#one day ill make a real drawing of her and the other AIs....

[keybordcaps]

hi guys guess who finished change of mind and while listening HAD to start drawing eris. shes gold/yellow to me. why? Golden Apple. Like how you could imagine the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. I'm for sure reaching I think, but yeah. I loved that episode. Holy shit. bwah.

anyways! enjoy Eris! I'll make a Rhea design soon, shes red to me. love the personality of the AIs, genuinely. Onto the rest of Season 4!

[deepfivetraveller]

King Baldwin x Time!Traveler!reader

chapter 1

Chapter 2 here

Okay I’m a little new to writing romance so please take it easy on me. Btw I’ll try to keep y/n as neutral as possible but since this is set in the ancient era and religion is very important, y/n shall be hinted as being Hindu since that’s the only one that seems neutral in this situation.

“Alright that's all for the lesson. And since its complete I expect all of you to be thorough with ‘Life of King Baldwin iv’ during this weekend since there will be a test on this very topic next wednesday. Have a great weekend by the way.” The professor stands up and closes his laptop and all the other students start packing up.

“He had a pretty hard life didn’t he?” One of your friends chimes in. You look at her unsurprised. “You mean king Baldwins?”

“Duh! Poor man suffered an incurable disease almost his entire life! Imagine having skin infested in bacteria, euggh!” She recoils in disgust. “Imagine the cure to that disease being bacteria itself! Pretty sure Leprosy can be cured using multi antibiotic therapy.” Another friend joins in the conversation. You finished packing up your bag so you get up. “But no matter what, you gotta respect him. He never used his illness as an excuse to be a bad king.”

“That’s true….” Your first friend agrees. “He’s tough. When I catch a normal cold I give up all of my responsibilities since I’m sick. Wonder how hard it must have been for him.” All of you exit the classroom. A few minutes go by and topics have changed. A fun conversation lasted for a while before it was time to go, so you three parted ways.

As you entered your home your first thought was to take a cold shower after a long, hot and sweaty day. While eagerly hopping into the shower you get reminded of the conversation you had with your friends a while ago. What did king Baldwin even look like? There were no images in your textbook. Curiosity got the best of you, making you draw back the shower curtains to leave. You wrapped a towel and went towards the table where you kept your mobile, typed a quick ‘King Baldwin the 4th images’ and hit enter. Two images popped up. One being an actual painting from the 12th century while the other being an image reconstructed by scientists which looked…realistic to say the least.

His face in the second photo was majestic. His mouth and nose were almost non-existent, having only two triangular shaped holes instead of a nose. His skin was dry, withered and stretched while having the hue of a dry leaf during autumn. Even though he was severely disfigured his eyes were pure and bright, having a child like innocence towards them. King Baldwin was…Quite handsome.

Okay that’s enough now snap out of it! It’s probably just some AI prompt message image anyway. If anyone found out you found him handsome they’d call you crazy. Plus now is not the time to fangirl over a dead king, now's the time to study. In an attempt to distract yourself you pick up your books to do work. Hours painfully go by as you study but finally, finally it was bedtime. You could care less about eating dinner or even taking a shower, you plop yourself onto your bed and wrap the soft blanket around your body. Thoughts about King Baldwin strike your mind again. Seriously, what's wrong with you?! Why is this man plaguing your thoughts all day?

A sigh escaped your mouth from irritation. If only it was possible to console him for his losses or better yet, cure him entirely. The world would have been a better place if he had the lifespan of a normal man.

But there is no point thinking about this, time to go to bed now. As you try to go to sleep your body keeps doing the fake fall thing, annoying you to the core. And finally when your bodys heartbeat was steady and your breathing was quiet, your body did that fake fall thing again but this time it was actually a real fall.

Eyes widen as you try to grab onto the air to prevent your fall but of course, you fail. Adrenaline rushes through your veins for that split second before you finally make an impact on the cobblestone path?

Owch! That fall really hurt, especially at the back of your shoulders! You hope it’s not bruised there. But after that reality check, you look around only to find yourself in some village?

You can see a few small huts and buildings beyond the grassy field. Where are you? How are you here? Why are you here? Too confused and dazed from the fall, you try to look around for people for help. That is until a holographic screen with text pops up.

Congratulations Ms. Y/n. Your wish to cure King Baldwin has been approved by the ₦ł₥฿Ʉ₴฿₳Ʉ₦Ʉ₴. You are now at Jerusalem, Year: 1181.

“What?”

Yes it’s true Ms.Y/n, you really are in the 12th century.

Your blood is now boiling in anger. “Just because….Someone wishes pity over a dead king DOES NOT ACTUALLY MEAN THEY WANT TO CURE HIM!” You try to grab onto the screen to shake it vigorously but your hands go right thru.

Now now, let’s calm down and try to get over with this together I’m sure we’ll find a solution.

“Calm down…CALM DOWN?!?!?!? I’m in the middle of nowhere in Jerusalem during the 12th century and you want me to CALM DOWN???? I don’t even know French and not to mention I’M NOT CHRISTIAN!” You were screaming with your hand in the air. Pretty sure you woke someone up.

Y-Yes but that’s why I’m here. Don’t worry about communication, the language module for french had been uploaded into your brain while you fell here.

The screen flickers a little, maybe due to fear.

Uploaded knowledge? “But I’m a woman from the 21st century! I can’t live here! I’m wayy to accustomed to the privileges of my time!”

That’s one of my perks miss! By using currency of this time you may purchase products of your time thru me! The screen changes to an online store. For now you have access to basic necessities like food and clothes. As you complete missions you shall unlock other parts of the online market! The screens display brightness increases due to enthusiasm, convinced it has impressed you.

You however look at it in exasperated shock. “How is this even possible?” You say with dread in your voice. “Who sent me here?” You ask, no, demand.

Like I said You’ve been sent here by ₦ł₥฿Ʉ₴฿₳Ʉ₦Ʉ₴. I’m pretty sure you can’t read that since mortals don’t have the capacity to….

Mortals? Is this the play of some higher being? God even? Too many questions float through your head, making you visibly tired. You can feel the bottom of the skin beneath your eyes folding, an indicator you’re developing dark circles.

Ah. It looks like you’re tired. It’s night anyway. You should sleep.

“But where do I-”

“Excuse me madam.” You turn around to see a man standing behind you. “I’ve noticed you’ve been talking to yourself.”

So he can’t see the screen. From his ragged outfit he seems to be a commoner. He also genuinely seems worried so you guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask for help.

“Yes, sorry for that.” You say embarrassingly while you get up. “You see I’m from the family of wandering traders, here to sell spices from my land. I was talking to myself since I was quite irritated at how I didn’t have an inn for the night.” The explanation seems responsible enough I guess.

“But I don’t see any goods with you… And how did a young lady such as yourself travel alone? Where is your husband?”

Crap. He’s doubting you. You need to give him a reasonable explanation fast or he’ll call you a witch or something.

“Oh no sir you’re mistaken! My father is the one who has the spices, it’s his business after all. We had to split ways during travel due to inconveniences, I’m merely here to help him!” You put on your best smile to convince him.

“O-Oh I’m sorry madame! H-Here let me lead you, I know an Inn nearby.” Good. Looks like he believes you. But now it’s your turn.

“I’m sorry sir but how can I trust you?” You step back a little. “What if you take advantage of me? How shall I testify my innocence? The locals would definitely believe you over me.”

“No no please don’t! I’m a married man. My wife’s right there.” he points at the lady standing just outside the house, looking worried. You look at her and she nods her head in reassurance. “You seem like a noble from your land madame judging from your colorful dress, why don’t the both of us show you where the inn is?”

Hmm….Guess colorful clothing is rare here. And he really does seem like he wants to help.

“Very well then. Both of you show me they way.” The man eagerly tells his wife the incident and both of them show you around. The screen follows you, showing you a winking emoticon.

Congrats Ms. Y/n! You have officially begun your first mission!

[uwushitsuji]

Reading black butler again as an adult, I find myself thinking a lot the sexualization of Sebastian and Ciel's relationship. I was expecting to feel disgusted but.... Morals aside, I feel from a narrative standpoint, it actually works?

We all know most sebaciel scenes are fanservice, Yana used to draw yaoi, the anime was sold as "shonen-ai" etc etc It's 2024 there's no point to debate that over and over again.

But is that fanservice unnecesary? At least in the manga, I dont think so. For the better or for the worse, it does serve a purpose. It defines the entire relationship of the main characters.

Just to make it clear, I think their relationship is very sexual, but not in a literal *they have sex* way. Sex is associated with love, intimacy, passion, desire, but also with violence, possesiveness, domination.

You could get rid of all the "weird fanservice", but that would destroy the complexity of their relationship. It would become either a story about two characters that don't care about each other, or a bland "wholesome" one.

Ciel, despite all his trauma, feels comfortable exposing his body to Sebastian. Having physical contact with someone. Showing his vulnerable self, because he's absolutely confident he won't be hurt.

Sebastian is always close to Ciel. Even too close. And the weird way he carries Young Master. It's clearly unappropiate and he doesn't seem to care about boundaries. Because Ciel is what he desires the most, and he *owns* him. Ciel is his treasure, his prize, his most precious possesion. Ciel is *his*. He's always being possesive, showing the world Ciel belongs *only* to him, while also being (somehow) gentle and caring.

(The topic of how Sebastian uses his sexuality as a weapon is pretty interesting as well, but not today!!)

Surprisingly, the fanservice does wonders to develop the duality of their dynamics. It perfectly showcases both the "light" and "dark" between them. Intimacy, healing, confidence absolute trust, caring for each other. Codependency, unhealthy desire, possesiveness, manipulation.

They're two sides of the same coin.

