#it's really not normal to have your friends gang up on you in a server and bring up things you said and did years ago

[sshoryuken]

[pinkroseblooms]

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Arajin Tomoshibi/f!Reader/Marito Jin

Summary: A misunderstanding leads Arajin to realizing he's not quite over his crush on you; it's even harder ignoring his own feelings when you also manage to peak his volatile boyfriend's interest. A/N: This takes place in a AU without magic and honki people. Suggestive language, but no smut: part 2 coming soon! Enjoy! wc: 2.3k

“Let Arajin go!”

Marito felt something smack the back of his head, right dead center of his bun; he slowly turns enough to see you holding a ladle high above your head. You flinched, but held the utensil higher. Arajin shrugged off Marito’s arm; his soul might have ascended from his body, seeing you standing in the middle of the street.

“What are you doing?!”

“It’s okay; you start running, I’ll hold this jerk off!” Your knees shake, threatening to buckle under you at the glare Marito is casting your way. “Run!”

“Wa-wait! It’s not what you think!” Arajin sputters, hands raised as he gets between you and Marito. “What are you even doing here? Mom said you were on serving duty today; just go back to the restaurant-”

“Ara-teen, do you know this little beast?” Marito’s lips form a slow, cold smile. “That must be it; otherwise, I sure hope she has a good reason for attacking me so rudely on our date.”

“Date?” You blink, lowering the ladle to your chest. “Arajin, you…know this guy? So, he’s not bullying you?”

About ten minutes prior, you, a server at the Chu Chu Chinese Restaurant, had been tossing a couple of trash bags out in the dumpster when your eyes spied Arajin walking past with someone you didn’t know. The taller boy’s arm was slung over Arajin’s shoulders and he was talking animatedly, but your immediate assumption was that this stranger was shaking down Arajin for money or favors. You didn’t know at the time Marito Jin was in fact a gang leader, but currently you’re apologizing profusely for your “attack”; Arajin and Marito sat across from each other at an empty table as you explained to them what was going through your mind.

“I feel so dumb.” You bow your head in Marito’s direction specifically. “I really am sorry, I jumped to conclusions; I’ve been worried about Arajin having a tough time at school and I guess…I assumed the worst. I’m so sorry, Jin-san.”

“I’ll let it go this time.” Marito says coolly, barely glancing your way. “I wouldn’t normally let you live after such an offense, but for Ara-teen’s sake, I’ll excuse your rudeness.”

Arajin gulped: there’s no way he can tell you Marito is actually not only a juvenile delinquent but a dangerous psycho. No, it’s better you don’t get involved in any of this; Arajin’s known you most of his life. His mother and yours had been friends forever and when your mother passed, you had been all but adopted. You made ends meet working at Chu Chu; you were earnest and hard working but something of a worry wart, at least when it came to Arajin.

“You really don’t have to worry about me,” Arajin tries to sound casual and breezy as you set down two cups of hot tea. “Marito might seem scary but he is a…well, he’s very…he would never, uh…” 

Okay, maybe it’s dishonest to try and tell you Marito is a “good” person but Arajin really doesn’t want you to be concerned; if anything, he knows Marito is going to be the first person to throw down on his behalf should anyone even try to hurt him. Now, whether or not Marito will be inflicting any of that pain himself, that’s something Arajin can’t quite say for sure. 

“Is your head okay?” You look around Marito’s head; you lightly touch the spot you made contact with. “I can get you some ice.”

“Wow, you are wound up tight.” Marito slaps your hand away, but it’s more of a light swat than anything. “Ara-teen, tell her to calm down and bring us food; it’s bad enough our date got interrupted, I’m starving.” he whined as you left to fetch them some appetizers. “Also, you didn’t ask how my head was…”

“You said it didn’t hurt though,” Arajin grumbles under his breath, blowing on his tea. “I can’t believe this. What on earth was she thinking?”

“Is she your guard dog? A little beast like her couldn’t hurt a fly.” Marito snickers, teeth baring wolfishly. “Don’t tell me she thinks you need her to protect you.”

“It’s more like…she’d step in to help anyone.” Arajin smiles a little himself; he remembers how hard you were shaking, the real fear behind your bold glare. “She’s crazy, that girl.”

“Hey, who are we talking about here?” You come back to their table with two plates loaded up with food. “Arajin, so mean.”

“No, I didn’t mean it how it sounded!” Arajin scrambles to explain himself. “You were really cool back there actually.”

“Aw, come on, you and I both know I’m useless in a fight; that was all a bluff.” You address Marito. “Besides, he’s the one who looks cool. I really like your hair and piercings.”

“Flattery won’t get you on my good side.” 

“No, I’m serious.” You tell him with some surprise. “I’m sure you get this a lot, but you could be a model or something; of course, Arajin’s still the cutest. He’s off the charts when it comes to being a cutie pie.”

“Ugh, don’t make fun of me.” 

“Come on, no need to be modest in front of your date.” You tease. “He knows what I’m talking about, right Jin-san?”

“I’m an expert.” Marito agrees, fixing Arajin with a knowing look. “You should see how cute he looks when-”

“KNOCK IT OFF!”

“Soooo scary!” Marito cackles. “Is your face red from anger? Or something else?”

“You’re both awful.”

Arajin scoffs but inwardly he’s getting…tingly. It’s almost like both you and Marito are flirting with him, giving him all this attention. He has to remind himself you’re just being nice.

Marito takes a chicken skewer and tears a bite of juicy meat off with a satisfied hum. “Hm, these are different.”

“Oh that one is my recipe.” You grin. “Arajin, do you like it?”

“It’s delicious.” 

“Yay!”

Arajin feels his chest swell at the look of pride on your face; honestly he would happily swallow unseasoned glass shards by the spoonful if you asked him to. You were wrong: if anyone’s cute it’s you. God, he’s only been back for a few months; Arajin thought by now you wouldn’t have the same effect on him, especially now he’s seeing someone. To be fair, with Marito he wasn’t exactly given a choice, but still. 

“Feed me, Ara-teen!” Marito leans over the table and points to his open mouth. “I want a dumpling.”

“You have hands!” 

Arajin’s cheeks flush and he hopes you don’t notice. He uses his chopsticks to take a dumpling and pops it into his mouth, ignoring Marito’s whimper, but hunger wins out and he takes a dumpling for himself. 

“Here, don’t forget the sauce.” Arajin slides the bottle over to Marito. “You always eat too fast and forget to use it.”

“Aw, thanks honey~”

“Don’t. Call. Me. That.”

“Yum!” Marito licks his lips eagerly. “These really hit the spot.”

“I hope you like them; I still feel bad about earlier, so I doubled the portion.” You smile sweetly, hands clasped to your chest. “I made them with lots and lots of love, just for you two!”

Arajin almost chokes when your hands form a heart shape; Marito pauses mid bite as you shoot them with a “love beam” and giggle childishly. 

“Chu!” You blow them a kiss. “Please let me know if you want anything else; have fun on your date, Arajin-it was nice to meet you, Jin-san.”

Arajin can barely stop himself from staring as the skirt of your uniform flounces around your thighs and your hips sway with every step.

“I see how it is.” Marito leans over the table with a sly smile. “Ara-teen, bad boy. You’re practically family, aren’t ya? Does she know about your little crush? Or were you childhood sweethearts? Don’t say it’s so, I’ll be jealous.”

“No, no, no! We’re barely friends, my mom knew her mom, she’s just…”

But Arajin can tell Marito isn’t buying his excuses; of course he’s thought about you that way. 

“I liked her.” Arajin confesses quietly. “She’s cute and she's a good person: I admire her, that's all."

Cute, brave, sweet, and only the most perfect girl and Arajin knows he doesn’t have a chance in hell. Besides, you don’t see him that way; he might as well be your kid brother, the way you fuss and act so protectively. 

“I can see it now: two love birds who grew up together, getting married and running this place, a few kids maybe, real domestic. Blegh.” Marito rolls his eyes. “I bet your mom would be thrilled; is she planning the wedding? You're not just playing with me to pass the time, are ya?”

“You know mom likes you; you shocked her maybe, but she thinks you're funny and cool.” Arajin replies with a small smile. "Not that she wouldn't be happy with anyone as long as they treat me well. The only thing that would make the old hag happier is maybe if you and I and-”

“We all got together? You, me, and that little beast?” Marito picks up a dumpling, almost gingerly with his chopsticks, inspecting it with an odd half smile. “Nah, more like…a nervous little kitten who doesn’t know how to use her claws yet. She needs training.” 

Arajin watches Marito carefully; he’s been acting off all afternoon. More so, at least. 

"You heard what she said: besides, she hates fighting." Arajin remarks, passing Marito the whole plate of skewers. "Go on, these are your favorite right?"

"They're best when you make 'em though." Marito winks, basically salivating as he picks up another stick. "I bet you've had a lot of her cooking, huh?"

"Why do you keep bringing the conversation back to her?" Arajin sighs; his teas gone cold but he's too anxious to call you back over to bring more. "My mom teaches her and she has me for a guinea pig. Actually when she started cooking it was awful."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, always over salted or undercooked or burned, you name it." Arajin recalls various failed dishes he had been assigned to taste test. "She'd do it over and over again though. It was important to her. Mom would tell her food can be an expression of personality; I guess that's why she put so much effort into doing better."

Every time, you would go to him with a hopeful spark in your eyes; even now you're self conscious about how your food tastes. Arajin would say the practice paid off, but considering he would consume poison made with your painstaking care, maybe he's not the one you should've been going to for critiques.

"Her food tastes like her." Marito smacks his lips in satisfaction. "I taste it."

"The saying isn't really literal." Arajin smiles in exasperation. "What are you even tasting?"

Marito leans his chin on his hand; he has a much more subdued expression and the abrupt change on his demeanor isn't lost on Arajin. Marito is being serious.

"Filling warmth."

"Filling...warmth?"

"It's kinda like," Marito drawls. "There's heat in my belly; I already ate so much, I know I shouldn't eat more, but I can't get enough. Don't ya taste it?"

"Yeah, well," Arajin scratches his cheek. "I'd say it's comforting? Something like that."

“So, you do have a crush."

"Marito, lower your voice please!"

"Says the one squealing like a little girl; gotta say, I’m a bit disappointed in you, Ara-teen. All this time and you never tried to claim her? Normally you woulda been kissin' her ass and the ground she walks on, but you're holding back?” Marito asks, almost as if he’s genuinely curious. “You’re so odd: fiery and bold one minute and all shy and timid the next.”

“I mean, we’re…together now, so what does it matter? Come on, it's not funny, Marito. We're on a date but you keep trying to-to goad me into flirting or something.” Arajin glances around, but no one seems to be paying them any mind. “You act like you want me to make a move on her.”

“Maybe I do.”

Arajin watches, gaping as Marito sinks his teeth into the last dumpling; he’s staring towards where you’re speaking with his mother behind the bar counter. You’re nodding, looking fairly serious now, at the ready and eager to help. Arajin can feel his heart fluttering again and he jumps when Marito’s foot slides to tap his own under the table; Arajin looks up but Marito’s eyes are still on you, a strained smile playing on his lips, as if he's trying to not laugh. 

Although everything on the table has been devoured already, Arajin wouldn't know it from the hungry way Marito scans your face, the way his tongue darts out as if to savor any trace left of the meal you had brought them. He looks ready to lick the empty plate clean: except, his eyes are still on you.

Arajin squirms in his seat and at the same moment, you seem to have noticed them staring. You wave sweetly, smiling at them; Arajin could dissolve into a puddle as Marito reaches under the table to grasp at his knee.

"Hey, ya know what we oughta do? Let's adopt a kitten."

"What?!" Arajin gasps, words cut off as Marito slides his wandering hand further to his thigh. "Stop teasing, this really, really, isn't funny..."

“I thought you liked when I teased you?" Marito giggles maniacally. "Anyway, she did say with lots and lots of love for us. Or are you so worked up you can't remember?"

"I don't think she meant..I-I couldn't-"

"Please, Ara-teen? Pretty, pretty please?" Marito coos and simpers; there's a hint of pink rising in his pale cheeks. “I wanna play with that kitten.”

[gabrielultrakill-bigboobs]

The Official Risk of Rain Discord and its hellish state.

(Raw text because iirc titles fuck up screen readers: "The Official Risk of Rain Discord and its hellish state." End raw text.)

fuck it. you know you've really fucked up when providence from risk of rain 1 is banned from the official discord. this post is extremely long and contains a lot of information. so do be warned lol. i will make a video with visual evidence at some point

I'm Providence, also known as unmatchedpowerofthesun and comically large ukulele on Discord as a whole, and "john fiberglass #1 paladin fan" in the official Risk of Rain discord -- which will be referred to as Officialcord. As you may know, I'm banned. I was banned yesterday. All because I got muted for disagreeing with one of the moderators (Sai) while having a 'problematic' role (…meaning you have to walk on fucking eggshells not to get banned) thanks to putting 'paladin sex gang' in my username (alongside some friends' usernames. they joined in) at some point.

Over the past few months, I have discovered numerous shitty moderation practices in Officialcord.

Why should you care? Well -- simple.

It's because Officialcord is one of the largest, if not the largest part of the Risk of Rain community, being where people are most likely to go for help, for looking at & posting RoR-related content, and for finding people to play multiplayer with. Yes, other games' official discords have shitty moderation. But that's not the point here. The point here is that I'm, to put it bluntly, disappointed in the server's choice of moderators and community manager.

Before continuing, I should say that this callout of the server's moderation practices has mentions of pedophilia and zoophilia.

Most of my sources will be kept anonymous.

Please keep this in circulation for as long as possible. I will be pinning this on my profile and linking this on burner Twitter and Reddit accounts in just a moment.

As far as I remember, my investigation started when Kirn, a known dickhead in Officialcord, caused several major modders to leave the server. Pelontrix (pelontriques on here) was punished with a mute for pointing out Kirn's behavior. The mute was of excessive length, and was only fixed when I jumped in to argue with the moderators. It took a long, long time for the moderators to even do the slightest thing about Kirn's behavior towards other members. People have asked to get rid of Kirn numerous times and it never worked (which is funny, because one of my friends' friends was banned just because people kept asking him to be banned). It took him repeatedly telling a new member to go fuck themself to get muted, and took even longer for him to get the problematic role. And it only took 'paladin sex gang' to force me and two friends to walk on eggshells around the moderators.

During the time between Kirn causing modders to leave and my banishment, I was able to discover a lot about the server with the help of various other people, including some who were around during the era of game-discussion-1.

Before talking about GD1, though, I should talk about the modern Officialcord. The moderators claim not to have time to moderate the art chat despite one of the mods (TiltedHat) being one of the major active members of it (and random new, potentially innocent members being banned thanks to all of the alt account incidents that've happened lately). Rules against sexual content exist in the server, and while I'd normally say full power to people being horny on main, couldn't they all take it elsewhere? A friend of mine was effectively blamed for someone sexualizing his work without his consent, and if I remember correctly, it brought him to the point of a breakdown. Every channel should be moderated with equal rules. If nowhere else in the server allows even things as mild as adding 'paladin sex gang' to your nickname, then TiltedHat posting sexual art of his Lemurian OC shouldn't be tolerated in the art chat. He's a moderator -- he should know the rules. Sai has given a pass on this, even.

For some reason, here and there, people who want to fuck Acrid appear and talk about their desire for the acid dog and are left unpunished. One of them even pinged SeventeenUncles, the community manager, and talked about wanting to see Acrid and Heretic smash. According to my sources, there was someone who talked for hours (unexaggerated) about wanting to fuck Acrid, and was never punished. The moderators are more concerned about people posting 'offtopic media' than they are about Acridfuckers. Someone's first warning was a 12-day mute and a "this is your last warning" message over offtopic imagery. Another person was muted for three days and given snarky comments over Modmail for posting a barely emote-sized gif of a cat.

At some point, someone mildly disrespected my boundaries and was erased from the server. Somewhat excessive, in my opinion. They could have just been left with a verbal warning, but y'know, problematic role and all… You have to be ridiculously fucking careful not to get banned when the moderators label you problematic.

Onto my banishment. Somebody with Huntress ass in their profile picture said "i'm actually bandit main but i aint homo", and while I can vaguely understand where Sai was coming from, his reaction was fucking unwarranted and outright admin abuse. People explained to Sai how 'homo' is just the abbreviation of 'homosexual', Sai claiming that it hasn't been a "socially acceptable way to refer to people in a long time". GetterRocka, a bi man, explained that he takes offense not to the word but rather to the fact that Sai was offended on others' behalf. Sai additionally made extremely dickish comments towards MonsterSkinMan. I disagreed with Sai's point, was muted, and then I was banned because I had the problematic role thanks to the whole 'paladin sex gang' thing. Sai tried to change the topic afterwards, diverting from his admin abuse. One of my friends disagreed with Sai and was immediately nuked.

My ban appeal was denied. I talked about how my ban didn't make sense, about the problems the moderation team displays, and even mentioned how I wanted to see it improve. I went to SeventeenUncles, telling him directly about moderation problems. I was also ignored. It's somewhat ironic, how the moderators talk so much about how you can appeal bans and how you can go to Modmail to speak your problems about the server, yet tickets and appeals are rejected and ignored more often than not.

Finally, the potentially triggering subjects I mentioned early on -- pedophilia and zoophilia.

The user, Withor, is known to be a sexual predator by various members of the Risk of Rain community. The Officialcord moderation team doesn't remove people so long as they follow the rules of the server (even the New Blood staff were willing to ban a zoophile I found using external evidence FROM the Fall of GD1, and the NB discord is known for also being poorly moderated). Withor has sent sexual images to fellow community members, including minors, and falsely accused Noop of grooming her. She once also said that the age of consent should be 14.

One of the moderators, Charlotte, had defended a zoophile in the past. Someone said "…according to the mod team of this discord server you can be the most decrepit human being possible but it's fine as long as you behave well and stay on topic…" and Charlotte confirmed this, saying "yes because no one would ever know. whats is so difficult to understand". During the Fall of GD1, barely anything was done about the zoophiles in the chat, each one barely getting a slap on the wrist meanwhile people posting MGR:R reaction gifs were banned.

I guess, as long as you're on-topic, ([cough] SeventeenUncles defending people harassing Hopoo Games over the Gearbox deal, because it was on-topic [cough]) anything goes.

From here I'll post additional content, including my ban appeal, my message to Suncles, and a callout post on Reddit from James, Paladin's creator and one of the sparks that brought my plan to reconstruct the moderation team to life -- before it was ruined by my ban.

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"Why did you get muted/banned?" My answer: Speaking out against one of your moderators -- Sai in particular, who you should know well enough by now is an issue. All I said was that 'homo' is the shortened form of 'homosexual', which is a more formal term for a gay person (I, myself, am asexual, so I have the right to talk about this -- Sai is offended on behalf of people that don't care). Sai was more concerned about that word than about the person in question having Huntress's ass as their pfp. And then I was muted because I had a problematic role for the dumbest reason imaginable -- putting 'paladin sex gang' in my nickname, when the art chat has discussed far more in-depth sexual topics instead of just a little joke between friends. I had not been given any punishment before that, outside of a non-punishment: getting a system warning for posting off-topic media.

"Why do you believe your appeal should be accepted?" My answer: See my ban reason for an explanation on why my ban doesn't make sense. I hope you all are willing to accept that your moderation team has a problem, and that I wish to see it improve.

"Is there anything else you would like for us to know?" My answer: That is it, for now.

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Next: My message to Suncles.

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Hello, SeventeenUncles. As you may be oblivious to, the server that you serve as the manager of has numerous problems. From the moderation to the community itself. The moderation is either biased, nonexistent, excessive, or all three at once. Even a new member, the horny Huntress pfp guy who’s also a source of evidence to prove the moderation team’s failure, was able to point this out. I feel like that should prove the point that I and many others have been trying to make for a long, long time.

I originally started investigating this server’s moderation practices when the team refused to do anything about Kirn making major modders leave. Then there was that whole thing where Pelontrix was muted for pointing out Kirn’s behavior, for an excessive time, and it was only fixed when I argued against it.

Then I discovered what happened during the era of GD1. You can’t ignore the fact that one of your moderators, Charlotte, defended a zoophile. You can’t ignore the fact that barely anything was done about the zoophiles in the chat. Even the New Blood discord, which is also poorly moderated, was willing to get rid of a zoophile that I found the ID of when I brought in evidence from Officialcord. And your moderators instead banned people who were posting MGR:R gifs, over actually doing something about the zoophiles. Taxipone also accidentally pasted MLP BDSM during a mass mute.

Meanwhile, your moderation team refuses to get rid of people for external reasons. My source? The whole zoophilia incident. Alongside the fact that you have a sexual predator in your server — Withor. While I don’t have direct screenshot evidence of her behavior, I’ve been told about it by several people. She once said that the age of consent should be 14 (because that’s the AoC in her country, I guess), falsely accused Noop of grooming her (why?), and has requested to send sexual images to multiple people, including minors.

