#jesus fucking christ dude it does a number on you

[asthedeathoflight]

Still crazy to me that in 2020 i did a bunch of research on Maya armor to do a costume design drawing inspiration from the god Quetzalcoatl with the intended messaging being that indigenous people are villainized for resisting their own extermination and treated as monsters and that the Quetzalcoatl "monster" character was more human than the spanish conquistador who had come to slay her and then in 2022 I went to go see Wakanda Forever and they had decided that Namor was the god Quetzalcoatl and they put him in Maya armor and it was. The same fucking costume i had designed. And he was the bad guy. For violently resisting the extermination of his people.

[roenters]

Dude this Christmas is gonna be a good one.

(my sister just bought me all of the fight club 3 comics. As well. Let's fucking go chat double the traumatising imagery 💪💪💪)

[whole essay in the tags. Sorry bro 😭💀]

[muntitled]

𝐒𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲 | 𝐇𝐚𝐳𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐧

Hazel Callahan x F!Reader

Summary: "Jesus, dude, do you know what it means when a gay girl says they wanna have a "slumber party?"

Warnings: Hyper Feminine!Reader, Language, Fluff, Jealousy, Humor, Reader has a crush, Confessions, Teasing, Smut (+18, Minors DNI), Dom!Hazel, Humping, Grinding, Masturbation, Pillowprincess!Reader tbh, Thigh Riding, Public sex, Risky Sex, Massive Degradation Kink, Power Play, Ownership Kink?, Praise Kink, Slight!Hate sex ♡

Part two >

Hazel Callahan was rarely included into anything vaguely external, she would venture to say that she was even rarely included in her own thoughts. Therefore, infuriatingly, painfully aloof Hazel thought nothing of the invite you had presented to the entire group at Fight Club.

Why should she feel special?

Things like this seldom warranted her definite response, so when all the girls had affirmed their attendance, Hazel was... discombobulated to find a silence of anticipation growing pregnant in the gym.

It took a sharp stab in the ribs from PJ for Hazel to swing her head back into this specific reality in the space-time continuum. A reality in which you sat adjacent to her in a circle, legs crossed dainty underneath you to better accommodate the neatly pressed pleads in your pink skirt. There was nothing remarkably profound from you carrying yourself like the pretty princess you thought you were, what strikes Hazel as odd, however, was the look of expectancy in your dark eyes- a look you directed at… her?

"What?"

"You're coming? To my slumber party tonight?" you reiterate stifling the need to pat down at your braids corralled into a pink headband. You are basking under the scrutiny of her gaze but you also happened to suffer under it too. The longer Hazel watched you with furrowed brows, and her knee propped up to her chest, the longer you keened forward as if desperate to hear her say-

"Of course she's coming," PJ once again injects herself in between the two of you. "We'll all be there," You're perhaps nodding at PJ and Josie but your eyes are unable to leave the absolute prison that Hazel has them in. She does nothing except nod as well, before leaving you to your clique who all sit prettily under clouds of Chanel number 5.

The interaction replayed within the confines of Hazel's head throughout the rest of the school day. Right up until she finds herself, nestled in a car with Josie and PJ, taking the short drive in the more affluent neighbourhood from her place to yours.

"So, Hazel," the lascivious tone in PJ's voice already has her rolling her eyes as the car slows before an egregious house. "Are you ready to lose your virginity tonight?"

"Jesus Christ-" Murmurs Josie before PJ assumes what is expected to be your tone of voice- only its a hyperbolic and a higher in pitch reenactment of the real thing.

"Oh Hazel! I'd really like for you to come to my slumber party tonight!" All three girls leave the car as PJ continues her comedic display of seduction as she brushes up against Hazel and says "I really want you at my slumber party."

Hazel laughs as PJ grabs a hold of her upper arm, exposed from her open black button up and tank top. "You're coming right?" PJ sobers up as she says, "That's hot girl speak for "You're going to be cumming inside me-"

Josie does not keep her eyes off the approaching house as she interjects with, "Girls can't cum in other girls"

"Wow!" Hollers PJ, "-And here I was thinking you actually believed that girls can do everything that guys can do-"

"Wait," Hazel's eyes are on her shoes as she readjusts her tote bag and says, "You think she actually wants to like... fuck?" She lowers her voice drastically in the wake of making it up to your front door as she bends and reiterates, "Like actually fuck me?"

There is, frankly no time for Hazel to get a firm response on such a discombobulating thought because you quickly open the front door, and your skin is glowing everywhere from being completely exposed in your pink satin shorts and matching camisole set. Your hair is still loose as it frames your face- your round and constantly smiling face. Why had Hazel never noticed you until now?

Perhaps she did.

Perhaps she negated the possibility of forming a crush on you because you appeared so painfully… straight?

But here you are, smiling at her and only her. Your eyes had been bright at the sight of Hazel and her button up and how outrageously attractive she looked in a tank top but your smile dims significantly when you peer down at PJ'S hand still wrapped around Hazel's forearm.

"H-Hey," Said Hazel, with her voice that reminded you so vividly of a midnight snowstorm,

"Hey," you replied back, quickly turning away. Your mood had already been cemented for the rest of the evening. Despite it being your slumber party, you let your best friend host while you continued to wallow in the regret of your own unshakeable feelings. You hated that PJ and Hazel were very clearly a couple, but what you hated perhaps more, was that you still wanted her. You stole longing glances at her in your space, lazing on your bed while the rest of you sat encircled on the floor in sleeping bags. Hazel completely hijacked your entire brain throughout all the games and activities.

You had lost yourself in her presence and that only kicked up a notch when you felt a pair of forearms lazily splay onto your shoulders from above. With your bum still on the floor and your back against the foot of your bed, Hazel had decided to humour her turn in Truth or Dare. While she answered, she let her legs frame your body. So that it swung over the side of the bed, perfectly framing your sides.

Breathing had been impossible. So impossible in fact, you didn't know it was your turn until it took Hazel bringing her lips down to your ear. Your nerves had been shot to hell as she whispered, "Dove, it's your turn."

You cursed this idea and you cursed this wretched slumber party.

Luckily, It passed by in a significant blur that left you still riding on the high of being in Hazel's personal space until bedtime at 1am. While the girl's drifted into their own sleep, your eyes remained on the pink chandelier hanging from your ceiling while you cradled your stuffed frog to your chest. No matter how hard you try, sleep is a difficult thing to come by. You are left to your thoughts of the girl sleeping on the floor, while gentle snores sounded in the room.

"Fuck," you almost instinctively mutter as you find your hand drifting past your navel. You spread your leg ever so slightly before pushing your hand into your underwear. The quicker you came, the quicker your body could finally be allowed to slip into actual slumber. It sounded like a solid plan, and you had already taken to grinding your wet cunt against your hand- until it all went to hell and your duvet is being pulled slightly off of you.

You're quick to remove your hand and grab a hold of your covers as your eyes snap open to stare at the silhouette above you. Hazel's hair is a spectacular mess on her head and her skin shines orange from the glow of your salt lamp.

"Let me in," she whispers, not really waiting for a response before she's forcing herself into your covers, scooching you on the right side of the bed.

"What are you-"

"Shh," it's embarrassing, how quick you are to snap your mouth shut and heed her commands. Hazel's stomach warms significantly at how docile you are and she smiles as she says, "I cant sleep and I had the vague suspicion that you couldn't either." Hazel says, propping her exposed forearm under her head as she looks up at your ceiling. Her button up is discarded somewhere in the room, leaving her in basketball shorts and a tank but you're not complaining. Not at all.

"I told myself I'd be more intentional with my actions, and my actions are telling me to kiss you right now, but my feelings are telling me you might not want that." You're corraled into stark and naked shock as you watch the girl you've always wanted, confess to you in your bed. It feels unreal. The longing stares, the hours you've spent writing amatuer poetry in your notes app about her, the amount of times you made yourself cum with her heavy on your mind.

This does not feel real.

"Jesus," your voice is uncharacteristically coarse as you rush to say, "Dude, do you know what it means when a gay girl says they wanna have a "slumber party."

Hazel appears stunned as she watches you with wide eyes, "Well yeah," Says Hazel, "but… do you know what it means?"

"I've liked you since junior year," Your confession has her mind going hazy as she tries to recall all the subtle hints which she effortlessly discarded as you just being kind.

"God, you're such an idiot!" You release a chuckle that momentarily stirs a sleeping girl laying closest to the bed in her sleeping bag.

"Shh," Hazel's finger is pressed softly to her lips, you nod slowly only able to process mimicking her own actions.

"What were you doing just a second ago?" She says, swiftly removing the attention from her and her stupidity, replacing the atmosphere instead, with something much more dangerous. There's a difference in her whispers, a tone that has you melting into the covers as you unconsciously squeeze your legs shut. In this moment, she could ask anything of you, and you would simply comply. The silence stretches like honey between the two of you, and Hazel watches with doe eyes as you sink into your shame.

"You don't have to say anything." She finally whispers back, freeing you from your internal damnation but not completely letting you off the hook as she continues: "Just move your hips for me." It was an aggressively passive instruction that exploded a bundle of charged electricity between your legs. You are trapped in a distinctly uncomfortable position between wanting to comply, but wanting to be stubborn. The discomfort of these emotions are not entirely unwanted.

"Do you want me to show you how?" There is a challenging glint in her eyes that simulates the peroration of whatever the hell this is that you are both about to do.

This non-relationship which is so innately a relationship.

"Yeah." Your voice rocks with the signs of an oncoming tempest alerting your body to the possibility of something very, very exciting on the horizon.

Time and space seems so few and far in-between as Hazel keeps you arrested in those blue, endless hues. Examining her features keeps your wanton, unwinding nerves chaotically at bay. There is an intense exchange of control as Hazel shuffles closer, until her head is resting on your pillow and your both breathing into each other's parted lips.

She almost restlessly sets her palm onto your body, her hands on a slow path down your hips. It gives you a sliver of control knowing that bubbling behind her dilated pupils is a need that haunts her just as greatly.

"I'm gonna show you, okay?" She does not need to repeat herself but you recognize her words for what they are: masked behind the excitement and the charged atmosphere, is a real, and genuine need for consent.

The very moment you hopped over this threshold, you would forever be locked in a world anew. There would be no take backs. Your actions would forever be transcribed on the sacred tablet of our shared history.

"Are you going to show me, Hazel?" Desire is seated comfortably on top of your lungs and you speak only in soft pants, "Because it really feels like you're all bark and no bite."

There is a flash of excitement that sweeps momentarily over her lidded lustful gaze.

Her hands are much more sure of themselves as they lock into your sides, her fingers digging rudely into your silk pyjama bottoms.

"Shouldn't you be taking those off?" You ask cheekily.

A scoff slips through her lips as she shifts just a tad closer, her face now centimetres from yours. "You're awfully needy." Hazel whispers, "It's incredibly embarrassing."

What would prove to be even more embarrassing is the jarring way your hips stutter the very moment those words leave Hazel's lips. Your accidentally whorish slip up might have gone unnoticed were it not for the annoying fact that her right leg was seated quite cosily between your legs.

"Shut up," is all you manage to say - a desperate attempt at scrambling for your dignity crumbling in the bed between you.

Hazel laughs airly. Slowly, her hands at your hip begin to move, subsequently allowing your hips to move. A soft and slow moan passes through your lips, drowned out by the sound of sleeping girls as your eyes flutter shut.