On the other hand, in contrast with Sebastian and Ciel's relationship, I think it's interesting how scenes involving real sex are not sexualized at all??

Sebastian and Beast are both really attractive characters, and they could be used in a more "fanservicey" way. However, their scene together it's short and uncomfortable. The intimacy between them feels fake, everything seems off. Beast doesn't look like he's actually enjoying anything. It's pretty clear she's being abused, and thanks Goodness there's no romantization nor explicit borderline fetish content. Instead, it does a great a job creating a "something is wrong here" atmosphere.

The Blue Memory flashback. It's disgusting and makes me physically ill, but it's able to do so without being explicit. It's really powerful without being morbid. Absolutely no fanservice here. Thanks Goodness again.

Like in real life, in Black Butler sexuality can be a safe place (Ciel and Sebastian), or a source of violence and pain.

Imo Yana is a better writer than you all give her credit for. She may be a shotacon or whatever, but at least she is coherent with the overall tone of her story and can be respectful when it's due. Despite all the fanservice at some points, I feel she's great at knowing when to do or not do it.

At the end of the day, I find fascinating how sex and sexualization are used in Black Butler. Sebastian and Ciel's relationship has nothing to do with sex, yet is so intense that I could argue that rather than being sexualized, their entire relationship is inherently sexual per se. If you remove that element from the equation, the main characters would be so different that the nature of the entire story would change.

The "fanservice" is not only fanservice, but what moves the characters and story foward.

Is it ethical?? That's up to you.

But for me, even if there are some uncomfortable moments, the result is worth it. A relationship so unique that you can't "tag" it. Both unhealthy and abusive, yet a safe place for Ciel to heal. It's problematic on several levels, but *that*is what makes it interesting.

Anyway, it's just fiction, and it's nice to explore different kinds of stories without hurting anyone.

[jamiesfootball]

Please tell us more about your original works!!

Honest to God, I was thinking of your stories earlier today and thought how lucky we are you spend any time writing fan fiction (and for the show that is my hyper fixation! How did I get this lucky?) because you’re so fucking talented you should writing real books.

you are always far far nicer to me than i deserve and I LOVE IT! (I LOVE YOU!!)

The wonderful thing about fanfiction is that writing for Ted Lasso has full-on cured my years-long writing slump. And I am looking at all of these book ideas, some of which have been kicking around in my brain for going on 10 years, and i'm like....yeah, yeah. I am going to work on those :D

So these are the ones I'm working on. They are in various states of progress.

My Babies! If any of these are getting finished first, it will be one of these three!

Barnacle - the placeholder name for my DETECTIVE STORY. A woman who has recently left a troubled marriage, our main character is a shell of the person she used to be. Wanting to put as much distance between her and the California life she left behind, she's rented a cabin in the middle of a small tourist town in the northern cold. When a man in the neighboring cabin is murdered during the night, she finds her mind stirred to action as the pieces of herself that she thought lost slowly come back to her. (And then she becomes a private investigator because I love detective stories and she solves crimes and makes friends and this is just the first one and I'm like. super excited about it.)

A Robot Named Future - this one is my long-brewing wip. It's about an AI robot from the not-to-distant future that gets rebooted ('wakes up') in a junkyard the very far distant future. Lots of scifi tropes, lots about the erosion of history and humans always being humans, and of course, food. Like a lot about food in this one.

Chasing Whispers in the Canyon (Western (sort of)) - Injured and AWOL military soldier Joanna is on the brink of death in the middle of the desert when she is saved by a tall, pale stranger. Her and the stranger -- an offputting, odd woman who's absolutely lethal with a pistol - hunker down together in a small town that seems on the verge of its own small war. When trouble comes for Joanna, the stranger risks drawing the attention of her own complicated past to save the woman who is possibly her only friend. (yes, the placeholder title is a song title. One song spurred all of this. I regret nothing)

The ones I'll get to one day!

Boots and Babes on the Boardwalk - I don't know why I titled it this way other than the alliteration (needs a new title). This one is about a partially closeted, mentally ill, middle aged gay man who's running his conservaative family's shady business. He just fell head over heels about another man, and that's serving as an impetus for him to actually look at his life. On temporary hiatus because the plot is a little wobbly

The Lens - Guy who recently went blind and had to drop out of an art program accompanies his still-seeing friend to a museum exhibit. Due to the awkward tension their circumstances have put between them, neither notices when his friend proceeds to lose the camera equipment he'd checked out from campus. With the museum closing in an hour and his friend's final grades on the line, these two piece together where in the museum his friend lost his camera. (this one is more like a novella or a long short story)

The Hoard - One night. One party. Five thieves. One pile of dragon treasure. (Think leverage but the treasure they are stealing belongs to a corrupt government via dragons).

Hawaiian Shirts and Bruised Eyes - A butch, lesbian stuntwoman who broke her arm on a motorcycle meets a nurse at the hospital who may just be the love of her life. The love of her life may also be a serial killer. It's hard to say.

The Frog Witch - vengeful disgraced witch lady seeks revenge against the people who wronged her with the help of a prince who has been cast out from his people. References to Euripedes' Medea.

[newnoirstories]

Jashi (AI Illustration Version)

(As always, the inclusion of religious or mystical themes or practices in my works does not constitute an endorsement of them. The following story contains references to violence, kidnapping, death, drugs, alcohol, parental neglect and also some implied adult situations, to HIV/AIDS, as well as references to mental illness and catatonia.)

(The AI drawings are merely concept art for what I hope will be final illustrations, drawn by a human artist, such as someone on Tumblr.)

"Jashi"

Chapter I

On a Summer day in 1991, on a less than glamorous Boston street, Paul Knudsen saw a peculiar sight. A woman, who would turn out to be central to his professional life, was walking down a gritty sidewalk as if it were a runway, dressed perfectly, designer everything, every hair in place. She looked oddly familiar to him.

"Excuse me, ma'am… have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Are you into fashion?"

"Not particularly, why?"

"Grace Martel is my name, and I have been in Vogue twice already."

"Sorry to bother you, Ms. Martel. Maybe my wife left a magazine around somewhere…"

"Your wife? Don't fool yourself, friend. I know a gay man when I see one… not that there's anything wrong with that."

With this strangest of introductions, Grace Martel resumed her catwalk strut.

By this time, Natalie Rome, Paul's wife, had established herself as a noted appraiser of antiques, as well as an expert lecturer on the subject. She insisted, however, that she would never go into the criminal side of the antiques world, wishing to avoid the drama her father and brother experienced, but fate had other plans.

For his part, Paul Knudsen looked after their infant son, Peter Knudsen, and did any research, whether in books or on computers, that Natalie was too busy to do.

Chapter II

The maelstrom of spite and violence that would soon engulf Natalie and Paul came in the form, outwardly at least, of two families in a sort of feud, not of the direct, rural sort of popular history, but a battle of one wealthy family and one even wealthier, beginning with a common source of division, Mammon.

One wintery day in 1962, John Clemens Martel, of whom Grace Martel was a great-niece, owed money to a man even wealthier than himself, one Porter Heraldson, the first of that name. In Heraldson's splendid mansion, negotiations gave way to raised voices, which gave way to blows, and finally, in circumstances that were never fully resolved, John Martel stabbed Porter Heraldson (the First) to death with a letter opener.

The prosecution portrayed the matter as out and out murder, premeditated, saying that Martel simply wanted to escape his debts. The defense, by contrast, claimed it was self-defense, that Heraldson had attacked Martel. The jury decided that there was, at least, reasonable doubt regarding the perhaps overly ambitious charge of murder in the first degree, and so John Clemens Martel was acquitted, walking free in what the Heraldson family, and all of their friends and sympathizers, regarded as an outrage, a travesty of justice.

To darken the waters still more, shortly after his acquittal, John Martel was struck and killed by a locomotive, and the Martel family, and its friends and partisans, insisted that this was the real act of murder, but nothing was ever proven, and no arrests were made. The death could have been self-inflicted, or it could have been an accident, and Martel had been drinking, albeit not heavily.

From the 1963 trial on, the two families, each with an interest in the occult, albeit from very different perspectives, hated each other, the Heraldsons, the wealthier of the two (having earned their money in early locomotive transport, making John Martel's death the more ironic) viewing the Martels as common criminals, and common in every way, while the Martels regarded the Heraldsons as diabolical spawn who purchased their way out of justice.

No deeper hate was ever felt than that between these two prominent Bostonian families.

Chapter III

Another dark world, one that would impose itself on Natalie and Paul, was that of Philip "Catatonic Phil" Dandolos. While his nickname might have been a humorous, albeit darkly humorous, play on "Punxsutawney Phil", there was nothing humorous about Phil's early life, unless, perhaps, from the point of view of absurdism.

Dandolos was, like the Martel family's ultimate origins, from Pennsylvania, born in 1965 in a particularly rough part of South Philadelphia. His mother abandoned him at birth, and his father was a brutal alcoholic. Philip ran away from home at fourteen, becoming a thief on the streets, and eventually selling not only stolen goods, but himself as well.

Dandolos, wishing to escape the memory of Philadelphia, moved to Boston, where the homosexual set soon regarded him as the most handsome young man in the city, and his clients included many wealthy men, whom Philip was not above blackmailing, if they wished to conceal their trysts.

A heavy user of absinthe and hashish, and rumored to follow the infamous Thelemite cult, Philip's nickname came from his strange trances. Some said that they were a form of psychotic disorder, others that they were induced by hashish, and yet others that they were states of supernatural possession. Be that as it may, Philip Dandolos was either desired or feared by all who knew him, though he had never been known to be physically violent, instead relying on lies, larceny and blackmail.

That one of his clients was, by the early 1990's, Porter Heraldson III (who made no attempts to hide his homosexuality), grandson of the slain Porter Heraldson, would prove to have some bearing on events that followed.