The art channel is very shittily moderated, as is everything related to sexual content. Three people who put ‘paladin gex sang’ in their nicknames are given a 3-day mute and the problematic role — great job. Great fucking job. And our opinions meant nothing as a result of that, because every minor slip-up could get us banned. One of your moderators clearly liked me for whatever reason, because someone who was mildly disrespectful towards my boundaries was instantly obliterated… which is somewhat excessive. But. Still.

Oh, yeah, remember when MSM was tempbanned? And when Tizi was tempbanned for posting fucking header text only a few times? What’s with all of this?

Finally, that brings us to what happened today. Sai was offended on behalf of the most bullshit reason imaginable, more concerned about someone using ‘homo’ than the fact that their profile picture is Huntress’s ass. Funny, because paladin sex gang got a 3-day mute and a problematic role. But regardless — Sai’s dickish comments and them banning two people (including myself) and refusing to appeal our bans (while mine contained a lot of evidence against them… which further proves my point) cannot be excused. Sai being fine with Hat’s unmatched horniness and punishing people for, again, minor things like ‘paladin sex gang’, cannot be excused either. Nor can Sai attempting to divert the topic from all of the proof against them.

By the way, someone once directly pinged you with a message talking about how they wanted to see Heretic and Acrid smash. What are your thoughts on that? :]

To summarize: Your moderation team is a failure. Fix it. I have heard that the server has become worse ever since you became community manager, but I haven’t been in the Risk of Rain community long enough to confirm.

Ban appeals aren’t listened to, and neither are modmail messages, no matter how much Sai tries to direct people to modmail.

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Next up: James' Reddit post. I was given permission to add it to here in text form.

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Source: The top comment of this post now that the original was deleted. James' post also includes screenshots from the Fall of GD1.

After having been in the Discord for three years, I was recently banned for, I assume, informing people of the lack of care and the level of incompetence that is shown by a few moderators in the ROR2 Discord and the sheer lack of authority that is being enforced over them.

I was never given modmail, never given the opportunity to appeal, despite having been there for a long time. A good friend of mine was also in there and decided to help answer questions about my team's mod, Paladin, in my absence. He was shortly banned as well. What was strange is that he received modmail and they quickly denied his appeal in seconds without even reading the appeal.

We've come to the conclusion that as time has gone on, moderators like Charmlie, Sai, and TaxiPone have proven time and time again their lackluster and failure as moderators with repeated mistakes and false bannings. With my time in the Modding Discord, I have received countless DMs from users that also never received modmails for why they were kicked or banned, or that were caught in crossfires from said bans/kicks.

I will provide an image as well as to some context to these next sentences. Charmlie had given a half-assed apology and was saying that, paraphrased, "zoophilia was not something for them to worry about." Sai is arrogant and talks to most of the users in the Discord in a demeaning and "I'm above you" manner, shutting down almost anyone that dares to try and speak up about them in a negative manner. I am appalled that these two are still moderators after this long of this nonsense.

The image provided was during the fall of General-Discussion-1. I had wanted to talk about this some time ago when this had happened but I decided to hold my tongue as, while it proved a lot of the faults and issues of the existing moderators, it was still really damn funny. However, after recent events, I've decided to actually speak up about this. While I dislike Reddit as a whole, I felt this was too important to bring up.

There needs to be a reform. There needs to be a new selection of trustable moderators that actually CARE about their community. I can understand why I was banned, sort of, because I was rather persistent in my disdain for the existing moderators and their lack of competence and lack of care for their fellow server members. However, the false banning of my friend Infinite#2473, a good bud of mine from highschool, and claiming he was nothing more than an "alt," and then blatantly ignoring and quickly denying his appeal was finally enough.

I will not be responding to any comments or DMs in regards to this. I am not here to discuss outcomes, solutions, etc. I am here to only push awareness to this idiocy and to promote a change. I don't care to be unbanned nor does Infinite. Since I was never given the option to appeal, why bother asking for one now, especially when they REFUSE to explain to me why?

I send this message in hopes that the community will stand up and improve instead of allowing itself to be pushed around in such a manner. I say these things because I care about the ROR2 Community I've been a part of for years and it's infuriating to see how bullied and abhorrent it has become because of these higher ups that clearly don't care about you in the slightest.

See you on the other side, I hope you improve instead of sweeping these issues under the rug for the fourth time, pretending like nothing happened, like you did with the meme channel, GD1, GD2, etc. Be better and change for both yourself and the community, instead of this megalomaniac nonsense. I will not be talking any further on Reddit or about this matter, so do not expect any form of response on this platform. This account was meant to be nothing more than a prevention of impersonation and to keep an eye on things. Goodbye.

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[writethelifeyouwant]

Make Him Look - Ch 1 / 2

Pairing: Cordell Walker x Reader Rating: 18+ Tags: flirting, many many drinks, jealousy, dancing, slow burn Word Count: 3k Created for: @walker-bingo - In Vino Veritas | @anyfandomgoesbingo - Jealousy A/N: Written with the lovely @thinkinghardhardlythinking in mind ❤️and y'all can also blame her for the fact it got so long I split it into two 😂

Cordell swings his leg over a barstool and settles into his usual spot. The bar is busy but not crowded. There’s a few more empty stools awaiting occupants for the night, and Cordell hooks one with his foot and draws it closer, popping his hat down to save the seat for Liam, who’s on his way. But there’s no reason to wait for Liam before he orders – they get the same thing every time.

“Barkeep! Can I get some queso, hot wings, and whatever Pinthouse you’ve got on draft?”

“Sure thing, man,” the kid behind the bar drawls, his accent thick and voice lazy. Cordell would bet anything the guy had had a joint on his break earlier, but he’s off duty – tonight is not about busting people for drugs, tonight is about letting loose. He checks his phone to see if Liam had texted him that he’d left the office yet, but there is nothing there. Taking a sip of the drink that has just been plopped on a coaster in front of him, Cordell scans the room. It’s a bad habit that every law enforcement worker he’s ever met has developed. Even when he’s trying to relax and blow off some steam, he can’t help being a little vigilant.

He takes in the tableaus around him; the groups of kids from the local community college, the gaggle of mid to late aged men in awful polos that Cordell recognises as the inner city bowling league, a couple of less savoury looking guys playing pool, the cluster of women those guys keep eyeing up – he’ll keep an eye on that one.

Checking his phone again and taking another drink, he still hasn’t heard anything from Liam. He opens his brother’s contact and is about to give him a call to tell him to get his ass in gear when someone suddenly reaches down beside him, picks up his hat and drops it back on his head while they slide into the seat he’d been saving - except it’s not Liam.

“Hey you,” the stranger says familiarly, bumping her shoulder against his. “Thanks for saving me a seat.”

You shrug out of your jacket and sling it over your arm as you head up to the worn wood counter of the bar. You don’t see your friend yet, so you decide to go ahead and order a drink while you wait for her to show. She’s always late, you should have just assumed and shown up fifteen minutes from now. You play on your phone as you wait for the bartender to finish serving the gang of people at the other end of the bar. When you feel someone in front of you, you look up, about to order a glass of wine, except one is already being placed on the bar top in front of you.

You stare questioningly at the kid serving you the drink. You’d been here before, sure, but you’re hardly a regular, and even if you were you don’t recognise this server – so why does he know what you were about to order?

“Um, I didn’t–” you start but the kid interrupts you.

“From the gentleman at the end of the bar, milady,” he gave a geeky little bow, “Sorry, he told me to say it like that,” he grimaces at himself. You chance a fleeting look back to the group you’d noticed him serving a few minutes ago and to your horror, you recognise your ex, Dirk, grinning back at you. He tips the brim of his ball cap and gives you a wink, like he’s expecting you to be impressed that he remembers you drink red wine. Shit, this is not how this night is supposed to go. You’re supposed to be here to get drunk with your best friend and have a bit of a dance, not be looking over your shoulder the whole night hoping that jerk leaves you alone.

Panicking a little now, you check your phone but there’s no text from Lea telling you when to expect her. Knowing her like you do, you would bet anything she won’t be here soon, and you don’t want to wait on your own and risk Dirk coming to talk to you. Desperately, you scan your eyes around the bar, cataloguing your options and escape routes. Someone catches your eye a few seats along from where you are. Tall, broad – dark and handsome, your mind supplies unhelpfully – but what really catches your eye is the badge hanging from his belt. He’s a Ranger.

Normally, you’d pick a group of girls who you know would happily pretend to know you so you don’t have to wait alone but you know Dirk, and you know he won’t be shy enough to let any number of girls stop him from coming to ruin your night. But a guy - and a Texas Ranger at that – Dirk wouldn’t dare. He had an outstanding DUI, and he’d always been a bit of a chicken around cops anyways.

Choice made, you grab the wine he’d bought you – hey, you’re not made of money, free booze is free booze – and you march purposefully over to the Ranger, who’s checking his phone and not paying attention until you grab his black cowboy hat off the chair next to him. Clearly he had been saving it for someone, and you want Dirk to think that someone is you.

“Hey you,” you chirp, placing his hat back on his head as you slide into the seat he’d been saving, “Thanks for saving me a seat.” You smile at the Ranger long enough to see him looking at you completely perplexed before you glance back to Dirk and see him watching you with a scowl. You let yourself feel inwardly triumphant and turn back to the man you’d just decided to befriend, if only temporarily.

Swivelling back towards him, you let yourself get a good look at his face for the first time. His bright hazel eyes are staring back at you, confused but not unkind. Tall, dark, and handsome is definitely apt, and now you’re seeing him properly you’re a bit speechless. You hadn’t counted on him being this freakin’ attractive.

“Sorry,” you finally manage to choke out under your breath. “I’ll leave you alone soon, I promise, I’m just hiding from my ex,” you explain, and understanding melts across the man’s face.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asks sympathetically.

“Just pretend like you know me until my friend gets here?” you propose hopefully.

“Happy to,” he smiles, grabbing his drink and holding it out to clink against your wine glass. You tap your glass against his, relief flooding your body as you settle onto your stool a little more comfortably.

“Thank you…” you trail off leadingly, hoping he’ll fill in his name.

“Cordell,” he supplies.

“Now there is a Texan name if I ever heard one,” you giggle.

“If you’re gonna laugh at my name do I at least get the chance to laugh at yours too?” he grins jokingly.

“Y/N,” you give him your name, tucking your hair behind your ear and taking a sip of your wine.

“Well that’s no fun, how can I tease you for such a pretty name?” Cordell takes a sip of his own drink, mirroring you. Jeez, this one is a smooth talker.

-

When you finish your glass of wine, probably a little quicker than normal due to your anxious state, you check your phone again and see a missed call from Lea. “Crap,” you sigh, drawing a concerned look from Cordell, who is happily munching away on some chips and queso next to you.

“Everything okay?” He asks, muffled, mouth still full of food.

“Yeah, s’just my friend bailing on me,” you gripe, listening to the voicemail she’d left on your phone a few minutes ago. “Sorry I gate crashed your night for nothing,” you apologise, popping your phone back in your bag and planning on just going home to turn in early and watch some junky tv show in bed now that your ‘girls night’ wasn’t happening.

“Hey, you aren’t gate crashing.” Cordell shrugs, like he’s hedging his bets with his next statement. “I’ve had a good time so far.” His smile is shy and sincere, and you soften just a little in your annoyance at the world.

“I totally am though, you were clearly waiting for someone,” you gesture to the stool you’d taken up residence on.

“Just my work-a-holic brother, who, as luck would have it–” Cordell pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it up to show the message on the lock screen “–also pulled out on me.”

“Oh,” you blink, not sure what to make of that. It sounds like he’s asking you to stay but… “Well, thank you for being my knight in shining armour for a bit, seriously, but I don’t really want to stick around just to have my ex looking at me all night.”

“Well, if he’s gonna be a creep and keep watching you all night, we could make that fun, give him something to watch,” Cordell offers, his smirk incongruous with the almost hopeful expression in his eyes.

“What?” You’re perplexed.

“I mean, I don’t know what happened between you, but it’s pretty obvious to me that he wants you back, and you seem pretty pissed at him for that. I’m guessing the bastard cheated on you?” You huff in response, a little bitter that he’d read the situation so easily.

“Yeah, he did,” you admit, slumping against the bar, feeling downtrodden at the memory.

“So don’t let him chase you off,” Cordell shrugs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “He messed you around – you tellin’ me you wouldn’t like to mess with him right back?” he raises an eyebrow in temptation, a knowing smirk twitching at his lips.

“And you’re proposing that instead of not wanting him to look at me all night–”

“You make him look,” Cordell finishes your sentence for you. “We’ve already pretended to know each other for the past–” he checks his watch “–twenty minutes. May as well just do the whole pretend date.” Cordell looks at you with so much honesty, you believe that he really does just want to help you screw with Dirk. And you cannot say the idea isn’t appealing.

“Alright,” you concede, shaking your head slightly in disbelief that you’re actually agreeing to this, and Cordell’s face splits into a wide smile. Honestly, seeing that expression alone made agreeing to this worth it. “So, if we’re on a pretend date, you gonna pretend to buy me another drink?”

“No,” you insist, shaking your head vehemently.

“C’mon,” Cordell chides, grinning madly.

“I did not agree to this,” you shake your head, finishing off the last bit of wine in your glass.

“Come on,” he urges again, leaning against the bar and tilting his head close to yours pleadingly.

“I am not dancing,” you repeat, wholeheartedly meaning it. You think if you have to come into genuine skin to skin contact with Cordell, you might actually melt into a puddle. Now three glasses of wine into your fake date, you can feel yourself loosening up and really enjoying yourself with this handsome stranger. He’s kind, and funny, and a little weird but in a charming way – exactly your type. And him begging you to dance with him wasn’t helping your self-restraint. This is a fake date, you keep reminding yourself firmly every time he flashes you that little half smile that makes his eyes light up.

“Well, I don’t know what kind of boring fake dates you usually go on, but mine aren’t complete unless I get to show off my two-step and knock back a tequila shot.”

“Oh, we’re doing tequila now, are we?” You laugh – this guy is actually ridiculous, and you kind of love it.

“That wasn’t a no,” he jumps on your ‘non denial’ and waves at the kid behind the bar. “Two tequilas, two limes?” he holds up two fingers and the bartender nods to him, quickly pouring out the shots and dropping two lime wedges onto a plate. Cordell grabs a salt shaker from the condiments rack on the bar and sets everything up between you. You let him work, watching incredulously but enjoying the show nonetheless.

“Give me your hand,” he holds out his own hand expectantly once he’s arranged all the pieces to his liking.

“Why?” your voice is nervous but your hand reaches out instantly of its own accord. Without answering he proceeds to rub the edge of the lime over the inside of your wrist, then puts the lime in your fingers and shakes some salt over the trail of juice he left behind. He does the same thing to himself, then passes you your shot, which you take in your lime-free hand.

“Right, you wanna do this the normal way or the ‘make Dirk jealous way’?” Cordell asks with a smirk once he’s oriented himself.

“I’m gonna regret asking this, but what’s the ‘make Dirk jealous’ way?” you groan exaggeratedly, like he’s put some great burden on you, but the truth is you’re really enjoying yourself.

“Like this,” Cordell steps up to you and links your right arms together. Catching his drift you smile and try to hold back the snort of laughter that bubbles up inside you – a nervous reaction to feeling the warmth of his body against yours, even through the layer of his shirt. “One, two, three,” he counts off and you go to lick the salt off your wrist except that’s what Cordell is doing. You freeze momentarily, heat shooting up your arm from where his tongue and lips are laving over your skin. You don’t think to move until Cordell puts his own wrist against your lips and you lick obediently.

Your linked arms pull you closer together as Cordell lifts the tequila to his lips and you follow suit in a kind of trance, both knocking back your shots. The tequila hits you harder than you remember it ever doing before, and you scrunch up your face, disoriented for a moment until you once again feel Cordell’s lips on your skin. This time they’re wrapping around your finger tips as he sucks the lime into his mouth. You stand frozen, the burn in your mouth and your fingers meeting in your chest and ratcheting up your heart rate as if you’re trying to run away from the oncoming flames. But it’s hopeless, you’re stuck in the blaze now.

“You want your lime, darlin’?” Cordell laughs at your stock still frame and holds his fingers to your lips, gently pressing the fruit inside and urging you to suck. You’re sure you must have physically combusted into fire by now, but Cordell isn’t jumping away like he’s been singed – he’s pressing closer. “Dance with me,” he rasps, voice hoarse from the burn of the alcohol. It’s not a request anymore, it’s an order, and you don’t question it.

Drawing his hand down the arm of yours linked with his until your fingers lace together, he pulls you away from the bar and out onto the dance floor. It’s an upbeat country song, the kind you’d normally jump around to, but he pulls you in and wraps an arm around your waist like a proper partner dance calls for – except he’s ignored the social convention of leaving room for Jesus. He pulls you after him in tiny circles and you let him lead happily. When the song changes to something a little slower he pulls you just a little tighter, and you can’t stop yourself from moving your gaze off his shoulder up to his face.

His eyes dart over your shoulder, then smile down at you wryly, and you feel yourself blush. “He’s watching,” Cordell grins mischievously. You go to look but he puts a hand on your neck and holds you still, keeping your eyes on him. His fingers are strong and warm against your collarbone, ironically causing you to shiver. “No, don’t look at him,” his voice is low as he leans in conspiratorially, “you wanna make him look, remember?”

“Why are you helping me?” The alcohol swimming through your veins is making you comfortable and fuzzy, and you let yourself lean against him familiarly, your head resting against his chest as he continues to move you both around the dance floor. You feel him shrug as his grips on your hand and the nape of your neck tighten a little.

“The truth?” he asks. You can hear the nerves in his voice, even if you can’t see them on his face.

“No, I want you to lie to me, please,” your voice manages to stay serious through the end of the joke before you burst into giggles, and you feel your laughter move into his body and trigger his own, making his chest rise and fall unevenly beneath your cheek.

“You are one hell of a gal, you know that?” You’re glad your face is buried in his chest so he can’t see just how brightly you smile at the compliment. “Truth is, I’ve been trying to get you drunk and have my wicked way with you.” You can tell by how expressionless his voice has gone that he’s winding you up, but you pull back and slap your hand to your chest in mock horror.

“Well Cordell Walker, I have never met such a rogue in my life,” you gasp in your best Scarlet O’Hara accent. It’s not a good one. Neither of you can keep a straight face for more than a few seconds, and you both double over in laughter after your minuscule standoff.

As your laughter dies down, Cordell grabs your hands again and pulls you back to him, swaying entirely out of time to the song that’s playing. He looks like he’s about to say something but the words haven’t quite found their way to his tongue, and when you catch his eyes you suddenly don’t want to hear what he has to say and you pull away from him. He looks at you, puzzled and just the slightest bit hurt as you try to find some cover for your sudden movement.

“You wouldn’t happen to be a bourbon fan, would you?”

Part 2 Here!

We’re All Mads Here: @vulgar-library @tintentrinkerin @negans-lucille-tblr @fandomfic-galore @petitgateau911 @schaefchenherde @kickingitwithkirk @little-diable @laxe-chester67 @kassyscarlett @austin-winchester67

All Walker: @lovealways-j @delightfullykrispypeach @stoneyggirl @thinkinghardhardlythinking @sams-sass @walkersbabygirl

[xaibaugrove]

Everyone in the Krew is Problematic

I was inspired to go on this rant by someone who recently brought up a question in a server I’m in, asking why so many people in the fandom seem to hate Mako and Makorra and why. This wouldn’t be the first time I defend Mako and it most likely won’t be the last, but it might be the first time I tear him and everyone else in the Krew down in the process, only to bring them back up. Hear me out though.

I think I’ve totally accepted that a lot of people in this fandom will always hate Mako and that I will have to perpetually defend him, I understand that this is the relationship I’ve chosen with this world. But what I still will never understand are the reasons why people hate/dislike him because compared to how much they love other characters in the Krew who honestly aren’t that much better than him (in some cases, even worse!), it doesn’t make any sense.

Let me also preface this by saying, I love these characters with all my heart and soul, probably more than I should love fictional characters, but this is the life I live and with that being said, I am going to tear them apart just to prove a point. Okay, here we go.

MAKO

Most of his detractors list the usual criticisms, which are valid when isolated. He cheated on Asami, he lied to Korra, he was a terrible boyfriend and essentially he treated the women he claimed to love or care about horribly. Gee, it’s almost like the man was a teenager with no experience in having long-lasting, healthy relationships and was raised in the streets by gangmembers while doing anything to survive and provide for his younger sibling after seeing his parents killed right in front of him and suddenly being orphaned…

I think Mako has been torn down enough, so I won’t get too deep into the tearing down part for him. It really does baffle me how someone can claim to be woke and not comprehend how someone coming from poverty could possibly be a product of their environment. Like, does everyone think that poor people automatically have hearts of gold and turn out like Little Orphan Annie? Why are people surprised that when someone has a shitty life, they might do shitty things?

Also, sooo many people love Zuko, who actively tried to cause harm to Aang, Katara and Sokka numerous times, and sympathize with his troubled past. But like, sure Zuko had an abusive father and his mother peaced out of his life for whatever reasons but at least he had his uncle. Mako had his parents for maybe 8 years before they were murdered in front of him and then had...no one for the next 10 years? Except for Bolin, sure, but no other parental figure in his life. Dude literally had to become him and his brother’s own parent and joined a gang to survive, and after all that, the worst he does is acts as a bad boyfriend toward Korra and Asami and he is instantly thrown to the wolves. Something doesn’t add up. It’s just...I don’t get it.

