent with one another again.” 

“Hah! If I knew any better I'd say you're jealous of that guy, but fear not, he won’t do anything.” reassured him. “I won’t say that I care, because I don’t, at least not one hundred percent.” He stopped to phrase it right. “But for the sake of Shannon and Y/N things are tough.”

“I realize that, Stark, thank you for the incredible insight,” he snapped and rolled his eyes. “How do you know he won’t do anything?” he suddenly questioned. “They looked fairly comfortable to me. Remy…” he mused with distaste. “That’s what she called him. I think he’s her friend from childhood. So yes, if you must know, Stark, I am jealous. She’s been here for weeks and I haven’t seen her. Then when I do come to visit, she’s dancing closely with...him.” He scowled. “She looked so… comfortable. So happy…” 

“And why on earth did you decide today of all the times you could’ve come to see her, did you choose today?” He still couldn’t understand that. “She’s asked for you constantly, as for Remy they’re like brother and sister.” He took another sip. “They only ever had each other when they were orphans so it's normal for her to feel comfortable around him, they also happen to share the same powers and he lives at the mansion.” He went on explaining their relationship to try to ease Loki about the situation.

Loki’s jaw clenched. “You’re right, I know, I just…” He tried to keep his temper in check. “Wait, why were you angry today? You were looking for a fight more than I was. What had you so bothered?” he questioned, turning the tables. He knew it was silly to be jealous, but how could he help it? You were free now, in more ways than one and you could, if you so chose, find a different mate than him. You were no longer confined to a cell with Loki. You could very well leave him in pursuit of another now. 

“Well...I.. listen, we’re still talking about you and Y/N don’t try changing the subject,” he tried to push it back to him, but he knew the other man would continue to ask, so he told him anyways. “With Shannon having been at the mansion so much, Bruce took it upon himself to become her nurse of sorts and I found them enjoying some time out in the gardens. She was relaxed in his lap listening to what he was saying and if what I’m thinking is true, then Banner has grown feelings for her.” He shook his head never would he have thought he’d be here with the god having a touching moment of honesty.

“Ah, I see. So the green eyed monster has hit us both, then hmm?” Loki noted, a little amused. “ As for you and Shannon, I’ve never seen a woman so enthralled by anyone. She puts up with all of your… you-ness, and still comes back to you every day, happy. I don’t know either of them too terribly well, but I don’t think either would ever set out to hurt you. People can’t help how they feel, and if they’re both ignoring said feelings for your sake, which I assume and think they are, then you have nothing to fear. Shannon is your wife. I was at the wedding. It was… lovely, for lack of a better word. Your love doesn’t have a threat.” He played with the glass some more, still not drinking. “I am just worried… I’ve outstayed my welcome in her life, if that makes any sense.” 

To be honest, it felt good to talk to someone. Thor wasn’t around, and he couldn’t confess how he felt to you, because you’d just assure him you still loved him. So it was nice to vent to someone other than you, confide in a new person… a new confidant.

“You honestly think that? That your time has expired? You couldn’t be more wrong she’d be devastated if you left.” He looked at the man next to him. “There’s nothing she wouldn��t do to prove to you that you’re all she needs, but there’s been so much that you haven’t even had a chance to digest it all because I'm assuming this is all too much, right?” 

“You can say that again,” he muttered. “I just wish… I wish we didn’t have to be here. Asgard is our home. Despite my feelings towards Odin, Thor is still my brother and Y/N’s parents are from there. She’s from there! I guess I just always thought we’d return home to Asgard one day. Not stay here… But it’s clear she enjoys her life on Earth.” He twisted the glass between his long fingers, spinning it on the bar slowly. “I suppose for the first time together, we want two different things.” 

“Well why not take a break from being here and go back home?” He figured some time away would help clear his mind. “Talk with Y/N and see if you two want to go there for a little vacation and come back when you're ready?” He turned to the bartender and asked for one more glass of wine. 

“You’re suggesting I tell Y/N I want to leave her home, and go back to mine? Won’t that send the wrong message?” 

“Well not if you dont explain why,tell her you miss Asgard and your mother because I'm sure you do.” He shook his head. “She'd like to go visit too is my bet.” He raised an eyebrow.

Loki conceded with a sigh. “I may do that, and if she doesn’t want to come back with me, then perhaps I should go back on my own, just for a little while.” 

“There you go! Let me know what gets decided and I’ll get the paperwork ready and approved.” He clapped the dark haired man. “How long would ya like to be out for? Granted I can't give you more than a few weeks due to your probation.”

“Give me however long is allowed,” he requested. The more the thought on it, the more he wondered if perhaps you really were better off without him. Tony hadn’t explicitly said it, but he got the notion in Loki’s head that maybe you belonged here on Earth, and he belonged on Asgard. He didn’t want to leave you. It would kill him, but he wanted you to have a chance at a happy life, and that wasn’t possible with him in the picture. You’d said yourself that it made sense to love anyone else but him. So this was him, doing the noble thing for once, and stepping aside so you could have a good, normal, happy life with Remy, or whomever you chose. “I never thought I’d say this, Stark, but thank you… for the drink, the talk, and what the hell, even the fight.” He let a warm smirk creep onto his face as he glanced sideways at Tony. 