"Hey," Hazel's lips are fully touching yours now, "Look at me." She could've never anticipated how the fucked out look in your eyes could ever make her feel. Your eyebrows are curved, as if you're in pain as you hump slowly against her thigh. The coarseness of the silk and her thigh pressing against your aching cunt… it makes everything feel so overwhelmingly real, unmarred by great expectations. The thump of her heart underneath your palm is so incredibly real. The beads of sweat growing pregnant on her forehead are real. Her dry, parted lips pressed against yours is in fact real.

"What are you thinking about?" It strikes you then that you had been a muddled, mindless haze, humping against her thigh with an urgency.

"I'm thinking about you." You reply, truthfully.

"Good things, I hope?" It is so unimaginable, the way her voice is able to remain so incredibly steady while yours is as shaky as a walrus thumping across an icy lake.

"I don't suspect anyone has ever had a single good thought about you." You shoot back and the fingers gripping your hips lock tighter, nearly prompting you to apologise.

The only other option left for you to exhaust is clamping your mouth shut as Hazel's hand assumed a much more aggressive administration. She grips on the plush skin at your sides with an unnecessary hardness, as if she wanted to tear in into you.

"See, I was gonna fuck you," it is absolutely shameful, the whimper that escapes your lips, "But now I'm gonna make you hump my leg like the slutty little girl you are." Before you could scold her, or perhaps violently disagree, rudely, before your cries of indignation could ever be forced out, Hazel is lifting you up from your side of the bed, her head shifting until her brown curls cover your pillow fully.

She turns onto her back, never releasing eye contact as she forces you down so you're straddling her steepled knee. The new position leaves you searching for a new anchor.

"Your hands are pushing down on my hair-" she grumble-whispers.

"If you'd let me finish faster that wouldn't be as much of a problem now, would it?" Hazel's response, in lieu of her thoroughly unimpressed face, had been to grind her thigh further against your core, eliciting a wanton, broken moan into the air.

"You're gonna have to be quiet, Dove." Her voice is gravel, "Wouldn't want anyone seeing how much of my whore you are, would you?" The sound of your own moans slam back into you as you press your pussy incredibly closer to her leg.

"Imagine what they might think of you? Our little star pupil getting herself off on my leg? Is that really all it takes to please you?" Staying quiet had become an unimaginable feat, a mountain that becomes even more difficult to surmount when Hazel's eyes search frantically over your crippling form for a trigger that might send you over the edge.

You couldn't begin to imagine how powerful she must feel watching your hips move wantonly on her thigh while your hooded eyes displayed desperation.

You feel so thoroughly hers, a previous existence in which you went without her hard ministrations guiding you to orgasm felt completely in vain. You want nothing more than to be so incredibly good to her, and the thought that she might want the same way sends you to an early grave.

"You're doing so well, Baby. Keeping going." An embarrassing wave of pleasure ripped straight through your spine leaving a trail of shivers in its wake. There is no mistaking that your reaction to her praise and her validation had not gone unnoticed.

Your pussy is completely soaked against her leg, burdened with the knowledge that it wants something but it didn't exactly know what.

"I need you," you whisper. Before your own shame might wave away the pleasure, you are delighted at the moan that slips through Hazel's parted lips.

You had been so thoroughly enamoured by your own pleasure, you had not stopped to consider hers. The pillow princess stereotype brought with it a wave of shame as you looked down and found her hips stuttering slowly against yours.

"I'm right here, Dove."

And you both began to melt for each other. Your legs are tangled in one another while her thigh is pressed against your clit at the same time your thigh is pressed between her legs as well.

You are pleasantly surprised when you begin to feel the fabric of Hazel shorts moving against your own legs slotted in between her. You didn't have to picture how gloriously lecherous it might have looked, using each other so blatantly to fulfil a need that had begun simmering since forever. "Oh fuck, you're so pretty," her hand finds purchase against your breast, tweaking your nipples until they hardened against the camisole while her other hand was comfortably gripping your jaw, staring up at you with lustful eyes.

"You don't even know how perfect you look right now," you did not speak a word of a lie. Watching Hazel's long and domineering form writhing underneath you is a mental image you wish to keep stored in your chest of sacred memories forever. It is discombobulating, watching someone so used to walking so tall and unbothered, being made a complete mess underneath you.

You never wanted this moment to end.

"I want you to kiss me." She croaks, despite already bringing your face close to hers by the strength of a single grip. Her eyes search yours for something. You only hope that grinding yourself even faster against her leg is a testament to whatever it is she might've been looking for. Soon, her lips crash onto yours. When Hazel Callahan kisses, she kisses sloppily and disastrously as if she wanted to swallow you whole before you ever thought of escaping. Her lips are all encompassing, her tongue is restless, pushing itself into your mouth with avid determination.

You moan softly into her mouth. A sound she appreciates greatly given the way her hips began to move against your thigh with a matching ferocity. Her hand slithers along your back, until she cups a handful of your ass, dragging your pussy once again against her, at her desired pace.

Rough. Arresting. Frantic.

"You're being too loud," She sighs, breaking away from your lips to trail them down your neck. "You're being too fucking loud-"

"Fuck, Hazel I'm close-" Your legs are locked against hers but the hand on your ass keeps your hips moving by proxy. "I'm so close."

"You're gonna cum for me, Dove?"

"Oh God, I love it when you call me that-" There is an embarrassing pool of wetness accumulated between your legs, dripping through your shorts and onto her skin. She is equally as wet and that fact only spurs you on.

"I need you to cum for me, baby?" Her stuttering hips told you her own release is dangerously close, sitting on the horizon. Perhaps your orgasm had bled into something prideful, her need to make you cum first caused her to delay her own release.

"You're fucking unbelievable." You sigh with troubled realisation.

She uncovers herself from your chest, panting heavily without her hips ever stopping. "You're gonna cum first, okay?" She nods, persuading you to mimic her movements because despite everything, you are putty in her hands.

"Okay."

As she kisses you once more her hand travels back to your now exposed boob. Between your kiss, Hazel had somehow managed to haphazardly lift your camisole enough to expose your breasts.

A straggled sound leaves the back of your throat as your orgasm crested.

She succeeded in making a mess of you. Your hair had been set free, braids spilling like wild snakes down your torso.

"Oh God, oh fuck-" a hand slaps over your mouth. Hazel's eyes are wide as she continues to guide your hips to release.

"Such a good little Dove, aren't you?" Your eyes are blown with stars and pixie dust as you nod drunkenly. She's humping your thigh and you're humping hers and soon the orgasm sneaks up on you, stealing your breath right from inside your lungs. Your strangled moan is muffled by her palm.

Her eyes take it all in with a very certain hunger, drifting from watching her own hips grinding your thigh, to the choked expression of utter euphoria splashed against your face.

"Fuck, baby." Her Eyebrows knot as her breathing picks up. The pressure visibly building across her face is nearly enough to send you back into your pool of euphoria.

"Oh fuck- oh baby," The wave of pleasure that courses through her is violent and incredibly validating. It is you who had gotten her to this point, humping your leg so desperately as if it might be the only thing she could ever hope to achieve. For someone who had built such a notable reputation for always mainting an I-dont-give-a-fuck mentality, this feels like an immense achievement for you.

Once the smoke clears, and Hazel finds herself back on planet earth, the relics of her euphoria register as intermittent aftershocks. The dawn of what you had just done begins to settle and almost instinctively, you revert to your teasing.

"How nice of you to finally join us," you are still hovering above her, her long neck craning to look at you.

"You talk a lot of shit for someone who squeaks when she cums."

The dampness between your legs is a reminder. "You're gonna learn to take just as much as you give sooner or later," You don't miss the hint of a promise thinly veneered along that whisper. Choosing to ignore the fluttering in the pit of my stomach at the sound of it alone, you climb off of her and back to your space on the bed.

"What's its name?" Hazel asks, peering into the darkness to bring your stuffed frog back into your arms. "You strike me as someone who gives their stuffed toys names."

You're still out of breathe as you reply, "Texas,"

She cracks a smile at that. Before you can finally drift off, a hand slips across your hip, trailing over your torso before brushing over your breast and staying there. "I'm gonna buy you one...I wanna watch you hump it like you just did my leg okay?"

All you're able to do is nod.

[luxesiren]

⸻ 𝐇𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐘 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑!𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

cw :: mentions of violence, nsfw headcanons (MDNI)

a/n :: i saw this picture again the other day and i had to write something abt it cause jesus christ…look at him! (art creds: @/jpegjetty on twt)

hockey player!armin who's been skating since he was young and started playing hockey in memory of his dad.

hockey player!armin who usually isn't into violent sports but loves hockey with a burning passion and it is extremely good at it

hockey player!armin who outsmarts his opponents in every game, making them mad but he never cared. he always bragged by smirking and skating past them sometimes winking just to spite them.

hockey player!armin who has many girls fawning over him just like his other teammates but is always surprised by the number of girls who actually like him

hockey player!armin who met you at one of his games and it was completely random but he saw you in the stands and was instantly attracted to you.

hockey player!armin was too nervous to say something to you even though eren had prompted him to say something stop pining over you. "dude, just talk to her." he would shake his head and sighed, "i can't.

hockey player!armin who almost fell to his knees when you finally talked to him.

hockey player!armin who you realized was a sweetheart out of the rink and just kept the cocky persona when he was playing cause it made him feel good.

hockey player!armin who takes you out every friday after his games even if he's tired, bringing you flowers and making sure you have a good time. going all out because he wanted to see you.

hockey player!armin lets you wear his backup jersey to all of his games now even though he hasn't asked you out yet but he loves seeing you with his name on your back.

hockey player!armin who points to you in the stands when he makes the shot because you're his good luck charm and even though all the other girls fawn over it, you know it's for you and you only.

hockey player!armin who finally asks you out on one of your dates and completely surprises you but of course, you said yes.

hockey player!armin who is usually the calm one out of everyone on the team and talks everyone out of fighting each other but gets into an altercation with another player on another team. you see the big group before it even happens standing on the bleachers to get a better look, the crowd gasping when everyone starts to move and a fight breaks out.

you move faster than expected, sitting in the front by the barricade watching eren pull armin off the other player. both of them still yelling at each other and armin trying to break out of eren's arms, but that unwavering cockiness was still there when he wiped the blood off his lips and skated towards the barricade shooting a smirk your way before sitting out for the rest of the game.

hockey player!armin loves kissing you, whatever chance he gets. sometimes you're in his lap and his hands are all over you, you can't help but to squirm in his hold.

hockey player!armin who took such good care of you when you guys had sex for the first time, taking his time prepping you and making sure you were satisfied. "right there, baby?" "does that feel good?" "can you cum for me?" "you look so pretty like this"

remember when i said hockey player!armin was a sweetheart? yeah not when he's frustrated or when he's lost a game, having never lost a game before, his first loss got to him and he took it out on you. you would never forget how rough he got, how filthy his words were as he fucked you into the mattress.

"min, min, 's too much. s-slow down!" you cried out but he just sped up, his hips smacking against your ass loud enough that it echoes in the room, "c'mon you can take it. you've taken it before like a good slut, haven't you?

hockey player!armin doesn't get jealous often but he notices how men look at you, he's usually embarrassed when he leaves marks visible on your neck but tonight he makes the exception. he wants to send a message to the guy who's always hitting on you, that way he won't hit on you again.

hockey player!armin who eats your pussy like a starved man, he's sloppy with the way spit over your cunt and slurps up your slick making your thighs shake but he loves when they're around his head trying not to close around his head but he doesn't care. "f-fuck, armin!" your hands carding through his hair and pulling him closer to your pussy.

grinding on his face but his hands grip your thighs even tighter, he relishes in the fact that he gets to see you like this and no one else will see you like this. it doesn't take him long to make you cum, overstimulating you when he licks up all your cum. "you taste good, baby."

hockey player!armin who says 'i love you' after months of being together and takes you back to his place to engrave it in your skin with every kiss and every word he whispers in your ear as he slowly thrusts into you, taking his time enjoying this part of his thoroughly planned evening making sure you feel all of his love, "i love you, baby." "i love you too, minnie."