Yes, the way he treated people was bad, but people can grow? That’s a thing humans can do. And he was a teenager, my god. No, we cannot allow our past to be an excuse for how we treat others, but we have to be aware that there is a growth process to being human. And being human in and of itself, isn’t pretty. You think Mako is problematic? Don’t get me started on your fave.

KORRA

Ok, I love this woman to death but she is ridiculously problematic. She pursued someone in a relationship and essentially forced Mako to cheat on Asami by kissing him against his will, that’s already pretty awful and shows a lack of empathy on her part, also kissing people without their consent is no bueno. But also I just have to say it for the people who might not know this. One of the fundamental reasons why Makorra didn’t work was because KORRA WAS ABUSIVE. Okay? It wasn’t just that Mako was inadequate at relationships and didn’t know how to people, it wasn’t that she was secretly confused and wanting Asami the entire time (biphobia at it’s best) one of the main problems in the pairing was that Korra was crazy abusive towards Mako. Seriously, why don’t I see this more often in those discussions??

If we need examples, I have dozens. Honestly, it’s really easy to see how terrible Korra was to Mako, I’d actually argue that she treated him worse than he treated her. I mean, they were both terrible to one another, but in Korra’s case she went through the motions of being completely infatuated with your first teenage crush, getting with said crush, then crashing and burning once you realize that you have no idea how to treat a romantic partner so after the butterflies wear off you subject them to all the wonderful aspects of your anger issues. Not only did she scream at Mako during every argument they had, she also threatened him with bodily harm if she got really angry. Remember how their relationship crashed and burned in Book 2? Here are the things that Korra did during that time. Let me reiterate, this was not okay.

Mako is visibly shaken by this!

This woman burst into her boyfriend’s place of work and violently kicked his desk out from in front of him with all his coworkers present. That is not normal behavior. That is a red flag. And after she came back, had amnesia or whatever and forgot they broke up after that scene, let’s not forget that Mako was legitimately Afraid to break up with her again. Korra made her partner frightened that they might suffer bodily harm if they upset her. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, this is not okay!

The little scene in Book 3 when Korra is lifting Mako like 100 feet off the ground with airbending while he’s screaming in fear just to make Asami laugh is cute, right? I’ll admit, I loved that little moment too, it’s one of the only instances of Korrasami development that we got, but also, there were sooo many things wrong with that scene lol. Not only does Korra terrify Mako for literally no reason, it’s also sort of just her continuing to exercise some degree of power over him for her own amusement. Almost like a subtle reminder to him saying, “I am stronger than you in every way and I can break your femur like a twig if I wanted to… but I won’t, so look how much fun we’re having!”

Now of course, there are reasons why Korra acts like this. She was isolated for almost her entire life and never learned how to treat people and be around people. The Avatar is human because they must live amongst the people they protect and that helps them develop empathy and cherish life. The White Lotus deprived her of that fundamental aspect of her duty as the Avatar and it showed throughout the beginning of the series. Clearly, she was young, didn’t see how her actions could negatively affect others and hurt the feelings of not just her partner but also friends and family (she was really awful towards a lot of people in her life!). But as the series went on, we see her having less outbursts and learning to control her temper more.

One can only assume that she does not have the same behavior with Asami because for one, I don’t think Asami would play that shit, she seems like she would electrocute a bitch in a heartbeat and not hesitate if needed, but also Korra is not the same shitty partner she used to be as a teenager. Again, kids do stupid things. Adults do stupid things. And we learn and we grow. Korra will probably make some more mistakes in her relationship with Asami. I don't think anyone can have one bad relationship and suddenly learn all the lessons they can from it and have a perfect one the next go around. I can totally picture Korra losing her temper and raising her voice at Asami if she gets frustrated and forgets who she’s dealing with. Managing anger issues is hard, I know this from experience, and it doesn’t magically get easier. Of course, if Korra does pop off, Asami would definitely put her in her place because she’s a bad bitch who doesn’t take anyone’s shit, next character.

ASAMI

You know her, you love her, you fantasize about her and you probably have her on your list of fictional characters you would totally bang if you had the chance (I know I do), yes, even your best girl is problematic. It’s interesting to me that a lot of people sympathize with Asami and very few openly criticize her (so few that I’ve never seen anyone say a bad thing about her). What’s there to criticize though? The poor girl was cheated on by Mako, had her feelings disregarded by Korra, who claimed to be her friend but pursued her then-boyfriend behind her back and then made up for it by simping for her for the rest of her life? Also her mom was murdered when she was just 6 years old, her father threatened to kill her once and physically abused her, then died right after they started repairing their relationship, essentially making her an orphan at the ripe age of 22. Suffice it to say, Asami has been through it.

So, how could she be problematic, you ask? Why, of course, through the classic Bryke technique of romance progression in storylines called Kissing People Without Their Consent

To be honest, I did gloss over this with Korra, simply because there were sooo many other issues with that woman and I just couldn’t go through every single one in as much detail but that doesn’t negate how serious this whole sneak attack kissing thing is. Sure, Asami is very emotional and lonely and sort of desperate too, (it's a little sad, really) but Mako is clearly uncomfortable and completely caught off guard by the kiss. This is also the second time this happens to him in the series! There are a couple factors that might contribute to why Asami does this and acts this way, maybe Korra’s general awfulness rubbed off on her (don’t make a dirty joke) but this is still wrong.

AND that’s...pretty much it. Kissing people without their permission is a big no no, though. Not wanting to gloss over that, but Asami really is a good person who just did a not-so-great thing. Getting burned by Mako twice probably made her a little less inclined to be as forward with anyone though, and it looks like she now takes her time and is patient in her relationship with Korra. It even seems like Asami is the only person Korra is afraid to upset, as Korra does seem more gentle and calm when around her. And who knows? Maybe Asami living a life where a majority of the time she got whatever she wanted when she wanted it might have also influenced her to be more assertive or even imposing within her relationships.

If anything, those three fools getting into relationships with each other just showed how not ready they were to be in relationships in the first place and also how not okay they were.

BOLIN

Originally I titled this as “Everyone in the Krew is problematic (except Bolin)” but then I remembered that Bolin totally kissed a woman without her consent so I deleted the shit out of that!

This asshole looks genuinely pleased with himself after essentially assaulting Ginger. Not a good look.

Sure, Bolin is baby. He will always be baby to me. But that does not erase the fact that he also actively supported a fascist dictator. Not only was the kissing without consent thing bad, but there’s also that. No matter how many times people around him warned him about the fact that he was on the wrong side of things, that he was helping someone who was putting people into concentration camps...Bolin wanted to believe the best of Kuvira. He ignored obvious signs that the woman was a dictator committing human rights violations like crazy and you know, there’s gotta be a reason for that too.

Maybe Bolin wanted to feel like he was doing something good for once. When you think about it, with his role as the comic relief in the Krew, and sort of constantly being infantilized by his older brother, I wouldn’t be surprised if the man developed some insecurity in his ability to do anything good or useful for anyone without screwing it up in some way. In Kuvira’s army, it seemed like he was actually taken seriously, he felt like he was doing something that mattered. Korra had being the Avatar, Asami had her business and mindblowing philanthropy (honestly, her ability to be as charitable as she is profitable is insane) and Mako had his police work (ACAB, tho). Bolin had...the role of being a joke. A superficial actor. A former pro-bending meathead.

Bolin lived his entire life following after his brother that once they were adults and Mako finally decided to live his own life for once, it left Bolin completely lost. And lost young men are perfect recruits for fascists.

So, in conclusion, my whole reasoning behind destroying the integrity of my favorite characters is to prove a huge point. All of these characters are problematic. They have flaws, some bigger than others (looking at you, Korra. Just...wow), but ultimately, even if your fave is problematic... that’s okay. A lot of people, mostly younger people it seems, are really obsessed with being right about everything that they do and stan. And that’s a wonderful thing, so much change has come about by the younger generations calling out people who do fucked up shit, don’t want or try to improve, and get away with it. But it’s also caused a lot of people to be unforgiving and completely unwilling to acknowledge when people do improve and try to be better.

Personally, I love my problematic Krew because having issues that you’re constantly working on internally is human. It’s human to make mistakes, it’s human to grow from those mistakes. And it’s inspiring to me, who is wholly imperfect, to see myself reflected in fictional characters who aren’t perpetuating unrealistic ideals of human nature, characters who are messy, crazy and ultimately human.

As one of my favorite manga artists and queen of impeccable character creation Rumiko Takahashi once said:

“I think that perfect people are not very interesting.”

And I will always wholeheartedly agree.

[ragingbookdragon]

Black Jeans & Daphne Blue Still Make Me Think Of You

Jason Todd x M!Reader One-Shot

Word Count: 2.4K Warnings: Mentions of Torture and Death, Explicit Language

Author's Note: Daphne Blue by The Band CAMINO has been my new favorite song. Enjoy! -Thorne

He knelt in front of the guy he had tied to the chair. Poor bastard. He thought. Always gotta make things so difficult. Reaching up, he slapped him across the face a couple times.

“Oi, wakey, wakey.” The guy startled awake, immediately whimpering behind the gag. “Oh, good morning sleeping beauty. Have a nice nap?” The guy groaned and he chuckled, yanking down the strip of fabric. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I don’t know anything, Sentinel, I swear to God.”

Sentinel eyed him behind the mask. “You really wanna do this whole dance all over again?” he poked at one of the guy’s broken fingers. “You don’t have any more fingers to break. The next option is your toes.” He started to pull of the guy’s shoes.

“Wait! Wait!” he cried, trying to yank away. “Please don’t!”

“Tell me what I wanna know and your piggies can still go to the market,” he lazily retorted, letting go of his foot.

“But he’ll kill me!” he cried.

Sentinel stared at him. “I’m still wondering what makes you think I’m not gonna kill you too.” he deadpanned, pulling out a silver dagger.

The blade itself was fairly simply, not engraved or marked with extensive decorations of gold or ivory. No, frivolous things such as that were only meant for special and expensive weapons. This dagger had been created by someone with a decent amount of money. Meant to withstand against weathering and usage—it merely served a purpose.

“Look, I’ll make you a deal. You tell me where I can find Two-Face and I’ll kill you quickly. That’ll certainly save you a lot of pain and fear from having your boss dump you in a pool of acid,” he reasoned.

The thug choked on a sob and let his head loll back. “Alright! I’ll talk!”

“Wonderful,” Sentinel smiled. “Where’s Two-Face hiding out.”

“The old courthouse in Arkham City. It’s in the center of the city, you can’t miss it.”

“How many thugs does he have with him at all times?”

The guy’s face pinched. “I don’t know, he’s got a personal guard and the normal group too.”

“No shit,” Sentinel griped. “Numbers, jackass.”

“No more than ten for his personal, but he’s got about thirty normal.”

“Weapons?”

“Anything you can think of,” the thug answered. “Guns, knives, lead pipes, everything.”

Sentinel leaned back on his haunches, thinking for a moment. “Who’s Two-Face allied with at the moment?”

“I—” The guy’s mouth opened, then he snapped it shut.

“Oh, come on, do you need me to cut off a finger?”

“No, it’s—it’s just…”

“Just what?” Sentinel demanded.

“There was supposed to be a meeting tonight about discussing new gang territories,” the thug answered.

He paused and glared at him. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

“You wanted to know about Two-Face only?”

“Where’s the meeting?”

“Penguin’s Iceberg Lounge.”

“Thanks.” Sentinel quipped and thrust the knife into the thug’s throat. His gasp turned into a gurgle as crimson poured down his neck and into his shirt before he ultimately slumped forward. He yanked the dagger out and wiped it on the guy’s pants before sheathing it and standing.

“Lovely,” he grunted. “Now I have to change plans.”

“You know,” someone said from above him. “Batman’s not going to be very happy about you coming into town and killing his punching bags.”

Sentinel whirled around and looked up, catching sight of a familiar Red Hood sitting rather comfortably on a metal beam, his head tipped in a cocky fashion.

He pressed a hand to his chest and dramatized, “Oh no, it’s the Red Hood!” He shut his eyes and groaned, “I admit it, I killed him. And I’ll consent to a full body search at your perusal, Red Hood.” When he didn’t hear a reply, he cracked an eye open and huffed, “You’re no fun, Nightwing usually plays along.”

Red Hood shifted and dropped to the ground, landing with a heavy thud. “What are you doing back in Gotham, Sentinel?”

“Are you asking me because you’re curious or because Batman told you?”

“I’m doing my job.”

“So, it’s because Batman told you.” he chuckled. “Since when did you become Batman’s errand boy? I thought you didn’t like him.”

“Just answer the question,” Red Hood sighed.

“Fine, fine,” Sentinel relented as he waved a hand. “Two-Face and I had a deal and he backed out of it, so now I’m trying to find him.”

The vigilante crossed his arms over his chest. “What was the deal?”

“Oh, you know, tamper with a few legal proceedings. The usual.”

“And what were you supposed to get in return?”

Sentinel scowled. “An obscene amount of money that he failed to deliver.” He started off towards the doors. “And I plan on getting what I’m owed.”

He could hear Red Hood following him. “Where are you going?”

“Our dearly deceased friend said Two-Face was attending a meeting at the Iceberg Lounge.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. “If they’re discussing territory, I need to do reconnaissance in order to learn where Two-Face is gonna set back up.”

“Want some help?” Sentinel paused and turned back around, practically coming chest to chest with the much taller vigilante.

“What kind of help?” he questioned, testing the waters by toying with the zipper on Red Hood’s jacket. When the vigilante didn’t move, he tugged a little. “Your skill? Or another kindof help?”

“I’m willing to part with both,” Red Hood murmured, reaching up to hold Sentinel’s wrist. “So long as you promise not to kill Two-Face.”

He chuckled and pulled his arm away, turning to leave. “And on that note, I’ll do this on my own.”

“You’re gonna show up to the Iceberg Lounge like that?”

Sentinel turned around as he opened the door. “Of course not.” He winked. “I’m gonna go undercover.” And he was gone.

***

He smoothed the front of his black leather jacket and blue shirt as he stepped into the chilly nightclub; he was glad he actually decided to go with something warm. Lazily scanning the room, he caught sight of the full tables as well as the upper level where people were sitting and smoking expensive cigars. One particular set of doors caught his eye and upon closer inspection, he saw two armed guards standing outside, one wearing Penguin’s gang colors, the other wearing Two-Face’s.

Bingo. He thought and in order to not raise suspicion, he made his way around one of the pillars that gave him the ability to hide, but also to see the double doors as well. One of the thugs had a walkie-talkie on him and he hummed, pulling out a small device from his pocket. He played with it for a moment and when the static cleared, he grinned and raised it to his mouth.

“Aye, you still outside the office?” he asked, watching as Two-Face’s thug grabbed the radio on his thigh.

“Yeah, boss is still in there with Penguin.” He glanced at the other gang member. “Why?”

“Somebody said they saw Batman poking around the area. Go check it out.”

“But we got orders to stay put.”

He frowned. “Orders ain’t gonna mean shit if Batman gets in there and throws the boss back in GCPD, shithead. Get crackin’.”

The two thugs looked at one another then to the door before shrugging and splitting up and leaving the doors wide open. He turned his back and waited for the guard to pass him before he slipped back and walked up to the doors. Quickly, he pressed his ear to it and listened, hearing someone that sounded like Penguin talking on the inside. He smiled and slipped a small device, no bigger than a thumbtack inside the keyhole, pressing it as he pulled his hand away.

“Hey!” someone shouted behind him. He spun and was met with the two thugs, both with angry and suspicious looks on their faces. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled. “I was looking for the restroom.”

“That ain’t it pal,” Penguin’s thug said.

“Right, sorry,” he excused, feigning an apologetic tone. “If you can point me in the direction, I’ll be out of your hair, promise.”

Two-Face’s thug tipped his head to the opposite side of the room. “Back that way.” He took a step forward and thrust the rifle into his face. “Don’t come back around here.”

He nodded resolutely. “You got it, sir.” He quickly fled before they changed their minds and disappeared into the crowd. When he was sure they no longer had eyes on him, he took a seat at the bar and pulled out an earpiece, discreetly slipping it in; he clicked the button on the outside of the piece and the conversation from inside the door flooded his ear.

“Word is that Sentinel is in town, Two-Face. You wouldn’t have anything to do with that now, would you?”

“What? Afraid that he’ll visit you?”

“Hardly. But the rumor mill says that he’s looking for you. Don’t tell me you pulled out on a deal?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t do—

“Is this seat taken?”

The low drawl made him jump slightly and he looked to the side, seeing a man smirking down at him. His eyes momentarily darted to the door before going back to the man’s face.

“Uh, no,” he replied. “It’s open.”

He hummed and sat down. “Thanks. Can I get you a drink?”

He inconspicuously slipped the earpiece from his ear and dropped it into his pocket. “I don’t know. What’s going to impress you? Something fruity? Or something…hard?” he flirted, propping his chin on his palm.

The stranger chuckled. “How about both?”

Grinning, he looked at the bartender. “Sex In The Driveway, please. For both of us.” The server turned and started making their drinks, and he shifted his attention back to the man beside him. “Got a name, handsome?”

“Jason. What’s yours?”

“(Y/N),” he replied, taking a moment to ogle the man. And boy was he pretty. Sharp jawline, killer set of teal eyes, midnight black hair, and oddly enough, a white streak. He had to be ripped under that red shirt and leather jacket he wore, and (Y/N) really wanted to find out. Their drinks were set in front of them, and he reached over, taking a sip of his.

“What brings you to this dingy nightclub? Don’t tell me it’s the scenery.”

Jason grinned. “I don’t know, the scenery right now is pretty nice.” He took the straw into his mouth and sipped, then set the drink down. “Wanted to see if there was anyone I could take home for the night.”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh. “Well, aren’t you just upfront about what you want.” He winked. “I like that in a man.” Twirling the straw with his finger, he asked, “You work in Gotham?”

He shrugged. “Mostly, but my job takes me where the money is.” Jason looked at him. “I bet you know what that’s like.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I’m originally from Central City.”

“What’s someone from a safe place like Central doing here in Gotham?”

He hummed and turned in his seat so that he was facing Jason. “Just visiting a friend.”

“A boyfriend?” Jason wondered and (Y/N) snorted.

“Nope. No boyfriend for me.” He eyed him. “Yet…what about you? Have anybody waiting at home?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”

“You’re loyal? Isn’t that a charming quality.”

“What can I say? I’m a charming guy to be around.”

(Y/N) drug his foot up the side of Jason’s calf. “Charming indeed.”

Jason’s mouth opened, but (Y/N)’s attention was drawn away by the doors in the back opening, and Two-Face stepping out, followed by Penguin. His mood soured and evidently it showed on his face because he heard,

“Are you okay?” He directed his attention back to Jason who was looking at him with a cocked brow.

“Yeah,” he answered, then pulled his foot away and stood up. “But it’s getting late, and I have to get going.”

“Going back to see your friend?”

(Y/N) laughed. “Something like that.” He paused and gazed at Jason, then asked, “Gotta pen?”

He dug around in his pocket then pulled out a black sharpie and handed it over. “Here.” (Y/N) took Jason’s hand in his own and quickly wrote a set of numbers on the back.

Jason looked at it. “This your cell?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, it’s the number to my favorite Chinese joint down the street.” Grinning, he leaned over and planted a kiss on Jason’s cheek, murmuring, “I’ll be in town another couple days. Gimme a call sometime if you’d like to hangout.”

As he pulled away, he caught those teal eyes narrowed in amusement. “I definitely will, (Y/N).”

When he stepped through the exit, he sighed, knowing that he was going to have to spend hours going over the conversation in order to get a plan figured out. But hey, at least I scored a date. He thought with a grin.

***

“Have fun in lockup, Dent!” He called from the ledge as he watched the gang leader get loaded into the squad car. As they drove off, he checked his phone and smiled as the transactions followed through.

“Another night, another million,” he quipped and just as he was putting his phone away, it pinged. He looked back at it, eyes widening as he read,

So that’s what Sentinel looks like out of uniform? Black jeans and Daphne Blue? I hope you know I’m never not going to think of you when I see that combo now 😊.

(Y/N) froze and stared at his screen, millions of thoughts scrambling around his mind until he settled on, Who is this?

The little birdy you met in the lounge the other night.

He blinked and typed, Jason?

That’d be the little birdy.

How do you know who I am?

On your left, Sentinel.

He immediately looked up and his jaw went slack at the sight of Red Hood standing there, phone in his hand.

“You’re shitting me,” (Y/N) blurted out. His phone pinged.

Told you I was gonna call you.

Red Hood—Jason stowed his phone and walked up to him. “Wanna go get that Chinese you mentioned?”

(Y/N) gaped at him, then he let out a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, why not? I could eat.”

[atalante241]

A Dream SMP SBI focused AU where all of SBI is related and everybody in the fam know it, except Tommy.

Tommy just assumes that they’re really close friends or some shit, and Wilbur calling Phil dad sometimes is an inside joke between the two.