.

“You know what? I could say the same thing for you. Looks like we can agree on something.” He laughed. Who would have thought that after everything that has happened he could sit down with the guy and talk like old friends. “You want to get one more drink and get back to the city?” He smirks back at him.

“Sounds good, Tin man,” Loki said, trying to hide his smile, and failing miserably.

Unforseen Chasm Tag list- @reigningqueenofwords​ @oldfreakything​ ​ @adefectivedetective​ @dontbetooobvious​

Tag list- @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you​ @winchester-writes​ @winchesterenthusiast​ @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog​   @sammysbuttcheek​ @misz-adrii​ @sandlee44​ @womanxofletters​ @natsuccs​ @childishhoebinoo​ @expecteddifferent​ @girl-next-door-writes​ @fanaticfanfiction​ @dakotapaigelove​ @sassy-spn-knight-of-hell​ @reigningqueenofwords​ @oldfreakything​

Marvel: @reigningqueenofwords​ @flowerbunbunny​ @zelda2248​ @misz-adrii​

[putschki1969]

Wakana LINE LIVE ~ Summary

Title: Monthly#6 o’clock Radio LINE LIVE [2019/09/26] Download link: !Click me! (some hiccups here and there) All credit goes to my friend @mowskyuu ( @sky_emi on weibo) The entire episode (including all the other segments) can also be found on Bilibili (in higher quality). All credit goes to VOCALOIDの生放送

Notes: As always, be prepared for a long read (keeping things short is not my forte). You better get yourself a cup of tea and some cookies. Without further ado, let’s get started. 〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→

We start out with our hosts Daniel and Rina introducing the program schedule. Wakana will have a special appearance in the guest corner. Rina was very hard to understand at first, I think her microphone didn’t work properly. Turn up the volume during the first few minutes or so. Be sure to lower the volume in time or you will have a heart attack when Wakana finally joins the hosts. The audio is still pretty bad afterwards so you will have to adjust your volume a lot. Ahhh, Wakana looks so pretty with her navy dress and her gorgeous long hair. It’s been a while since we have seen her with her hair open like that. It has really grown a lot!!

Since this is Wakana’s first time on the show Daniel is providing a short introduction. The usualy stuff. Born on Dec 10, from Fukuoka, Studied music ever since she was 12. Took part in all kinds of events since she was 17. Moved to Tokyo and joined the FictionJunction project. Debute as part of Kalafina by singing the theme songs of KnK. Recently started her career as solo singer with her single debut in February 2019. Just yesterday her live blu-ray got released. Daniel points out that he is also a Sagittarius, he was born on Dec 16. Then they get to the main topic of this episode. Something that Wakana is currently into. Wakana chose to talk about “gyoza” because she ALWAYS loves to eat them. She will never get tired of them. She even goes as far to create live goods related to gyoza. This shows how strong her love for gyoza is. Daniel wants to do a test with Wakana to find out what kind of Gyoza Type she is. Wakana is very excited to do the quiz. She is super curious to find out what type she is [Go HERE to find the test]

Q1: You really wanna eat gyoza but you already have plans to meet someone you like later on. What do you do?

Have some gyoza as you normally would

Just eat a tiny bit of them

Eat gyoza with garlic

For an extra kick add a lot of garlic to your gyoza

Decide not to eat any gyoza

Wakana goes for answer #5. She would rather not feel bad about the smell when she meets someone. She could always go for vegetable gyoza that won’t make you smell bad but then again, if she has a bad craving for gyoza she has to eat them with a LOT of garlic.

Q2: Before heading to bed you turn on the TV and realise an interesting movie is about to start. You have to get up early in the morning. What do you do?

Watch a bit and go to sleep

Watch it while constantly dozing off

Watch it to the very end

Immediately fall asleep

DVR it and go to bed

Wakana goes for answer #4. She hardly ever watches TV. Usually she watches stuff online on Netflix or something. She tends to watch about three films every day, she has her own schedules. And once she is done she immediately goes to sleep. Sleep is super important after all. She worries a lot if she doesn’t get enough sleep.

Q3:Do you see yourself as a hot or cold type?

More of a cold type

More of a hot type  

100% a cold type

100% a hot type

Neither

This question is giving Wakana quite a bit of trouble. Also, the answers are taking super long to appear. Wakana works her magic. And she eventually goes for answer #2!!

She doesn’t see herself as a complete “hot” type but she is definitely not the “cold” type. She always gets hot super fast and super sudden. And she gets easily over-excited/hyped when she is talking with others. Also when she is together with her colleagues or having lunch/dinner with someone, her conversations tend to get heated quite quickly. Daniel is kinda surprised because he didn’t get that impression of her. Wakana says that all the fans who have known her for a long time will surely understand. We have seen how she acts after all...so it’s really not a surprise for us.

Q4: Do you have a strong personality?