© 𝐥𝐮𝐱𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐧 | all rights reserved to me, please don’t steal, copy, or repost to any other websites

[lovebillyhargrove]

Billy opens his eyes in September 1985, in Hawkins hospital, and he's not happy to be alive. If you asked him, he would've preferred to stay dead or — unfortunately he never was dead — in a coma. Lying in bed like a withering away vegetable, blissfully unaware of his own existence or non-existence.

Gods have not been that merciful. Hargrove wakes up and doesn't even know his own body anymore. He needs to learn everything anew, starting with walking, or eating usual food — like an 18-year-old baby, for fuck's sake.

He's also bitter at everyone — yeah, for not fucking telling him !!

Except for Neil. Neil gets another kind of bitterness — quieter, darker, drowned in neverending pain.

Max gets a

"Fuck off, Maxine and shut the damn door." Said to the wall.

The gang of monster-hunters aren't even allowed to take a peek at her angry (and "that dude is so badass") brother.

Owens gets a

"Just leave me alone, Doc. I'm clean, and don't give a fuck about conquering the world anymore. Wasn't able to take a piss without a catheter until recently. I've got problems of a different level to deal with now."

When Steve opens the door to Billy's room, he actually gets talked to.

"Billy? .. Can I come in? .. Hey .. Hi."

Hargrove doesn't look like himself. He's too skinny, un-tanned, has some kind of a scanty beard, even longer hair, and looks like Jesus Christ.

Steve still can't believe it's happening. To come back to life after what Billy's been through? Impossible.

Maybe they put a dummy in the hospital bed.

The dummy opens its eyes, reluctantly turns its head towards Harrington, who is still hovering over the threshold, and doesn't say a word.

"How ..?" Steve's clearing his throat, cause sounds suddenly get stuck in it. "How are you .. feeling?"

The mannequin, who is probably Billy after all, blinks sadly and curls his lips

"Awesome, amigo."

Whew, damn, he's talking.

"Does .. does anything hurt?"

The guy looks at him like he's the dumbest idiot

"My ass hurts. I've been lying here for so long, I don't even know anymore if I have one or not."

Harrington wants to giggle, but that would sound extremely impolite.

He bites his lower lip.

"You look good."

Billy grins maliciously, and Steve is still shifting from foot to foot

"You're.." What's wrong with him?

"Listen, you're.."

"Get out."

"Uhm .. what?"

"You think you're so .. nice? Paying a visit to a poor sick guy? Why? To be a good fucking person? Get the fuck out of here."

"A good .. what?!" Steve tries to move closer to the bed but .. that's definitely stupid. He just feels like a ridiculous scarecrow in the field, with his ears burning

"That's not .. Hargrove. I actually .."

"Fuck you. I don't need you to come here."

"Okay, just .."

"Get lost!" Billy raises his voice

"Can I .."

"NURSE !!"

God.

"Alright! Get better!"

Asshole. Steve slams the door.

***

Three days later, he again tries to visit the boy who is definitely a nobody to him, and Billy again refuses to see him.

You know what, this is just too much ..! Silly games in the sandbox.

As if they weren't two reasonable adults. As if Steve hadn't watched Hargrove die horrifically, and as if he hadn't accompanied him to the hospital in the ambulance that night. Well, he himself was pretty beaten up, and needed a ride to the hospital, so it was kinda .. on the way, but still.

He sort of cared.

Was worried sick, to be honest.

And, listen, Steve generally doesn't take rejection well when he cares about something. Someone.

He's also sure of one thing — water wears the stone away.

So Steve shows up at the hospital again. Just to remind Billy of his existence, hang around the hallway, and when the door opens, give him a deliberately friendly smile and a wave of his hand.

Maybe he's here not to see Hargrove at all, he's got other stuff to do. Maybe he was just passing room number eight by accident.

Harrington is amused at Billy's face every time the guy catches a glimpse of Steve in his vicinity.

The patient either switches on complete indifference and sits there with a pompous ass face, as if they don't even know each other, or hisses like a pissed off cat.

Or he conspiratorially whispers something to the nurse when Harrington peers through the half-closed door — most likely asking her not to let Steve into the room under any circumstances.

But the former king didn't fall off the banana truck either. He has his own ways of influencing others — and begs nurse Miller, who seems to him more compassionate than nurse Fieldstone, to pass Hargrove a note

Dude, talk to me.

Steve turns to Max with a request — to collect some tapes from her brother's room, Metallica, Scorpions, Ratt, Mötley Crüe and his other favorite bands,

And asks Mrs. Miller to give them to the moody patient along with an expensive new Sony cassette player, which Harrington bought yesterday on Main Street.

The next day the player is waiting for Steve at the reception — Billy refused to accept the gift, but Harrington does not give in.

"Could you please put it in the drawer of the bedside table, preferably when he is asleep?"

The plan seems to have worked, at least the player is no longer returned. The guy must be climbing walls from hospital boredom.

One day Harrington gets lucky — he's going up to the second floor and bumps into Hargrove, who is being wheeled somewhere in a chair

"Oh, hi! Hello, Mrs. Miller!"

The nurse nods to him. Billy will not make a scene in front of all people, so he reluctantly grits out through his teeth

"Hi."

"How are you?"

"Great."

Steve notices Billy's cheeks turning pink, and the boy is hiding his eyes — he's obviously not very happy that they met like that, when he is in such a helpless state, for Hargrove has always been the machiest macho, hated any manifestation of weakness. And here he is — in a wheelchair.

"Where are you going?"

The guy's patience snaps loose

"Fuck off, will you?"

Well, let's not tempt the fate too hard.

"Have a nice day, Billy!" Steve is impeccably polite, unlike the frowning patient. However, was that not a whole conversation?

Harrington definitely calls it progress.

..

One wonderful autumn day, Steve decides to take an ultimate risk. He is in great mood, and he wants to share it.

Harrington swerves through the streets, listening to the radio while driving, a soft smile playing on his lips. On the way to the hospital, he stops at the "Hawkins Bloom" flower shop and buys a bouquet. Whether it's chrysanthemums or dahlias, he doesn't know.

"What kind of flowers does your girlfriend prefer? Here's a beautiful autumn combination .."

"That's not for a girlfriend. It's uh .. for a friend .. he's in hospital? Something more modest, perhaps? But tasteful. Not cheap."

He feels like he's making excuses

Why the hell ..?

Jesus.

Billy definitely won't like this idea, but Steve's gonna do it anyways.

Cause he feels like it. That's valid enough.

So Steve buys the flowers and brings them to the room. He enters brazenly, without asking permission, puts them on the nightstand and moves it away from the bed — so that Billy cannot reach the bouquet and throw it at the visitor.

Oh, and let Hargrove puff, huff and even chuckle stupidly a couple of times as much as he wants — nothing escapes Steve's attentive eyes — blushing and demanding

"Take away these ugly fucking twigs! Are you out of your fucking mind, Harrington?"

Also, threatening him with physical violence

"I would so whip your ass with it, honestly."

Now that's an interesting offer, now we're talking

Harrington only winks at him, smiles

"Get well, okay?"

And rushes out of the room.

..

Like hardest ice under the persistent heat of the bright spring sun, Hargrove has no choice but to start thawing off, little by little.

One day, Steve arrives at the hospital during reception hours, pokes his head into room number eight

"So how are you? Maybe we should talk?"

Hargrove defiantly rolls his eyes and sighs as though he's so hopelessly tired

"You're such a fucking pain in the ass."

Steve shrugs.

"We are broken up anyway, even though we weren't even together for real, Harrington. Never. For the record. So don't get too carried away."

Billy keeps on grumbling

"You think you brought flowers, gifts, notes, so what? I'm not your chick, for fuck's sake!"

"Well, can we be friends?"

"Nah."

That's fine. He'll come around.

Oh, and did Steve forget to mention they did hook up before all the Mindflayer business went down? Must've slipped his mind in all the commotion.

[brattypagansub]

John Price and Simon Riley headcannons (they’re undefined but act like a couple)

Fight like an old married couple and more than once Soap and Gaz have expected them to punch each other

They’ve each seen the best and worst of one another

Price has ended up in bed with Simon so often that at this point it’s expected after Simon starts drinking

In full surfer voice went ‘dude stoichiometry in my head can’t talk’ and the look Soap gave him was fucking priceless. Meanwhile Price had to explain that this is as close to the old Simon as they’ll ever get.

Price looks to Simon whenever he needs most languages translated that’s not Spanish or Urdu or Russian.

Simon likes to channel Soap and annoy the ever loving fuck out of Price on a duo op. Like singing Uranium Fever while in Chernobyl.

Price told him ‘fuck you’ recently and Ghost auto piloted forgetting they’re part of task force 141 now. Because he said ‘fuck me yourself coward.’ Soap nearly had a stroke and Price had to remember he’s supposed to be the leader and not laugh.

How Simon acts around Price is very different than how he acts around Soap. He’s a lot more prone to mischief and squirrel brained bs.

Price is so used to anticipating Simon’s wants and needs that it’s second nature.

They both sit up ramrod straight when someone mentions MacMillan. Excepting to be chewed out by an angry Irish man for acting up.

Both would commit war crimes to protect Soap and both of them love to fuck with him every chance they get.

Overheard from the rec room

Price: Jesus fucking Christ Simon how does it feel to be six degrees of Kevin bacon in the chart of who slept with who in SAS?

Simon: you’re just mad that your body count is rookie numbers.

Kissed Price in front of 141 in order to steal his French fry. The agressive make out that ensued was them trying to steal it back from each other.

The first time they met to fuck with Price, Simon told him ‘no one will believe you.’ Then peeled off his mask and took out his contacts kissed Price. Then made him endure everyone thinking Price snuck some random blonde onto base.

Price is fairly sure Si is getting too comfortable around him again. Because last week he told him ‘I’d whore myself out for a shot of whiskey.’

[ilions-end]

righto, so i survived reading euripides' andromache (kovacs transl.) even if it was all so so so so so horrible and sad. thoughts:

another one of those plots where i wasn't really familiar with how it develops, so i really didn't know if things were gonna get better or worse!

gOD what a uniquely hopeless and depressing start to the play. andromache is enslaved to the one family who has hurt her the most, constantly victim blamed by her rapist's jealous wife, and in desperation praying to the statue of thetis, the mother of the man who killed her husband. JESUS CHRIST it's all so awful

this play reminds me of the hecuba mostly for clearly being two separate but somewhat linked stories (centering an enslaved woman obvs) smushed together. i really think the hecuba is more cohesive, because this one was like BAM halfway point: andromache exits and then REALLY isn't any kind of factor in the rest of the play.

it's wild to me that the son of andromache and neoptolemus doesn't even get a name in this version! he's just "boy" when he's THIS important? i think he has roughly the same number of spoken lines as orestes! looking it up i see that he's commonly referred to as molasses molossus in this tradition though

of course it can be played in any number of ways, but i noticed in the text how andromache never seems to express any actual affection (or resentment, for that matter) for her son molossus. she is protective of him because she's painfully aware that his survival is directly linked to her own. what a way to grow up. what a painful contrast when you know how much she loved astyanax.