Chapter IV

Returning to the fatal game of human chess of the Heraldsons and the Martels, to understand the actions of Grace Martel, and also of her older brother, Henry "Hank" Martel, one must understand the hatred of all of Heraldson blood instilled in them by George Martel, brother of John, of mysterious demise.

A somewhat feminine, slender man, whose favorite hobby was embroidery, George was, by the early 90's, bedridden, but continued needlepoint, but all of his embroidered images were of Heraldsons meeting gruesome fates, which, with a background among the Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans), was part of a tradition of Hexerei, Pennsylvania German witchcraft, in the Martel family, despite the considerable (though still inferior to the Heraldsons) wealth made by the fashion designs of the late John Clemens Martel, still worn by some older women, such glamour contrasting with the family's rustic origins.

Grace Martel, apart from her love of fashion, was herself skilled in Hexerei, having owl feathers for curses on the Heraldson family, and also, in a more modern innovation, a hidden serpent tattoo that she regarded as having sinister mystical significance. Hank, by contrast, was an impulsive, cantankerous man of limited intelligence, without the cleverness for witchcraft, and lacking any understanding of crime, except for acts of the most crude, direct violence.

Grace Martel, in 1992, made an audacious move against Porter Heraldson III. As Heraldson was an avid collector of rare Japanese antiques, Grace read considerably on the topic, then had some fraudulent "Japanese" items, of no real antiquity, built, in an attempt to have them sold to Porter, not for the money, but to try to trick Porter into re-selling them to a buyer (actually an agent of the Martels), and Heraldson himself, though innocent, would be arrested in a serious case of fraud.

However, Porter took one look at the goods presented and scoffed, knowing instantly that they were fake. Now, of course, it was Grace Martel who was in potential legal peril, though she lied and claimed that she had been deceived about the authenticity of the goods. Porter was less offended by the attempt to frame him for a serious crime than by the "insult to my intellect" of such "crude forgeries".

Ironically, given her earlier claim to the married Paul Knudsen, Grace knew little of Porter Heraldson III's personal life, and so, when she called in person at his mansion, she was let in by a servant, and went straight to Porter's study, and attempted seduction, boldly revealing her tattoo.

Porter, however, laughed derisively, "Martel, if you had listened to any gossip, which I thought was a favorite pastime of plebs [Porter's name for anyone he regarded as common or crass], you would know that I am utterly and thoroughly homosexual, and make no attempt to hide it, so you can put the money back in the purse, as it is in a currency I cannot use."

Chapter V

Natalie Rome's involvement in all of this came, early in 1993, through Yamazaki Sota, an elderly, very traditional Japanese man living in Boston. Yamazaki had in his possession a Karakuri Ningyo, an automaton or puppet used in Edo Period theatre, and apart from its perfect craftsmanship, it was also rumored to be possessed by an Oni, Japanese folklore's equivalent of a demon, as the result, legend had it, of an Onmyōdō practitioner centuries earlier breaking taboos and summoning such a being.

Rather than deter buyers, this legend increased the value, and many of the rising goth subculture would have purchased it if they had the money, but few had such cash. It must be understood, however, that Yamazaki Sota was most reluctant to sell this Karakuri puppet to anyone who was not Japanese, due to its associations with Onmyōdō, traditionally seen as an exclusively Japanese form of magic.

However, Yamazaki had a granddaughter, in need of expensive treatments for the cancer that threatened her young life, and so he tentatively agreed to sell the automaton to none other than Porter Heraldson III. Heraldson, in turn, brought in Natalie Rome, accompanied by Paul Knudsen, to appraise the item, and she arrived at a then staggering sum, for such an item: $200,000.

Without a moment's hesitation, however, Porter agreed to the price. He did not mention at the time, however, his primary reason for buying it. The Oni by which the puppet was said to be possessed was Shuten-dōji, believed to attack women, and Porter, having read deeply on the Edo Period, wished to invoke it to attack Grace Martel.

His reasons for taking such a drastic action went beyond the "insult to my intellect" of her attempt to frame him for fraud, but included also Grace giving free cocaine to Porter's heir, June Heraldson, his naive young nice, age 16, as part of her ongoing attempts to destroy the Heraldson family.

Even as Grace used Hexerei against Porter, Porter planned to use Onmyōdō, which he considered "far more powerful than the superstitions of rubes", against Grace. This would quite literally recoil on Heraldson, however, in a very physical and palpable way.

Chapter VI

The sale of the Karakuri Ningyo was arranged, in its legal formalities, by attorney Ralph Case, at a price of $200,000, and Porter immediately began calling the antique item "Shuten-dōji". Also owner of a Dreamachine, Porter was fascinated by the eyes, and so, one rainy night, when a voice seeming to come from within the puppet said, "Look me in the eyes. Look!", an intrigued Porter, keeping "Shuten-dōji" locked in his study, did precisely this, and it was his last action on earth.

With the mechanical sound of a spring, a knife went into the right eye of Heraldson. Discovered in such a terrible state by servants, the case was put in the hands of Detective Lou Meath, a weary, clumsy man of 64, just waiting to retire.

After reading of the matter the next morning, Paul expressed a very direct opinion to Natalie.

"Do you see this, Natalie? A sale you oversaw… you have to solve it, you know."

"Now, Paul, I told you, I will never be a detective," replied Natalie Rome.

"So, do you really want to leave the case in the capable [this last word overwhelmed with sarcasm] hands of Detective Meath? Have you met him?"

The look of chagrin on Natalie's face showed that she had met him.

"Natalie, you are the smartest person I have ever met. You could give the case to your father, but remember how he told you to do things on your own, without his help?"

"He meant appraisals, not investigating murders."

"Yes, but here you are- you know, what, twelve languages, or have I lost count? Do you really think this case is beyond you?"

"Despite the elements of subjectivity in such assessments of intellectual performance, I have been tested as having an intelligence quotient of 172."

"Now there's the Natalie I know!"

Chapter VII

Even Detective Meath could find certain evidence, or rather, those working for him could, and the only fingerprints found on the deadly puppet, other than those of Heraldson himself, were those of Grace Martel.

The matter was rather complicated, however, by the fact that several of Heraldson's most economically valuable Japanese antiques were missing, evidently stolen. The Martel residence was searched, but no trace of the items found.

However, when a neighbor mentioned that Philip Dandolos, having been given a key by Heraldson, visited the mansion that very night, and his apartment was inspected, there were the incriminating old objects of larceny. Dandolos admitted to the theft, but said that he found Porter already dead.

"I can prove I didn't kill him. When did he die?"

"Between six and seven," replied a uniformed officer.

"Ha… I was with Kevin, Kevin Courtney, another alleged client of mine at the time. He likes to take photos as trophies, but I keep the negatives, so if he denies it…"

While Dandolos was convicted of felony larceny, the rather graphic alibi proved him innocent of the murder itself, and so police attention turned back to Grace Martel.

Meanwhile, however, Yamazaki Sota was in a state of the blackest depression, believing that the mysterious death resulted from selling the Karakuri puppet to someone not Japanese. Drinking heavily, he considered taking his own life, until an old acquaintance, Charity Kobashi, found him, barely conscious, on a park bench.

Charity, herself far from young, had been raised very traditionally as well, but after moving to Boston, had converted to the Evangelical sort of Christianity, changing her given name accordingly.

"I am dishonored. I broke every tradition. I sold Onmyōdō for a price… what good am I now?" Yamazaki cried pitifully.

"Please, Yamazaki, listen," said Charity, "No one is dishonored in Jesus Christ. He loved thieves, he loved prostitutes. He saved their very souls, Yamazaki-san. He will save you."

Though Yamazaki did not know what to make of Charity's new religion, her reassurances did, at least save his life.

Chapter VIII

When Gabriel Westinghouse, a lover of the late Porter Heraldson III, reluctantly came forward, his evidence strengthened the case, as pertained to motive, against Grace Martel.

"Please, officers, don't tell my wife. I married this old-fashioned, sexless woman- a nice lady, and she doesn't expect me in the bedroom, much to my relief, but she would divorce me and leave me alone to die," pleaded Westinghouse.

"To die?" asked Meath.

"I have HIV, gentlemen. What do you think is going to happen to me? I'll tell my wife it's cancer or whatever it is, just not why my immunity is down."

"What do you know about the case?"

"I know that Porter thought the puppet was supernatural, some kind of Japanese magic. He was going to use it to curse Grace Martel. I asked why, and he said it was this old feud or hatred between his family and hers."

With this, the fingerprints and the fact that her live-in boyfriend was Ralph Case, who brokered the sale of the Karakuri Ningyo, Grace Martel was arrested for murder in the first degree.

Grace insisted that, although she had seen the puppet, which Ralph brought home, she claimed, she did not know what it was, and that, in an amorous game she was playing with Ralph, in which she was blindfolded and attempting to find him, she left fingerprints on it, initially mistaking it for him. She now claimed that she had been set up by Ralph Case, and her new defense team strengthened her claim by unearthing papers, which Grace insisted she had been told to sign, by Ralph Case, under false pretexts, that made him her sole beneficiary.

The state's case against Grace Martel was weakening, unless they could try Grace Martel and Ralph Case as co-defendants. Case, however, had a backup plan in the form of Marge Schmidt.

Marge Schmidt was the tall, imposing, battle-scarred queen of the prison to which Grace had been sent, and was offered a re-opening of her case, by Ralph Case, with a likely reduced sentence, as well as untraceable money, laundered more than once, upon her release, in exchange for killing Grace in prison, then putting a shiv in the victim's hand, claiming self-defense.