Like growing up they were a really weird family where all of them had like, their own house/building and they just vibed. Like Tommy was raised by Phil but he doesn’t really remember it (like, can you remember anything from when u were 0-5 yrs old? Cause I sure can’t.) and he was given his own building thing when he was like 5 nearing 6, through that ended up being left alone more. And it was purely by accident, and he started hearing Wil and Techno reffed to Phil as just “Phil”, so he started doing it.

Along time it completely slips his mind that they’re family and not just a very small gated close community, and as I said before they’re a weird ass family Phil leaves on exoditions sometimes. He even might take Wil or Techno along on chance, but not Tommy bc that is a straight up child. Sometimes the trips take months but Tommy isn’t bothered, why should he be bothered that his neighbors leave for months on end sometimes. So the now 7 yr old takes care of himself all alone, and he doesn’t see this as weird bc the rest of SBI doesn’t see it as weird. He just legit thinks that straight up children can live alone and be just fine.

This one time a creeper blows up his house, and because he’s got no clue on how to repair it he just makes a dirt shack. But he thinks it looks ugly (OOC I know) so he carves out this hill and lives in there, and that how he develops a habit of building his homes in hills and mountains. Also when he’s bored he starts mining and accidentally creates these basically ant tunnels that travel underneath the big ass clearing the SBI lives in, there’s also at least one tunnel that goes into/near one of the buildings the SBI have separately.

Tommy doesn’t feel neglected because he doesn’t realize that he should, being left alone for months. He doesn’t feel bad about spending most of his b-days alone because he thinks that he has no friends, and the people around him are just his neighbors and shouldn’t come to the random kids b-day party. He also doesn’t realize that usually ppl have to pay some kind of tax to live in a house somewhere, he jus thinks that u just build a house somewhere and thats it.

He’s kind of is close to Wilbur, but it’s more in the way of saying hi to someone as you pass them but never interacting with them. He gets closer to Wilbur through the drug business.

(Tommy meets Tubbo at the SMP, but they had been pen pals for 6 yrs. They got connected through a magazine that advertised pen pals and how it’d get you one, it worked and they became friends. Tubbo also knows of the fact that Tommy lived alone, and is on the same page as Tommy about the family.)

At 15 (nearing 16) he leaves for the SMP, he waves the rest of the SBI goodbye because for some bizarre reason they all came out to say bye to him based on the one thing he said to Wilbur about leaving. At the SMP things go like normal, except new conflict rises from Tommy simply not paying his taxes. Dream goes to confront him with some other people that tagged along just for the fun of it, only for it to turn into a giant ass street fight because: Dream thinks Tommy’s bullshitting not knowing what taxes are because he knows Tommy didn’t lie to him about living alone before (he believes him bc he knows how to do household chores and up keeping), and Tommy thinks Dream’s just trying to exploit him because he thinks he’s some stupid kid. Said street fight that lasted 2h became know as “The Tax Scrap”, as it was a scrap and in led to taxes being demolished completely so no one had to pay them.......there was a party held for Tommy because of it.

After Tommy turned 16 around the summer months Wilbur comes and they do the whole drug shit and independence, they get way close doing so but not nearly “brother” close. Wilbur’s sad about this because he thinks that Tommy’s mad at him and the rest of SBI for leaving him alone during all of their trips, while Wilbur’s angsting Tommy’s all “I’m so very happy. And I’m getting super close with my old neighbor, this is great! Hey the whole of the SMP looke at the man named Wilbur Soot and know that I’m in no way related to him but we’re just old neighbors!!”. Yeeeh, Tommy unconsciously lets everyone know that they’re just old neighbors. Unknowingly hurting Wilbur because he thinks Tommy doesn’t want anything to do with them and is just acting civil, so he tries to be like 10x friendlier. They become great friends.

Everything happens pretty much the same except Wilbur trusts Tommy less while in the ravine because he still thinks that he hates them, he and Techno also have a angst session while Tommy’s asleep bc they think he hates them. This is before the Vilbur and Festival (the angst session). During the Pit scene Wil says something along the lines of “He hates you, look—look at him. He despises you, look how..—how angry he is!” After the 16th Phil wants to talk to Tommy about everything and make sure he’s alright (Very OOC of him, I know.) but is deterred by Techno telling him how Tommy “hates” them, and that he refuses to acknowledge them as family.

Sometimes Ghostbur slips and calls Tommy his little brother, Tommy’s shocked because did that mean that Alivebur saw him as some kind of little brother figure? He’s very flattered and totally doesn’t hug Ghostbur out of embarrassment. Ghostbur sometimes slips infront of people that aren’t Tommy and that leads to a lot of confused people and a rumor mill (that’s actually true for once) that Tommy and Wilbur were actually brothers, while wisiting or maybe through the msg’s Ranboo asks Tommy about it and receives the anwser that Tommy and Wilbur weren’t brothers but Tommy’s pretty sure that Wilbur saw him as one, at least he assumes from Ghsotbur’s ramblings. Ranboo tells this to people and it leads to a lot of aww’s because adorable, and then those aww’s turn sad bc Ghostbur exists.

Everything goes the same as canon except after Tommy betrays Techno, Techno during the moment he and Tommy are yelling at each other while tnt’s exploding -making it impossibly hard to hear them and messing with the animatic audios- yells something about Tommy being his brother and betraying him. And that leads to Tommy saying something like “Did you really see us as that close...” and now he feels sad bc the friend he betrayed was so attached to him that he saw him as a brother figure, but that sets Techno off more bc Tommy still denounces them as family in his eyes and he’s pissed bc of it. So they start fighting, eventually Phil stops to watch them. He’s also pissed at Tommy for the same reasons, during the fight Tommy gets like super injured or something but neither Techno or Phil want to kill him before they get to know the full reasons as to why he disowned them.

That leads to angsty as hell dialogue that breaks everyone’s hearts, and the whole gang realizing that Tommy didn’t even KNOW that they were family. It’s silent after that (not really there’s like 50 withers still around and explosions are happening left and right, but u get the point), idk how it all ends put it has something like this.

Tommy gets hugged

He’s still bleeding so it hurts and he’s kinda dying

Bc Techno and Phil are sad and kinda want to start over (and let’s be honest no one in that family is fully sane) they figure GhostInnit would be easier to deal with, also they’re still mad at him so they stab him

While also hugging him, it’s real messed up

Some people witness it and are kinda creeped out because to them it looks like two ppl that aren’t particularly close to Tommy are just hugging him after they stabbed him as if they cared

Through some magical power of teamwork and friendship the ppl fighting for L’Manburg (rip) get Tommy away from them, and some other crap happens the two have to flee. Later on Ranboo goes to live with them (fuck yes to that, that boy deserves peace. But fuck Phil adopting him It’ll all go to hell. Have you seen Phil’s other two kids +Tubbo??) but stil travels to the SMP bc I refuse for his friendship to end with Tommy and Tubbo, he kinda carries the news of GhostInnit existing to them unintentionally. So the leads to a game of extreme hide n’ seek where Tommy doesn’t know he’s supposed to hide so people literally just shove him into closets, rooms and houses all willy nilly. The whole servers in on it except Dream who just looks at all of them like that one meme. (No, I do not know what I’m referencing but I know at least 70% your pictures something)

The end vibe: Happy GhostInnit vibing with friends while the whole server is playing hide and seek him as the hider w/out him knowing, if Techno and Phil get him they’re gonna have so much family bonding and consequently make Tommy mad at the server bc he thinks thy were keeping him from his fam on reason, when they’re were just actually trying to keep him away from the two anarchists that were after him for some reason bc they didn’t know about the fam crap. GhostInnit doesn’t know they’re family bc it was kind of a bad memory him dying, he remembers everyone but not the bad things that have happened with them.

(Cross-posted off of Ao3, fics inspired by this one

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28894026

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30526023 )

[prose-for-hire]

Trapped

Pairing: Spike x fem!reader 

Request: No, but it was a prompt I found from a list that I now can’t find: “Quit touching me, your feet are cold!” and the gif was very inspiring!! 

Warnings: It’s set morning-after so implied sex, reader and Spike are naked in this but there is no smut. Bickering. 

A/N: If you come across the list the prompt was from I’ll credit the op. 

Even for Sunnydale, this was a weird one. You and Spike had been on a date the night before which was a new occurrence. Usually you would drink at the Bronze or something but he had decided you should have a date somewhere ‘normal blokes would take their birds’ so that’s what he did. It had been great, you had reservations at Sunnydale’s premier human restaurant and he even held your hand across the table where everyone could see. This was new, because you hadn’t found a way to tell your friends, the Scoobies yet and you had been hiding the relationship as much as you could. The date was fun and you loved your vampire, the only time things went awry was when Spike asked them to take his steak back because it wasn’t bloody enough and almost had a fight with the server over it, but he calmed down when he saw a small frown start on your brow.

That, however, wasn’t what was weird. What was weird was the walk home. Spike had convinced you to come back to the crypt (which didn’t take long, you loved spending time with him). You came across a demon who spoke in tongues, Spike was itching to fight it and you were ready to run for the hills. But neither of you could react as the demon managed to push the middle of both of your foreheads with its palm, muttering something in a language you had never heard of before vanishing out of thin air. You and Spike had managed to forget about the strange interaction, however, after Spike had pressed some kisses to your mouth and invited you to the lower-level of his crypt with a suggestive raise of his eyebrow.

This was how you woke up lying on your side, as Spike rolled over and stroked down your arm, leaving languid kisses against your shoulder.

“Time to get up, pet… Scooby meeting remember, can’t have ‘em knowing you were here. God forbid the little gang of white hats figure not everything is black and white” He mumbled, more to himself than to you.

“I’d actually like to stay here, enjoy you a little longer”

“I think you had more than your share last night” He smirked, trailing some kisses along your collarbone. You smiled at his affection, weaving your fingers between the short hair at the base of his skull, knowing you really would have a lot of explaining to do if you were late for the meeting. You reluctantly slipped from being pressed into his body, instantly missing his soft caress.

However, when you tried you found that no matter how much you tried, you couldn’t move out of the bed. You could move around in bed, but not step foot out of it.

“S-Spike I can’t get out of bed” You panicked, grabbing his upper arm.

“It’s the animal attraction, love, no need to feel special I do it to all the girls” he smouldered, not realising how freaked you were.

“Not funny, I need to leave!”

“It’s not hard love, see-?” Spike started to try and remove himself from the bed quickly realising that there was some invisible force keeping you there, “Oh bloody hell”

“I think we’re stuck in bed”

“Oh, somebody get an award for little miss state-the-bleeding-obvious”

“No need to be rude, we’re stuck - you being sarcastic isn’t helping!” You said, removing yourself from his side and trying to move your arm outside of the bed. You couldn’t even do that, it was as if there was some invisible barrier stopping you. You sighed, lying back in bed.

It had been a while and you were lying on your side away from Spike to try and find a more comfortable position.

“Most women would enjoy being in bed all day with her attractive boyfriend” He moved in, running a hand along the curve of your back, making you shiver slightly.

“Boy-friend? You’re practically a corpse” You muttered and Spike realised you were still a bit put out by his sarcastic put-down. Usually, it wouldn’t bother you too much, you knew who you had agreed to date but you had been panicking and he had been rude.

“Corpse-friend doesn’t have the same ring to it, now does it?” You just sigh at this, rolling onto your back. You both stared up at the ceiling in silence for a while, Spike broke first when he saw your facial expression, “Don’t pout love, I’m sorry, alright? There’s no way out and your cell phone was in your jeans pocket-

“-Which was thrown to the floor last night” you finished with a sigh. This was a waiting game. You both scowled at the pair of jeans sprawled near the entrance to the upper-level of the crypt.

Spike pulled you into him as he sighed. Nothing was ever easy in Sunnydale. He had ideas of taking you far away from here, but you would never leave the others fighting monsters alone. He liked your loyalty, even if it meant you were loyal to him in secret. After a comfortable moment spike shifted in bed, his feet tangling with yours as you yelped at the sudden sensation.

“Hey! Quit touching me, your feet are cold!” You protested, moving your legs away slightly.

“Y/n, they’re room-temperature, pet”

“Still, it’s cold in the room…”

“Oh yeah?” He started to press different parts of his body to your back, chest and then face to tease you seeing as you couldn’t escape from bed. You heard a throaty chuckle as you yelped and fell into fits of giggles yourself, pleading for mercy from his icy touch. He eventually wrapped his arms around you, holding you to him and you managed to brave the cold because it meant being close to him. Besides, he warmed up to your body heat anyway. You both closed your eyes, enjoying the bliss of being so intimate with each other.

It had been another hour and there had been another incident to interrupt your bliss, the fact that you were both basically sat on top of each other was starting to wear a little thin. Spike could get very irritated and you could almost match him at times. You were both sat up in bed, leaning against the headboard wrapped in sheets.

“Has anyone ever told you that for a vampire, your breathing is actually really loud?” you shoot him a look, the little things starting to aggravate the other considering you’ve been stuck in such a small space.

“Well, for a human you can be incredibly cold, I’m almost jealous. Some vamps haven’t even got it in ‘em like you have”

“Take that back!”

“It’s a compliment really” He backtracked seeing your frown.

“It’s not! I’m not cold you’re just annoying me, I can’t move from this bed and you’re not helping at all. You’d have thought after all your years of living you would know what to-”

“If you don’t bloody shut up, I’ll bite, y/n, and not in the way you like”

“I’d like to see you try, you’d be trapped here with my body and a horrible headache, not to mention that Buffy would find you eventually” You quipped. There was a silence, you had mentioned Buffy which always annoyed Spike. After a moment, you both looked back at each other, your scowls falling from your face as your mouths twitched into a smile. You couldn’t help it and neither could he. Throughout all of this you were happy to be together even with the squabbling.

“Y’know, we are already in bed, I could always… make it up to you” Your wide smile at the suggestion and the little exciteable nod was all he needed to crash his lips to yours. Maybe less talking and more kissing was the way to go. Your lips roughly met, a tension lifting that had been filled with needling words before. He pulled you closer to him as you slid a hand up his toned chest trying to match his insistent kisses. You were anticipating more when his hands started to trace your waist but something, or someone, stopped that in its tracks.

“Spike! We need your help, y/n’s missing and it’s not like her to-” Buffy was cut off and the three intruders matched your horrified face, “Oh my God! Y/n, get away from him!”

Spike was shielding you the best he could, the blush already rising in your cheeks as he stroked your side comfortingly, his hand hidden by the sheet. He knew this was your nightmare, being caught in bed by the whole gang. Xander, Willow and Buffy were all shell-shocked at this revelation. Everyone’s eyes scattered to the floor as they realised what they had intruded on. Willow hurriedly read through the book she had walked in reading rather than focus on you naked in bed with Spike.

“Yeah, that’s right, get your eye-full before pretending to be embarrassed” Spike said to the group, “We’re stuck here, some big nasty bugger did this to us!”

“Uh, he’s right, a demon cast the whacky on us” you managed to stutter out, Buffy’s glare now trained on Spike.

“Sounds like the same demon we were supposed to be meeting about!” Willow confirmed after you gave a brief description of the demon and what had happened.

“I was gonna say, nobody’s getting into Spike’s bed without some serious mojo going on” Xander piped up.

Spike and you looked at each other, Spike was somewhat disappointed that the Scoobies were so willing to believe that a demon had taken your clothes and thrown you both into bed rather than seeing that you loved him and had been dating him for the past three months. He understood though, so he ducked his head, allowing them to continue berating him in his own bedroom. Because you were so insistent on keeping it quiet. At least this way, he could keep being with you, even privately.

“Um, the spell only trapped us in bed… I got in willingly” Spike looked up, a very smug smile on his face that he tried to hide when you side-glanced at him. You took his hand, squeezing slightly.

“You… what?”

“We’re dating” You confirmed and Spike smiled the widest grin you had ever seen on his face as he snaked an arm around your waist, holding you firmly so the others could see now.

Everyone was silent after that. Willow went upstairs to get the spell sorted, she had finally found it in the book she had handily come in reading about the demon that Spike and y/n had met the night previous. The demon liked to prey on new couples, hexing them in situations that could ruin their relationships. Willow quickly reversed the hex which allowed you both to leave the bed, the others left you to it not really speaking to you on the way out. You couldn’t quite bring yourself to care at the moment though, the look Spike was giving you was distracting. He was so pleased you had told them all.

Suddenly, neither of you actually wanted to get out of bed. You had both been in bed all day, what’s a little more time going to hurt?

[inkribbon796]

Egotober 2021 Ch. 17: A Waste of a Good Jumper

Summary: Yancy and Memento come across a fight in the streets.

A/N: Visitation Day. Now because Yancy has Visitation Day and a birthday in Egotober, he technically gets two days.

Prompt: Sweater (Jumper)

Characters: Phantom, Memento, and Georgenotfound

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

“I’s[1] don’t know ‘bout[2] this,” Yancy sighed as he looked at Memento.

“Come on, I need to test it out, and Mori’s not here,” Memento complained. He was holding up what looked like a normal sweater.

“What’s it do?” Yancy asked.

“Nothing,” Memento looked away from him.

“Yeah, like I’s[1] believe that,” Yancy rolled his eyes. “What’s it really do?”

“It,” Memento stalled, “might, possibly, be made of human hair.”

Yancy tossed it back at Memento’s face.

“Hey, hey,” Memento snapped. “This is quality, premium, hair humano[3] here.”

“An’ I’s not wearin’ it,”[4] Yancy started walking off.

“Fine,” Memento draped the sweater over his arm and hurried to catch up after, “I’ll find some rube to hawk this off on.”

Yancy rolled his eyes at Memento, “Really? Youse got nuthin’ better ta do?”[5]

“Mori’s with Chase,” Memento told him. “And I’m bored.”

“World might as well be endin’[6] then,” Yancy told him.

“Exactly, the world’s ending, bit by bit, day by day,” Memento pointed out. “We’re all dying.”

“Geez, no wonder youse[7] are so fun at parties,” Yancy rolled his eyes, just letting Memento follow him as they made a slow trek back to the heroes’ base. Yancy was trying to get in a healthy walk, when he was found by his younger brother.

“Hey, I’m great at parties,” Memento smiled and jabbed his thumb at himself.

“Stay fucking still!”

“How ‘bout[2] you fuck off!”

“Oooh,” Memento perked up and looked over. “Is that a fight?”

And then he was off, and it took Yancy a second and a couple of steps to realize he was already gone.

“Shit,” Yancy looked around, and raced after his trail.

Yancy caught up with Memento when the spawnling caught up with the fight. Phantom had picked a fight with George, one of Dream’s closest allies and a close friend to the Server gang leader. George usually just walked around in his white rimmed glasses and blue shirt and jeans attire. But mushrooms were now growing from his body and he was glaring at Phantom. George had on a red cape with fur lining it, a collapse with an eye orb in the center that had a dark green aura to it and a yellow “X” where the iris should have been.

The ex-convict pulled Memento back before he could accidentally get hit.

Phantom glared at the two of them, “Stay out of my way before I have to roll two coffins over to Ent.”

“Keep your eyes on the prize, you overcompensating talent scout,” George spat as mushroom spores came off George’s body, and began to spread out.

Yancy and Memento raced to cover their noses and mouths but George’s spores moved with unnatural precision. Instead of just moving wherever errant winds took them, they directly targeted Phantom and only Phantom.

Phantom used his cane, and the aura that came from it to push the spores away from him. The aura formed a protecting bubble that the spores tried to eat through.

“I think it’s time to dream a nice, pleasant dream,” George said with a tone of malice. “You don’t get to just come onto our turf and expect me to do nothing.”

Phantom lunged for George, his cane made contact with George’s face, hard, and the eye on George’s cape blinked. The Server member was knocked back as blood went flying and the entire world seemed to freeze, or at least Memento felt something similar to Tempus’s powers but so alien and different at the same time. He felt like something had frozen time and then a millisecond later for Memento time snapped back to normal. George was picking himself off the ground and there were a couple long, fluffy white feathers surrounding George.

Phantom was gone, his aura fading as if he’d disappeared but not discorporated.

George coughed, his nose bleeding and he was coughing up some blood from when he’d bitten his tongue. “Dammit.”

Memento walked closer. “You okay?”

Yancy yanked him back when George moved a little too aggressively.

But when George realized who it was, he calmed down and the mushroom spores stopped spilling out. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were Phantom.”

He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, “Ugh, I need a shower.”

“I’s[1] think, youse[8] also need a doctor,” Yancy commented.

Memento held the sweater out for George, who looked at it questioningly before taking it.

“Seems like a waste of a good jumper,” George told him.

“Keep it,” Memento told him.

“Okay, cheers, mate,” George started using it to clean up the blood.

“Youse[8] sure youse[8] don’t need a doctor?” Yancy repeated.

“Nah, I’ll be fine, I’ve fought worse,” George dismissed, looking down at himself. “I lost a bet with a ram demon and had to sew an ear to my leg once.”

“What?” Memento smiled.

“Yeah,” George pulled up a pant leg and there was the ear. “Like I said, I’ve picked worse fights.”

“Can youse[8] hear with that?” Yancy asked, pointing to it.