Very strong

Considerably strong   

A little strong

Not very strong

Rather weak

She goes for answer #2 again. She believes herself to have a somewhat strong personality. Right now she wants to try a lot of different things, she listens to so many different artists and gets inspired. Then Daniel remembers that there is another host so he finally starts including her as well. XD But only for a few seconds. And her microphone is still wonky...

Q5: How do you interact with your friends?

I socialise a lot but nothing serious

Just a small number of friends with a strong bond

I put all of myself into my friendships

I keep my distance when socialising

I have no friends

Answer #2 AGAIN. She really likes to spend quality time with her friends, like going to dinner and having a nice girls’ night. She also likes to do Ghibli meet-ups with all her friends who love Ghibli just as much as her. On to the final question.

Q6: Rate your own positivity from 1-5! Wakana goes for the highest rating. => 5. She has a very positive outlook on life. She always tries to look straight ahead and make the best of it. But of course there are some regrets here and there despite all the positivity. Sometimes she can get a bit cranky and negative. For example, when she fails to get enough sleep or forgets about it. She tends to get really annoyed with herself at times like that. She will make sure not to forget about her sleep again.

Daniel says he isn’t the positive type and he would rate himself as 1. Rina on the other hand also goes for 5 just like Wakana. Wakana is happy about that.

Drum rolls for the result. Wakana can barely hold it in, she is so excited to find out which type of gyoza she is.

Wakana is the Plenty of Garlic&Ginger Gyoza Type!! Wakana is not surprised about the garlic. A unique personality with a strong commitment to your own personality. Very honest and straightforward, many people will be attracted to that sort of personality. Imagining you were a gyoza, a garlic and ginger dumpling is really the best fit because it has a great kick to it and it is very popular. You may not always leave the most pleasant aftertaste (Wakana’s “noooo” is so cute here, she is sad to hear that!) but you always leave a strong impression and people will remember you longer after an encounter. Overall Wakana is happy with the result since she really loves to eat this kind of gyoza. She likes things that have a kick to it. Such an interesting quiz. Turn out that Rina did the same quiz and she had the same result. Wakana is happy they are matching. They even have the same hairstyle today with the open hair and parting in the middle. Daniel is the Boiled Gyoza type. Wakana mentions that she recently talked about boiled gyoza in her fan club magazine. They are soft and yummy and juicy. Anyways, everyone should try the quiz too! It’s a lot of fun!

We then talk about how Wakana doesn’t only love eating gyoza, she also really enjoys to make them. Back in May of this year she visited her older brother and his family in Australia. She helped his wife make gyoza for all of them. It was fun to make them in a place that’s so far away.  They bought the gyoza skin at an Asian store and then made them together. They were super yummy. Her niece helped too. Rina happened to make some gyoza too the other day. Wakana is impressed. Daniel adds that he recently went to Gyoza no Ohsho which is a popular restaurant chain focusing on gyoza and Chinese food. Wakana hasn’t been there in a long time and wants to go as soon as possible. Rina went to a place called Gyoza Yasubee or something. Wakana also wants to go there. She wants to go everywhere. If it went her way she would be throwing a gyoza party tomorrow. Everyone is invited.

Time to introduce the gyoza goods Wakana has created for her fan club event.

First we get her lovely bag which can be worn in many different ways. Then we have her gyoza plate. She added the characters/kanji of her name to make it more personal. Then we have her GyoZame shirt because she loves both gyoza and same (sharks).

And the stickers of course. Fans are commenting that they have bought all the goods and love to use them. Wakana thinks her shirt is super cute [it really IS!!] A fan requests a slightly burned version of the gyoza bag. So that it looks like a proper pot sticker. Wakana then shows the inside of the bag which is cute and soft.

Daniel notes that Wakana often posts gyoza on her instagram. These pictures are all taken with her very own camera - Wakame. Rina is also a big fan of cameras. Wakana is once again happy to find someone who enjoys the same things. And she is sorry that Rina is getting sidelined all the time. Wakana’s brother seems to be quite the professional when it comes to camera work. Apparently he takes pictures of make-up and for that he needs some super fancy lenses. It’s very complicated and she doesn’t really understand all the details. Camerawork is very hard.

Now we are getting to all the promotional stuff. Nothing interesting here. First they introduce Wakana’s Blu-ray which got released yesterday. They provide a sneak peek of the limited edition. Daniel shows a few pictures from the booklet. Due to the exaggerated reactions of Daniel Wakana tells us that there are no sexy pictures in the booklet even though it might seem like that if you just judge from the noises Daniel is making. They talk a bit more about the contents, the setlist etc Wakana talks about loving Spitz and Miyuki Nakajima. She loved singing Jida during her tour because at that time Japan transitioned from Heisei era to Reiwa era. She felt like it was very meaningful to sing a song like that. That Tokyo performance was actually her final Heisei live.

As we know, Wakana is currently working on new releases. She loves this sort of work. Exploring different genres, finding new kinds of music for herself. This process makes her very happy and she always looks ahead to discover something new. Because she is super positive as we have learned already.