Chapter IX

Meawhile, Natalie Rome realized that she needed legal counsel of her own, given her involvement with the deadly Karakuri Ningyo, so she brought in Stephen Martin, unaware of the potential conflict of interest that Martin was also assigned to manage the trust fund of June Heraldson. Paul Knudsen avoided Martin, saying that he did not "trust lawyers".

The following day, the day on which Schmidt was paid to attack Grace Martel, however, she had a change of heart, telling Ralph Case that she would not attack her new "girlfriend" for "anything". As such, Grace was now effectively second-in-command of all the prisoners, after Schmidt herself.

The same day, however, now in June, 1973, a most grotesque visitor boldly approached the front door of Natalie and Paul. Ciarán Brennan, who had come from Ireland some time in the fifties, was an escaped mental hospital patient, a heavy-set man suffering from the delusion that he was the great bareknuckle boxer John L. Sullivan.

Paul, rather half Ciarán's size, answered the front doorbell.

"Greetings, greetings, the great John L bids you a happy day."

"How can we help you?" replied a flustered, bewildered Paul Knudsen.

"You were wantin' to know about the Case case? The case of the man Case in the papers, the Case that they say killed a man with a robot?"

Vaguely discerning what Ciarán meant to say, and having gathered, from the man's shadow boxing, that he believed he was John L. Sullivan, Paul began addressing him as such.

"Yes, Mr. Sullivan, what do you know about Ralph Case?"

Just then, however, Paul realized that, despite Ciarán's bulk, he had sneaked past him into the home. Alarmed, he turned around to find "Sullivan" laughing jovially.

"You see how it's done when I go to knock out a man? Well, I laid eyes on this man, just like the picture in the paper, 'cept it's a mask, Mister, a mask."

"What is a mask?" chimed in Natalie, unafraid of their eccentric visitor.

"Why, Mr. Case's face is a mask! I saw him put it on in some bushes, but here's the rarest bit of all. I saw the face under the face at your front door!"

Chapter X

After a few telephone calls by Natalie Rome, including to the Boston Police Department, the case was complete: Ralph Case was an alias of Stephen Martin, and not only this, but Stephen Martin was a son of Samuel Matthews, alias Robert Cross, and thus an older half-brother of Paul Knudsen. Paul had suspected something of the sort, hence his discomfort around the attorney. As a taunt to his acquaintances, he chose the same initials his father had used, yet no one but Paul had ever suspected the truth.

Although Stephen Martin was arrested, without incident, for murder in the first degree, confident that his legal acumen would save him, news reached the Martel family that George Martel's condition was terminal. A recently released Grace Martel, though a bit tearful, said that she was not surprised, but Hank, by contrast, blamed the late Porter Heraldson's "Japanese magic", even from beyond the grave, and in a frenzy, ran out the door.

The tragedy of Hank Martel ran deeper than this one piece of sad medical news: His restless, rageful nature had led his wife to divorce him, and worse still, his daughter had been born without eyesight, which he likewise blamed on Onmyōdō, and on the Heraldson family. There was no telling what he might do now.

As a result of a faulty two-way radio and a narrow field of focus, meanwhile, Detective Louis Meath was still investigating the Heraldson mansion, unaware that the case had been solved. Natalie and Paul drove over to the mansion to tell Detective Meath that the matter was at an end.

However, a sudden thunderstorm seemed to proclaim that history would repeat itself, and that some form of madness would take a last stand against the Rome family, even as it had in such weather seventeen years before.

Chapter XI

Grace Martel had left a family heirloom at the Heraldson residence to place a curse on the house, but as it had sentimental value to George, and he was in his last days, she wished to retrieve it, even amidst the lightning. However, the bungling Detective Meath was still treating the spectral old place as a crime scene, unaware that the crime had been solved.

When Lou Meath confronted her, however, she simply, with customary audacity, showed her tattoo (and a lot of other skin), causing Lou to point, stutter and literally faint. Before she could recover the heirloom, however, her brother Hank showed up, knife in hand, ready to take "vengeance", believing it an injustice that the murderer of Porter Heraldson III had been arrested rather than rewarded.

Grace tried to reason with Hank, but he yelled at her, telling her not to "side with the enemy". To hold off the uniformed police, Hank threatened Detective Meath, who was just now beginning to stir, Lou muttering "I want you so bad", presumably about Grace.

This chaos thus greeted Natalie Rome and Paul Knudsen on their arrival, and, as Paul stepped up first, he was taken hostage, a knife against his throat, by a wild-eyed Henry Martel, who demanded that Stephen Martin be released from prison for his "good deed" of killing Porter.

Neither Natalie, Grace nor the uniformed cops could talk any sense into Hank, but by now, Detective Meath was conscious, or at least as aware as he ever had been, and bumped into a suit of antique Japanese armor, causing a loud crash that startled Hank. Given a moment to act, Paul elbowed his assailant in the ribs and escaped, and Henry was arrested by the uniformed (competent) officers.

"One more arrest, officers," said Natalie Rome, "Arrest Grace too."

"What! Ralph did the murder, not me!"

"Yes, but you distributed a controlled substance to a minor. This is June Heraldson's affidavit," said Natalie, handing one of the officers a document.

Grace Martel then did a curious thing, kissing Natalie on the cheek before allowing herself to be taken off by the officers.

On a calmer, happier day, Natalie Rome, wearing an old John Havlicek uniform that belonged to her father, strolled down the street to the Wang Theatre in Boston, to see a touring Broadway show, the star of which was her old friend Thomas Banerjee.

The end.

(All above illustrations are not to my credit, nor my work, nor my property, but the work of perchance.org, but this does not constitute an official endorsement of that website, with which I have no official connection.)

[watarulesbian]

wataru hibiki my precious lil birdie aaaawwwwwww 

anyway i wish i had the energy to think deep thoujghts about her . deep thoughts thatd make me feel like a real #1 wataruknower . i wish i had the will to get my ass over to some enstars stories featuring wataru and read them but i dont hav anyfucking will for anything but mindless scrolling and being pessimistic i was doing #stuff today and then i had a therapy appointment and bam rest of day wasted............................................................................................... besides when i painted for a while lol i got watercolor set for xmas and its quite fun 

wataru is MINE!!!!!!!!!!! MY CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!! MY GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE LEAVESME AWESTRUCK I CANT EVEN THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! unless youre one of my three friends from twitter (hi) you have NO IDEA of the extent. of how i so adore and love wataru. and even than thats not all of my love for her. 

one thing tho i love when people draw her face very expressive. i wish i could do that in my own art of her........ im better than ai but worse than most actual artists :( i want to die because im not able to capture her accurately in artistic mediums but other people can? so MAD!!! KILL KILL DIE DIE DIE (to myself not to the wonderful talented artists who i admire very much) 

idk i just feelt like shit lately. its because i havent gotten enough wataru. the enstar doctor perscribd me 10 hours of wataru hibiki a day and lately ive been getting like 2 a day when i NEED more than that i need. like 10! i need my mind to reboot my brain and maybe put a fucking timer on youtube because i keep looking at shitty uoiutube shorts WASTING MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE AWAY AND MAKING ME DEPRESSED AND DOOMFUL AND AAAARGHH 

how many of you even know my name? i know 3 of you do (hi again) 

tumblr isd better for making long incoherent posts huuuuu 

need one of those send a number and ill give a ___ headcannon things ummmmmmmmmmmm idk i feel like all my awnsers to thosewould be dissapointingly bland and im scared that there will be something in cannon thatd contradict my hc (NOT LIKE A LESBIAN HC BUT LIKE A LIKE/DISLIKE THING) wataru is lesbian by the way and i think, as an autisticl esbian mysjmlf and YOUR wataru expert Wataru feels the isolations. the lesbian isolations. the autism isolations. maybe its weird and unrelated to what im saying here and it might sound even crude but whenever someone who previously idenntif as lesbian comes out as Not lesbian i feel a profound emptiness within me . and i know i should probably tell that to a therapist and not post it on tumblr for anyone whos former ident lesbian to see this and feel guilty or mad at me but i JUST had a therapy appointment today and need to get it out. its been in my brain for a long time. and ive of course ive come to recognize and get used to people changing, ive never thought or said to anyone “nooo you cant be _____ youre supposed to be my fellow lesbian :(” but i never see anyone ever talking about feeling sad when a lesbian they know turns out to Not be a lesbian except in the context of transphobia or homophobia. like im NOT one of those asses saying “a trans man? we lost a lesbian im so sad” “noo lesbi ann is dating a man and changing her name to bai sexxx this is so not her! come back lesbi ann!” im just saying i feel  like when someone who previously idenntif as lesbian comes out as Not lesbian i feel a profound emptiness within me. and im NOT trying to guilt trip! and PLEASE dont be mad at me!  and i get USED to people not being lesbian! the emptiness goes away after several months! but yea whatever 

i want someone out there to make more art of eichi lovingly brushing and braiding watarus beautiful long hair. fic or art. or cannon for the love of god... theyd BOTH enjoy it the same amount im telling uou. even when they grow old together watarus hair is still long and still so nice and soft tbh like she got upset that it all turned white and talked about possibly dying it a lot but eichi is like My Wife Of Many Years You Are So Beautiful With White Hair You Are A Goddess. I Love It Just As Much As When It Was Blue.      but in present time as 19 year old young lesbian lovers i just know wataru has falllen asleep while eichi runs his fingers through watarus wonderful amazing shiny superlong hair. i know wataru doesnt wanna like be asleep in front of people but as part of showing her human side more, i see her doing it tbh, eichi loves seeing his girlfriend asleep and is always like Awwww :3 wataru doing normal human things with eichi is actually cannon btw and im smiling thinking aboutt that 

i want to write a magnus archives statement about watarus expieriences with a fountain (the stranger) she makes a foolish wish on that has her live a year where evgery day she wakes up in a different persons life and body and its totally torturous. after 365 days of that shes finally in the life and body of wataru hibiki again but she is incredibly traumatized . happier ending than most magnus archives statements because she is ALIVE with no physical injury and doesnt end up dying or anything. the stranger. i remember when i was really lttle i came across a ton of amazon reviews for a book that had a premise basically similar to this except itwas a creature who lived like this and it was a love story or something LET ME FIND IT HOLD ON 

its called “Every Day” i found it lol 

i never read it but i reacd the reviews 8 years ago so i feel like i know it well enough. it was easy to find by one single google search  ahaha 

i hsould be going to bed now thanks for listening tubmlmr 

[iron-mum]

I wish you would write a fic where Tony and kid Peter are being adorable father and son as retribution for the angst you’ve made me suffer through in the past hah! (JK I love you and your angst! 💛)

Well, well, well. What do we have here, eh? A request for adorable? I'm not sure, I'm very good at that 😌

Here's SIMTony who would stop at nothing to help his unwell son, Peter get better. Even if it meant using Extremis.