“I mean, not at first,” George lowered his pant leg. “But after a couple of spells, and a lot of pain, I can now.”

“Why?” Yancy asked.

George shrugged, “Why not?”

The orb on his cape began to glow incessantly, and George rolled his eyes.

“He’s like a worried mother,” George smiled, and pulled out an eye orb. “Gotta[9] go, thanks again for the jumper.”

Then he tossed the orb and was gone.

“We prolly should’a told him ‘bout the hair,”[10] Yancy told Memento.

“Don’t ruin the moment,” Memento told his older brother.

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

Accessibility Translations:

1. I

2. about

3. human

4. And I’m not wearing it

5. Really? You’ve got nothing better to do?

6. ending

7. you’re

8. you

9. Have to

10. We probably should have told him about the hair

[ayleecambell]

Strangers in the Night

Secret Santa Fic!

Completely AU

jeronicasecretsanta20 @ jeronicanation

This SS gift is for: @half-ok

I hope you enjoy your gift!! 

This has not been beta'd.

~~

Veronica gets the text as soon as Chad gets up to go to the bathroom. 

Cheryl: I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news. Normally I'd tell you in person but I feel like you need to know now rather than later. Brace yourself, a picture is worth a thousand words:

[Picture of Chad and Jessica together, the two in the middle of having sex.]

Cheryl: This was from this morning while you were at yoga.

Veronica: That fucking bastard. 

Cheryl: Let me know if you need help hiding the body.

Veronica: Will do girl. 

When Chad gets back from the bathroom Veronica is sitting calmly at the table, tapping her nails along with the beat from the music playing overhead. 

“Hey Babe, I was thinking-” He starts, sliding back into the booth.

Veronica holds up a hand, cutting off his words. Her smile is sharp as she pulls her phone out and shows him the picture she received from Cheryl. 

“We’re done.” She says and stands up with her purse in her hand.

“Babe-” Chad starts and Veronica interrupts again.

“You fucked my roommate, in my apartment, this morning while I was at yoga. Luckily for me and unluckily for you Cheryl didn’t feel up to it this morning so she stayed home. How stupid are you that didn’t think I would eventually find out?” Veronica demands.

“It was only this once!” Chad tries to defend but she waves it away. 

“I don’t care. We are done and I want nothing to do with you.” Veronica says, stepping away from the table before turning and walking away. She’ll call an uber once she gets outside. 

Chad follows behind her. 

"Ronnie it was a mistake! If you'd just let me explain-" Chad whines behind her and Veronica spins around on her heels so she can look at him.

"Explain what? A mistake? A mistake is maybe a kiss. You don’t fuck someone by mistake. What do you think you can possibly say right now that will make me forgive you or forget what you did?" Veronica demands, looking him in the eyes.

Chad sputters, obviously trying to think of something to say but not able to come up with an argument he thinks will work. 

Veronica scoffs and rolls her eyes as she twirls around to strut angrily away. 

"Wait no, Veronica." Chad finally finds his voice and goes after her. When he's close enough he grabs her arm and tugs her back towards him. “Just listen to me!” He demands angrily.

She rips her arm out of his grasp. "Don't touch me!"

She’s about two seconds from punching him in the face for touching her when someone comes to her defense.

"Hey!" A male voice snaps from behind her and for a moment all Veronica can see is black and green leather. 

A stranger has just put himself in between her and Chad.

Since she's currently staring at his back all she knows about him is that he's part of a motorcycle gang called the Serpents, has raven black hair (that looks messy but good), he's taller than her even in her 4 inch heels, and he really seems to have a problem with Chad putting his hands on her.

All in all, so far she likes what she's seeing.

Still, she has never been a damsel in distress and she isn't starting now. 

Veronica takes a step to the side so she's no longer behind him but beside him instead. From there she watches the show, ready to step in if she needs to. 

"Didn't anyone ever teach you to never put your hands on a woman?" Jughead demands angrily, getting into Chad’s face.

He doesn’t know much about the situation, but he knows this guy looks like a douche and the woman had made it very clear she didn't want anything to do with him.

That's really all he needed to know to step in.

Chad sneers. “Stay out of this loser, it doesn’t concern you!” 

“I’m making it my concern. You want people to stay out of your business? Then don’t have your fights in public places where people can teach you some proper manners.” Jughead snaps.

“This is between Veronica and I, stay out of it.” Chad demands. 

Jughead turns to look at Veronica and green eyes meet black eyes. 

“Do you want to talk to him?” He asks her.

“No. I think I’ve made it clear I want nothing more to do with him. He seems to have a problem understanding basic reasoning.” Veronica tells him while smirking.

Jughead grins at her. “I can see why that might be a problem.”

Veronica can’t help but smile back at him.

“Hey!” Chad interrupts them. “Are you two flirting right now? Really? Right in front of me?” 

Veronica rolls her eyes and looks at him. “We just broke up because you fucked my roommate on my kitchen counter. I can do whatever the fuck I want and yes, that means I am flirting in front of you right now.”

“Shit.” Jughead mutters. “You really fucked up.” He says looking at Chad. 

“Shut up.” Chad tells Jughead, who shrugs and shakes his head, then Chad looks back at Veronica. “Ronnie-” He tries again.

Veronica snorts. “Just stop. There is literally nothing you can say to make this situation better. Just walk away.” 

Chad looks at Jughead. “I know what will make me feel better.” 

Jughead shakes his head. “Don’t be stupid.” He knows exactly what’s going to happen which makes dodging the punch Chad throws at him pretty easy. 

“Seriously?” Veronica asks no one as she backs up. She knows better than to get between two guys in a bar fight. 

Besides, Chad has never been a good fighter. She’d bet on the biker guy any day before she bet on Chad winning. 

It takes Jughead exactly 30 seconds to end the fight by punching Chad in the face. 

---

After the bar kicks Chad out, Veronica buys Jughead and his friends, Fangs, Sweet Pea, and Toni drinks to apologize for the drama. 

Jughead and Veronica are sitting next to each other in the curved booth, her thigh lined up against his, and she’s telling them the entire sordid tale of her relationship with Chad and taking their teasing with a shrug and a shot of rum. 

“His name was Chad! How did you not know he was a douche?” Sweet Pea teases. 

“Hey now! He was charming when we met! Besides, can any of you really be judging names? Jughead, Fangs, Sweet Pea? Are those your real names by the way?” 

“You’ll have to find out.” Toni teases. “We don’t just tell our secrets to strangers.” 

“Not even strangers that buy your drinks?” Veronica teases back. 

“Not even. You gotta earn it.” Fangs tells her with a smile.

“Right, well, we need more shots then.” Veronica says with a returning smile as she catches their server’s eye so she can order another round. 

---

Jughead isn’t sure how it happened exactly but when the group leaves the bar, Veronica is riding on the back of his bike. 

They’re all walking out of the bar a little tipsy but no one was drunk and they made sure to space out the drinking with food and water. They all knew better then to ride a motorcycle drunk. 

He’s holding Veronica’s hand as he leads her outside. He doesn’t know when they started holding hands or who reached for the other first, he just knows they’ve been doing it for hours now and neither one of them have wanted to let go. 

He’s been keeping an eye on her and other than the two shots of rum earlier she’s been drinking water. So he knows that she’s not holding his hand to help keep her balance. She hasn’t wavered a bit even in those heels. 

There’s a pang of disappointment that after they leave tonight he’ll most likely never see her again. 

"I can drop you off somewhere. Your apartment or at a friend's place?" Jughead offers Veronica as Sweet Pea, Fangs, and Toni split off to get on their bikes and head back to their campground for the night.

"I share an apartment with Jessica and Cheryl. The absolute last place I want to be right now is there until Cheryl kicks Jessica out and has a deep clean done on our apartment." Veronica tells him as she stands next to him and watches the others leave. 

He doesn’t know why he even suggests it, but when she turns to look at him and she steps closer to him, invading the little space he had left, it just pops out of his mouth.

"You can come with us?" He offers. "We're going to a rally a few states over. We'll be coming back through here in about two weeks. If you really want to get away for a bit." 

Veronica stares at him for a moment, completely silent and its enough to make his heart race and for him to feel stupid.

Why the hell is he offering for her to come with? They're strangers. She's probably wondering if he's crazy or a murderer or something. 

He’s cursing himself in his head and opens his his mouth to tell her to forget it but then she grins and he's struck speechless.

"Let's do it." Veronica says with a little laugh, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

“What?” He can’t help but question it. Is she really going to come with him?

“Let’s do it. I’m not ready for this to end yet.” She tells him.

It's crazy and impulsive and something inside her is telling her she's insane but a bigger part of her is telling her she'll regret it if she doesn't go.

He almost wants to question her or himself. They’re both acting crazy but he doesn’t want her to change her mind. So instead he smiles and leans down and kisses her on the forehead before he grabs her hand again and leads her over to his bike. 

“Get on Princess, and hold tight.” He tells her as he straddles his bike and hands her a helmet to put on. 

Veronica puts the helmet on and then she gets on after him, her front plastered to his back and her arms wrapped snugly around his waist.

“Let’s go Torombolo. Take me away.” Veronica says leaning closer against him so her lips graze his ear as she talks. 

Jughead breathes out a shuttering sigh at the feel of her against him and at her breath against his ear before gripping the handlebars and grinning. After a pause to collect himself, he starts the engine and pulls away from the curb.  

[isolctions]

...........so let’s finally talk abt what the actual fucking fuck is wrong with ai’rina rue castillo, huh gang? :-)

(everyone go thank @armsdealing & @durcgs beating the anxiety out of me in order to post this info-dump.)

...before we get into things, now’s the part where i establish a warning for triggers to be discussed in this lengthy headcanon post. there’s gonna be some talks of mental illness, slight alcohol abuse, & breaking down topics of familial abuse, mental abuse, religious abuse, emotional manipulation, and elements of non-con. be warned.

a’ight, so look. i’ve hinted in between threads & development that rue had a not-so-fantastic upbringing that impacted how she perceives herself, how she interacts with others, (in terms of her career, at least) and how she views personal relationships, but i didn’t realize how........severely her upbringing messed with her mental health until i started working through how i wanted to plot out rue’s behavior for her next album release. at first, i had the idea that she decided to take more time for herself & sort of distance herself from the public / media circus plaguing her life so that she can create much more authentic music. then i actually listened to the EP that i’m basing her album off of and thought “...oh.” THEN, i looked over old meme responses & old threads / mentions of her family and how she grew up and thought, not for the last time since piecing everything together: “....oh. oh fucking boy.”

so, that horrible realization dawning on me, let’s talk about rue’s childhood.

i wrote a thing like, two years ago almost (that upon looking for last night, i realized i didn’t actually share it w/ anyone but alex in our discord server & only mentioned a portion of it in rue’s moodboard that i made) that talked vaguely about how rue felt growing up. and it’s worth noting that...she’s the middle of ten fucking siblings. and that’s just the brothers & sisters she knew of that stayed with their mother. and on top of that, not all of those siblings are the product of rue’s father, or even rue’s mother for that matter. and it’s also worth noting that rue not only grew up in poverty, but she grew up never having any actual space that had solely been her own, or even an article of clothing that had belonged entirely to her. so naturally, as a young child, rue sort of became torn between starved for attention & wanting someone to pay attention to her (whether that be her older siblings including her in something, whatever teacher they had for the next six months to call on her for something, for her mother to miraculously show up with her unknown father in tow one day, & for literally anyone to be her friend, pls god Notice her!!!) and for people to simply leave her the hell alone. obviously, this carried into adulthood.

and branching off from the whole “lack of space” point i made, rue wound up growing up to become increasingly more private as time went on because she literally cannot remember a single moment where she wasn’t squished between a bunch of people. driving around in their minivan? rue’s packed in the middle of the second row. nowhere to sleep while on the road? rue’s smacked between gigantic older brothers & clingy little siblings. need to use to bathroom? lmao, she better off going outside!!! gotta change clothes? yeah, good luck with that. it was to the point where, when rue got her first period, she was humiliated by it — not because ‘omg, am i a woman now?? wtf is this???’, but because she ruined the one good sheet that she slept on with her sisters & they were super pissed at her and her mother withheld pay from her for weeks. >:/

already, rue grew up never having shit to herself until the record deal. but she also dealt with literally...so much abuse from her mother. rue thought this was the norm growing up, because all of her siblings faced their mother’s wrath at some point & all of them eventually learned to just deal with the shit and do what she says if they wanted to avoid it. they all compartmentalized and repressed to varying degrees. there’s a lot in which rue has repressed so deeply, she doesn’t even remember if it seriously happened or if she was just making it up bc it was so fucking bizarre for a parent to act that way towards their child, lol?? (and this behavior of “i’m just going to do what you say bc i don’t want to deal with whatever bullshit you’re up to if i say no” also carried into business / personal relationships, which is...very Yikes it’s amazing she didn’t get scammed or worse!) 

so sure, people have complimented her for her exceptional manners & her cleanliness & how quiet / polite she is & how amazing her posture is, bc seriously, this girl will never experience back problems in her life bc her posture is so on par. but where rue typically smiles / responds bashfully, she can’t exactly just up and say: “oh, yeah, my mom used to slap the shit out of me ‘til i bruised if i spoke out of turn or talked back, and if i reached for anything in the store or put my elbows on the table she’d slap a ruler against my palms ‘til i got welts, and she’d make me read verses all night without sleep if i did anything wrong and make me straighten up and kneel on rice if i slouched or took a nap in church and humiliated me in public if i so much as looked at someone of the opposite sex on the street n oh, did i mention i also cleaned houses for rich millionaire snobs from ages twelve to sixteen and if they said or did literally anything to me i wasn’t allowed to defend myself?? ya i’m real proper :)”

(and normal ppl will go: “...................what the FUCK is WRONG with you????”)

but oh man, babe, we’re not done yet!!! rue, being the product of both a highly religious and a highly exploitative household...had difficulty when she started reaching puberty & noticing her classmates. plural, because it wasn’t just boys that she began to secretly have crushes on / fantasize abt, sexually or domestically. she also realized, oh shit, that she started looking at girls differently too. and that literally put the fear of god into her heart, bc if her mother ever found out that she was having non-platonic feelings for the girls in her classrooms, she wasn’t going to be pissed. her mom might have actually tried to kill her. or have her exorcised or something. she knew the shit would be severe, and she wanted no fucking parts of her mother or her siblings inserting the church into her personal life, thank u very much! so rue started suppressing her romantic feelings for people to the point where if adult rue receives intimacy, she’s like “...is this allowed? is this not illegal??????” while simultaneously being like “i will be a slut. just this once. as a Treat to teenage me. :>” regardless, rue learned to molotov cocktail literally any emotion or thought she had, bc she was paranoid that it would give her mother a vision.

now, onto the perils of exploitation...she should’ve been used to it really, what with her mother forcing herself & siblings to lure customers into their shop with promises of visions and palm readings and the wonders of the cards and overexerting their abilities. same with housekeeping, like being of service to people was normal! but when seventeen year old rue decided to sign a record deal and break from home, she wasn’t thinking critically about what the fuck all of this would entail. and as described in this headcanon post abt her discography, her early music was the product of allowing people much older & powerful than you to influence your work & manipulate your values. so rue was very much parading around as someone she wasn’t, someone much more confident and badass and self-assured than she really was, and she was so impressionable back then that it literally makes her sick to think back on it now. she calls it her puppy phase and phrases the eagerness to please execs as ‘tongue wagging’. homegirl hardly even knew her name anymore, bc all she was and all she would ever be was rue, the star, the vocal temptress. not ai’rina, the help or ai’rina, the seer, ai’rina, the weak little nobody. but later on, the subtle manipulation was less about decision making & how they wanted her to sound, and more about how they wanted to present the latest trophy star — because after all, she was pretty. people liked her. she sung really well. suitors weren’t too far off into the distant future. so why not kill two birds with one stone by having a high ranking label artist keep tabloids talking by being seen in public with a few heart throbs? surely, there’s no harm in manipulating an eighteen/nineteen year old’s love life! under the guise of improving her social skills & relations with fellow artists and the media and the like, rue gave into the pressures and let herself be taken out on dates & seen at awards shows with a few guys. no big deal. it was only for a night or so, she could handle the attention. then, one night appearances turned into week long appearances. pretending to date for only a month! completely innocent, positive exposure. :)

(adult rue, looking back @ younger rue: you stupid fucking BITCH-)

yeah, so once her label/management realized that she was turning into a hot commodity, they lost no sleep at allowing their nineteen year old artist to be seen ‘dating’ 20-24+ year old men occasionally. and whatever happened after their public appearances were none of their business. plus, she was good at pretending and being arm candy — so rue experienced her first kiss, her first dates, and her first times with people who she’s almost certain hardly remember their time with her, and really only got involved with her for a mutual career boost. very few of them does she actually remember in a positive light, and the ones that were positive, still depress her bc lmao all of it was fake, even if they were really nice & made it less like a chore and more like they actually wanted to be with her!! even fewer of them were actual relationships. meaning, said person asked her out of their own volition, not bc their managers thought it’d be a decent match on camera. it was evil, really, what her old label made of her. (like, she makes funny jokes that her first time having sex was awkward bc she had a vision halfway through that bummed her out but in reality it was just...really more of a transaction that made her feel icky n progressively worse abt herself until it happened more often and now she just doesn’t care anymore. sex is just sex, u know?? everything’s fake. why you gotta make it personal.) this whole fiasco took over the larger part of rue’s career from like, age nineteen to age twenty-two or so, and she suffered dramatically from this because what is even a genuine, authentic relationship at this point? what do u mean you want to get to know me? did ur manager tell you to ask so many damn questions & try to get to know me? obviously you want something from me bc that’s why everyone gets into a relationship or has sex with me, stop confessing feelings for me u fucking loser. >:/

like...rue doesn’t even have friends. outside of her relationship with marcelo / @armsdealing​ (which, AGAIN, i think was initially arranged to promote her song be honest, how fucking IRONIC), rue does not have any personal relationships with anyone. i mean, she likes her latest management team since switching labels...her hair stylist is rly cool & her make up artist is fun to vacation with...she met a few other celebrities at events that she occasionally texts & has dinner with...yeah, she’s basically a pretty hermit. her family is more or less out of the question — the few brothers & sisters she does still have a positive relationship with (like, four of them lol), they don’t see each other in person often / mainly communicate via groupchat and facetime calls when all of them have time. she tried visiting with her mother over the years, but the verbal & emotional abuse/curses placed on her/accusations of being an imp of satan for singing to the public/memories of being forced to perform psychic shows & clean for chump change keeps her from trying to mend that relationship. like, being gaslit by ur mother isn’t really the vibe, u know? and bottom line, rue simply is a very shy and socially stunted individual who does not know how to communicate like a normal human being anymore. hell, her life revolves around pretending for strangers at this point!

now, onto how...all of That ties into her behavior / state of mind during this next album. so, after riding the wave of success from her third album & the circus that came with that. rue sort of had a fucking existential crisis. came out of absolutely nowhere. (not nowhere — one of her brothers called her out of the blue and called her ai’rina and she literally went “who the fuck is that?”) told her label that she was taking some time in between albums bc she was creatively zapped or whatever bullshit excuse she came up with that somehow worked bc this new label was a little more understanding than the last. vacationed for a little, did some hot girl shit, bought a house, tried to see her mother again for whatever reason then got the shit slapped out of her and finally screamed at her to never touch her again unless she wanted to Throw Hands. cried and got drunk abt it. that took six months. bullshat to her label again, dropped like two songs to smooth things over, decided to focus on magic for a little to ground her, started partying with label mates then going home shitfaced & hungover every other morning. that took eight months. dropped one last song, promptly deleted her twitter, tried to write songs again, got a call from her mother and panicked and got drunk. that took a year. vacationed some more, got even drunker, was bed ridden for like three months because holy shit i’m having so many visions and if i see One More Thing my brain is going to explode, couldn’t separate the present from the future for weeks after that, told absolutely no one about that, cried every day & had an identity crisis, dyed her hair to appease the identity crisis goblins. that took a year and a half.

now, she just chilling. dyed her hair again. scaring her siblings halfway to death bc she keeps going on benders & sending cryptic texts abt the visions she’s getting but they’re so incomprehensible that they’re seriously considering moving in to get her fucking shit together. had a vision that she was married with kids and had a two week identity crisis appeased only by moving houses. (she was in a neighborhood with families...too much Drama and visions. turned into a really cool song tho.) started calling herself by her birth name of ai’rina in private. reactivated twitter to send cryptic tweets that her album is coming. working on said album. trying to drink less but kinda failing bc how is one simply supposed to make a highly personal dual album without alcohol??? prbly somewhere crying in marcelo’s lap or smthn. just vibes.

like...i feel like, in my head, the Theme of her project is wrapped up in identity. her relationship with fame and whatnot. trying to coax her childhood self out of its’ shell so that she can function like a normal goddamn person for once and re-establish her values. like, if someone went to any of rue’s residences right now, it’s just songbooks everywhere and wine glasses and her crystals and shit, bc she still has people’s futures to read for money. (yes, she never really got out of that portion of her childhood, but hey it pays.) it was all very confusing to experience at once while in bed at four in the morning & even though i tried organizing and debated on this, it’s still a Lot. which is why i am once again asking for plots that would allow her to dissect all these Things

so yeah. album four otw, with a side of confronting our childhood & facing our traumas!