Some promotion for the December lives. As she just mentioned, she is working on a lot of stuff and she hopes that we will get to hear some of it very soon. Sadly, the final greeting is cut off. Last but not least a very patchy Kinmokusei from the live. Consider it a sneak peek for the Blu-Ray. Her performance is lovely. I hope it gets you hyped to watch the release!! Edit: Be sure to check out the Bilibili version to listen to the song in its entirety.

[fandom-feline]

Something Revolutionary ~~ Five x Reader

Prompt: Hello! I’ve never requested anything like this before, but I trust you to truly deliver lol :)) Would it be possible to write something along the lines of the reader giving Five like a small present or something? I feel like he’s never actually gotten presents from anyone before and it just seems like a good, fluffy idea. Thanks, love!!

Request for: anon

A/N: this is hella long but I wanted to focus on detail more. Anyway, this idea thrilled me, so I spent a Hecc ton of time working on it!! Probably spent too much time on this ahhh!! I really resonated with this one for some reason, and I like the ending! I might end up rewriting it because I had a different ending but I didn’t like the direction it was going in so I changed it to this one, but this one also has some stuff I’d change, but it’s too late now since it’s already posted! Also, let me know if y’all wanna be added to my tag list, because I’m happy to add you!

Tag List: @fivescoffee-cup

Requests: open!!

Character Count: 8715

Word Count: 1630

The thin thread tied to your tiny needle was wound through the brown fabric of your project. Back and forth. The consistent pattern was both soothing and anxiety inducing. First off, due to the repetitive nature of seeing by hand, it became natural and swift after a while. However, one wrong stitch, one mistake, the whole project was ruined.

You were new at sewing, as in, you taught yourself how to do it merely a few hours prior. With books, YouTube, and the old sewing kit you found stashed away in a closet, you set yourself to work. Your fingers were covered in band-aids, which you had placed after stabbing yourself accidentally by your sewing needle countless times. You knew, however, that it would all be worth it in the end. This wasn’t some ordinary burst of inspiration or need for a new skill, as you were making something for someone very special.

The desk lamp that was lit on your desk felt like the scorching sun in the desert. The rest of your room was dark and cool, but the lamp illuminated your work. A bead of sweat trickled down your forehead, and you stuck your tongue out with a mixture of concentration and indignation. You were almost done with the main backstitch.

Just one last stitch... and you suddenly let out a cry of pain. You sucked your pointer finger in response because you stabbed it once more with your needle. You knew there was some kind of tool that looked like a miniature basket, a thimble, that was used to prevent your needle from poking you, but you failed to find one in your old sewing kit.

Finally, you folded the sewn fabric the right way, and you saw the project. It was a small cat with black buttons as the eyes and a black tie and a white shirt collar that were both made out of felt. The cat also had felt eyebrows, set to an angry expression, and a frown. It was meant to be the boy you were making it for, who you had a crush on. Five, but as a cat. The stitches were messy and loose in some places, but you filled your project with stuffing anyway. You thought it was adorable, just like Five.

You finally finished the cat, and you glanced at the clock. It was way passed midnight. It felt as though just looking at the time made you feel exhausted. You quickly pulled out the tiny box you got for the gift and placed the sewn cat inside of it. Then, as if immediately falling asleep, you landed in your soft bed.

The next day was uneventful. You planned on giving your gift to Five in the evening, which meant a whole day of anxiety and nerves. You kept the little box with you throughout the day, unsure if Five would spontaneously appear, and you certainly didn’t want to miss the opportunity to give your gift to him.

You were at the sink, washing the dishes. The box for the plush cat was sitting on the counter, as if taunting you, saying you should just throw it away and not give anything to Five. What if Five didn’t like the gift? What if he gets angry at you? All sorts of insecurities started swirling inside your brain.

Suddenly, there was a flash of blue light. “Y/n!! You won’t believe the kind of news I have!!”

You screeched at the top of your lungs, turning around wildly and flinging a soapy plate in the direction of the voice. The person ducked, and the plate shattered against the wall.

“Good God, y/n! It’s just me!”

Clutching your chest, panting rapidly, you said “Five! You could’ve given me a heart attack!”

He stood up straight as you calmed down. “I wanted to tell you, I have to show you something! Come on!”

You looked at him in confusion, studying his face. His blue eyes were soft, but bright. Five’s overall atmosphere seemed excited. He wore his school uniform, which made you smile because you were reminded of the little cat you made him. Maybe this was the right time to give it to him. His brown hair, which was swept over to the side, had gone slightly askew as he teleported and had flatware chucked at him.

You blushed slightly, looking at his handsome complexion. You quickly felt a rush of foreboding crash over you. What was Five going to tell you? Would he confess his undying love for you? Would he say he’s had a crush on you? Part of you hoped this was the case, but the other hoped it was all in your head. You looked back at the small box, and you grabbed it before taking hold of Five’s hand. With a blue flash of light, you instantaneously appeared in his room.