P.S. ILY3000 💕

In the final throes of the graveyard shift at the hospital floor, the elevator pinged for its frequent lone visitor. The front desk staff, whilst tense and sitting up suddenly straighter, knew not to actually engage. No ID was needed for their boss, one of them barely suppressing a gulp as his determined strides headed for the private room that had been deliberately placed near to the room equipped for every possible kind of emergency. Once inside, he carefully shut the door silently and took a seat at the bedside.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sharp blue eyes shifted from the persistent buzzing of the most technologically advanced medical equipment anyone, anywhere could offer before looking back down to something far more invaluable and precious. Tony’s entire world. His purpose in life. The little boy on the bed lay motionless, breathing slowly and evenly, nose occasionally scrunching up at the discomfort of the oxygen mask upon him. He should have been cocooned in a hug from his father but instead his son, Peter, was littered with wires attaching him to the very best modern medicine had to offer.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Pale, soft skin with the daintiest of freckles stood out against the dark curls spread across the far too big pillow. The small fingers of his left hand had loosely closed around the calloused thumb of his father, letting him know that whilst he had been rendered weak from illness, he was still aware of his comforting presence. Tony’s index finger gently glided across the small knuckles, willing himself to see a tiny curve of the lips on his son’s face.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

This had been the Avengers fault. Peter’s current critical condition. The young boy had been on a school trip when a battle had broken out and the wannabe heroes managed to cause more destruction than lives saved. A chemical explosion had landed most of the class in hospital and many of them had ended up becoming very unwell. Unfortunately for Peter, he already suffered many ailments so even under the wing of Stark’s finest medical personnel, the struggle had taken a toll. The genius shook his head as thoughts of revenge started to sprout from the many seeds that had been planted since the catastrophic incident. He shelved the many ideas he had that would lead to the demise of the reckless group once his kid was better.

It had been hours when the sound of a nurse's footsteps acted as the catalyst that would remove Tony from the room so he could head back to his lab. As he reluctantly moved his hand away, there was no reaction. Not even a twitch from the slender child. Bending down, he tentatively stroked a small amount of the exposed skin that was available on the boy’s face before planting a light kiss on his forehead. By the time the nurse was opening the door to the room to complete the routine checks, any sign of a visitor would be long gone.

The moment Tony was back in his workshop, he strode towards his desk. Music started to reverberate from the ceiling, the sound greatly appreciated compared to the low hum and incessant beeping from the emotionless devices that were currently keeping his son alive.

Tony didn’t believe in a higher power other than himself. So in no way, shape or form was he ever going to accept that he couldn’t save Peter from the incurable illness now ravaging his frail body. Feeling powerless was simply not an option.

Rolling up the sleeve to his top, the genius opened a drawer and pulled out a device meant for extracting blood as painlessly as possible. Not that pain meant much to him these days. No pain would ever compete with a parent having to watch their child deteriorate every single second of every single day.

Satisfied with the draw, Tony placed it into a diagnostic machine of his own making. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of his workshop, eyeing it like he was in the most intense staring contest of his life. Jaw clenching, his arm shot out allowing liquid metal to glide across his skin before firing a repulsor at the glass and shattering it. There was an element of irony to everyone loving his face except himself in the minimal but intrusive “what if” moments that surrounded his current situation. With a crack of his neck, his arm remained outstretched so the Endo-Sym armour could return to it’s housing tank.

“Boss, the results are back,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. informed as the music lessened in volume. “No adverse reactions detected still. The chemical composition indicates that the Extremis is unchanged in it’s integration with you on a genetic level and continues to remain stable.”

“And the sample from Peter?” Tony asked, confident that he knew what the answer would be.

“Also remaining stable.”

“Alert the staff intending to see Peter following tonight's shift that their presence will not be needed,” the genius demanded as he mentally reiterated the next steps of his plan in his head. Lips curled into devilishly handsome grin at his victory, eyes crinkling at the sides. The smile only softened when his eyes drifted to a framed picture Peter had drawn of the both of them. He’d done it.

“Certainly, boss,” the AI had responded without any acknowledgement. Tony was too busy in thought. Not only was the Extremis flowing through his own veins, leaving him feeling at perfect health. But soon, it would be doing the same for Peter too. Pain free, peak performance and at complete and optimal health.

“Have there been any sightings of the Avengers in the last hour? I feel a splash of revenge is in order for this special occasion?” The holo-screens in front of him started to flicker as social media sites were searched and hashtags refreshed repeatedly. Hulk had been trending within the hour and Hawkeye in the last eleven minutes.

"Well, how about that?" he grinned gleefully. "I really am being spoiled for choice."

Whilst the genius had been certain F.R.I.D.A.Y. had relayed the message to the morning staff, Tony still found himself exhaling sharply at the sight of someone sat by Peter’s side reading his file. The thin bag of Extremis in his hand was shifted into his back pocket as quickly as humanly possible. The good feeling from beating the shit out of one of the Avengers, plus the buzz of providing Peter with a cure that no meagre doctor had been able to, shifted into a tension as tried to work out who it was.

Their face was narrow with sharp features and glasz eyes remarkably penetrating when they met his perusing stare. His black hair had been combed back neatly, the sides of his temples a distinct light grey. The well fitted suit looked designer even for Tony’s impeccable standards.

“Your services are no longer required,” he affirmed with a dismissive flourish of the hands before the man could even introduce himself.

“I’m sorry?” the other man replied without hesitation, closing the file and rising from the chair. Tony’s chair. If he’d been expecting any pleasantries or introductions, he was thoroughly mistaken. Tony was already locked onto Peter, the gentle rise of his chest a welcoming sight as always. He refused to allow his attention to be divided, ignoring the piercing stare boring into him now. “I have an oath to this patient. He critically needs help from the best in all fields. He needs my help.”

The genius turned at that, an eyebrow raised as he looked the doctor up and down. He certainly held himself strongly for someone who had that much audacity in addressing the owner of everything within his current vicinity.

“Are you new around here… Doctor Strange?” He asked disingenuously, eyes narrowing as he scrutinised the name badge. The letters ‘VISITOR - Dr Stephen Strange’ jotted on the bottom, likely the reason he hadn’t got his AI’s memo. The receptionist who let him in would be fired whether it was her fault or not.

“Unlike everyone else in this building, no, I don’t work for you” the doctor shot back tersely. “However, you were so insistent on my consultation that, somehow, I found my diary completely cleared of all surgeries that were booked in.”

“Well, you can now stick them back in your diary. We’re done here.”

“I know this is difficult,” the doctor started, tone suddenly softer as if he were hoping a change of tact would get through. “You brought me in for my expertise, so use them.”

“I’m the most intelligent, capable person on the planet. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”

“Your arrogance surpasses all the rumours and expectations I had of you,” Strange snapped back incredulously. Apparently nothing was going to get through. “Your child is-”

“You know, it would be a real shame if you were to lose your medical licence, wouldn't it, doctor?” Tony sneered dangerously low. This ungrateful little shit was going to get it for not only wasting his time and energy, but also his son’s. An insignificant speck like the rest of the world.

“Are you threatening me?” the doctor replied doing his best to keep his tone cool and unflinching when the other man removed all personal space between them. The lack of intimidation he was feeling only pissed Tony off more.

“Let’s not test my resolve, doctor.” Despite feeling completely wrong about leaving considering Peter’s condition, Dr Stephen Strange tucked the file he’d been reading under his arm and left the room in just a few strides. Tony had spotted the hand diving for a phone as the door shut behind him and clenched his fists in disdain.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., be a darling and ensure Doctor Douchebag doesn’t make it back home,” Tony demanded followed by a nonchalant sniff.

“Yes, boss. His phone has also unexpectedly lost all signal so will not be usable anytime soon.”

Satisfied with the course of action his AI had taken, Tony locked the door to his son’s room for good measure. He eyed the current equipment before making his move. One of the drips currently providing Peter with much needed medicine was switched to make way for a sample of the Extremis that Tony had meticulously created and tested on himself. He peered at his son, swallowing thickly that this would all be worth it.

Bag secured, the first few drops started instantly, the older man watching as they flowed along the thin tubes before entering the cannula imposed on Peter’s hand. The skin began to glow orange, the lava looking trail gliding all the way up the arm’s before entering the chest. Daring a glance at the monitors, Tony noted an instant improvement in the readouts. A smile spread across his face as sheet-white, sickly skin started to immediately brighten.

Peter’s big, brown doe eyes suddenly shot open as he took a huge gulp of air, eyes landing on his father who was remarkably in focus for the first time in his life without the aid of glasses. Tony removed the oxygen mask so he could take his son’s face in fully for the first time in well over a month.

“Dad?” the young boy croaked, clearly a little disoriented from the abrupt wake up.

“Hey, buddy,” Tony whispered, voice cracking with emotion as he closed the distance between them.