CLEARLY the least sympathetic hermione i've ever come across, and definitely the least sympathetic menelaus as well. evil, evil people

like i was PREPARED for a version of hermione who is afraid and lashing out because her barrenness directly impacts her own safety and stability, especially married to a proven fertile husband who NEEDS to continue achilles' bloodline. but she is like ABOVE AND BEYOND cruel and arrogant and vain. like actual villainess behavior.

jeez, the way hermione accuses andromache of using magic potions (supposedly to keep hermione barren and keep neoptolemus sexually interested in andromache, THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT ANDROMACHE WANTS). hermione do you know who is actually famously a magic potion brewer? YOUR MOTHER, HERMIONE. HELEN DOES THAT. SO SHUT UPPP

the xenophobia aspect is interesting as well. andromache is seen as uncivilized and a barbarian, which is so opposite to the reality of the iliad where the trojans are the ones with a polis protecting their civilized life. AUGH it's so awful!

got a little bit shocked at the aside where andromache admits that she'd help hector when he got repeatedly "tripped by aphrodite" and he had multiple affairs and bastards that andromache even helped nurse?? it's one thing that the attic plays love making hector a lot less admirable than he is in the iliad, but in the play it's framed as andromache being a perfect wife?? like very "you see this, women? you should encourage your husbands to fuck whoever they like". euripides?? dude?

peleus to the rescue!! and he's so on point criticizing menelaus' actions. he's even pro-illegitimate sons because "sometimes stony ground bears better fruit than deep soil"? am i gonna have to lay aside my peleus hate??? (kidding, i know how do that, it's just weird seeing him as THE most righteous man in any story)

i thought for a second that hermione was regretting her murder attempt because, you know, she was targeting the victims and not the perpetrator, but no, she's just remorseful because it didn't work and she got caught.....

HI ORESTES <3 have you come to be morally deplorable and cowardly again hiiiii

the characters can all tell orestes isn't local because he is "of a different hue" than them. interesting!

i know timelines vary greatly but it's so wild when orestes says that even BEFORE the war, menelaus had promised hermione to him. when you were toddlers??? they're matching up little first-cousin babies the moment they pop out??

also dying at how he lays out the whole thing to the woman he wants to steal and have as his wife: "you see, now that i've murdered my mother there's no way anyone outside my family is going to marry me. you're basically the only option i have now". orestes you romantic you........

THE MURDER OF NEOPTOLEMUS THOUGH. first of all, orestes only arranges it and make others do the dirty work, the coward! and neoptolemus is killed AS HE'S PRAYING TO APOLLO IN THE TEMPLE?? and my first thought was "wait isn't this an outrage against the gods akin to the assault of cassandra and the murder of priam"? except i KNOW apollo is in orestes' corner... but then there's that chilling detail about a supernatural voice that reinvigorates the attackers. APOLLO HAS A DIRECT HAND IN NEOPTOLEMUS' DEATH, just like he killed his father! oooh that was actually genuinely chilling.

also the ambush-against-one and on-ground procurement of equipment was very tydeus-coded to me. except tydeus wins that time. i'm perpetually tydeusbrained, sorry.

thetis as the deus ex machina yay!! and then she is so out of character to all other versions i know, helpppp. "what are you doing wasting your energy grieving mortal descendants dying, my glorious husband?? come here and i'll turn you into a god as a final reward for marrying me. let's go hang out with achilles who is immortal on a magic island." ugh. ugh. ugh. i was taking poison damage all through that part. #NotMyThetis

i tried very hard to imagine her so completely destroyed by achilles' death that she became super cynical and cold and nihilistic to the point where she can't even remember caring about her son's mortality or how miserable and humiliating her marriage had been. but MAN.

i KEEP forgetting helenus priamides survived. you better be a GREAT fucking husband helenus!!!!

anyway, the moral of this play is pretty opaque to me. sure they state over and over that "adultery leads to an unhappy marriage" (never mind that one of the participants never consented), but i feel like no one really places the blame at neoptolemus' feet at any point. he actually gets a very heroic death, and the translator lists him as one of the play's sympathetic characters. hermione is way more of an antagonist, so it feels a little like the lesson is "obviously a husband ought not to prefer his concubine to his wife, but IF he strays, she should accept it (and help him do it, like andromache did for hector)" ????

bonus: every time someone criticizes menelaus for overstepping his authority in neoptolemus' household (while neoptolemus is away, very suitors-at-ithaca to me), he's like "no no no it's fine, it's FINE, we were at troy together, us troy veterans always share" and all i could think every time was

[georgies-ftts]

my genuine thoughts and reactions watching One Piece as someone who has never consumed a different piece of One Piece media before

spoilers… obviously…

Episode 1:

thick glaswegian accent straight away you’ve won me over

this guys moustache is immaculate kinda looks like every version of captain hook ever mushed into one

i recognise the scottish guy

random guy #374’s sideburns are… definitely there

slay drop a bomb before you’re executed horribly

cracker opening theme actually 9/10 should’ve been longer

fourth wall break?

nope he’s talking to a bird

okay funky trouser man you shout into the abyss

this birds got better drip than me

‘Mutiny’ funny actually

he’s not having a good time

what the actual fuck is that ship

aldiva? love of my life?

Koby needs a fresh trim… probably… idk

love me some cheeky windmills

i recognise red hair hat man too

that kids fully gonna die

luffy is fuckin nuts

is he eating… raw??? steak???

australian pink haired harrypotter is about to shit himself

dudes about to get his shit rocked

funky hat man??? is fucking??? elastic

rope burn doesn’t exist in this universe

elastic head is genuinely fuckin horrific

but also slay

think i’m gonna like depressed green hair man

Mr 7 is wearing two ruffs….

‘My favourite is number 1’ fuck him up emotionally i like it

and then fuck him physically this is going grand actually

sword fights that are choreographed immaculately and with fluid camera movements truly do hold a very special place in my heart

oh wait is the luffy kid funky straw hat man

“your mug” yes get that slang in there

wait but luffy has a steady american accent with no twangs

purple orb i’d eat it

oh so would he apparently

what the fuck it’s green

who the fuck is red haired hat man i can’t be bothered to pull up imdb

don’t kill shanks he treats the bar staff with respect

he was in ‘fresh meat’ i found him

he’s so gonna die

i’d slap man bun guy so fuckin hard

luffy needs to like… have a nap or something

woah luffy straight in there with the insults

he had a munch and now he’s a bit bendy

now i recognise koby jesus christ

didn’t need to slap the poor guy jesus

koby is cute i like them

ginger woman floating in the sea

“sweetheart” fucking get rid of them

is she gonna fuck em up

slay queen found a new love of my life and she’s wearing funky socks

‘where’s my face?’ bruvva i could squish your cheeks like a toddler that wall is not for you

it’s green haired sword guy love him

“one for my friend” dude that is a body. in a sack.

it’s ginger sock girl, marry me

blonde british man is gonna catch these fists, sir that is a child leave her alone

lucious malfoy looking ass

yes Zoro (the subtitles are the only reason i know what’s goi-)

did he just eat that off the floor.

blonde british man is fucking terrifying

another sword fight???????

kolby you are me actually

fuck them up fuck them up fuck them up

i’m a lesbian but i do think green haired man just turned me bisexual

“my father” jesus fuckin christ they hired draco malfoy

like the rum???

jesus christ daddy’s boy needs a fuckin gag or some shit

i want Zoro’s earrings please

why does this man have a metal plate bolted into his face

“where does it even go” i think you know

koby realising not everything that’s made out to be ‘good’ is always good slay, we love a little bit of depth

i love a cgi sewer pipe

jesus chrrriiiiiiist draco malfoy is back

kick him in the balls

“when i get down” dude you are literally half on the floor already….

my wife ginger socks girl is back everything is good

she’s gone again, devastated

luffy kinda has the percy jackson cockiness yknow?

luffy 10/10 would do a phycology gcse

fucking english bastards ruining everything

it’s fine she fucked em up again

what is the grand line may i ask

her eyes are stunning

i think she just shat herself

draco malfoy needs to go what the-

that’s his bare arse

chop his dick off

please

i beg you

i think luffy just wants some friends

she’s a pickpocket too holy fuck-

“i’m never joining” yuh huh sure

why’s she searching the papers on the desk surely they would be in a draw or some shit or like a secret message or something

win for luffy

153rd marines really doesn’t sound all that threatening

so he’s like… hench as fuck too?

protect the hat luffy as you should

green haired man’s just pitched up c’mon

slay, literally and figuratively

is he wearing zebra trousers?

not where i thought the sword went…

yeaaahhh fuck him up

that kick was fucking immaculate

so green man is also fuckin hench???

oi listen to the queen

HA MALFOYS HAIR REMINDS ME OF MY WEIRD BARBIE

zoro smiled that’s it life is good

KOBY MY SON

koby no don’t

okay koby you slay love you

you keep them massive fuck off glasses safe

do they meet again? please tell my they meet again and they both live and are happy i will cry-

ooo action music my favourite kind of tv music

what the fuck is that snail and why is it also a phone

SCOTTISH MAN IS BACK

they took your mum actually

a pirate in a straw hat who’s skin is made of rubber thankyou

ooo new emo green haired man

they infact we’re not planning anything ever

that’s that one guy from agents of shield

jesus he’s fuckin creepy

oh that’s terrifying actually

FUCKIN TUNE

[scaryscarecrows]

"Hold On, We're Going To Have To Improvise."

“I need you to get me Mark’s number.”

Jimmy blinks. It’s not like Antoine never calls him, or even never calls him for information, but he doesn’t usually open conversations like that .

“Hang on.” It’ll take a minute. Mark moves around a lot more than some people. Last month he was over in Nigeria, but now… “What’s going on?”

“Something’s come up.”

“No shit something’s come up.” Not there now…okay… “What is it?”

Antoine does that thing with his tongue that says he’s debating on how much he should share. Jimmy is now starting to panic.

“So that fun Halloween party we all attended–”

“My lines are secure,” Jimmy says, only a little offended. “The fuck? Did Batman track you down or something?”

“Not exactly.” There’s the clatter of stuff. “Where is that first-aid…there you are! The boss sort of broke into my apartment.”

Distantly, Jimmy thinks this is the second time this has happened.

“Why?”

“Run-in with Copperhead, apparently.”

Shit.

Shit, shit-shit. Okay. Um.

“Dude, you need, like, a rocket launcher. Or to move.”

“Can’t. He’s all fucked up. I have no idea how he even got here, to be honest, but I’m not asking.” There’s the rough closing of a cabinet door and when Antoine speaks again, he’s got his Commanding Officer Voice on. “So I need Mark’s number, and I need it now.”

Jimmy barely clamps down on a sir, yessir! Barely.

“Just about got it,” he says instead, already opening up another tab to book a flight out. “Two minutes. What happened?”

“I disrupted a trafficker’s income flow and he took offense,” comes a dry response, followed by a hiss and a, “The hell is that stuff, acid?”

“I’m not the idiot that let this go,” Antoine mutters. “Just hold still, I suck at stitches.”

He really does. Jimmy doesn’t envy the boss on this.

Copperhead, though…Jesus. Even Riley would probably think twice before tangling with her. 

“Of course you did,” he says, and honestly, it’s not a surprise. Jimmy’s been keeping one eye on the Red Hood ever since he showed up, just…just to know, y’know? Barring the costume, it’s really no different than the Knight he remembers. Sure, the Gotham Thing happened, but before that…even at his most volatile (and he could be volatile, Jesus Christ), there was still that strong, borderline suicidal determination to help.* Not that the general public was going to notice; what few ghost stories got out were far, far more interested in the whole ‘came outta nowhere, butchered half my gang, fucked off into the night’ thing. “All right, found Mark. Texting his number to you.”