The green walls were covered in equations and numbers and incomprehensible scribbles. Five leapt up onto his springy bed, fixated on his math. He grabbed a piece of chalk off of a nearby shelf and started writing. He seemed to be scratching on the surface rapidly and with urgency.

“So what’s going on?” You held your breath, watching him nervously.

“I was going to tell you that I’m super close to finishing this major mathematical problem to could be revolutionary! It could be able to fix my difficulties with time travel. This could fix any possible problem I have with special jumps. Hopefully I won’t get stuck in the future like before! All I have to do is carry over this last variable and—“

“Could you, just stop talking about math for a second?” You cut Five off. You felt a flurry of anger and sadness. “I-I recognize that this math is important to you and I totally and completely support that, but can’t you take a break for a moment?”

Five turned around, squinting at you. “What’s wrong?” There was an edge of defensiveness in his voice. He pointed back at his wall with the piece of chalk. “This is a discovery that can’t just be set down for any other task, regardless of its relevancy!”

“I get that, but I made you something.” You showed him the small box. “I spent almost all of last night making it. I was going to give it to you this evening, but I decided to give it to you now.”

Five jumped down from his bed and over to you. He looked at the box, then back up at you, a frown etched across his face. He grabbed the box, slightly forceful. He opened the lid and looked inside. Carefully, he pulled out the brown cat with its shirt collar and black tie. The stitches were still messy and loose, the eyes were still buttons, and the eyebrows were still arched into an angry expression. You couldn’t read Five’s reaction.

“I made it, last night,” You repeated. “It’s meant to be you, but as a cat. See, it’s brown. It also has your tie and the collar of your shirt. I would’ve added your full uniform, but I don’t really know much about sewing, so I didn’t know how. I also made it angry, because you get angry easily. You yelled at Klaus the other day because he accidentally smudged some of your chalk,” you smiled slightly. “Anyway, I thought it was a cute idea. Even if you don’t like it, I know it was probably a stupid thing to spend all last night on, but, I don’t know—“

Five swiftly pulled you into a tight hug. He squeezed you so tight that you heard your back pop. His embrace seemed to cause you to melt, and you wrapped your arms around him to return the hug. It seemed to last forever, until the handsome boy finally let you go. He placed his hands on your shoulders, and he was smiling.

“No one has ever made me a gift before,” He stated simply, his eyes watering. “I’m sorry I was so distracted with my math. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes again with time travel. I’ve never really even received a gift before,” he blinked away tears. “Thank you.”

“I...” you didn’t really know what to say, and his reaction was far beyond any you would have expected. “I also wanted to say,” you paused for a long moment, your heart thumping rapidly in your chest.

“What?”

“I know you get easily distracted, and I know you can get angry. But that’s all fine. It really is. I just have to be patient. The truth is,” you studied his wonderful, beautiful face, your cheeks turning pink. “I like you a lot. Like, like like you. I don’t know if that’s not what you feel in return, but either way, that’s okay. I appreciate your company, and it’s all I think about. That’s why I made you that gift. If you’ll just look,” you turned the cat slightly in Five’s hand, showing him a particularly messy stitch that caused the seam to open. You showed him a felt heart you stuffed inside of the plush. “Because I know you have a heart, even if you’re angry. And I have a heart too, and I don’t know, maybe our hearts go together.”

You were both silent for a moment. Your eyes were fixed on the ground. Oh no. Five didn’t like you back. That’s why he wasn’t saying anything. You looked over at him slowly, but you were surprised to see that he was smiling. He was staring at you, his eyes filled with warmth.

“So,” Five began, your heart jumping to your throat, “I think this could be the start of something revolutionary.”

You smiled.

[sollea]

Dolorem et Consolationem Ch16

LeaIsa fic. Characters in chapter: Lea, Isa, Ienzo(, Balsam) Words: 1611 Read the entire fic on AO3

Summary: House hunting with Ienzo. Dog time!

They’d gone home to look over things and decide what homes they should actually bother going to check out. Isa sat down almost instantly because didn’t feel like going through papers while standing up. Felt too much like the past for comfort. Standing and going through paperwork was too Saïx for comfort.

“So, are any of those locations places you’d be interested in living? They weren’t ideal home locations when we were younger, but, I assure you, they’re very nice now, even if isolated from most everyone else,” Ienzo hovered over Isa’s shoulder as they looked at the papers. 

Looking up at Ienzo, Isa shrugged. “It’s not as if we’re against walking to get places we want to go. The main world area is small enough that it doesn’t matter much, it’s not as if any of these homes are in the surrounding area that we can’t get to but by boat, right? Unless I’m mistaken? Lea?”

Lea had wandered from the kitchen table to the fridge a few minutes before Ienzo and Isa actually started talking about things, so when he was directly addressed, he blinked. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Am I making a mistake in assuming we don’t mind the outskirts of town?”

“Nah, I just want a place big enough that people can crash when they visit and Balsam can be happy without breaking things with his giant body,” Lea said as he gestured to the dog sitting directly next to him while the fridge door was open. He’d opened it to get a snack while the other two were talking, bored of talk and papers. Balsam was a magnet to the open fridge, watching for any opening to steal food right out of it. “We have a fridge and some space and we’re all happy.”