Peter lunged at his father, his small arms wrapping tightly around the genius’ neck and face burying into his chest. It had been far too long since either had been able to enjoy the tender, heart-bursting feeling of overwhelming, unconditional love from one another.

“I love you, kiddo.” Tony gushed as one of his hand’s lovingly cupped the back of Peter's head holding him as close as possible. The other enveloped around his back, his thumb slowly stroking up and down. When the older man's hand started to trail through Peter's hair, the boy somehow managed to burrow even closer. Tony soothingly lifted curls between his fingers and then let them ping back as new life continued to circle through his son’s body.

“I love you too, dad,” Peter whispered, a strain evident in his voice that Tony hadn’t been expecting. When he leant back, he saw the likely cause. Now unnecessary wires were tugging at his child’s skin.

“Let’s get these off you, bud. You don’t need them anymore,” he promised softly as he carefully went to work at removing the monitoring equipment clips and stickers. Peter’s curious eyes followed every step of the way, surprisingly not wincing even when some of the tougher stickers were peeled away. Although he was too young to even begin comprehending what had happened, he knew from vague memories he’d been hurt and that he’d slept a lot. Often he had been unsure if he was dreaming or awake when he’d hear his father read him stories, express his love and let him know how brave he was being. A slight tug on his hand drew him from his recollection as he looked down.

"I’m scared," Peter timidly admitted as he eyed up the last piece of medical equipment attached to him. The cannula in his hand.

“Here’s what we're gonna do, bud. We’re going to put on our brave faces and before you know it, it’ll be all done and over with. Can you show me your bravest, fiercest face?” Tony gently challenged, as part of his upper lip curled and he playfully growled.

The child’s dinky nose scrunched up and his lips pushed out into the biggest pout he could form. He shook his head a little and hummed in a way that likely felt fierce to him but could only be described as adorable to his dad.

"Wowzer. That was super mean, you nearly scared me!” Tony gasped dramatically, as he gestured for the boy to look down and see that the only thing on the top of his hand was a small cotton wool ball and a light pressure from his dad. Using his free hand to fish into his pocket, Tony revealed a green Paw Patrol sticker with Peter’s favourite character, Rocky, on it.

It had been a distant memory since the young boy had handed it to him, having spotted the numerous nicks and cuts that littered his hard working hands after a long day in the workshop. Extremis meant Peter wouldn’t even need it, but the placebo effect would make it worth it.

“Am I all better, daddy?” Peter asked as Tony eyed him up once more. The overwhelmed father cupped his kid’s face and planted another kiss on his forehead, relief washing over him that he was now free from the concatenation of medical instrumentation.

“You most certainly are. And that means we get to skedaddle out of here.”

Before his son could anticipate his next move, his father had scooped him up into his arms and they were making their way not only out of the room, but off of the floor for good.

They’d had a chance to change into matching casual wear and feasted on a huge breakfast before snuggling up on the sofa. Peter had selected an Octonauts movie to watch as he tucked into his father’s side and enjoyed the sound of his steady heartbeat.

It would be a couple of hours when Tony’s phone pinged with a notification he knew was F.R.I.D.A.Y. when she was being discreet. His son huffed at the movement as he shuffled to get the phone out of his pocket, muttering an apology to his kid before opening the message.

[Unfortunate accident on the Hawk’s Nest, Route 97. Vehicle crossed the barrier and rolled multiple times down the cliff’s edge before landing in the Delaware River. Initial scan from one of the Iron Sight Bot #364 shows one survivor.]

Tony’s smirk widened into a full blown smile. Peter’s heart-of-gold eyes suddenly on him, looking up from his position. It was likely a silent protest at the lack of head strokes he was suddenly receiving so the genius replied swiftly.

[Call off any emergency services and get him med-evaced here.]

“You know what I think we need. Celebratory cheeseburgers for lunch,” he announced as Peter let out a squee of joy.

[jawritter]

The Arrangement

Part 6

Summery: You are a young girl that was raised in a small church in Dallas, TX. One of the only churches left in the state that still practices arranged marriages. When your betrothed ran off to California you thought you'd escape the fate you were trained for ever since a small child. Now upon the death your parents your fate seemed to be inescapable as he's returned, and is ready to take you as his bride.

Book Warnings: Arranged marriage, loss of virginity, smut, unprotected sex, angst, language, suicide attempt, battles with anxiety, struggles with mental illness, age gap (about 11 years), I think that’s it, chapters will have warnings of their own!

Chapter Warnings: Nothing really, feels and tooth rooting fluff.

Word Count: 1897

A/N: This book is a book about Christian and church based arranged marriages, I would like to take this moment to say that I DO NOT have ANYTHING against the Chirstian faith, and mean absolutely no harm to anyone! Especially Jensen’s family! This is a complete work of fiction, and should be treated as such!

Beta’d by the amazing @deanwanddamons who was awesome enough to do all this for me! It was a lot of work, and she deserves all the praise for it!!

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Want More? Check Out My Masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***SERIES MASTERLIST***

Jensen's POV:

A loud crack of thunder woke Jensen up as it rolled overhead. He automatically tightened his grip on Y/Nl aying next to him, pulling her sleeping body closer to his in hopes of keeping the storm that was rolling outside from waking her.

She'd been through a lot, and as much as she tried to hide it yesterday, he was afraid all of yesterday's events had taken their toll on her. Even though he was thinking about driving back to Austin earlier than planned, he quickly saw last night that she was going to need some time to recover, even if she didn't want to admit it to him.

What was concerning him more than anything, were his own feelings that he was already developing toward the young woman laying soundly asleep in his arms.

He shouldn't already be feeling these things. Hell they'd only really just meet yesterday! He didn't understand why he worried over her so much, why every time she nuzzled closer to him in her sleep his heart would skip a beat. Why every time he kissed her, it felt like he could fly around the room.

If Jensen was to be completely honest with himself, he’d never been in love with someone, and he knew it. The marriage with Danneel was nothing but a PR disaster that took 10 years to fall apart. Every other relationship he'd ever had never lasted long enough for him to develop feelings for anyone.

Right now with Y/N nuzzled into him as close as was possible, he was pretty sure he was already falling head over heels for her. One thing he was certain though, was he'd never felt this way about anyone before.

Another roll of thunder overhead and you stirred in his arms. Jensen froze, waiting to see if you were going to wake up. When you didn't, he reached over and grabbed his phone to look through his messages. Five were from Jared.

He was concerned for him, and Jensen knew it, but this was something that he just had to do. He needed this. He needed someone that would be faithful to him, someone that could learn to hopefully love him,  not just use him to get whatever they wanted from people, and exploit his pocket book.

Every woman he'd ever been with had only wanted him for their 15 minutes of fame, or what he could buy them. They never really loved him.

Y/n, being raised as she was, didn't really care about the money, and she definitely didn't want to be in the spotlight. They were trained against it. Jared was lucky when he found Gen. Why didn't he deserve to find the same thing?

Your POV:

A loud bang of thunder followed by a  crack of lightning woke you up with a start. As soon as you jumped, Jensen tightened his arms around you.

"It's okay baby I got you." he whispered, pulling you impossibly close to his warm body while you tried to control your breathing. You had been asleep hard and honestly, had slept harder than you'd slept in a long time. Which meant it took a few minutes for you to catch up with your surroundings, and your current situation. 

You didn't know if it was from exhaustion, or from the fact that for some unexplained reason you felt safe in Jensen's arms. Safer than you'd ever felt in your life, that you just crashed last night. 

"What time is it?" you finally mumbled, laying there listening to the rain pound down on the roof and windows above the two of you. It was peaceful. The storm raging outside, the comfortable dark bedroom, and Jensen wrapped up as close as possible with you. It was the closest to heaven you'd think you'll ever get here on earth.

Even though you knew you shouldn't be feeling these things this early, you couldn't help it. There was something about Jensen that just made you feel complete, whole in a sense, especially after the loss of everything that was close to you.

"Little after 10, I say we just stay right here today sweetheart, you need to rest, you've been through a lot. Let's just stay in bed all day, and get used to just being with each other. There’s no rush to get back to Austin."

You couldn't help the stupid smile that plastered across you face. 

"That sounds great to me." you tell him, stretching in his arms a little as Jensen’s eyes shamelessly racked over what of your body that was exposed to him. Your body immediately protested against the movement, soreness racking through you. Jensen didn't miss the fact that you winced slightly.

"Let me go draw you a bath sweetheart, It'll help." Jensen said, he looked worried.

"You know I'm supposed to be the one pampering you, not the other way around. I didn't even wake up early enough to fix you breakfast this morning. So far I suck at this."

You really did feel like you'd failed. You couldn’t get used to the thought of him wanting to take care of you. You should have already been out of bed, breakfast fixed, and packed so that he could go home, instead of staying here another night, spending more of the money that didn’t belong to you.

You were always taught that it was your job as a wife to be a help mate, to cook, to clean, to make a comfortable home, to raise a family, all this to make your husband's life better. You were there to serve him. Not the other way around.

"Y/n, you do NOT suck at this. I don't need you to cater to my every whim. I'm a big boy, If I get hungry before you wake up I know where the kitchen is. You're not my slave you know." he said, running his fingers through your hair, before lightly grazing over your neck with his lips, his breath ghosting over your skin, causing an involuntary shiver to run through you.

You didn't understand why his touch affected you so, but it did. One small little gesture that he didn't even realize he was doing and you were putty in his hands.

"I just don't want you to be stuck with someone like me. Who not only is WAY  out of your league, but can't even get off her ass, and do what she is supposed to for you."

Jensen propped up on his elbow, looking at you like you'd popped out a third head. You shook your own head and moved to get out of the bed. His hand reached out, and grabbed your arm, pulling you as close to him as possible, before laying you both back down, and pulling the covers over you.