And got himself a flight booked. This is why he keeps a go bag. 

“Good,” Antoine says, at the same time that the boss winces and goes, “Christ, you’re actually trying to kill me.”

“What’s going on?”

“I didn’t break those ribs,” Antoine grumbles. “Hold on, we’re gonna have to improvise because I do not have…”

His voice trails off. Jimmy kinda wants to ask what’s going on, but at the same time, he doesn’t think he wants to know. So sue him, he’s a little squeamish about blood and things.

“Okay, be right back, I gotta find a thing.”

Jimmy’s expecting the phone to be left, but it’s not. That means he can ask a little bit.

“Well?”

Antoine’s quiet. There’s the sound of a drawer being opened.

“He’s messed up, man,” he finally says in a low voice. “And she did apparently nail him with some kind of poison. I’m gonna call Mark. I’ll call you back if something comes up.”

“Right.”

* * *

Antoine is well aware that his stitches are less than awesome, but his ghetto-ed up shoulder brace is actually pretty great.

Ignoring the fact that it’s made out of a truly hideous scarf Delilah gave him for his birthday. It’s a cheap piece of shit with gnomes on it. She thought it was hysterical. Sisters suck.

“Mark’s gonna text me Trent’s number,” he says. The boss, now apparently nearing the end of his ability to stay awake, just nods.

“S’good,” he breathes. “S’good. T’anks.”

He looks like hell, even now that he’s cleaned up a bit. Antoine had found an oversized set of sweats he’d gotten years ago, to accommodate casts, but they really don’t fit him well. Can’t be helped. No more hacking up blood, but Antoine’s not sure that he’s not just trying really, really hard to keep a lid on it.

“This isn’t some sort of weird mind control poison, is it?”

The laugh he gets in response is rough and pained, but it still sounds like the Arkham Knight even without the modulator.

“No,” he says. “Nothing like that, wouldn’t ‘ve…”

Yeah, fair enough.

“Just checking. Maybe go to sleep or something, I don’t know. Can’t hurt, right?”

“Mm-hm.” He prods at the ugly gnome scarf (fucking Delilah, she knows he hates gnomes, they’re creepy and that one Goosebumps book had gnomes from hell) and closes his eyes. “S’good idea.”

Antoine resists the urge to ruffle his hair like he does with his niblings. Barely.

Christ, this was not something that he thought he’d have to deal with today. And he has the sinking feeling that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

“I know I’m not the close choice,” he says. The boss cracks an eye open. “And it’s not like I mind, but. Why here.”

The eye closes again. Antoine’s just starting to think he’s not getting an answer when, “You were the closest. Technically speaking.”

Huh…oh. Yeah, of their little…little cluster, only Jimmy and Frank are also still stateside. Frank, last Antoine heard, was in Roswell. Jimmy’s back in Seattle. Antoine’s in New Orleans, because sometimes you gotta go home, but that does make him the closest, he guesses.

“‘Sides,” the boss continues, voice starting to slur the way voices do when people are really fighting for consciousness, “trusted you not to kill me.”

“That’s a low bar, boss.”

“Mm.”

“Maybe go to sleep.”

“Mm.”

THE END

*The tie-in comics (from which I cherry-pick, as they frequently contradict the games) do feature Jason rescuing a family from being possibly murdered. He has his own motives for this, but still.

[negasonicimagines]

Afraid / Part 2: An Impossible Reunion

You offer Wade a gift in the form of a test, and he finds out one of the disturbing ways in which your pasts intertwine.

It’s not long, maybe a week, before Wade receives his first assignment. He realizes then and there that you’re either not as informed as you portrayed yourself to be, or you’re testing him. 

It’s her. He didn’t even know she was alive. After the bridge collapsed, he’d assumed… Well, you know what they say about the way assume is spelled. 

It takes another week to get used to her rhythm, the places she goes and the people she meets up with. It’s supremely easy, combining his experience and your advice. He takes her out with a tranquilizer dart, using one of the neutralizer collars someone must’ve stolen from the ice box to make sure she can’t fight back once she awakens. 

He pulls her out of the trunk and slings her over his shoulder, taking her along to the basement entrance. You meet him there, a different sort of smile on your face than the one he saw before. 

You telekinetically lift her from his shoulder and the two of you proceed to a room he didn’t encounter when he was exploring before. 

A retinal scan unlocks it. 

“What-”

A look silences him, before you plop her down in the chair at the center. You approach her, taking the collar off.

“Dude, she’ll…”

“Will she?” you ask. 

Angel’s eyes open, and she grins back at you. 

“I was wondering when you’d come for me. You finally got him. Good for you. What do you want to know?”

You laugh, but once again, it’s not the laughter he’s heard from the last week: not the chuckle you gave when he made that pun about eating tacos, nor the surprised giggle when he joked about evisceration. It’s almost soundless, a clicking from your throat as your sick smile grows wider.

“You have nothing of significance to offer me but your death.”

Angel tries to get up, but she’s forced back down by an invisible force. 

“You little bitch!” Angel shrieks. “This is all your fault! It’s all your fault! We were trying to make another you! That’s why-!”

She chokes, squirming in her seat like she’s trying to struggle out of something that isn’t there. 

“I know,” you reply. “That doesn’t change the past, though, does it? That doesn’t make me the one who… Well, you know. You were there. A participant. How does it feel to drown?”

She coughs, taking deep breaths.

“Fuck you.”

“I want every password and code phrase you know. Now.”

Angel lists off a string of words and numbers. You nod. 

“Good. Now, I want you to apologize to my friend for… Well, everything. And I want you to mean it.”

Angel’s eyes widen like she’s had some sort of epiphany. 

“Oh god… Oh, god, I- I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I- Why? How…”

She stops. Your clicking laughter resumes. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re a monster. Thank fucking God we didn’t succeed. Just kill me now, get it over with.”

“No. I wanna make you lick his boots first,” you say. “Come on. Do it. It’s gonna hurt if I make you.”

Angel’s face contorts from anger to disgust. She gets out of the chair, getting on her hands and knees and crawling closer. Suddenly, she reaches out for your ankle. Wade jumps, but you don’t. 

He hears something like the sound of spaghetti breaking. 

It’s her hand. 

“Try again,” you tell her in a whisper. Her arms and legs jerk as she crawls closer, now forced by an unseen hand. Yours. Her face is shoved into his steel-toed shoe. “Oops.”

She licks it, cringing. Then the other. 

You throw her back into the chair. She turns to him, and it’s then he realizes that he’s actually present, not just watching these events play out.

“This is all because of her. Everything that happened to-”

“Blaming me for what you did to my father won’t change your fate, Christine. It’ll only make it more painful.”

“But it’s not just your father, is it? How’s… What do you call him, Teddy?”

Your hands shake. 

“Who’s Teddy?” Wade asks. 

“She didn’t tell you? He’s-”

“Shut up!” you scream. 

Angel explodes. No, she’s vaporized, specks of her covering the room, you, and Wade. 

You catch your breath, recollecting yourself before hosing off the walls and floor. This happens often enough for the room to be equipped with one?!

“Who’s Teddy?” Wade asks again.

“He’s- He was one of yours. He was just a little kid. They- They gave him cancer through radioactive exposure, to try to… Well, make another you. All I could do was make him comfortable.”

“Fuck,” Wade sighs. 

“And you weren’t there. You should’ve been there, but you weren’t.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I know. I’ve been trying really hard not to be angry with you for it. Even Colossus and Eloise didn’t know why we were pushing so hard, mutates aren’t usually a top priority for this place. But we needed you. We needed you so badly and you-” You stop the second your voice cracks, covering your mouth. Your shoulders tremble. 

“I’m sorry. It’s… Thank you. For taking care of him, and the others, I’m sure he’s not the only one who went unclaimed.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” you reply, sounding angry again, but that’s better for him than crying. Or throwing up, he’s not sure which one you were about to do. “It’s late. You should get to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow and go over the report with you then.” 

“Levi…” he trails off. It feels like something’s been left unsaid. “You should get some sleep, too.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I’m sorry for not letting you kill her. It was supposed to be a welcome present, but I ruined it. I’ll find you someone else, okay? You might not recognize them as well, but they’ll be from your facility.”

“You are just the sweetest, aren’t you? No worries, peaches. Did I pass your test?”

“With flying colors.”

Xavier had you enrolled in piano lessons as soon as he caught you admiring the grand piano in the den. Eloise’s parents had her playing the bass as soon as she could walk, but once she started caring about music more than her grades, they took her out of lessons. 

They couldn’t stop her here, though. No one could stop either of you. The two of you had taken a liking to finding pieces to learn and play together. 

Miss Frost suggested you play in the talent show. You were apprehensive, but Eloise goaded you into it. 

“How different is it from swimming? It’s just a different kind of performance,” she said. You admitted she was right, but you would’ve even if she was wrong. After all, it was something she wanted to do with you. 

And anything she wanted to do with you, she could. You knew how you felt. You knew what you thought. Being such close friends from the beginning of your time there, it was fun at first, having a secret from her. Then, it became painful. There was no way she felt the same way, or else she wouldn’t hold your hand and hug you so casually. 

Sometimes, though, you wished you could read minds like Miss Frost seemed to think you could. She said with practice you’d be able to, but whenever you tried, it was just noise. You couldn’t focus on any person in particular. 

You would’ve given anything to know what she thought as she caressed the strings with her bow, playing along with your masterful strokes of the keys. It was nice to be called a prodigy again, this time with a skill that couldn’t be discredited. 

It was nice to be with her, making beautiful music. It was. 

The next morning, Wade happily strolls to Office D with a box of donuts. 

“You should tell him, Levi. You said we have the right to know whatever we want about you. It’s a good rule, you should honor it.”

“No, he has to ask. And by the time he asks, he’ll already hate me.”

“That’s not fair! You don’t know that!”

“I do! You’re not him, stop pretending to be.”

“I’m not pretending to be him, I’m trying to help you, you fuckin’ brat!”

“Fuck you! You don’t know anything about me!”

“Then maybe you’re right. Maybe to know you is to hate you.” 

Logan sneezes, and Wade decides that the break in conversation is the best time to enter. 

“Okay, so, I was thinking: I’m Blossom, you’re Buttercup, and… Bubbles, why are you crying?”

“She’s crying?” Logan asks, turning around. “What the fuck? No, she isn’t. She’s just staring at me with that same creepy smile she always has.”

“You’re immune to my powers, Wade. In the future, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t point things out if you don’t think anyone else can see them. You’re used to that, aren’t you?”

“Is that what you were supposed to tell me? Oh, I bet you were gonna ask me to be your BFF! Because if I can love you without you using your powers, then maybe El-”

“I can still control the air around you,” you inform him after giving him an uppercut with the wind to shut his mouth. 

“So, you really are crying?” Logan asks. “I thought with my bones being plated with adamantium, advanced mind control like that wasn’t possible.”

“Went through your nose. That’s why you sneezed.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you cry. You have a right to your own decisions, even if they piss me off. It’s your life. I’m sorry, kid.”

“All’s forgiven. Being able to basically have whatever I want, whenever I want does tend to make me act spoiled sometimes.”

“Nah, you… You had a point, too.” 

“Now, donuts?” Wade offers. He gets the feeling that there was more at stake in that conversation than you two are letting on, but he’s content to watch this play out. It’s nice to be a part of a team again. 

“Absolutely,” you agree, smiling. He doesn’t find it as unnerving as he did upon your initial meeting, nor as creepy as it was last night. It’s something peaceful. “Thanks for picking these up. It’s been a while since I’ve had one.”