“Ah, yes, that does take some of these homes out, I believe. Not all of them have had appliances installed.” Ienzo began to pull some of the papers aside, taking them away from Isa without letting him have any real say in it being taken. Isa sat back and watched as Ienzo decided which houses weren’t worth their time. Suddenly, nobody was able to do any work as a dog bounded over to the people who didn’t just eat food without giving him any.

Balsam shoved his nose against Ienzo’s leg, whining for attention after the heinous crime Lea had just committed. Ienzo looked down at the dog then up at Lea. “Did you not give him anything?”

“He’ll get fat, Ienzo,” Lea said, perched on the kitchen counter with a bowl of leftover curry. “And dogs can’t eat everything I’m eating. It’s got onions and I think garlic?”

“Of course it has garlic. It’s the curry, right? Why would it not have garlic in it, Lea? Would either of us make something without garlic?” Isa reaches down to scratch at Balsam’s head. “No curry for you, no matter how many times you ask.”

Ienzo frowned and looked from dog to Isa. “But if he’s asking for food, doesn’t that mean he’s hungry?”

Immediately after the word “hungry” passed through Ienzo’s lips, Balsam barked and bounced. Isa tapped the table, drawing Balsam’s attention back to him. Paws hit Isa’s legs and legs were turned away from the dog. Ignoring Balsam’s behavior was the only real way to get it to stop. Isa collected the papers that remained on the table and looked at Ienzo. “Well, I think we’ve narrowed it down enough. As soon as Lea puts the curry he didn’t even warm up-”

“It’s fine like this,” Lea interjected, offended by Isa’s pointed attack on his unwillingness to bother warming food up.

“It’s disgusting like that. Warm up your food,” Isa snapped. Breathing slowly, he handed Lea the papers and took the bowl away from him, shoving it straight into the fridge. “We’ll come back and you can eat that after you warm it up. You are not immune to having your food bowl taken away.”

Lea stared at the papers in his hands and sighed, shaking his head in mock-disappointment. “Wow, Isa, just stealing my food. What if I wanted to hang out here for a while?”

“We shouldn’t be keeping Ienzo,” Isa said, rolling his eyes. “Not so you can sit around and not warm up your curry.”

“I’m actually fine here, I’ve been told there’s no rush for me to come back to the lab. Apparently I’ve been overworking myself, but none of the other apprentices have been willing to tell me.” Ienzo shrugged, looking down at the dog who was again at his feet. “I enjoy being around you both, if you don’t mind me being here.”

Lea snorted and hopped off the counter, handing the papers to Ienzo. “Why would we mind? I’d think you’d mind being around us. Me.”

“Lea,” Isa said in a flat voice. The kitchen was not the place for Lea’s existential dread and guilt anymore, it tore Isa’s heart and soul to shreds to think about… things. “Please don’t.”

Lea rubbed at the back of his neck and sighed. “Yeah, okay, well.” He looked to Ienzo. “You wanna show us where those places are?”

“Ah! Yes. Yes, we can go.” Ienzo shuffled the papers around based on how close the homes were then smiled up at the two. “Can we take your dog as well? Maybe he’d like to see your possible new homes?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Hey, Balsam, wanna go on a w-” Lea was stopped by the dog bolting for the door, bouncing happily by the place they kept his harnesses, the current one and the last one he’d grown out of that they hadn’t thrown away yet. Balsam was happily barking and Lea smiled, amused. There was nothing better to bring a person back to good thoughts than a happy dog. 

Isa walked over and calmly got Balsam into his harness and clipped the leash on. “You’ve alerted the dog, we have to go now or Balsam will rip my arm off.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming.” Lea gestured for Ienzo to come with him as he exited the kitchen, holding up his fingers to count down from three for Isa. Balsam had a tendency to try to bolt out of the house and he was getting too big to do that without preparation. He opened the door with his hand in fist, watching with glee in his eyes as Balsam’s excitement redirected from the doorknob to the outside world.

Isa held tight to the leash despite Balsam’s pulling until the dog circled back. He was still an excitable puppy, so pulling was all too frequent at the start of walks, so they had to find something for him to keep him from dislocating shoulders with the strength he didn’t know he had. It had been a few months since they got him, so he was getting bolder in his attempts to break the rules. It was a good thing Lea and Isa had practice with dogs from their first time as somebodies. 

Ienzo watched silently as Isa got Balsam under control. Lea and Isa watched Ienzo walk up to the dog and begin to pet him, forgetting momentarily that they were doing something that wasn’t just about the dog. Eventually, he looked up at the two taller men and let out a small, “Oh,” before leading the way to the houses Isa had chosen to look at.

The first house was nothing special, it was small for Radiant Garden, far away from the main hub of life. It was furnished, so they had to keep Balsam on his leash to avoid ruining things that might not become theirs. Isa loved it, but Lea hated the idea of not having more space when they had a dog and enough friends to populate a small world. Isa eventually agreed that the small house just wouldn’t work out, no matter how comfortable it was to stand inside. 