[daltonsden]

So, a couple things.

I think there may be a few things worth addressing because this has just spiraled into something that does not remotely resemble reality anymore. This is likely to be my last lioden-related interaction on here for a long time. I apologize for the novel.

First of all, any of the things, which I am still confused about what all you folks are going on about, has not happened in the Breed Only Beauties discord server. I don't understand what exactly these anons would prefer for me to do. I can't ban individuals based on alleged actions outside of my server, that doesn't seem logical or right to me. I can’t moderate actions outside of my server. If something happens in the in the server, create a ticket. I am not psychic and can not address things I am not made aware about. Everything that we are made aware of is addressed promptly.

Second, there's a ticket system in the Breed Only Beauties discord server which will connect you immediately with the admins and has an average response time of about a minute. So to say admins/moderators aren't doing anything is simply not based in reality. Many users have received warnings and have adjusted their behavior. You can also typically get an instant response you if DM any of them directly. Helpers, by the way, can not see tickets. If you are curious what most tickets are about, it’s failure to use trigger warnings. Well, actually most tickets are people testing the ticket system (please do not do this), but that doesn't really count. If you need something in the sever, create a ticket if it is actual issue in the server. For everything else, create a Tumblr post apparently.

Some, well at least one person, has complained about the choice of Aggy. I will not be demoting Aggy from the helper position. I am unaware of the alleged actions of Aggy that would warrant this (besides of course the favorite crime of guilt by association), and Aggy was chosen as a helper due to merit. They have exhibited nothing that would contradict this initial assessment, and has been doing an excellent job. If you have an issue with Aggy and believe you have evidence of why they should not be a helper, please create a ticket in the server or DM me. I am always open to being proven wrong.

Fourth, no I will not arbitrarily kick an individual because you do not like them or do not get along with them. This applies to people on "both sides". They will have to break the rules either severely enough, or enough times to be kicked. You not liking them is not an appropriate reason to have someone banned from the server. Pretty much everyone has been and will be given a chance in this server, even if I get DMs from people bemoaning their entry. So no, everyone, I will not be kicking someone because they are a clown gang, I will not be kicking someone because they are friends of Jax, I will not be kicking someone because you think they may be the user that bought out your mispriced trade last year or kinged a lion similar to yours. None of these are valid reasons. If you have a valid reason, please create a ticket or DM me. We will instantly kick users who underage, who engage in clear-intent scams, steal art, or engage in any activity that would result in a ban from Lioden.

Unfortunately, I can not dedicate my entire life to volunteer to watch every channel in a pet sim server for a small community. Realistically, this is not even dependent on my mother's condition. I just humanly can't do that, because sleep is a thing, and nor would I want to. I don't even want to spend most of my free time doing it. If you see something, report via the ticket system. As much as the salt blogs care to insinuate, I do not bear the weight of responsibility of the actions of individuals who sometimes chat in a server I set up for everyone to enjoy. I am not these people’s parent, nor can I control any individual’s actions. Also, if I were to chose to leave the server be and let the weeds grow wild, that would not make me a “bitch” as one anon so eloquently put it. Anon, you are not entitled to the volunteered time I put into building a little community for Bob. Everything I, the admins, and the helpers, put in is volunteered and not at all a given, or requirement. If I can not drop everything in a moment’s notice to service a voluntarily run discord, that does not make me a “bitch”. It is not, and will never be, my sole or number one responsibility in life. It’s a game. And to insinuate that I am somehow less than or a bad person for not being able to manage the server 100% of the time is unreasonable and cruel. Look, I’m only human. And the users chatting in Bob are only human. And there's going to be squabbles, and people are going to complain about stuff, and not always get along, and that’s okay, because that's part of being human. But I’m not always going to be online to catch it, so please use the ticket system.

Also, on to the anonymous user who posted and the salt blog who permitted this comment,” hey fun fact anon, i'm aware she's dealing with her sick mother but that doesn't excuse the terrible moderation. if she told her mods to step up or do something, they could do something so she could do what she needed to do. she's a bitch, and terrible owner. she has the power to do stuff, but does nothing.” What is wrong with you? How on earth does this progress anything, and why was this permitted to be shared? I understand everyone enjoys salt, and everyone is stressed due to the global circumstances stances right now, but moderators and posters please keep in mind there is a human on the other end of the keyboard, and thanks to the 2020 energy I think everyone is going through something. I have my mother's situation, but everyone has something right now. I have an open DM policy with players in and out of my discord, where if you have anything you need to talk about I can always provide a safe and confidential place to talk, and many, many users have come to me upset about even just the tiniest thing shared on these blogs. These words and comments genuinely hurt people, and it doesn’t take needlessly calling someone a “bitch” because they can not dedicate their life to moderating a discord server to do that. You can hurt people with much less. This request is to everyone, including individuals in the Bob discord server. I don't think anyone deserves to be just berated or cussed out needlessly by anonymous randos, not myself, not Roxanne, not Jax, not the clown gang, not Noluck, not BO breeders, not applicator lovers, not the Lioden staff. All these individuals are people who are just doing the best they can right now, I'm sure. Even Roxanne and Jax are nice, normal and understanding people if you talk to them one on one.

Yes, my mother is dying from liver failure caused by cancer. It is an awful and ugly death, especially for someone who is far before her time. Her medication to manage the pain and rising liver toxicity she is has made her very not herself, though we are finding a better combination. There are still some good days ahead I hope. She is combative, physically and verbally, and can not physically do most basic actions herself. She keeps fighting us to go back to chemo, even though it did nothing to help the tumors and would just quicken demise. It breaks my heart because I know she just wants to live and wants to fight it, but she is going to die where she lays. I just really hope I get to have a fully aware conversation with her before she passes, and that she knows I love her so much despite me being a bit of a hellion in my teens. I think it would be hard to watch if I was an observer, unfortunately I am active participant.

On the matter of me deleting things that violate our rules in server. The alternative would to be leaving up things that violate our rules, which would be the same as deeming it acceptable. This is just the strangest complaint I've seen on here. If there was a delete, someone is essentially being spoken to/receiving a strike/ECT. According to Tumblr, I'm quite the paradox, apparently, I somehow both manage to completely disregard the server while still managing to delete stuff every time insert your favorite salt blog character here does anything. Congratulations Bob, you got yourself a girl that can do both.

At the end of the day, the Bob server is a pretty mundane lioden server. If you don't like breed only marks/bases, it’s probably pretty boring. It’s really nothing like how it’s portrayed here. If it’s toxic then my vocabulary is far too limited to describe the anonymous culture on platform you’re reading this on. Usually I would suggest joining us and checking it out, but after watching the last 48 hours on Tumblr, I think I’m likely aquantited with enough users from this platform for now. If anyone is still reading, thank you for your time, I'm appreciative of it. Writing this really helped my headspace regarding the community. I should have never read the blogs to be honest, so some of this does fall on my shoulders. I won't likely answer questions, I apologise in advance. I still love you all, and I know this is just a tiny fraction of the Lioden community, but today it just feels incredibly bad.

[vamplu]

Chapter 1:

“Sorry, I’m not interested. It’s clear to me you have plenty of loyal bitches already.”, the girl scoffed at the tall man trying to “pick her up”, “Besides you’re not my type at all.”. “Aw c’mon. Don’t be a tsundere~”, the man Chikage Rokujou said with a wink. “Yeah no, sorry. I have more important things to do than sit around with some womanizing scum.”, the girl shot back, “And also, let me know if any of these girls aren’t in high school.”.  She began to walk away, heading to her job’s location, a maid cafe in Ikebukuro.  She thought about how much men sucked, all the way from her father, to her “fiance”, to the random men on the streets. Her only safe haven was the maid cafe’s owner, an old woman who’d started it for fun, Amai Fukiro. All the girls called her “Grandma”, though. She was wise, kind, and well old. A perfect grandmother figure. The other girls, however, were jerks. As Hanako opened the door, she heard the bell ding, and the cheery call of her co-worker, a fellow high schooler, Sakura, “Afternoon, Hanako-San!”. “Please drop the ‘san’. I’m only a year older than you.”, Hanako replied, cringing. She was a third year at Raira Academy, being eighteen years old, and the younger girl always called her “Hanako-San”, which only added to Hanako’s stress about what would be happening when she graduated. A domestic life was the scariest thing about her future. She walked to the employee locker room, and changed into the maid costume, and walked back to Sakura. “We go on in three minutes, once the other guy’s shifts end.”, Sakura reminded. Hanako nodded, “You ready?”. Sakura nodded happily. Hanako cracked a small smile, “You’re adorable, y’know?”. Sakura’s cheeks tinted light pink, and she shook her head. Hanako returned her attention to the door that led into the main part of the cafe. Sudden;y, Sakura piped up with a question that startled Hanako. “A-are you… in the Dollars?”, she asked nervously. “That gang?”, Hanako asked, confused. “Yeah… just wondering.”. “I’m not.”. “Ah ok.”. “Why?”. “I just thought that y’know, someone as cool as you would be in something cool like the Dollars.”. Hanako laughed, “I’m not cool, and neither are the Dollars. Gangs aren’t cool. They may seem like it, but they really aren’t.”. “I know but still… being without rules or guidelines, or even a leader? They seem so… well, cool!”, Sakura gushed, and turned her face to Hanako.  “Rules and guidelines keep the world functioning, leaders guide people away from mistakes in principle.”, Hanako replied, though she didn’t mean it. She hated all the rules she had to follow.  “I know but still… chaos is kinda fun!”, Sakura giggled. “Chaos is not ‘kinda fun’. I can’t tell you what to or to not do but please, think about the effects before you take any leaps of faith and dive into anything remotely illegal. It ruins lives, you know.”, Hanako said, grabbing the girl’s hands and looking into her eyes, “You don’t want to wind up in jail, pregnant, or with a criminal record.”. “Pregnant? What part of the Dollars makes you think I’ll get knocked up?!!”, Sakura exclaimed. “Nothing… just something I saw earlier. My bad.”. Sakura blushed and looked down. Hanako released the girl’s pale wrists, “Anyways, please don’t do anything illegal.”. “I didn’t ever say I was going to join the Dollars, Hanako-San.”. “I can see in your eyes you’re thinking about it.”. “I forgot you can read me like an open book.”, Sakura giggled, “And I’m still thinking about it, nothing’s set in stone.”. Hanako nodded, and bit her lip. How much she wished she could be in the Dollars, free. She wanted to be like the Headless Rider, a free spirit that did what was good. She also wanted to bike like it did. She’d seen it once, for a moment, and her vision and dreams were captured, whether or not they could come true. Three girls came rushing in, and sighed, “Your turn. Good luck, it’s a riot out there. There’s a group of four with endless stomachs and two otakus. Some sort of party.”. “Thank you Rio, we’ll do our best.”, Sakura replied with a smile. “Yeah, yeah.”, Rio said, “Now get out there.”. Sakura and Hanako rushed out, and were greeted with various regulars, and a group of four people, in their late teens and early twenties, who sat by the window chatting away.  “I can handle them if you can get the frequents.”, Hanako whispered, and Sakura nodded, looking relieved. Sakura was good with people older than her, not so much people her age. Hanako walked over with a smile painted onto her face, and asked sweetly, “Hello!~ My name is Hanako, and I’ll be your server today! What can I get you to drink?”. “I’ll have some of the cat coffee!”, a girl in a long black dress said, her hair covered for the most part by a black hat. “Alright!”. “I’ll have water.”, a level headed guy said, his slicked back black hair was under a black do-rag. “Mhm!~”. “I’ll have the green tea.”, a man with shoulder length brown hair said. Hanako nodded, and turned to the final customer, a boy with light brown hair. “I can’t pick between the sakura blossom tea, or the cat coffee…”, he said, “What would you get?”. “Well it depends. If I’m sleepy, sad, or angry, I’d get the cat coffee. I’d pick the sakura blossom tea if I was calm or relaxed.”, Hanako said, “The cat coffee is more chocolatey, and the Sakura Tea has a distinct tea-like taste.”.  “Hmmm….”, the boy said, “I think I’ll go for the cat coffee, in that case. I want something sweet.”. “I’ll have those right out!”, Hanako smiled.  

    Finally out of that damn dress, Hanako thought, retrieving her cell phone from her pocket, and reading her messages, which only bored her further. She was supposed to go home after work, but she wanted to see the sakura trees in the park, as it was spring, and they were in full bloom. She hoped she’d get to see the Headless Rider, or something cool. Maybe then her mundane life would be a little more interesting. She was so sick of the same cycle she went through everyday. School, then work, the straight home for homework and studying. Sometimes she was able to watch TV, if she got done with all her assignments by 10, her curfew. Hanako knew she’d be in trouble when she got back home late, but she couldn’t care anymore. When was she not in trouble? At this point her father was more mad at her than not, and her mother was in America, like always, working at her fashion company. She had finally made it to the fountain, in the center of the park, to which she sat on. She pulled the book she’d been reading out of her bag, and silently read it. It was about “How to Live Life Like You Want”, another inspirational book her mother had given to her. She thought it was a sign from Mom, that maybe she should break out of the mundane, but had quickly written out the thought. Mother wanted her to marry Makoto  just as much as her father did, for the same reasons too. Money, power, and title. The three things that fueled all of her parents decisions on her behalf.  She’d be forced to forfeit free will for as long as she could remember. Makato was… nice, but when you’re forced to marry someone, you only see their flaws. He was quick to anger, and spoiled. He didn’t know suffering, and she supposed she didn’t either, but it doesn’t make her any less resentful of him. He was never yelled at, didn’t have to work for his good grades, and did horse-back riding. He was annoyingly perfect. Hanako hated him. She let the words of the chapter sink in, about making your own choices that benefit you. Wish it was that easy, she thought, Wish I could just leave and never look back. She shoveled the book back in her bag, and shook off her crazy ideas. She couldn’t leave. Not in a million years. She sent a text to her dad, a quick, “I’m ok and I’ll be home soon.”, text. She began her walk home, and paused for a moment when she saw two of her underclassmen, Anri Sonohara and Mikado Ryugamine, walking together, most likely heading home. She was slightly jealous of them, but nothing she had confirmed, or had been confirmed. She could tell by looking into their eyes that they lived a life that was anything besides normal. She looked away for a moment, and thought hard for a moment. I could run. I could make it. I could join the Dollars. I could look for the Headless Rider…, she thought, before again, shaking the thought away. She owed it to her parents to do what they wanted. They had given her a good life, and given her life to begin with, the least she could do was pay them back in doing their wishes. Besides, she couldn’t leave her younger sister, Asumi. Asumi loved the way they lived though, and wanted to marry Makoto instead of her older sister. Makoto was good with kids. Hell, he’d make a great dad. And a great husband. But he was to tame. He was too domesticated. Hanako didn’t want children or to be a housewife. She wanted to be free. Something she’d never felt. She was bound by chains of gratitude, and the feeling of owing her parents. She’d thought about the group of friends from earlier. Erika, Walker, Kyohei, and Saburo. She’d picked their names up from their conversations, which she’d been listening to as she waited on them. Sometimes, they included her, asking her questions or for her opinions. She wanted friends like them, a group of people she could trust with her life and secrets. Their smiles were genuine, their laughter full and bright. She felt her fingernails dig into her palms, and she pressed them harder, snapping herself out of her daydreaming. She let out a sigh and continued walking. Anri and Mikado were long gone, she couldn't even see them walking behind her. Friendship and… love, she thought sadly, Something I can’t have.

       She made it home with no complications, which disappointed her, but what more did she expect? Her father went into his usual rant about her being late, told her that Stella, their housekeeper, would bring her dinner at her room because he needed the dining room for “work”. Hanako did as she was told, and sat herself at her desk, retrieving her red folder for homework, and began on her chemistry homework. Stella opened the door softly, and said, “Here’s your dinner, Hanako.”. “Thanks Stella.”. They were on a first name basis, as they had been for years. Stella was the daughter of one of her father’s workers' children, who couldn’t raise her, and asked him to take her in.  She was Hanako’s closest thing to a friend, as they had grown up together basically. Only difference was that Stella was being paid to be a prisoner of the Ito family home. Stella placed the plate of food on her desk. “Hanako, something appears to be bothering you. You can talk to me, anytime.”, Stella said. “I’m fine Stella, really. Just a bit stressed from balancing work, school, and training. Nothing I can’t handle.”, Hanako replied, grabbing Stella’s hand in her own, “But some green tea might help, if you wouldn’t mind.”. “Of course.”, Stella replied, “I’d be glad to get you some tea. Is that all?”. “Yes ma’am, it is.”, Hanako said with a smile, releasing Stella’s hand. Being eighteen, a student, an heir to a multi-billion dollar company, and a full-time maid café worker made life… hectic. She enjoyed her job. More than anything, really. Little did she know, the customers from earlier were talking about her. 

       “Dotachin, don’t you think that girl from the café was really pretty? Her boobs were big too! She was a perfect dating sim character.”, Erika exclaimed. “For sure! She’d be the mature older sister type, right?”, Walker chirped. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. She was nice, boobs or not.”, Kyohei replied, “Don’t make comments like that about any woman or girl, got it?”. “Aww man! It’s just true statements though!”, Erika whined. “We don’t wanna seem like we don’t respect women, do we?”, Saburo said. Walker and Erika nodded, “We aren’t like that at all!”. Kyohei nodded at Saburo in thanks. “HeyHey! Dotachin, we should ask her if she wants to join us! She seemed so bored with her life!”, Erika exclaimed, “She seems super kick-assey too!”. “Yeah for sure! She seems so mysterious. She’s actually like a protagonist! Super bored with their life and looking for change! We could be the supporting characters of her story! I bet she has daddy issues too!”, Walker gushed. “Here we go again.”, Saburo groaned. “We can’t just walk up to her and ask if she wants to join our gang.”, Kyohei explained, “It’s a surefire way to get reported to the cops.”. “Aww man! I wanted another girl on our team…”, Erika mumbled. “I wanted a big sister type girl!”, Walker pouted. Kyohei sighed. Saburo laughed, “So you thought we were going to just ask her, and she would say yes?”. Erika and Walker looked at each other. “Joining a gang isn’t the kind of thing someone says yes too.”. “Well yeah but-”, Erika started, but was cut off by Kyohei, “Saburo's right. No one joins a gang because someone asks them too.”. “Unless there’s blackmail! Or threats!”, Walker exclaimed. “Right…”, Kyohei replied. 

     Hanako gripped the pencil in her hand harder, her eyes scanning the algebra questions, and answering them easily. “Simplify…”, she muttered, before furiously scribbling things down. Stella’s home brewed green tea always made her focused, most likely because of the caffeine. Stella had left a while ago, and Hanako missed the presence of her, as she acted as a big sister in a weird way. She was five years older than Hanako,  and was wiser and less driven by emotions, not to say she was emotionless. She had a very logical view on life, and passed on her opinions with reserve and grace. She was dignified, and way more suited to be the Ito’s next chairman. Suddenly, her door burst open, and she heard the voice of her twelve year old sister, Asumi, who exclaimed, “Hana! I want you to paint my nails!”. “Asumi… I’m doing homework, maybe later.”. “No I want them done now~”, she whined, “I’ll pay you ten bucks!”. “I don’t need your money, Asumi.”. “Well I want you to paint my nails, so make it twenty.”. Asumi had no idea how much twenty dollars really was in her young mind. “Fine, if you insist.”, Hanako sighed. She was almost done anyway. “I’ll go get the color!”, Asumi cheered, looping her skinny arms around Hanako, burying her face into her breasts. “Ok, ok. I get it.”, Hanako said, rubbing the girl’s blonde hair. Asumi ran out, and was back two minutes later with a pearl pink color in her hands. She thrusted the bottle into Hanako’s outstretched hands, “Thank you Hanahanamura!”. “I told you to just call me Hana.”, Hanako sighed. “Okok fine!!”, Asumi giggled, “Do you have time to do my feet and my fingers?”. “A mani-pedi? Don’t you know dad would let you get your nails done any day of the week.”. “I know but it isn’t the same as when you do it Hana!”. The sentiment warmed Hanako’s heart, and she began painting her sister’s nails. 