“Same here,” Logan agrees as they each take a donut from the box. 

Wade plops down on the loveseat next to Logan. 

“So, uh… The report?”

“Right. Angel did give me a couple of new passwords, or maybe really old ones that we didn’t have before… That might not sound like much— it really might not be —but I’ll have to see which databases we can access with them and if she had access to any files other users didn’t.”

“Uh, am I… Can you make him sneeze again?”

“You can talk about anything that happened last night. As long as you use common sense and keep things vague when needed, you can speak freely. The harder we try to keep this under wraps, the more obvious it is we’re hiding something.”

“Okay, so, why didn’t we hold her for ransom? Get more info from somebody else, or get them to release some subjects to us?”

“We’ve tried that before. Most of their assets are worthless to them once they’ve been compromised. Unfortunately, we’re doing them a favor by killing them. Weapon X and the assets.”

“Gotcha.” 

“Wait, you guys killed somebody last night?” Logan asks.

“…Yeah? It’s kinda what we do here. At least on my end. We can’t all go charging off on rescue missions like you. Once Wade’s trained up, he can take my place and I can fully take Datamine’s, instead of trying to do all three jobs at the same time.”

“So, last night… You did that on your own, normally?”

“Mhm,” you confirm, typing on the computer. 

“And I’m guessing Datamine was a lot better at hacking than you.”

“Mostly. As the name implies, she instinctively knows exactly where to look for whatever information she’s needing. Why do you ask?”

“I think what Wade’s getting at is that you were doing the job of three for a while due to the old me kicking the bucket, and I should go easier on you,” Logan interjects. 

“You give me too much credit. I’m just nosy!” Wade chirps. “But, wait, that wasn’t your first time? I thought we had something special…”

“Gross,” you scoff. “No. Like I told you, I let people down. I was supposed to be a shining example of a powerful mutant that would never ever hurt anybody…” you trail off with a bittersweet smile at your own joke. “But that didn’t quite work out.”

“It was cool, though. The way she just went poof in a cloud of bloody mist, I mean, wow!”

“Thanks, I guess,” you reply, still typing. 

“Alright, so no assignments for us today, little swimmer?”

“Nope, check back later. Probably tomorrow.” You stop, suddenly realizing what he said. “And don’t ever call me that again.” 

Even Logan laughs. 

“See you then, kid.” 

“Toodles, Bubbles! I’ll leave the donuts for ya so you can get that sugar rush going.”

“Thanks. See you later.”

In the case of Levi versus Sweet Saplings Adoption Agency, the court rules in favor of the respondent. Due to the…” It was all static to you after that until the word “Dismissed.”

You sighed before you got up, trudging towards the one quiet person in the room. She’d been subpoenaed, too, of course.

She looked at you sadly. 

“I am so sorry,” she said quietly. “They seemed so kind and loving.”

“I believe you,” you replied. “And I’m not going to ask you for anything, except… Can you tell me about him? So I can find him one day, when the dust settles? I’ll do everything I can to leave you out of it, and you know by now that I’m capable of a lot. I can’t make you, though, not like I can with other people, so… Please.” 

“I figured you’d want to know. I made this and printed it out, it’s got his name, birthday, some of your relative’s names, things like that.  I don’t have any direct contact information, but I found his social media profiles. They’re private, but maybe he’ll accept your follow request or you can find a way around it.”

She held the paper out to you, but you covered your eyes. 

“Fold it up. I’m- I’m not ready right now.”

“But you just- Okay, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that. I don’t know you.”

“Right. I didn’t just do this for him and me, I did it for you, too. I wanted you to have a better life than either of us could give you.”

“I know. I know. But- I don’t…”

“Y/N, come along. We’ll miss our flight,” Miss Frost said, taking the paper from your mother and folding it before tucking it into her pocket. She guided you by the hand out of the courthouse, into a stream of reporters outside.

“The cameras will see me. They might not see me, but the cameras will,” you told her in a hushed whisper. “If I start crying, they’ll see me. And they want to. I can hear them, all of them. It’s disgusting, make it stop, why did you teach me how to hear this?”

Miss Frost made a headline just as big by publicly taking her diamond form for the first time and embracing you, her hands shielding your head. 

Silence at last… But it didn’t last. Nothing does. 

[majorasnightmare]

Please elaborate on the Ganondorf Au(s), I gotta know, lol I my immediate first thought was this weird/elaborate Coffee Shop AU where Zelda and Link are running some small-time locally owned franchise (like two, maybe three stores)... and Ganondorf rolls up in some Super-Starbucks trying to take over or push them out of business... why did that come to me so quickly, lmao

OKAY S O

jesus christ this is long

i find ganondorf to be a deeply compelling character. this is in part to the way pre botw zelda games utilized him as both a villain and as this symbolic culmination of evil.

now other games may have done this, but none immediately come to mind, as one of the most compelling aspects of ganondorfs character is that before botw? every instance in every game was the SAME dude (except skyward sword but ill talk about that later). that allowed games with stronger narrative focus to flesh him out in greater detail, while a game with a more cut and dry story but flashier cinematics could really sell his menace, and future iterations could carry the boons of both.

now the zelda timeline is a mess, and the games themselves were not built around that concept. at most youd get direct sequels like majoras mask, or games directly referencing an older title as part of their history, like twilight princess. one should not take the timeline as Word Of God Canon (even though there are multiple official books that reference it), but they all kind of work together to give you a bigger picture. this is especially true for the 2d zeldas, as Ganondorf The Character wasnt really an explored concept back then. you instead had dark beast ganon (who once took human form as dude named Aganhim but hes. separate. like hes canon and important but most of what he contributes to Ganondorf As Character is the dark evil wizard vibes).

in general, when looking at ganondorfs character youll mostly be examining four titles: Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Windwaker, and Skyward Sword. skyward sword is unique in a lot of ways because it IS made with the "zelda timeline" in mind, and is the timelines official beginning. here we get the forging of the master sword, the first imprisoning war, and! a guy that is NOT ganondorf! demon king demise is the end game boss here, and while i could dedicate a post to analyzing his limited screentime, whats important to this convo is that demise lays a curse upon his defeat. those bearing the soul of the hero (link, who reincarnates), the blood of the goddess hylia (zelda, who does not and instead has descendants inheriting power) will be caught in a cycle of war and blood with the bearer of demise's hatred (ganondorf!). and THERES the money. that last part there helps contribute a LOT to further analyzing ganondorfs character throughout these games because, as mentioned before, they build on each other!

the plot of ocarina of time is not deep. its an enjoyable game, but like most zelda entries, its a paint by numbers tale of a good hero overcoming an evil villain who kidnaps a Notable Woman as the final build towards the climax, wherein you kick his ass free the girl and kill him. (kind of. ganondorf never really DIES) HOWEVER. twilight princess, windwaker, and skyward sword, by virtue of focusing on this SAME DUDE, end up giving a LOT of retroactive depth! its a really fun phenomenon!

that tears of the kingdom throws in the fucking trash! for!! some reason!! WHY. why the hell would you spend 25 years making a layer cake piece by piece and then throw it in the trash in favor of box mix cupcakes??? I DONT GET IT MAN.

totk isnt. a BAD game per se. theres a lot to enjoy about it.

narrative is not one of those things.

tiptoeing around spoilers here but discussing them generally

the dragon tears are, among other things, about ganondorfs rise to power, to reach his current end game boss state. despite this. he has a grand total of three scenes before he GETS that power. one of which is him laughing, one of which is a poorer retelling of a scene from OoT, and the last one is his introduction where he does fuck all. WHERES THE MOTIVE HERE????

OoT is my least favorite entry of the 4 games listed above. it has a lot of dated narrative elements and systemic issues that continue to plague nintendo to this day (misogyny and racism as per usual). despite this, i find myself returning to OoTs narrative and characterization REPEATEDLY in totk because in so many aspects it just storytells better! yes totk is an open world game with a hands off narrative approach. but botw has that concept down pat and is a more satisfying experience. totk is a more narrative focused botw, and yet its storytelling sucks WORSE than botws and doesnt even measure up to OLDER TITLES. more detailed rants on that are for another time.

so what is a bitch with a special interest in zelda and a fixation on its most charismatic villain to do when presented with an otherwise enjoyable game that is deeply unsatisfying in regards to aforementioned autistic bitchs favorite villain?

obviously make an au thats TotK But Better For Me And My Bros Specifically (thanks @villalunae ily forever)

but if your gonna do that, might as well go full self indulgence, right?

due to aforementioned Ganondorf Characterization Layer Cake, theres a LOT of fun Implied Nuance to play around with, of most importance is ganondorfs relationship with the gerudo, and the gerudos relationship to hyrule. demises curse and the elements of destiny and fate add some fun compounding factors to really amp the tension up, but in my opinion only really ever serve as The Last Straw so to speak. its important that ganondorf is someone who chooses to be this way! but choices arent made in a vacuum, and prying those circumstances apart gives you so many potential ways for this to End Differently.

so seeing that TotK Ganondorf is NOT the OG OoT Ganondorf, the idea here is to further explore the concept of like. WHY is he a villain? villain is a socially constructed category afterall. how do you focus on those circumstances and their effects on a person? how does the political situation of hyrule play into this?

a personal favorite interpretation of mine (and other ppls judging by the plethora of fan content in a similar vein), is this idea of a Redeemed Ganondorf, a variation where ganondorf is NOT the final boss, but instead an ally of link and zeldas. wrt this particular au, that looks a lot like locking everyone in a room together and see who starts throwing things first.

so with that in mind, i just ended up going through scene after scene in totk and thinking of how a redeemable ganondorf would play out. what kind of personality would he have, how would he interact with these other characters, what are his relationships like? whats his driving motive, how committed to these ideas is he, whats his breaking point and why? and then playing with those ideas and throwing them against other characters, how does he interact with the sages, how does he interact with rauru, how does he interact with ZELDA?

a lot of that informs the baseline of how we ended up going through making the au (alongside a hefty dose of writers worldbuilding dilemma lmao) and also serves as the foundation of subsequent sequel aus that as of right now exist solely as amvs in my head.

so in summary theres two?? maybe 3??? that im just marinating in.

the main unnamed totk au, where the triforce trio work alongside each other to put an end to demises curse of hatred once and for all, with a large focus on character dynamics and their relationships to each other (and also plenty of self indulgence. ghirahim got tossed back in there. and fi)

and then, after that, a kind of hypothetical sequel game to totk au. set 100 years after the ending events of totk au, the trio + co navigate a world where the threat of ganondorfs rise to power is no longer the primary problem hyrule suffers, but instead a power vacuum in the realm of demons, leading to a slowly rising threat of demon incursion. focuses on how your "party" (ganondorfs reincarnation, links reincarnation, and a non-princess zelda, alongside naboorus reincarnation, and impa (neither a reincarnation nor a descendant but once again paying homage to impa as a recurring character)) gets along with each other and how, as the years go by (i have. TWO seperate time skips so far), their relationships to each other change, and how their goals and ideals grow and change in response to the shifting landscape of threat in hyrule

the last one, technically, is a modern au that mostly works as background context for triforce trio shitposting.

(ur idea for a coffee shop au is fuckn FANTASTIC btw i love it)

GOD this post got long. thanks for holdin out so long for all this! i can definitely make long as fuck posts about. p much anything in totk and how it gets changed or reinterpreted in totk au, or ganondorfs relationships in that au, because they live in my brain rent free.

[thepioden]

for the tav asks, 3, 4, 15, and 25?

THANKS I'D LOVE TO

Since you didn't specify, all extant Tavs' answers under the cut

3: Race and subclass?