The next home was bigger, completely barren, and closer to the town they were familiar with. Technically not a stone’s throw from houses that were originally good with the upkeep, but Isa could easily make it one. After Lea double checked the doors to make sure they were all closed, Isa took the leash off of Balsam’s harness and let him roll around on the floor, quickly attracting Ienzo’s attention again.

Isa walked to stand next to Lea, leaning against the taller man with a smile on his face. “Is there any point to looking at the other places?”

“I mean, yeah? But not extensively… We both know we’re just gonna love this one, don’t we?” Lea was never sure what to do when Isa was initiating the affection, so he just stood there until Isa sighed and moved Lea’s arm back with his shoulder. They were back to being able to communicate silently, Lea knew exactly what that meant, he did it to Isa every single day. Wrapping his arm around Isa and placing his hand on the other man’s waist was more than comfortable. He was happy. They were starting their own life that didn’t include going through hell.

Isa continued to watch Ienzo play with the dog then looked up at Lea, smiling gently. “Think this can be home?”

“You know anywhere can be home when I know I’m with you,” Lea spoke quietly while meeting Isa’s gaze. “We just gotta know.”

Isa nodded and leaned to kiss Lea gently before turning back to look at their friend, the youngest that called Radiant Garden home, play with their puppy. Balsam was getting big, Ienzo was getting comfortable, and they were finding home.

[eri-blogs-life]

So, I finally beat Final Fantasy XII for the first time. And now I shall summarize my thoughts about it, in a nearly 2000 word post.

First off, my history with this game. I bought Dragon Quest 8 when I was a kid, and that game included a demo disk for FFXII which I played a ton. I eventually was able to purchase a copy of FFXII for myself, back on the PS2. It formed part of a trifecta of big JRPGs that kinda defined the middle school era of my life - Final Fantasy XII, Dragon Quest 8, and Tales of Symphonia.

But I never did beat it back in the day. The farthest I remember getting was some big tower in the sea, which I have now in retrospect found out is the penultimate dungeon. So I was damn close when I was a kid, but never quite did finish it up totally.

I came back to it from time to time, starting up new save files and trying to push my way through to see the whole game. But it was only now, on this attempt on the Switch version of the game (the Zodiac Age version of the game) that I have finally seen the ending cutscene. To be fair, there’s a bunch of optional content like most of the espers that I never quite did get around to doing, so it’s arguable if I’ve really fully completed the game, but it’s a long experience, so eventually I settled on just pushing through the final fight so I could consider it done for now. I might come back to my save just before the final dungeon to “complete” the game some day, but not today. (I was using the 2x speed mode for most of the game, and I still have about 55 hours of playtime)

I’m gonna break down my thoughts into a few big sections here. Lets talk story first, then characters, then aesthetics, then gameplay, and then we’ll wrap it up towards the end of this very long post.

FFXII’s story is... fine, I’d say. It feels kinda... erratic at times, throwing you into some situations without really feeling like there’s much justification for that to be a part of the greater story, even if each scenario does have some small way to play into the greater story.

But I can certainly appreciate what the story seems to be inspired by. I can’t really say for certain if FFXII is meant to be a metaphor for the war in the middle east, but damn if it doesn’t feel like that’s the intended goal. The Archadian Empire really does feel like America in a lot of ways, being a “democratic” political system led by a powerful lineage who just always happens to end up in the throne for some reason, having a group of senators who serve as council and support for the emporer, but during the war the emporer claiming full command over the military. It’s not necessarily a perfect comparison, but at least to me the comparisons overall felt strong enough to at least try and interpret the game through a lens of the american war in the middle east. The game features a struggle for power with immensely powerful weapons, there’s these huge oil fields that draw natural resources up out of the ground, there’s a huge nation on the other side of the territory being claimed that could start a war with the Archadian Empire at any point in time.

And to that end it... is decent, I guess. I mean, I’m playing it so far after the events that would theoretically have inspired a lot of the game’s design, so to a large degree I’m also just looking at the game as it stands on its own and not in the cultural context it may have once held. And it’s fine. The story isn’t necessarily anything special, but it’s fine

I could talk about the big theme of the game, which I read as “should humanity be guided by gods or by our own actions?” But... I don’t know, I don’t think there’s a ton to be said about that. The game seems to posit that sometimes even those who claim to be doing things of their own free will are still doing them under the orders of another? But ultimately making your own decisions is still the best course of action, even if it ... you know what, I don’t know. I’d have to replay the game a few times and really try to process everything the game’s narrative takes on to really have a discussion on this point, so we’re gonna leave it aside for now.

So FFXII’s characters, primarily the main cast of 6 playable characters. They’re a real mixed bag, honestly. I enjoyed them, for the most part. But Vaan and Penelo are.... not great. And Ashe and Fran felt kinda bland to me at times. But Basch and Balthier are amazing.