                         “Your twenty dollars, m’lady.”, Asumi giggled as she passed Hanako a crisp twenty dollar bill. “Thank you my peasant.”, Hanako teased. “Hey! I am at least a princess!”, Asumi cried out. “You sure are. Princess Asumi, Queen Athena, King Mirio and…”. “Princess Hanako! If I'm a princess you’re a princess!”. “Umm… ok, Princess Hanako.”. Hanako wasn’t the same as her sister, not at all. Her sister wasn’t a closed door rebellion, a secret disgrace. She didn’t hate her father, or Makoto. She wasn’t selfish. “Mhm!~ Princess Hana and her Prince Charming, Makoto!”.  Asumi had said it as a joke, but Hanako cringed at that statement. “Yeahhhhhhhh.”. “Mhm!~”. Stella broke the awkward situation, “Ms. Asumi, it’s your curfew.”. Asumi pouted, and hugged Hanako goodbye. “Night Night Hana!”, she said softly, kissing Hanako’s pale cheek. Hanako wrapped her arms around Asumi, and kissed the crown of her head, “Goodnight Princess Asumi.”. Ausmi released Hanako, and bounded behind Stella, heading to her room. Hanako finished her homework, and took a shower. As the hot water ran down her body, she found herself singing. “I hope you know that I’m trying to build a life I can love. I hope I never stop dreaming, I need something I believe in.”, she sang, projecting her thoughts and feelings into the words she sang, “I dip this world in black and white, monochrome igniting. I'm gonna be a neon sign. Let the ship rest 'cause I'm lighting up the city. I don't ever wanna wake up wondering, where the youth have gone. Not gonna be another sell out zombie, wondering what went wrong.  I'll never give in,  I'll never back down, I'll never be another zombie in a life that's not my own.”. By the end of her “song”, she felt a little better, a little less confused. She stepped out of the warm shower, and dried herself off, putting on her pajamas, and laid down in bed. She decided to read, and picked up where she’d left off in the book her mother had given her. “Chapter Five.”, she read aloud, “Don’t Be a Slave to Obligation”. She was shocked by the chapter title. It was exactly what she was suffering from. She read more, engrossed by the chapter’s calling out of her lifestyle. A slave to obligation is what I am, she thought, but I don’t have to be, do I?. But of course she did, she had no choice. She shook off the thought, it was ridiculous. She had to stay. For her parents, for Asumi, for Stella. She looked out the window, at the city below her, a large and vast place of different people and different groups she could become a part of. AShe could create her own group if she really wanted to. Her mind flickered back to Kyohei and his group of unlikely  friends, and their connection. A bond stronger than steel, that nothing can peirce, ever. She longed for that, and not in the negative way she was feeling currently towards her family. Her mind flickered to Sakura, who was thinking about joining the Dollars, to her anxiety around people her age. Hanako ran a brush through her brown hair, her chocolate eyes fixed on the small handheld device on her nightstand. I could sign up for the Dollars right now… it would be so easy. “No!”, she commanded herself, “No more stupid thoughts!”. She grabbed her phone, but not to join the Dollars, instead to text her mother. “I’m enjoying the book you sent me, it’s very eye opening! Thank you Mother!”, she typed, and sent. Her mother didn’t respond, which she expected, as it was eight A.M in New York, which meant her mother was working. Athena Ito had a strict work schedule, which included not taking breaks for texts or calls that weren’t directly related to Ito Fashion.  Ito Tech and Ito Fashion… the company's her parents owned. She finished brushing her hair, placing both the phone and brush on the nightstand, plugging the phone in, and fell asleep quickly.

[aniimalspirits-a]

hey cuties! soooo...i’m missing my IRL best - friends A LOT at the moment, thanks to covid. with the holidays coming up, it’s gonna be no fun this year since we can’t all hang out and do the dumb stuff we normally do. i thought it’d be cool to create a small lil’ group, that revolves around a gang of twelve twenty something year olds, tryna live their best lives. more info undercut! 

basically this is gonna be a pretty simple rp, set in 2020 (covid isn’t a thing, before you ask). and it follows a group of twelve twenty something year olds, who live in london and are all best-friends. this group is gonna be focused on character development,  connections through character interactions, events and maybe some sneaky plot drops. 

there isn't gonna be a main because i’m super lazy, but we’ll have a discord and all of the house-keeping will be done on there. this is gonna be a tumblr rp, you don’t need to make a new account, you can just rp through your indie account, i’m all about making things easier. i’m not gonna set an activity limit or anything like that, just as long as ya’ keep in touch via the ooc chat etc. annnnnd that’s about it really, i don’t want to set any strict rules in place, cause i want people to just have fun writing, be chill with it. also we’ve all been writing on  this hellsite for years now, so i’m sure we all now the rules of rp lol. 

lastly if you’d like to be involved in this group, then please like this post and i’ll drop you a message with the discord server. OR if you’d rather, you can drop me a message in my tumblr IMs and we’ll do that way. feel free to message me if you’ve got any questions. 

taken characters (2/12): 

juno carter / 22  / madelyn cline 

daniela costillo / 23 / becky g 

thanks for reading!!

[apollo-writes-random-shit]

The Final Heist

Final part fam!

Read it on AO3!

Word Count: 2,894

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 (You’re here fam!)

She should have known something was up when Gavin kept staring at the jewels room.

Ignoring all the chaos in the dining hall, curtains parted a familiar face standing in front of the microphone in front of the small band. At first, her face fell as she saw everything going on, spotting a server being chased and tracked by the police. She should have known something was up when Gavin kept staring at the jewels room. In her mind, Gavin never suited the young man. Shaking her head, she opened her mouth and began to sing a favourite of the patrons.

Sometimes when I, wanna run away and hide.

Race grinned, hearing the soft cry of frustration as Sean lost him. He was sure anyone else would slow down to blend in more. After all, the cops were looking for someone who was running away but Race? He was smarter. Sure at the start, he'd been too cocky, letting himself slow down and blend in. He however quickly learnt that it was a bad move from both the police and Snyder.

When there's no one on my side, and all my pride had disappeared.

His experience as a thief had taught him a lot of skills, both good and bad. To others, being a thief was despicable in situations like his but honestly, he really didn't care. He loved the rush that came with his job. Yes, there were times where everything felt like it was crashing down and that he should run from the job but those moments were rare. At least that's what he liked to tell himself.

I take it off my mind and leave it all behind.

Race shook his thoughts from his mind as he spotted more of Sean's crew leaving. No doubt they were not just leaving the building to answer questions. They were also there to look out for him retreating with his prize. A smirk painted his face as he turned skidded towards a window, barely dodging Sean's hand, letting out a laugh as his fingers brushed against his jacket.

It was only then that Sean noticed where he was heading and he doubted the detective would try to follow him.

Nothin' left to do but try to take the leap and follow-through.

It wasn't the first he had jumped out of a window and he knew there was a chance that he might have to do it again. No matter the number of times he had to use a pane of glass to make his escape, he still wasn't used to the feeling of it shattering around his body.

And that's exactly what I'll do~

Had he meant to land on Sean's head? No. Did he? Yes. Was he going to apologize? Probably not. He certainly wasn't going to stick around. He had an important delivery, after all, one he could not afford to fuck up.

I know to you I don't seem very strong but I assure you before you can find me I'm gone.

Sean grunted as he stood up, already nursing a killing headache. He honestly didn't care that he had blacked out for a few seconds. Instead, he was more focused on catching up to the infamous thief. He'd yell at the person who had fired two warning shots later. In the chaos of attempted capture, no one noticed two men slipping away.

So come on and catch me you've still got a chance...But not for long~

His heart fell slightly as he stood in the door of the casino. There were multiple ways Racetrack could escape...Too many. "Same teams as last time! Remember his tricks and do your best to block off any place you believe he can use as an escape!"

He took off, hearing his trusted colleague and friends fan-out to look for their target. They all knew there was a high chance he could escape like always but they hoped that tonight would be the night. They were all sick of this game of cat and mouse but mostly, they were sick of Sean's obsession with the elusive thief. Sure they all wanted the cocky bastard behind bars but at times, they felt like that goal ruled Sean's life.

I'll be rollin' place to place, won't stop till I win the race!

Even Sean himself could admit that he wanted nothing more than to catch Racetrack and lock him away before moving on to other cases though he doubted he'd find any as interesting as the current case.

Although I may have crossed the line.

He knew he'd win eventually. Race may be the fastest person he has ever seen but even he had to slow down and finish at some point.

No time to waste on you.

Race hummed as he skated along, holding back laughter, hearing his competition ask questions to random patrons. Humming softly under his breath, he calmly hit a slot machine. After all, even grandmas needed a big win sometimes.

Idly, he pulled out the diamond, inspecting it for a few seconds. However, the second his back hit another one, he instantly regretted his action, watching with horror as it flew across the room.

I don't plan on slowing down, no I'll keep on going even if you think I'm in the wrong

He swallowed, ignoring the offended cry from behind him as he crossed the room, clumsily launching himself onto the pool table. "Come on you piece of shit." He bit his lip, holding back a cry of frustration as it slipped through his fingers yet again.

Just know that, although I may not think everything though I don't take back what I say or regret what I do.

He found himself unable to hold back a small cry of triumph as he caught it, even though he had hit the ground face first.

Race clambered to his feet, wincing slightly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. He sighed softly, shoving it back into it's hiding place before staring at the man in front of him, giving him a weak grin. "Well hey, Jackie boy. If you don't mind, I'ma just...Leave? Have a good night Sir!" Was he surprised at a hand tightly grabbing his collar? No. Was he surprised to be shoved into the wall? Also no.

He tuned out the normal Miranda rights speech all police gave, paying more attention to the light wind ruffling his hair. Yeah, he knew he had the right to stay silent or whatever but where was the fun in that? "Look. I get this is ya job and shit but eh. I don't have time for this." With a grin, he grabbed the curtain, using it as a cover as he jumped out of the window, ignoring the curses coming from behind him.

I know that some stay in line and they stick to the plan, but if you leave it to me I'll do whatever I can 'cause I know that's what I'm here for.

He was grateful for the short distance between the window and ledge. Knowing that the small team would have alerted the others to his trick, he took off running. He may be stupid at times but no way was he going to use his skates on such a narrow landing. The thief silently praised himself on his quick thinking as he found himself almost tumbling off the edge. A sharp turn later and he found himself jumping from letter to letter, thanking Pulizer for having such a large sign.

In the split second he took to come to a stop so he could catch his breath, his ears were filled with both an annoying and familiar tune. The whirring of helicopter blades and a voice coming from behind the blinding light. "Hand yourself in Racetrack! It's over."

A smirk overtook his face. "Can't hand myself over to you when I can't see you!"

"Oh for god's sake. Turn the light down Wiesel!" With a groan, Sean turned back to the smug thief. "There. Happy Mr Drama Queen? Now just hand yourself and the diamond over. It's not that hard."

"Not very professional are you Spot?" Race always liked the way he could annoy his rival with a few words.

I don't wanna wait around anymore, even if you can't see.

He pulled the diamond out of his jacket, flashing the annoyed detective an innocent look. "Do you mean this diamond?" A laugh escaped him as he stared at Sean's blank look. "Alright alright. Here." He hummed, holding it out. Sure this wasn't part of the original plan but he was used to thinking on his feet.

The good inside me...

The second Sean's hand touched the top of his stolen good, he slapped his hand over it, laughing yet again as he used his arm to swing across the gap between The World casino and the building next door. "Thanks for the hand Spot!"

The frustrated swear from his opponent was music to his ears. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light in the alleyway. He took a few moments to pull out a stashed briefcase, yet another step to the conclusion of his final plan.

A smirk graced his face as he jumped down, unable to hold back a chuckle as the two figures waiting for him. "Hello, boys~"

The smirk just widened as the pair spun around, posed for a fight. "So. Shall we get going?"

"First things first. Hand over the briefcase kid. We gotta check you have what you promised."

"Awwwww. Don't you trust me, Morris? I have the briefcase right here so naturally, I have what I promised."

Oscar huffed. "How do we know it's not empty? Open it and show us or we'll hand you over~"

"Oh, I don't think you will."

"Why not?"

The two brothers tensed as the thief pulled out a gun, grin wiped from his face, replaced with a schooled blank expression, his posture bored. "Listen here, boys. I'm not really in the mood to play around tonight. This job is important and all you have to do is drive me to the bridge. Remember, your dear ol' uncle is in tremendous debt and just because the boss is behind bars doesn't mean it's completely automatically cleared...Now. Get in the car and start driving." Race flicked the gun towards the car watching smugly as the two scrambled to get into the ute that was going to be used as his getaway vehicle.

They didn't need to know that the weapon was empty. He never liked the idea of spilling blood. The idea of snatching someone's life from them sickened him but he knew he didn't have a say in it. Sure he was Snyder's prized thief but he had morals. He wasn't like the other members of the gang. To him, human life meant something, no matter who's life it was. Yes, he had been told to get away and if needed, to kill his enemy but Race was never going to have blood on his hands. He would rather die himself instead of ruining the lives of people's loved ones. As far as he knew, he had never landed anyone in hospital and he always made sure it'd stay that way, even if it meant being yelled at by his boss.

I don't have the time to tell you why I do the things that I do.

The ride was silent, allowing Race to take a breather as he removed the wig he had been wearing all night. As fun as it was to 'dress-up' as Snyder used to call it, he found it better when he was allowed to be 'natural'. He allowed the wind to mess with his hair as he removed his contacts, putting them away happily. He wasn't the biggest fan of them, no matter how helpful they were...Mostly because he still poked himself in the eye a lot when he was putting them in and taking them out like an utter moron.

He smiled softly at the diamond in his hand. Soon this would all be over and he could relax in the first time in years. Sure he'd miss the rush he got from outsmarting the police but it would still be better than scanning the streets each time he decided to take a walk.

Before he knew it, the Brooklyn bridge was rolling under the wheels of his transport and with a soft smile, he tucked the diamond away, knocking softly on the window. "This is my stop boys! Money's in the back so keep driving until you get a chance to see it." The wanted man carefully jumped out from the ute tray, allowing himself to just roll as he stared at the view offered to him, ignoring as the car turned around to return to The World. He grinned to himself, wishing he could see the looks on the Delancey brothers' faces as they opened their 'payment'. After all, it had taken him a while to get enough Monopoly cash to fill the briefcase.

Just please hold on and soon you'll see that I'm not the villain I appear to be.

Shaking his head, he hummed to himself as he stared off at the police blockade in front of him, an annoyed police force staring at him. No one seemed more pissed-off than Sean 'Spot' Colon. The sight of everything just filled Race with joy. Now came the fun part.

Diamond clutched in hand, Race did what he did best and sped towards them, keeping an eye on each person in front of him, trying to guess the move they'd make before it even entered their mind.

Movin' along, no I won't settle down until I'm locked behind bars or I'm kicked outta town!

He managed to hold back a gasp as Sean attempted to hit him with his baton at his head before attempting to grab him. (Honestly who aimed for the head? What was he trying to do? Hit him in the temple and kill him?) While he was able to hold back the gasp, he couldn't stop the soft squeak escaping his lips as a bullet grazed his cheek. Like he gets it. They had to arrest him and if that involved shooting at him to force him off balance then they could do it. Still, being shot at was never a fun feeling.

"Jeez, Jojo. You'd think you'd know not to shoot at me by now but apparently not."

So you can keep on a runnin' around and around and around.

He winked at the flustered man as he stuttered out an apology before pausing. "Wait...Why the hell am I apologizing to you?"

"Because I'm just amazing like that~"

With a hum, he skidded to a stop by the railing, holding the diamond over the edge, watching as Sean threw his arms out. "Alright Race. Just hand the diamond over and hand yourself in."

"Dunno guys. That doesn't sound like fun but I guess I can be nice."

But you will never quite catch up to me!

He saw the way some of their eyes lit up in satisfaction but he saw the suspicion in Sean's eyes. With a hum, Race tossed the diamond over to his rival before launching himself over the group, laughing at the confused noises of the group. How none of them noticed him removing the top of the diamond right in front of him, he had no idea.

And I know you think I'm crazy.

Using their brief confusion, he pushed himself on, ignoring the footsteps chasing him, the calls for him to stop falling on deaf ears. Tucking away the real stolen good, Race jumped towards the gently swaying rope, allowing it to wrap around his wrist.

"See you around!" He blew a kiss to the frustrated group before pulling himself further up the rope, grinning as he popped his head into the helicopter's open door. "Money's with ya nephews Weasel~ See you around!"

He allowed himself to jump down onto the support beam, wincing ever so slightly at the feeling of cold steel against his body, his uniform doing little to protect him.

But I hope that maybe now you'll see why...

He took a deep breath and jumped to his feet. Pulling the small ball out of his pocket, he threw it into the air as hard, praying that his throw would be strong enough. He was a runner after all and rarely had to throw things in his job.

His eyes lit up with both joy and relief as the bomb exploded far in the sky, decorating the sky with a firework. Even the feeling of being shoved roughly to the platform couldn't take the relief away. He couldn't be bothered to question how they had even gotten up to the platform.

"You're under arrest Racetrack. You have the ri-"

Race chuckled, cutting Sean off. "To stay silent. I get it. It's been three years Colon. I'd say it's been long enough for us to be friends ya know? Besides, I think you just got rid of the fella known as Racetrack~ Can we move this along? It's cold out."

"You're being arrested...And your complaining about the temperature?"

"Looks like your ears work DaSilva! Anyway, I guess I should congratulate you all for this huh?"

"God, you're annoying."

All Sean and his team got as a reply was tired joyful laughter.

I had to try!

[blancheludis]

Tagging: @tokky231

Fandom: Marvel, Avengers Characters: Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Bruce Barton, Steve Rogers Chapters: 22/?, Words: 120.000

Summary: Tony meets his soulmate under the worst possible circumstances. It is not just a kidnapping gone wrong. It turns out Steve and his gang picked him on purpose and they want some personal revenge. If only he had managed to say the words written on his soulmate’s arm before they threw him back out into the streets.

---

Tony really needs to stop doing this. He comes to with a splitting headache, blinking against his blurred vision. Whatever they gave him to knock him out was potent, he can barely think coherently. He is sitting in a chair, hands and feet bound, body aching. He remembers being shot at and Thor being actually shot and fervently hopes that Thor is all right.

With some urgency, he looks down at himself and groans when he notices his feet are bare. They took his shoes and socks, and a stab of fear is ringing through him even before he remembers that he put the chip of his phone there. So much for giving JARVIS a chance to track him.

Dragging his eyes back up, he concentrates on his surroundings. It will not help him to despair over the fact that these guys were smarter than he hoped. Most plans do not survive enemy contact anyway.

It looks like he is in another warehouse or fabrication hall. He does not see much beyond that. Some crates are stacked on the side that sport Stark Industries’ logo. Tony can imagine what is in there. That, in turn, makes it likely that he has found Obadiah – or at least one of his hiding places. There are people here, too. Tony can hear their voices and the whirring of machinery. It sounds like they are packing up.

Tony should focus on getting out of here. With the chip gone, he cannot hope for a timely rescue but has to fend for himself, no matter that his thoughts are sluggish and he is already in pain, although it looks like he has not made an acquaintance with any of the kidnappers’ fists yet.

They have not used ropes but zip ties, and they are tight enough to hinder the blood flow into his limbs. The moment he checks how much leeway they give him, they cut into his skin. Getting out of these will be painful.

“Look who’s awake.”

Obadiah steps into Tony’s view so suddenly that he really worries about the aftereffect of the drug they gave him. He should have noticed his godfather coming towards him before he loomed over him with an entirely too smug expression.

But there he is, looking exactly like Tony remembers him, and at the same time not at all. He appears taller, his mass intimidating instead of comforting. He is wearing a suit, but it is dusty and does not hide the fact that he is armed. Worst of all are his eyes, cold and calculating, looking at Tony like he is a mere problem instead of family.

“I heard that towering baboon of a bodyguard of yours didn’t make it out of the parking lot,” Obadiah continues. His voice is booming enough that Tony has a hard time keeping the words apart over the pounding in his head.

It knocks the breath out of him. He fervently hopes this is just an attempt to upset him. If they sank another bullet or two in Thor to make sure he would not come after them, Tony has miscalculated grossly – and buried his hands in the blood of a friend.

“Cheeseburgers, really?” Obadiah asks, unconcerned that Tony is not answering him. That does not speak well for his life expectancy. “You are so predictable it is hardly even fun to go up against you.”

The reality of this hits Tony anew, somehow more inescapable than before. This is not a collection of data and forged signatures and shipments of weapons gone missing. This is his godfather, in the flesh, giving up all pretence, making a lie of Tony’s childhood and entire life.

“You won’t get away with this,” Tony croaks, his throat so dry that he can blame the pain of speaking on that instead of the sheer betrayal he feels. He should be used to that by now.

He imagines falling into this situation without knowing what Obadiah was up to and shudders. Afterwards, the trembling running through his body does not seem to stop. He is a wreck and that after only one dose of that tranquilizer.

“I thought you were better than to fall back on platitudes, boy,” Obadiah drawls, using the moniker with so much disgust in his voice that Tony almost thinks Howard is in the room with them. “It won’t be so hard to convince the police that you faked all the supposed evidence. With that AI of yours, you’ll be the villain before the day is out.”

If someone could pull that off, it is Obadiah. He has always been good at talking people into things they did not want to do. When Tony still thought he was exempt to that, he admired it.

He does not have enough people on his side to disprove it. Pepper and Rhodey’s testimony will unsurprisingly be in his favour. The only other people who knew about Obadiah’s smuggling are the Avengers and they can hardly come forward without endangering themselves. If Tony is dead at that point, there is no reason for them to do so.

And JARVIS, while being a marvel, could break Tony’s back. It is not common knowledge that he has let a learning AI loose on his servers and, subsequently, the internet. People are wary of that, and considering what JARVIS can do, they should be.