"What do you mean, 'WAY out of  my league?' You're not way out of  anything? I married you because I chose to. No one forced me, no one twisted my arm. I knew what you looked like before you even walked into the church yesterday. I was well informed on any, and everything that has gone on with you since I left for California. Baby you're not way out of my league."

Leaning down, he placed a sweet kiss to your lips softly, just barely moving his mouth over yours.

"Y/n, you and I are equals. I'm not any better than you are. I don't see myself as something you're not. I want us to be partners in this relationship. Like I said last night. I want a real marriage with you. Not just some arrangement of convenience. I'm not going to lord over you, or anything like that. I'm not going to expect you to walk around like my little slave girl, who's only job is to wait on me hand and foot and fuck me. Sorry, that's not what I wanted."

Leaning down he kissed you again, this time slipping his tongue through your lips without any effort at all, exploring your mouth lazily for a while before breaking the kiss again.

"Now, I'm going to go run you a warm bath, then I'm going to make us so coffee while you're soaking, then we're going to eat a shit ton of junk food, and watch Netflix all day while cuddling here in this bed.   Sound like a plan?” 

You couldn't help but giggle at his serious face, and those perfect, pink, pouty lips.

"Okay, okay..." you tell him, sitting up and watching him make his way toward the bathroom to start running your bath.

"And don't bother about putting  clothes on. You're not going to need them." he said, giving you a playful wink before disappearing into the bathroom. The sounds of water running erupted through the room.

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

A little over five hours and the only thing that had been accomplished was one very relaxing bath which did seem to help a great deal with your sore muscles, and several Netflix serious episodes, which you couldn’t even tell what was on the tv. Jensen kept your mouth busy with his like a couple of teenagers, hands exploring each other's bodies as you lay there, cuddled into each other, wrapped up as tight as you could physically manage.

To say the least this is not what you expected out of an arranged marriage, with all the horror stories and things you had heard. You expected something along the lines of a sex crazed, slave driver, that wanted nothing more than to pound you into the mattress, and have you wait on him hand over fist.

Jensen was the exact opposite so far. He was gentle with you, and he took his time with you. Even though you were lying there next to him, both of you completely naked, he never pushed you to sleep with him, never did anything to make you uncomfortable in the least. There was no rush. He was patient, and content just to lay there and kiss you.

You talked about everything you could think of. Childhood memories, things he's experienced over the last 10 years, what you expected out of life, what your dreams and goals were, what you both wanted in a home.

You both laid there like until long after the sun went down. 

You felt like you knew him a little better than you did when you met him at the church yesterday, and to be honest, you were already head over heels for him.

Every time he smiled, it damn near knocked the wind out of you. Your skin felt alive under his touch in a way you'd never experienced before. So far, Jensen had far surpassed his expectations. That, you were secretly thankful for.

Learning to do this with each other definitely wouldn't be easy, but you were confident that you were both talking a step in the right directions.

One thing you were sure of. You were already completely, irrationally, and  irrevocably in love with him. 

Hopefully you weren't going crazy, and he actually felt the same way. You'd never been a fan of love at first sight. You'd never believed it existed.

Right now, laying here wrapped up in his arms, you were starting to think maybe this whole marriage thing wouldn't be as bad as they talked about before.

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

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[marvel-lucy]

The Ultimate Weapon, chapter 17

After Loki left the medlab, I made a decision, I had to leave. I wasn’t wanted here, the noise in my head made that clear. The lab was empty and quiet as I walked out and headed for the elevator. Down and into my room, I got dressed quickly, grabbed some money and a few clothes in a bag, and prepared to leave. I paused in the doorway, then quickly took out my knife, and gritting my teeth against the pain, cut out the two trackers that Tony had installed in me – in all of us. One in my arm, one in my hip, I dug them out and dropped them on the floor, then left. I had no great plan and my mind no longer felt in my control but I believed everything that I could hear in my head.

I took the elevator down to street level and walked out. First rule of going on the run: run, don’t walk. I knew there were security cameras at the entrances to Stark Tower, and all over the local streets, so I kept my head down. I had limited time before they realised I was gone, so I needed to get out of the reach of CCTV. Not that I expected anyone to come after me, I was sure they’d be glad I was out of their hair, but I was used to thinking like a soldier and that meant getting out of sight.

We were in a commercial district, with high-end shops, street cameras, traffic cameras and dashboard cams on cars. I dodged down alleyways and used fire escapes to go up and over buildings, trying to show up as little as possible. Down one side alley I stopped, put a cap on, and pulled a different coloured hoodie out of my bag. It wasn’t much as disguises go but anyone looking for a green shirt and brown hair would need to pay a little more attention now I had a red cap and black top.

I continued like this for hours, slowly making my way out towards the residential areas where I hoped to find fewer cameras. I had no real destination in mind but something was drawing me out of the city to the north, I could feel a pull in that direction.

By the time night fell, I was out of the city but the area all around was built up and it was hard to stay out of sight. I kept off the main roads, not wanting to risk being picked up, and skirted through parks and backyards where I could, keeping my head down on the streets where I couldn’t. I was still being pulled north and my thoughts were still in a cycle of self-hatred, reminding me that I was a monster, that I was unwanted, unneeded, that I needed to get far away. All the old fears and anxieties that I’d started to overcome had welled up again and I was running from my thoughts as much as from the people I so desperately wanted to call my friends.

I’d long since lost track of time. When it was light, I tried to find somewhere to lay low, although I barely slept. When it got dark, I set off again, heading north. I ate what I could find – fruit, stolen food. One night I fell ill from eating something I’d found behind a restaurant which had obviously gone off. I rolled myself under a thorn bush, ignoring the scratches in the hope that I wouldn’t be found, and lay foetal, sweating and vomiting, watching the sun come up and go back down again before I felt able to continue. I avoided stores, although I had money, aware that they all had security cameras and also that I probably didn’t look that respectable anymore, and I didn’t want to draw the attention of the police.

And still, I kept walking.

--

It had been about an hour after Ruby left the building before anyone realised. Bruce had gone up to the medlab to check on her and keep her company, to find the bed empty. Assuming that she’d checked herself out and gone down to her room, he asked Jarvis for confirmation, pleased that she’d got up and made a decision for herself.

There was a pause before Jarvis responded. ‘I am reading Miss Ruby’s trackers in her room, but not the presence of any people there’. The AI even sounded concerned, which was a new thing. Bruce frowned, and asked Jarvis to call Tony, then headed to the elevator and down to the rooms. Tony and Natasha had been together in the kitchen when Jarvis’s call came in, so both headed down as well, meeting up with Bruce as he approached the bedroom. Jarvis unlocked the door and they walked in. Bruce checked the bathroom, but as he did so, Natasha picked something up from the floor.

“Guys, I think we have a problem”, she said, holding up the two trackers, still covered in small pieces of flesh. Bruce and Tony looked at each other and quickly, all three were heading for the control centre.

“Jarvis, alert the rest of the team to meet us there and start scanning for Ruby. And check on security cams, is she still in the building?”

Within minutes, Bucky, Clint and Sam had joined the others in the control centre where Natasha showed them what they’d found. Jarvis reported back as they gathered.

‘I have found footage of Ruby leaving Stark Tower approximately 80 minutes ago. There was no curfew in place so it did not trigger any action either from myself or from security staff.’ An image of Ruby leaving the building, carrying a small bag, came up on screen. The quality was good enough to see a fresh cut on the arm where the tracker had been. Steve looked over at Bucky who was standing and staring at the screen, holding so tightly to the back of a chair that his knuckles turned white.

Tony took control. “OK, Jarvis, link up with all the security cameras around here, find a trace of her. We can’t act until we know where she might have gone. Or why. Anyone have any clue what’s caused this?” Tony looked at Bucky, who he knew was closest to Ruby, but Bucky wasn’t engaging, focussed on the image on the screen. Sam spoke up.

“Been a while since we talked – before the mission – and I’m not going to give too much detail of what we discussed, but I’d say her actions on the mission just triggered something. Maybe fear of hurting people she cared about, maybe feeling that she didn’t deserve to be here? It’s something strong, because she’s just walked out without any sign of the agoraphobia that’s kept her trapped.”

Everyone felt powerless. Until they had a lead, there was nothing to do. Suddenly Bucky let out a pained yell through gritted teeth, and the chair back broke under his grip.

“I can’t just stay here; I’m going out to start looking. Tell me if you find anything but I need to do something”. He left the building and Steve followed shortly after, to keep his friend under control. Tony nodded and then turned back to the screen.

Jarvis had logged into as many street cameras as he could, and been able to pick up traces of Ruby. They mapped out a general course, picking her up on occasion streets away from where she’d last been seen, but each trace was long over an hour cold by now and they knew she had the skills to disappear. Tony called up Steve.

“She’s heading north. Or was when last seen. We’ve got traces of her as far as the Bronx, then she’s gone. Doesn’t seem to be using any public transit, might have changed clothes. Don’t think she knows anyone out there does she?”

Tony could hear Steve and Bucky talking but as far as anyone knew, Ruby had no contacts anywhere in the city, or in the country. In fact, she had no-one but the Avengers, so where was she heading? Steve and Bucky headed back to the Tower to collect a car and start looking further north, but without more recent images, everyone knew it was a futile act, one designed just to feel as if something was happening.

Eventually, even Steve and Bucky returned to the Tower. They’d traced every street and headed way out to the city limits but there was no chance of finding anything. Nat and Clint had spoken to their contacts who were keeping their eyes open but with a stealth soldier, she’d be on the lookout for watchers.