Vaan is kinda an interesting case. He’s just some kid, a street urchin from our central city of Rabanastre, a citizen of the oppressed Dalmasca but ultimately just a guy. He’s our everyman protagonist who the player is meant to have as something of a vessel to learn about the world from someone not very traveled or well-versed in how this world is shaped. And to that end he holds up okay. But even by the end of the game, Vaan doesn’t stand up to do anything particularly unique that would make the player surrogate really something special. He gains some level of strength and stability, and I guess that does put him on a similar level to many of the other characters in the main cast by the end, but he still just feels kinda out of place, even in the end.

Penelo is like Vaan but she’s also used as a damsel in distress early on in the game. Great!

Ashe, the princess of Dalmasca, is the real main character. The story really revolves around her struggle to reclaim her kingdom, her fight for Dalmasca’s freedom from the Empire, and her decision of whether to destroy the weapons that the Empire holds or get her own weapons to rival theirs. She’s a fine character, though at times I did feel she felt kinda bland. But in a sense that actually works out really well, since she ends up as a better player surrogate than Vaan.

Fran holds some important narrative weight, using her knowledge and her unique position as one of the viera to help drive the story along at a few points and that’s great! But I feel like she kinda takes a back seat a lot of the time, mostly playing a supporting role to Balthier

Basch, the knight of Dalmasca and Lady Ashe’s protector feels like such an interesting character. And part of that is not even his fault, but rather the fact that he has a twin brother who fights for the Empire. And that slaps. Seeing the two of them confront each other at times throughout the story, or seeing how their choices differ but how each could have easily become in the other’s position, feels really strong as a narrative drive.

And Balthier. Oh, Balthier. What’s there to say about Balthier? He plays the Leading Man.

I. Love. Balthier. He’s a suave, charismatic son of a bitch and he plays such a good role in the party, providing transportation and guidance and so much more. As we find out late in the game, he’s actually from Archades, being the son of Doctor Cid, but he abandoned his name and his fame to take to the skies as a sky pirate. His constant insistence that he plays the leading man, that he’s the real center of attention in this story, just holds such a special place in my heart. He’s cocky and it’s so great. (Side note, there’s a lot about Balthier that reads to me as an unintentional trans allegory and I just loved head-canoning Balthier and Fran as this T4T trans man / trans woman couple who left their respective homes and found home in each other. It’s almost definitely not their intended purpose but boy howdy I’m gonna think it anyway cause I’m trans and desperate for something like representation)

Aesthetics. Sound and visuals, basically. FFXII is usually a pleasant game to look at and listen to, in my opinion. The soundtrack is gorgeous (and all up on Spotify~), and has been a part of my listening rotation since I first downloaded a copy of it onto my iPod Classic back in 2009.

The graphics are decent. I mean, it was a PS2 game so I guess they were good for the time? The enhanced Zodiac Age version you can pick up on modern consoles cleans up the models and makes things look overall pretty solid. No real complaints there on my part.

The visual design of the game I absolutely adore. You get these fantastic fantasy environments that, while not feeling visually consistent at all times, really tell of a beautiful world that’s something to behold. And every area you encounter - from each city, to the deserts, to the jungles, to the inside of a giant crystal - feels unique and is fascinating to look at.

And then we get to FFXII’s gameplay. FFXII is definitely an interesting one. The game uses an Active Time Battle system, much like most other Final Fantasy games, but the big unique thing in FFXII is Gambits.

Gambits work basically as programming - you can assign an If->Then statement that your character will follow as their default action if you don’t give them specific commands. So, for example, I could define for Vaan that if there is an enemy nearby with the lowest health among enemies nearby, attack that enemy. And for each character, you can assign 12 gambits that they will follow in priority order, and 3 different sets of 12 gambits each that can be swapped out. It gets wild. It’s an interesting choice of system, which allows for some weird gameplay paths. So, I relied heavily on gambits, setting up rules for how my characters should behave in combat, and mostly relied on them to follow those commands whenever possible, without giving any of my own input on-the-fly to how they should act. Which to me felt fun - I was programming out choices and seeing if they would play out successfully in combat. But the gambit system could easily be very boring for some people, since it does limit what you as the player need to actually provide input for on a moment-to-moment basis.

The other big gameplay thing I wanna touch on is the Hunts, which are one of my favorite aspects of FFXII. A huge, HUGE list of optional bosses to track down and kill? Some of which have unique little quests to take on? Sign me up! Ultimately they’re just a list of side quests you can do, but something about the structure of them as these hunts for unique monsters that lie out there somewhere in the world, that you may sometimes have to complete special objectives to even get them to appear in the first place, has always struck me as really fascinating.

( ^ nice)

So, altogether? Final Fantasy XII is... fine. It’s well put together, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like it has anything too special to stand it apart (except of course for Balthier, my beloved). It’s long, but that length doesn’t necessarily feel like it always translates to game segments that are really necessary. I enjoyed my time with it, but only up to a point. I’m not left craving any more. I enjoyed it for the first couple dozen hours in re-playing it, but eventually it got to a point where I was just so so ready to move on to something new.