Themistocles: Tiefling (Devil's Tongue Variant) Conjuration Wizard. He's also technically 1/4 dragon for '3rd generation adventurer' reasons but this is mechanically a nonissue because see above re: Tiefling.

Xilkalyn: Drow Twilight Cleric (thanks, Cleric Subclass Mods!) In the Vanilla game, he'd be a Light Cleric, but he's also my PC from Waterdeep Dragon Heist, where he is a Twilight Cleric of Selune.

Revka: Brass Dragonborn Open-Hand Monk. She's my only girl who wasn't a 5e PC I'm re-using and therefore she gets No Modded Special Privileges or Background.

4: If your Tav was a companion, where would they be found?

T: You probably have to rescue his dipshit tail from that adventuring party in the temple ruins. "Talk fast eat ass" does not get you very far in the wilderness, turns out.

X: Has contrived to get himself to the druid grove and is probably hanging out with Wyll and making himself insufferably useful. Doesn't feel great about the Drow cadaver on the slab in Nettie's chambers though I'll tell you what.

R: You have to break up a fight between her and Astarion, because she wandered into him first, he tried the knife thing, and they got into a STR 8 DEX-off stalemate.

15: What NPC's do they like? Which one's do they dislike?

T: Likes - He has latched on to Rolan like some sort of nerdy leech. Wants to talk Wizard shit and also smack him upside the head also maybe smooch his dumb face? (This is a problem Tim has with a lot of people, including favorite NPC number 2:) Dammon, who he wants to come live in their camp and make them cool magic items. He likes that Dammon is competent but also a fucking weirdo. Tell Tim about the Hells, Dammon. Spare no detail. Dislikes - Lorroakan. That dude is a disgrace to Wizardry, what the fuck. Headcanon that he has Professional Wizard Beef with him from before the game timeline. Raphael. You're just a Cambion, motherfucker, calm down. Same to you, Mizora. You could do better, Wyll. Enver Gortash, because he dicked over Best Girl Karlach Cliffgate.

X: Likes - Xilkalyn actually recruits Minthara (now that you can do it without committing atrocities), so Halsin is his favorite! They get along, being relatively well-adjusted. He's extremely fond of Alfira, because he has a terminal soft-spot for Bards and she's very Nice. He feels religiously obligated to like Dame Aylin but she's. Intense. He's mostly intimidated by Dame Aylin. Dislikes - Holy shit on a stick but Viconia DeVir. She is a microcosm of so much generational trauma and also so much Kalyn Is Actively A Selunite and so much This Is Why People Don't Like Us. The Emperor. Xilkalyn extended so much benefit of the doubt and for what, man. For fucking what.

R: Likes - Has big-sisterly feeling towards Mol that are probably unwarranted and are certainly unreciprocated. Simps for Nine-Fingers because her taste in women is "dangerous." Much like Tim, also think Lucretious is Neat. Blurg and Omeluum! They're chill dudes, she respects what they've got going down, calm down, Lae'zel. Dislikes - the Zhentarim. Rugan didn't deserve that, probably. Orin, because, Jesus Christ, also, give Lae'zel back >:(

25: What arcana major best represents your Tav?

T: Wheel of Fortune

X: The Hanged Man

R: The Chariot

[valleykarate]

“you shouldn’t have seen that” johnny

GIVEN THE DRAMATIC REVEAL OF ETHAN'S ELDRITCH NATURE, JOHNNY WOULD LIKE TO SAY THAT HE’S COMPLETELY CHILL WITH WHATEVER HIS SON-IN-LAW GETS UP TO, or the odd things that happen around him, because of him. ...except for he isn’t fully used to everything yet. he’s only human, after all. because of ethan's... outlandish quirkiness, johnny's started anticipating more & more weird shit to just start happening whenever it feels like happening. power outages, for one. it's why he's stocked up on those battery-powered camping lantern things in his apartment, & extra batteries. his fridge has an extra two gallons of drinkable water. but it's fine, because the power doesn't go out for long enough to have to resort any of that. (the reveal also explains the seemingly endless, pretty scary storms that continually rolled over the valley while robby was a member of cobra kai.) ethan's just a chaotic kid, & now that his 'locks' have been broken, the floodgates of ethan's genuine chaotic nature have well & truly been unleashed out into the world.

unlike larusso & his big freak out when the news of ethan's nonhuman nature broke, johnny's learned to accept it, support him, & roll with the punches, because johnny's life has been full of oddities. let's see... his best dude friend was dating his other best dude friend & best chick friend when they were growing up... & he had no idea until their wedding.

number two: his son figure, his biological son, & his daughter figures are engaged to a nonhuman entity - their rings were made by him with his powers. they double as silent eldritch panic alarms. number three: ethan's parents are badass karate fighters in this life, but also wade is apparently from a comic book on some alternate life & is deadpool, & vanessa, wade's wife, is the woman he loves in that same film, but they were all brought over here because of ethan. (ethan's very tight-lipped as to explaining why they decided to come to the valley, though, that little shit. he knows that, because he's asked miguel & tory repeatedly if he's said anything. according to tory, ethan won't even tell them why, so it must be super private, super important information.) lastly, but not least... ethan's earplugs? those are so he doesn't have to hear sounds that only his eldritch hearing can pick up on. so he doesn't destroy the universe.

...jesus christ. if he didn't feel bad about making fun of ethan's earplugs when he first met the kid with robby at his side, he sure as hell does now. potential destruction of the universe by a then '16'-year-old kid is too existentially terrifying for johnny to handle.

despite that, johnny can handle his son's fiancé being the third ever thing (ethan's words, not his) in existence. it's just another oddity added to the list. he's semi-processed that information. he's done his best to adapt to the weirdness of it all. he's trying to move on. it's no biggie.

yesterday morning, ethan dropped off a pretty neat present at johnny's front doorstep, without needing to even be there. it's what ethan proudly calls 'a shiny', something he'd mentioned to johnny while he was visiting ethan's apartment. ethan'd explained the gist while flapping his arms, sitting on robby's lap. & by that, he'd only said it was a good thing. nothing to be alarmed about. the 'shiny' at johnny's doorstep was a small, ankle-high animated, carved wooden stick figure of johnny dressed in an eagle fang gi fighting someone - silver, based on the silver ponytail, angry-looking chin & black cobra kai gai - repeatedly. no two animations were the same. every punch 'silver' threw, 'johnny' blocked or countered using a mix of miyagi-do, cobra kai & eagle fang techniques. it was honestly super impressive. johnny had been confused, but took the gift inside. & yes, it was made out of actual, high-quality grade wood... oak or some shit. he'd immediately dialed wade to ask what the fuck it meant.

wade'd laughed & likened it to a cat with a dead rodent walking up to its owner & putting its fresh kill at their feet. it's a symbol of trust for ethan, to gift these 'shinies', & a desire to show appreciation to him. it means ethan likes him even more than he did before, & that he's grateful that he didn't shun him.

score, lawrence.

hawk whistled once he saw the animations in a video johnny'd sent him, calling the animations fluid & something out of a marvel movie. the stick figure gift stops moving if johnny doesn't think about it, & it changes into whatever johnny wants it to. right now, it's a (real) photograph of carmen & miguel smiling at the camera. it's currently sitting on the island in his apartment's kitchen.

unfortunately, while johnny's used to the oddities of ethan, he's not too used to the whole body horror aspect of the boy's eldritch side yet. namely, the fact that the veins in his hands, arms & his eyes can glow different colors. the veins underneath & around his eyes can, too. he's also not used to the three sets of ink-black wings that sprout from his back whenever he feels like making them appear. & ethan's not a small kid, he's 6'6, so the wings aren't small either. the bones cracking, the glowing eyes & veins, the tar-black feathers just appearing out from nowhere… he’s not used to it yet.

it’s what johnny, sam, robby, miguel & tory are currently looking at right now. ethan’d gotten spooked by the fire alarm going off in the building next to his apartment & reacted defensively. (as opposed to offensively, thank god.) he’d sprung up from miguel’s lap, his hands immediately clasping over his ears, his wings sprouting, eyes glowing ink black. he snarls something in a non-human language johnny can’t even begin to understand. it just comes out of ethan’s human mouth as a series of oddly pitched hisses & clicks/pops. the lights in ethan’s apartment flicker a few times violently.

the action of ethan going from looking entirely human to suddenly not in an instant makes johnny take a single step back from him in surprise. that causes ethan to freeze up in pure panic. the wounds of almost everyone else’s recent rejection of his true nature still a traumatic, scary event for the eldritch. those wounds haven’t healed over, & johnny secretly doubts they ever will.

all of the non-human features melt away immediately, except for his ink-black eyes. ethan looks like he’s on the verge of either a panic attack or losing his shit… neither are preferable in this situation. tory & miguel are instantly pulling ethan by his hands away from everyone else, moving down the hall to calm the distressed boy down. the door to their bedroom slams closed with a sudden, powerful gust of wind that makes johnny’s hair blow back, even from where he is in the living room. he winces, then quickly glances over at his son with wide eyes. shit. he’d fucked up again. he didn’t mean to do that - it was just human instinct. his pulse is still hammering in his neck, & he struggles to speak for a few tense seconds.

@taughtpain breaks the silence. ❝ you shouldn’t have seen that. ❞

guilt hits johnny like a truck all at once. he wonders how many times that’s happened for tory & miguel to immediately know to calm him down. johnny quickly avoids eye contact with his son while running a hand through his hair. he looks back towards the front door of the apartment. ❝ shit. i didn’t mean to do that. i probably shouldn’t be here anymore. ❞ the man quickly blurts out. ❝ i-i’m gonna go, tell your fiancé i’m sorry. ❞

[self-loathing-angel-of-thursday2]

Beautiful Spouse’s Rewatch Thoughts SPN 07x11 Adventures in Babysitting

Today is our 10 year wedding anniversary so we’re watching Supernatural lol

“Is this a short season? They’re going hard on the music” “I don’t know how I feel about Bobby being dead” “This dude has quite the face” “They did a great job with the sound design of the show” “One of her eyes is crooked. I wonder why” “If Bobby wasn’t dead yet, he is now, because the music tells me so” “Two weeks PBS - Post Bobby Singer” “To be fair, that would drive me nuts. If someone woke up in the hospital, wrote those numbers down, I’d go bonkers. Spend years trying to figure it out” “Why was there a noise if Dean drank the beer without noticing?” “How…what the fuck. That’s the creepiest thing” “What the fuck” “Is he just trying to get her out of the room or what?” “Bingo” “He’s going to leave her alone too. Jesus Christ” “Might want to leave a number that she can call if you die, too; otherwise, she’s fucked” 🎶ketchup and mustard🎶

“If he was going to shoot you, he would have already, Dean” “perty gun” “I’m with Dean on this one” “You cut your palm???? Why would you do that. Idiot” “Especially right there. That moves all the time”

“Talk about beige and tan” “What’s Buster Brown?” “Gotta love how Frank called Dean Buster Brown, and the first thing on wikipedia is a boy in a pink suit” “It could be a lot of different places with those coordinates. You don’t know longitude and latitude. I guess you could narrow it down to who owns the land like they just did” “This fkn lighting is immaculate” “That’s horrific?” “Is it the silver or the twist that kills them? Is the twist necessary?” “Well that’s not good” “That’s how you got caught I guess” “He slept in a chair for 36 hours?” “I feel like they forced the Sarah Palin joke” “Why does this guy have so many extension cords? I don’t understand” “So Sam gqve the girl Dean’s number. So he did do the right thing” “Twice? Oh.” “Straight to the closet” “How many guns has Dean had pointed at him this episode? Two?” “Don’t bother filling in the rest of the story” “I don’t understand” “He enjoyed that way too much” “She could have made a good addition to the show” “She’s like a miniature Ruby, ya know? Like a kid version of Ruby. She’s got the same vocal delivery” “Wasn’t expecting that” “Dean just stood there the whole time. What the fuck” “They were driving around silent until now. And whatever time at night it is and it’s “good for them” Jesus Christ” “Just kick him in the dick”

[soul-dwelling-not]

I haven't gotten to the final episode of Caped Crusader yet.