It might be a stretch but Tony is entirely convinced that Obadiah could spin this in his favour if Tony does not make it alive out of this place.

“And you think they won’t find it suspicious if I conveniently die?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady. Judging on the grin on Obadiah’s face, he does not manage it.

“The sort of people buying weapons on the black market are not to be trifled with. You were a loose end for them, needed to be kept in check.” Obadiah shrugs as if the details bore him. Then, though, his smile becomes malicious around the edges. He leans forward and says, “And then your poor heart just gave out.”

With Obadiah coming into his space, Tony is caught between wanting to recoil and lashing out. The chair in his back and the zip ties around his wrists keep him from doing either. From this close, he sees the faint shadows under his godfather’s eyes, belying his nonchalance.

“My heart –” Tony asks bust trails off, wanting to curl around his chest.

His heart has been a source of grief since the day he was born. It should not surprise him that Obadiah would stoop low enough to use it against him.

“It’s a weak thing,” Obadiah scoffs, looking again just like Howard whenever he lamented that Starks are not born with dysfunctional hearts. “I don’t even mean that metaphorically. Nobody expected you to come out alive after all those surgeries. And then everybody was so impressed when you designed a new pacemaker for yourself as a teenager.”

He clicks his tongue, looking impatient when Tony does not have anything to say. But, even bound to the chair, Tony has a hard time staying upright. His heart has always been a sore matter. It was his father’s favourite example of why Tony was a disappointment, followed closely by his lacking intelligence.

The pacemaker was supposed to put an end to all that. He survived the surgeries, his body recovered. He could breathe and live and feel his heart beating as if he was a normal child. The following arrhythmia was not entirely unexpected but the pacemaker took care of that. It kept his heart safe.

“Turns out, it’s not as hard to manipulate as you hoped, especially for someone with the blueprints at hand.” Obadiah grins, showing too many teeth. Then he pulls his face into a facsimile of the benevolent mask he wore all throughout Tony’s life. “Your own tech is going to kill you, my boy.”

Tony would rather have a bullet in his brain. He would rather have Barnes and Barton beat him up again. But Obadiah knows this. He knows all of Tony’s issues and fears.

“Why are you doing this?” Tony asks. It comes out as nothing more than a whisper.

All thoughts of escape have vanished for the moment. The only things he is really aware of at the moment are his godfather’s face in front of him and the beating of his heart, rapid and tumbling without pause into a panic.

“You turned out to be more trouble than even your father. I’m tired of cleaning up your messes,” Obadiah says as he steps back, bringing enough distance between them that Tony feels like he can breathe easier again. “The company has been mine for so long, it’s time to make it official.”

Tony almost laughs. Without Obadiah nagging him, he might have never returned to take over the company. He would have been happy tinkering and living out his life without worries after MIT. He might have built something of his own and never intruded on Obadiah’s territory, happy to stay away from everything his father held dear.

“Why do it now?” Tony asks, wondering whether he can really stomach the answer. He has had enough heartbreak already. “You could have gotten rid of me easily after Dad died. You were the one who even brought me back into the fold.”

Obadiah seems to take the question seriously. “You’re not stupid,” he says, even while sounding dismissive about it. “I needed your brain. And you were so much easier to guide than your father.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “I waited far too long to get him out of the way.”

Everything stops for a moment. The distant noise of machines is drowned out by roaring in Tony’s ears. His heart misses a beat, and Tony can do nothing but stare at his godfather. He is sure he has misheard. It is impossible that Obadiah just insinuated that he had anything to do with Howard’s death.

“The accident –” Tony croaks but falls silent when he sees the unveiled derision on Obadiah’s face.

“Don’t be naïve, boy,” he snaps, sounding almost as if they are back in Tony’s childhood when he was too slow to learn a lesson. “Your father was a drunk, but he wouldn’t have crashed without a little help.”

A little help with what? Tony wants to ask, his mind already coming up with dozens of scenarios. He cannot bring himself to voice any of them or to demand clarification, caught in the memory of seeing his father’s bashed in head. His mother. Obadiah murdered his mother.

A fresh surge of fury courses through Tony at that. For the moment, he does not care about anything else Obadiah has done. The weapon dealing, the thousands of innocent people dead, the attempt to take Tony’s life. Obadiah took everything Tony had and twisted it. He took his ideas, his dreams of a different future, and he took his parents before Tony could ever find some semblance of peace with them.

“You are a monster,” Tony spits, shaking with rage. The zip ties dig into his skin as he struggles against them, leaving his wrists stinging.

“I think of myself as a businessman,” Obadiah replies nonchalantly, an utterly unholy smile on his lips. There is no sign of remorse on his face. “Now you, we had a good run together, if only you hadn’t started to waste your time on stupid humanitarian causes. Green energy? It’s a pity that you Starks always insist on letting sentimentality guide you.”

A lot of things can be said about Howard Stark. That he was sentimental is not one of them. And Tony does not think that caring for people is a weakness, although it doubtlessly put him in this situation.

“You can’t –”

“Oh, but I can,” Obadiah cuts him off, looking him down as if Tony has never been worth more than the dirt under his shoes. “No matter what you’re thinking of, I can get it done. You’ve been tinkering with the arc reactor and you had the right idea. That will power a whole new generation of weapons. Once I kick R&D back into shape.”

Beneath his pain, Tony realizes that Obadiah is delusional. He is smart, certainly, but things will not be as easy as he pictures them here. Stark Industries has been thrown into upheaval. The scandal about selling weapons to terrorists on top of closing the entire weapons manufacturing department will not leave much room to manoeuvre. Even if Obadiah manages to pin all of it on Tony, there is no easy way of turning back around.

That thought gives him a bit of satisfaction, even while he is still reeling, just one wrong word away from giving up.

“You are –” Tony starts, then corrects himself, tasting the pain of it. “You were family.”

If anything, Obadiah looks satisfied at that, proud even of having made a fool of everybody, of having swallowed Tony’s love and spat it out again mangled. “And I will make a show of being suitably grieved about your wrongdoings when the press asks about you.”

Tony can see it happening. He remembers the interviews after his parents’ death. He had never doubted that Obadiah was deeply shocked about what happened. They had cried together at times, when Tony had drunk enough to allow himself to feel sad about his loss.

“Was any of it real?” Tony hears himself asking and curses himself the moment the words are out. Does he really need to make this worse for him?

“What does it matter, boy? If you hadn’t stopped being useful, I would have kept feeding you lies.” Obadiah counters, still not a trace of sympathy found in his face. “Now, I’ll have to oversee my men. Perhaps I’ll send some of them over. If your smuggler friends decided to get rid of you, you should look the part, yes?”

With that, Obadiah turns around and leaves. Just like that, he walks away from Tony. From a lifetime of being family, friends. For a long moment, Tony can only stare, unable to comprehend what is happening, that Obadiah will actually just leave him here.

“No,” he then calls. “You can’t do that. Obie.” The words fall from his lips, incoherent, as he struggles to get free to no avail. There is no getting out of this, just like there is no getting away from the way his mind is collapsing in on itself, caved out by the way his grief is suddenly multiplied. “Don’t do that. Please.”

Obadiah stops and Tony almost thinks he has made an impression, but then there are just two more men appearing in his line of vision. He does not understand what Obadiah is telling them, but the expression on their faces when they are coming towards him is clear. They are here to shut him up.

Fear trickles down his back, icy compared to the hot anger he felt while listening to Obadiah shred his entire life in just a few moments. He remembers this part, remembers being helpless, unable to block any hits or to defend himself. He will just have to take it, their fists and kicks, their derision and uncaring violence.

The first blow hits him right in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him as he tries to curl up on himself. There is nowhere to go, no way to escape. He gasps as the pain spreads, climbing up through his ribcage as his broken ribs are rattled.

Tony closes his eyes and does not see the fist coming that connects with his jaw, throwing his head to the side. He tastes blood, swallows it instead of spitting it at his attackers like he wants to.

Just a few hits in and this is already worse than the beating he got from the Avengers. Even while he did not know the reason at the time, that had been personal. This, here, is just two strangers taking a man apart because they were ordered to do so.

Through the pain, Tony looks up, tries to see their faces to have something to concentrate on other than the feeling of getting smashed to pieces. He does not know them. The one to the right does not even look like he enjoys it, which makes it somehow worse.

Tony opens his mouth, wanting to say something without knowing what. He has nothing to offer them, no incentive to make them stop. This is how it feels to lose.

A loud noise reaches them from somewhere, but Tony does not look away from the two men laying into him. That is how he sees an actual arrow embed itself in the throat of the one to the right.

With a shriek, the man stumbles backward, hands reaching up to his throat. The sound soon turns into a gurgle and blood runs down from where his skin was pierced and over his hands, staining the collar of his shirt crimson. It is a horrifying sight and yet Tony cannot look away. He has never seen a person die before.

There is more noise, almost like gunshots and the other man falls too, clutching his abdomen, screaming until he falls very quiet.

Tony does not know what is happening. He cannot lift his eyes from the fallen men in front of him, cannot make sense of the arrow. He imagined being rescued. Thor would have come with the FBI as soon as JARVIS sent them the right coordinates. Somehow, he doubts that the FBI is working with bow and arrow.

When he finally drags up his eyes, the pain almost just an echo anymore, he sees chaos. People are running and shouting, bodies are on the floor, weapons are used freely.

A movement to his right startles him. He recognizes the masked man mostly because of the mop of dirty blond hair. Barton is nudging the men on the ground, pointing a knocked arrow at them until he is satisfied that they will not get up again.

Then he looks up and Tony recoils from him instinctively. Barton reaches up to lift his mask, just enough that Tony can see his face. There is an expression of regret there that Tony does not know what to do with.

“Do you need immediate help?” Barton asks, sounding concerned of all things.

Tony cannot answer. He is still in pain, but his own situation feels like nothing but an afterthought as he tries to make sense of what is happening. The Avengers came for him, obviously, so JARVIS must have found him before they destroyed the chip.

“I won’t touch you,” Barton promises when Tony remains silent. He does not come any closer, perhaps thinking that Tony would react unfavourably to that, although Barton does not seem so bad anymore at the moment. “I’ll send someone for you.”

With a last, critical glance, Barton puts his mask back in place and hurries off, his bow at the ready, and runs off, although he never vanishes back out of sight. He remains at a short distance to Tony and plants himself there like a guard, not letting anyone get close to Tony.  

For some reason, that even makes Tony feel safe. He should not trust Barton, too easily remembering the sneer on his face and the eager readiness for violence. Barton had been a stranger, though. No matter that he was hurting Tony to get revenge, he was just a man. Far more terrible evils lurk inside this warehouse. Tony’s memories of a childhood that turns out to be nothing more than a lie not the least of them.

Obadiah, Tony thinks. Somewhere in this sudden hell is his godfather. Tony surprises himself with how vehemently he wishes nobody has shot him yet. He remembers the weight of a gun in his hand from when he cowered behind his car next to Thor, afraid for both their lives. He remembers the recoil when he pulled the trigger. He is certain that, right now, nothing would be more satisfying than to sink a bullet in Obadiah’s body. Perhaps he would not choose somewhere fatal immediately. A bullet to the knee so he cannot run away. A bullet to the gut so he will bleed out slowly. And then a bullet to the throat so he cannot spew any more lies.

Tony is disgusted with himself for thinking that, even while a part of him is burning with the need to get this done. This day has made everything worse. Obadiah did not just make a ton of money by handing out weapons like candy. The personal betrayal runs much deeper than Tony thought. He cannot even begin to think about his parents. Not in this place.

He is still bound to the chair, still cannot move. For all that someone has come to his rescue, he is defenceless, rendered unable to do anything but to wait what else fate has in store for him.

Distantly, he realizes that Barton is leaving his post. That could mean that he is needed in the fight or that he is simply abandoning Tony. Just a moment later, though, someone else is running towards him, pulling off his mask as he comes closer, although Tony would not have needed that to recognize Steve. The words on his arm burn brighter than the pain sitting in his bones, heralding Steve’s arrival. For the first time since they met, Tony feels nothing but relief at seeing Steve. For once, there are no conflicted feelings, no wishing it was Thor or Bruce or anybody else coming for him.

He does not even flinch when he notices the knife in Steve’s hand. On an instinctual level, Tony knows that Steve is not going to harm him further. He is too tired to fight that just because of their history.

“Tony,” Steve breathes as soon as he is close enough for them to talk. “Are you all right? What did they do?” He does no wait for an answer but falls to his knees in front of Tony, frantic fingers searching for where Tony is bound. “I’ll cut you loose, all right? I’ve got you.”

The pressure around Tony’s wrists vanishes almost immediately and he slumps forward. The only reason he does not fall from the chair is that he reaches out, steadying himself against Steve. The movement hurts his shoulder sockets. It is a deep, pounding ache, only interrupted by the sharp stinging of his wrists. The skin is raw there, scratched and bleeding in places. Feeling is slowly returning to his fingers with pins and needles.

Instead of looking at his own blood, Tony concentrates on where his hands connect with Steve. He feels Steve’s muscles shifting, feels the tension that has nothing to do with the fight and everything with Tony.

Then Tony’s feet are free too and Steve helps him up to move him from the chair to the ground in front of the wall, making the motion appear more coordinated than Tony’s uncontrolled collapse would have allowed. It takes them away from the two unmoving bodies too. Tony wants to curl up, to close his eyes and fall asleep, knowing he is going to wake up in his own bed, with all of this having been nothing but a nightmare. Recently, he has gotten a lot of practice to reinforce the knowledge that is not going to happen, though.

Instead, Tony slowly stretches his legs, hoping to get them back in working order quickly. The problem is less the few kicks directed there than the numbness in his feet. He guesses Obadiah did not care whether his hands and feet where getting enough blood, considering that he should not have lived for much longer.

“What is happening?” Tony asks, once he feels he has his body under control again. Enough so to keep himself from passing out, at least. “What are you doing here?”

“We came as soon as we knew where to go,” Steve answers hoarsely. Where he was completely in control only moments ago, he now sounds vulnerable. “Did you think we wouldn’t?”

Tony is not sure that the Avengers coming here was even an option. He expected Thor and JARVIS to alert Coulson.

“What about the police?” he asks, although he could not care less about who is here, repercussions be damned. He is simply glad someone came at all.

“They are not here yet,” Steve says simply.

That causes a whole load of new problems, but Tony is in no condition to deal with them or even identify them specifically. He is alive, even if he is hurting. He has someone close who he somewhat trusts, even after realizing Obadiah’s betrayal runs deeper than he thought.

Tony hums, making it as noncommittal as possible, as he pulls his legs up and lays his arms on his knees, barely keeping himself from putting his head down and closing his eyes. He should probably be more concerned with whether they should move to get somewhere less out in the open, but Steve is at his side, back to murmuring sweet nonsense under his breath.

“Breathe, Tony. They’re not going to get you here. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

That kind of reassurance does nothing for Tony, but it grounds him nonetheless. Another voice to help stave off the abyss in his mind. He breathes and he waits, leaning into Steve next to him to glean some warmth.

It occurs to him to ask for his shoes and the thought has laughter rising in his throat, Perhaps Steve would actually get up and find him something to wear, stumbling through what still sounds like chaos in the other parts of this place that are thankfully out of sight.

“Tony,” Steve asks immediately, glaring concern on his face. “What’s wrong?”

Unable to help himself, Tony starts giggling. It sounds more like hiccups or sobs, but he has a dozen inappropriate pictures in his head, ranging from Steve looting the bodies for shoes to taking off his own. The thought of Steve barefoot is what does him in. He laughs sharply. No matter how short-lived it is, it brings Tony back to the present – which is cold and painful, but Tony would take this over incoherent thoughts any day. He cannot afford to lose his mind.

The noise calms down at some point. Tony is not sure when the last shot rings through the space or when the shouting stops, but it does not take long then for people to arrive at their hiding spot. Bucky is the first, easily recognizable by his metal arm. He takes one long look at Tony and Steve, scanning for wounds or anything that needs immediate attention.

“The area is secure,” he then says, sounding more formal than Tony expected him to. Even now, with Obadiah’s men apparently dealt with, Tony is not afraid of being close to Barton or Barnes. Some things simply pale against the reality he is currently stuck in.

“I’ll be with you in a second,” Steve replies, neither sounding nor looking like he will be able to get up and leave Tony here on his own. Tony does not want him to either.

“We’ve got this,” Bucky says, clearly seeing the same thing.

Tony wonders for a moment whether he should ask about the body count. He does not know where they are or who these people were. The presence of the crates with the Stark Industries’ logo on them suggests they are in a sort of smuggling waypoint. The duration of the fight makes it unlikely that there were just a few guards stationed here.

Shuddering, Tony decides the two bodies right in front of him are enough to know about. Later, he will review this thoroughly. Now, with everything too close and too real, he cannot deal with any details.

The next person to appear is Thor and that fully raises Tony out of his numbness. Thor should not be here. He belongs in a hospital or, at the very least, into bed. He did not hand himself over to Obadiah’s men only to have Thor risk getting shot again. This was supposed to keep him safe.

“Thor, what are you doing here?” Tony asks, his own voice too loud inside his pounding head. “You were shot.”

His eyes drop down to Thor’s side. He has apparently changed the shirt because there is no more glaring red covering the fabric, although Tony still imagines seeing it there.

Even in a situation like this, Thor finds a smile for Tony. It is small and somewhat pained but also full of reassurance.

“I let them take you. Of course, I came to get you back,” Thor replies as he kneels down close to Tony, shielding him from seeing the bodies behind him.

Tony should feel crowded with Steve at his side and Thor in front of him, but Thor manages to make him feel safe even here. His voice is calm like they are sitting together in Tony’s office, eating lunch. Even so, Tony hears the regret in Thor’s tone, the guilt. He cannot let that stand.

“You didn’t let them do anything,” Tony argues, wondering whether Thor is stupidly loyal or stupidly careless. “I ordered you to stand down, and I had hoped you’d get medical attention instead of coming after me.”

He is not sure whether to be relieved that someone he trusts has come to his rescue instead of a faceless group of FBI agents. This has put Thor and the Avengers needlessly in danger, but it allows Tony to let his guard down just a bit. It also makes it so much more likely that he is going to fall apart.

Bruce is going to kill him for endangering his soulmate, Tony realizes suddenly. But as if Thor has read his thoughts, he says, “Bruce had a look and declared me fit enough.”

Next to Tony, Steve exhales loudly. Not quite a laugh but definitely an exclamation of doubt.

“Did you leave him any other choice?” Tony asks, glad to give his mind over to simpler things than thinking about what happens next.

Thor is upright and does not look like he is going to keel over. That makes it save to banter with him.

“What about you?” Thor counters instead of answering Tony’s question, which says enough, really. “Anything we need to take care of quickly?”

There is an entire list of things Tony would like to be taken care of. Obadiah is not even at the top of it. He wants to claw the doubts out of his own head, the thoughts that maybe he deserved this for having been blind so many years, for not realizing that his own godfather was lying to him.

That is not what Thor means, though. He is talking about actual wounds. Tony has a number of those too, but the bruises will not kill him.

“No,” Tony says and does not sound as certain as he was trying to. “They – they just got started. At this point, I’m sure my ribs will never heal, but I’m all right.”

He is still not quite able to think clearly or to look around without his vision swimming. The tranquilizer was certainly potent. He does not mention that, though. It is not like they can do anything about that – and Tony is afraid that some of these symptoms come simply from the emotional shock of the situation. As long as he can blame the way his mind keeps slipping on the drugs, he can hold himself together.

“We’ll get you to a hospital,” Thor says, making it sound like a promise.

All that does is making immediate protest rise in Tony’s throat. “No,” he refuses. He has only bad memories of hospitals. Getting prepped for another surgery, waking up with only Jarvis at his side instead of his parents. Vague answers about his prognosis. “No, I just want to go home.”

“You should –” Steve starts but falls silent abruptly when Tony shakes his head.

“Bruce can look me over,” he argues, even while he thinks that is not necessary. “And JARVIS will make sure I’m all right once I’m back in the tower.”

He is not going to feel safe anywhere else. Even there it will be hard. The entire place is full of memories of Obadiah, of his own failings. Tony needs to familiarity, though, his own home without strangers bustling around him. He needs to be able to lock a door behind him and be reasonably sure that no one else is going to come in.

“Then we’ll get you home,” Thor says, his expression unbearably soft.

Not yet, however, Tony knows. They still have a warehouse full of bodies to deal with. His head is full enough to burst, wondering about repercussion and how they are going to tell the FBI what has happened here without offering up the Avengers on a silver plate. More important, though, is another unresolved matter.

“Where is my godfather?” Tony asks, surprised that his voice does not give out. He feels weak but strangely determined at the same time.

Thor looks at Steve, more in question than to confer whether it is actually a good idea to confront Tony with this right now – or so Tony hopes. Steve raises his hand to an earpiece that Tony is only now noticing.

“Get Stane over here.”

Ignoring the way his stomach is roiling, Tony concentrates on the earpiece. He is glad that Steve apparently was in communication with his team all along, or at least could listen in on them. Even if he thought Tony was in danger, it appears rather negligent to abandon the fight just to pat Tony’s back.

Then, reality come crashing in once more.