But, gah, the amount of whining and nitpicking about this series--can people just enjoy a good thing?

Spoilers below.

The number of "this makes no sense in Caped Crusader" takes I have listened to should be helpful for appreciating the series by analyzing what works and doesn't work to appreciate how it accomplishes what it does and determine how to improve in future works--and instead come off as only, "I didn't like this" or "I'm nitpicking" or "Explain every last detail."

"Why so little of Babs, Harl, and Rene interacting?" I mean, sure, add more, but aside from being needed because we lack so much of that in larger pop culture, it wasn't strictly needed for their story--it was enough to keep the plot moving and pushing forward their character progression. Again, more would be great, I want more--but I don't need more when what we got was really good.

"Bruce invited everyone into that restaurant--but then he had them sit separate from him and Harv." …No? Bruce said something to the effect of, "All of your friends are here." How do you hear that line and think Bruce organized this event? No, he didn't--he meant, "This is a restaurant you and I go to all the time, we know the people who come here too, they are your friends, they see you around town all the time and in these social circles." How do you misunderstand that?

"Bruce was only manipulating Harv to get info out of him. I don't like how this Bruce doesn't care about Harv. Also, why didn't the story show more of the two hanging out before this point?" Episode 1, and the circus / carnival episode. Two episodes. I'm sorry that is not enough for you. The better question is, why did Harv have to go to Rupert Thorne for money instead of Bruce? That is a small detail that would have been great (maybe the final episode will answer it?), and it can be answered easily: Bruce didn't even give money to Lucius for his affordable housing plan--he's a bad friend, a bad citizen, a bad philanthropist, and a bad Batman. Leading to the next criticism…

"It's weird how Batman uses the Bruce persona as just another mask. Bruce in BTAS never did that." ... ... ...We're really ignoring how Kevin Conroy did completely different performances and voices initially for Bruce and Bats, aren't we? "In BTAS, Conroy did the same performance and voice for Bruce and Bats--" Oh my fucking God, we are actually ignoring that?! Jesus Christ, did you only watch Batman Beyond and Justice League Unlimited?

I want to circle back to "Bruce is just manipulating Harvey for information": yeah, this is not a likable Bruce. Duh. This is a series that is taking more out of Matt Reeves's The Batman in terms of saying "Batman sucks at being Batman": this isn't even that he's still a rookie at it like the 2000s animated The Batman, this is literally Bruce just not being a good dude--hoarding his money, rude to Alfred, missing warning signs, not trying to help Harvey or listen to him before forcing him to go out.

The better criticism is, "Will this Bruce ever become a Batman we cheer for?" And I am not optimistic about that--and that could end up being a dealbreaker for me later. But right now, if we're going to say we want this show to be more like BTAS, then why not appreciate that, by having Bruce being so unlikable, it means we thoroughly enjoy the actual likable characters (Barbara) and the engaging villains? BTAS was just as often fixated on the villains such that Batman was often the supporting character in his titular show--I am fine with this detail.

"Barbara's episode just reinforced that her dad was right all along." Or, hear me out, what if the point is that Barbara's faith in the law is shaken? The other side to Barbara's faith in the law is not "so listen to your dad and assume the worse about alleged and actual criminals": the other side is, "Shit, even the cops may kill you, so much for law and order." That's how you get Barbara becoming Batgirl (Batwoman?), that how you get Rene becoming the Question, and on and on--not necessarily a good thing (Batman's vigilantism is still flawed, Harley's actions are presented as villainous), but it's a path for Barbara's characterization--if they even want to take it, because I actually enjoy this version of Barbara as a public defender without vigilantism, she seems like a character who could go this entire series never becoming a Bat and still ending the series as a fully realized character with a narrative beginning, middle, and end.

Honestly, if I have any criticism, it's how one-and-done certain villains seem to be (Firebug), or not really seeing more that can be done with certain antagonists (Catwoman), or fearing there won't be another season to finish up lingering stories (Harley).

[estrellami-1]

Special thanks to @nburkhardt for not only allowing but actively encouraging me in this! ❤️

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Steve says.

At the same moment, the handsome stranger (a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Robin is criticizing what exactly he’s taking the time to notice right now) says, “What the fuck was that for?”

Steve flails in a very Robin-like way. “Traffic! That you almost ran into? Have you heard of death, dude?” He pushes a hand through his hair. “And even beyond that, how are you still alive after touching me?”

Supers—people with supernatural abilities—weren’t exactly spoken about in polite society, but they did exist, more so in the big cities. This town was a bit too small to have a very large population, but it wouldn’t be unusual to see someone float by, or someone with green skin, or any other number of things. So Steve didn’t really care about sharing his secret.

The handsome stranger furrows his brows. “After… touching you?” He asks, then moves forward again to poke Steve in his bicep. It was covered by his shirt sleeve, so Steve just rolls his eyes and moves away. “Don’t,” he snaps. The stranger lifts his hands in a show of surrender. “But… yes. Touch. Me, not my clothes.” He wraps his arms around himself. “Anyone who touches me dies.”

The stranger seems to think that through, then grins and extends his hand as if to shake. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Eddie. And I can’t die.” He suddenly seems to realize what Steve had just said, and he drops his hand and jaw at the same time. “Wait,” he says. “You- you’ve not been touched? Ever?”

Steve shrugs, wrapping his arms tighter around himself. “Not unless I want people to die, and I don’t, so.” He shrugs again.

Eddie makes a small, wounded noise in the back of his throat. “Can- Jesus H. Christ, dude. Can I hug you?”

Steve blinks. “What?”

“A hug,” Eddie says again. “I want to hug you. People are supposed to get a certain amount every day or it can leave you, like, depressed or shit, I dunno.” He opens his arms to Steve, and Steve finds himself considering it, taking a small step forward.

“And you… can’t die?” He asks again. He knows what he saw, knows what he felt, knows skin touched skin, and here Eddie is, alive and well, in front of him…

“Nope,” Eddie grins. “Well, technically, like, old age? I can die of old age. But your ability can’t do anything.” He takes a careful step forward. “I did feel it. It felt warm.” He smiles. “It felt… nice.”

This is how Steve dies. Right here. Cardiac arrest from a handsome stranger who can’t die calling Steve’s death-touch ‘nice.’

Said handsome stranger’s face drops suddenly, just before Steve’s vision blurs, and he belatedly realizes he’s crying. “Shit,” he mutters, wiping at his face. “Sorry- shit, I dunno what’s wrong with me-”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Eddie soothes, efficiently maneuvering them out of the way and into a small alley between buildings. Before Steve has time to protest anything, Eddie’s pulling his (bare!) hands away from his face, and wiping the tears off his (bare!) cheeks, which really just makes Steve cry that much more. “Oh, fuck,” Eddie says, “I’m not great at thinking things through, am I, you’re freaking out about me being able to touch you, and then I go and touch you more, I’m an idiot, I’m so sorry, uh, but it’s okay to cry?”

He rambles just like Robin does, and it’s so comforting that Steve eventually stops crying anyways, mainly just sniffling and wiping at errant tears. “Sorry,” he manages again. “I didn’t mean to completely lose it on you.”

“Don’t apologize yet,” Eddie says soberly, “I was completely serious about that hug if you want it.”

Steve thinks about it for probably less time than he should before he tentatively nods. “Okay,” he whispers. “Um. Yes, please.”

Eddie smiles kindly at him and pulls him into a hug, the first one he can ever remember where they’re not both completely dressed up, clothes touching everywhere they possibly could. He can feel Eddie’s cheek against his own, he can feel Eddie’s hand running over his hair, and he shuts his eyes and burrows his face into the junction of Eddie’s neck and shoulder, trying his best to steady his breathing. “There you go,” Eddie’s murmuring, tracing a slow, steady hand up and down Steve’s back. “Breathe with me, Stevie, c’mon, you got this.”

After another little bit Steve’s heart and breathing finally settle, and Eddie pulls away with a grin. “See? Still alive,” he says, and Steve can’t do much other than laugh, loud and long and relieved.

“Thank you,” he finally murmurs. “I’ve never met anyone like you.” He means the abilities, but decides to extend the meaning to Eddie in general, who winks at him like he knows Steve’s exact thought process.

“And I’ve never met anyone like you,” Eddie murmurs. “Tell me if this is too forward? But if I- your phone number-”

Steve grins and grabs Eddie’s phone before he has a chance to finish even trying to explain. “And I hope I’m not being too forward if I ask you to lunch?”

Eddie grins back, and suddenly Steve’s whole future seems brighter.

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Saw a prompt and couldn’t let it go, so enjoy! 🥰 (no dialogue because I can’t figure that part out)

Steve has always craved touch even though he never got it.

His parents found out his unique ability at a young age when Steve touched his aunt and she immediately fell to the floor dead. Just from his skin touching hers. After that he wasn’t allowed any sort of touch, his parents warned anyone and everyone to avoid touching him. Near everyone in town knows, knows to avoid touch with him; stays away from him.

Steve manages, as much as someone can with deadly powers.

He figured out how to get his own comfort from plush toys and once he figured out when others touch his clothes first, nothing happens. He figures wearing sleeves and pants and gloves will always be his best options.

Still touch-starved though.

He has friends, but no one wants to get super close. Too afraid to accidentally touch. His parents leave often, also too afraid of his ability.

Eddie was told by his Uncle Wayne that he was special.

That when he was five, he was in a terrible car accident that should’ve killed him. It did kill his mom, but the emts and doctors were shocked that Eddie was fine. He was hurt, sure, but completely fine otherwise.

So, he grew to be little reckless. Lives on the edge and found out at sixteen that he can’t die. After several visits with specialists, it was officially confirmed.

He’s able to get hurt, pretty badly sometimes. But besides that, he can’t die. Which scares him just a bit but not enough to stop living life on the edge.

Steve leaves his hometown as soon as he can with only his things and a plan to get as far away as he can from all the people who are afraid of him.

He’s also afraid, so afraid that he’s not only touch-starved but also a little touch averse now. Doesn’t want anyone to die just by simply touching him. He might want touch, but will always be afraid.

They meet by chance, but mostly because of Eddie being a reckless idiot and his friends daring him to try running across very busy traffic. Which, as the daredevil he is, Eddie attempts to do it.

He’s only stopped by Steve freaking out at seeing it. For once, Steve acts before his brain catches up with him. Just throws his gloveless hand and grabs hold on Eddie’s arm to force him to stop moving.

Eddie jerks back and for a split second, feels a warmth before it fades. He’s taken back, annoyed at being stopped but also very confused. Most people that live here, know him. Know that he can get hurt but can’t die.

So this random person grabbing hold of his arm is new.

The touch registers in Steve’s head minutes later, as Eddie stares at him. He immediately lets go with wide eyes and panicking. But instead of the guy dropping dead, he’s still standing.

Eventually they’ll talk, they’ll learn each other’s abilities and someday in the future learn to love each other.

~~

Sooo, I can’t figure out how to work out dialogue into this. Or really flesh out their abilities. But it’s a thing! If you want to take this and pick it apart, you’re definitely welcome to do so! (If you do tag me!)

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