Over the next week, the mood in the Tower was grim. Throughout the days, the team would ask for updates from Jarvis, knowing that if he’d found anything they’d be told, but unable to sit and wait. A chance image from a street camera brought some hope after six days, from a small town on the edge of Connecticut. Ruby had changed clothes, so at least they knew what they were looking for now. The image wasn’t clear but she looked haunted and gaunt.

Tracing a path from Stark Tower to her last sighting, they tried to guess where she’d be heading next. Although she was still going north, she was obviously keeping off the main routes, but at least it was a lead. Within half an hour, the team were in Connecticut and searching. Nothing. Two days later, they all returned to the Tower and to waiting.

They all met in the control room again, sitting around the table and hyped up on lack of sleep, caffeine and worry. They could stare at maps all they wanted, they didn’t know where you were going and Ruby was too good at staying off the grid.

“We need to go back to the start” Steve said. “We reacted to this all wrong, rushing out and not thinking things through. We’ve let emotions get too involved, this isn’t what we do. Trying to work out where she is is getting us nowhere, let’s go back to basics and see what’s triggered this.” There was a slight shuffling. This was what they were all trained to do, but somehow the urge to DO had overtaken the urge to think and they had acted impetuously.

“What do we know?” They talked back through the days before she’d run. Progress with Sam, a sense of breakthrough – maybe that had been too overwhelming? Then the mission, seeing Rumlow, saving the team. None of it made sense.

“She was doing great” Sam said. “There was real trust coming out. And she saved you, why would she need to run after that?” Then Tony looked up.

“Jarvis, do we have any details of who she spoke to after the mission?” The voice from the AI came through: ‘as you know Sir, I do not record in the medlab for confidentiality reasons, however I can confirm that the last people to visit were Sgt Barnes, and then Loki.’ An image appeared onscreen of Loki entering the medlab, and then another, timestamped about ten minutes later, leaving. As the screen showed him shutting the door of the lab, a smirk appeared on his face.

“SHIT, how did we miss this?” Tony was furious with himself. “How did we not think of that bastard. What did he say to her? Screw confidentiality, we need cameras everywhere. We need him down here.” Thor and Loki had left a few days after Ruby had gone missing, not wanting to intrude, but with Loki unwelcome in Asgard, there was a possibility that they were still on earth. Natasha was instantly on the phone to Jane Foster, waking her up in England in the middle of the night uncaring.

“Jane, it’s Natasha Romanov, we need Thor, do you know where he is?”

“Um, what? Hi Natasha, it’s like 4am, did you know that? Um, yeah, I know where Thor is, hang on.” Seconds later, over the rustling of sheets, Thor’s voice boomed out of the phone, but Nat cut him off.

“Thor. You need to get to Stark Tower. Now. And bring your brother, wherever that little shit might be.” She hung up. There was an atmosphere of angry tension in the room and a sense of threat. Steve, trying to retain control, realised that if this spilt over into violence – all too easy with the mood of the team – they’d get nowhere.

“We can’t all question him. He’d enjoy it too much. I’ll speak to him, OK. You watch.” But Bucky refused, telling Steve he’d break his arm if he tried to stop him from questioning Loki. “Fine, you can be there, but rein it in. We don’t know if he’s done anything yet, and if he has, we need him conscious so you can’t just beat it out of him.”

It didn’t take long for Thor and Loki to arrive, landing on the roof and announced by Jarvis, they were met at the elevator by Steve and Bucky. Thor looked confused and Loki looked amused by the urgency with which they’d been summoned. Despite Steve’s best efforts, as soon as they stepped out of the elevator, Bucky had grabbed Loki around the neck and thrust him back against the wall.

“What the hell did you say to her?” he growled, but Thor grabbed his other arm and pulled him off Loki, demanding an explanation for this assault on his brother. For a moment it looked as if Thor and Bucky would fight until Steve’s voice boomed over the top.

“Enough. Guys. Calm it down, let us explain. Thor, Ruby has gone missing. It’s been over a week now. We can’t find her. We know that the last person to speak to her, just minutes before she left, was Loki. We just want to know if he can help shed any light on things.” Bucky was standing, scowling, over Loki who still looked amused by the anger in the air. Only Steve saw the way Thor closed his eyes tight for a second before turning to his brother.

“Loki, brother, what have you done? Why must you always bring your mischief to bear on every world?” It seemed Thor had no doubt that his brother had caused trouble.

“I merely spoke to her brother!” Loki protested, then continued, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. “I could sense that she felt… unworthy… to be part of this company, having shown her true side during your mission. If she then decided that it was best for her to leave, well, that cannot be on my head.” There was obviously more though, Loki was enjoying tormenting everyone too much and Bucky was ready to kill, but Thor put up a hand to stop him moving forward, and spoke quietly.

“Let me deal with my brother. I will find whatever information I can for you. Do you have somewhere we can go?” There was a pause, Bucky still obviously wanting to hurt Loki, but then Steve nodded and showed them into the kitchen, an incongruous setting for the two Gods to talk. Bucky and Steve waited outside in the corridor, Steve pacing up and down, Bucky leaning back against the wall, arms crossed and looking tense. There was no sound from inside the kitchen at first, then after a few moments, raised voices could be heard. Steve stopped pacing and both listened.

“Why do you care so for these worthless Midgardians brother? They are as nothing to us! Their lives are small and mean and paltry,” Loki spat the words out. “Yes, I used the girl. I crept into her mind and encouraged her to leave.” Steve had to grab at Bucky’s arm to stop him crashing into the room, as Loki continued. “Hydra have the tesseract, I want it. It should be mine, not left in the charge of some worthless humans. They wanted the girl back, she was the most powerful of all these pitiful creatures, and they had lost her. So because of me, she is now on her way back to them, although she doesn’t know it. She already felt that she wasn’t worthy of being here, that these people couldn’t want a monster like her. I simply crept into her feeble mind and encouraged that thought, and then gave her a push towards Hydra. She is almost there now, I am still inside her mind and I can feel she is close to the base. Once Hydra have her, I will have the tesseract. I care not for these worms on Earth and you demean yourself with your love for them.”

Loki’s voice was deadly, angry and full of hate but had carried clearly through the walls. Steve knew the others must be watching in the control room too. He looked at Bucky in fear, both wondering if they were too late, and then it was too much for Bucky. He threw open the door and flew into the room, to where Thor had Loki pinned down in a chair, then with a scream of anger, he punched Loki hard in the face, throwing him backwards off the chair and onto the floor, instantly unconscious.

---

Suddenly, like a light being turned on, my brain cleared. The whispering voice in my head had gone and the only thoughts left were my own. I had no idea how long I had been on the run, or where I was. Time seemed to both have rushed by and stood still, and I had only flashes of memories of the last days: stealing food from a shop, clothes from a line. Running along roads and hiding in woods, all the time with my mind feeling buried under the unrelenting force of someone else’s power. I had heard their whispers in my head for so long now that I had started to wonder if I was insane, but had believed the voices when they told me to run; that I wasn’t wanted or needed by the Avengers; that they would be better off without me. Now, a moment of clarity and I realised that these thoughts were from outside me. I wanted to go home. Maybe the Avengers wouldn’t want me after this. But I had to find out.

I was afraid I wouldn’t have long before whoever it was realised I was starting to think my own thoughts again, so as fast as I could without drawing attention to myself, I walked to the nearest mall and bought a cheap phone. I guessed from the strange looks in the shop that I was none too clean and respectable looking. They were happy enough to take my money though, and I left as quickly and quietly as I had come in.

Finding a spot in the mall where I could stand, part hidden by a large fake palm tree, and with my back to a wall, I rang the one number I could remember, where I knew I’d get straight answers. I knew I couldn’t ring Stark, or Steve… or Bucky. I was afraid they’d come at me with questions, accusations, guilt; that they’d lie to me and say I was welcome, or that they’d tell me the truth and say that I was not. There wasn’t time, I felt sweat on my back with fear of going under again. So, I rang Stark Tower and asked to speak to Jarvis.

His voice came on the line instantly and the familiarity hit me in the gut, making me slide down to the floor with my back to the wall. As fast as I could get the words out – unfamiliar with speaking after time alone – I explained what I thought had happened. Someone had forced their way into my mind; I didn’t know where I was; I was afraid they were going to come and find me, afraid it was Hydra. Then, almost not daring to say it, I had to ask. ‘Would the team want me back?’ The answer was almost instantaneous, but even so those milliseconds felt like forever, before Jarvis spoke: ‘I have already informed the team of your message and they are on their way to the quinjet now to come and find you’. I breathed out fast, unaware I’d been holding my breath. Jarvis told me to stay where I was, and that they knew Hydra were close, but I knew I couldn’t stay still. As fast as the quinjet was, Hydra would be coming for me too, and it would be a race against time to see who found me first. A memory flashed into my head, of cutting my own trackers out of my flesh before I fled the tower. I had to move, and keep moving, and hope that my friends could find me before my enemies.

I skirted the mall, staying close to the wall and eyes out. I was weak – when had I last eaten? – and as my brain become clearer, started to become aware of my physical state. I had bruises and torn muscles, healing cuts that I didn’t remember getting. I wasn’t in any condition to fight my way out, so I was going to have to stay under the radar. Everyone walking past felt like a potential Hydra agent, about to grab me, I had to leave. I saw an exit marked for the car park, and fled through it and down the stairs. Waiting on the floor below, I paused to see if I had been followed through the door, but all was quiet. I continued down to the car park, darker and quieter than the bustling mall, easier to spot any approaches. I became aware of voices in my head again and shook at the thought of losing myself. I couldn’t tell anymore which thoughts were my own and which were the whispering voices, urgent and forceful, that had told me I was unwanted, damaged goods, and that only Hydra could make things OK for me. I shook my head, but the voices continued – I didn’t know that back in Stark Tower, Loki had come around and was trying to regain control, to find out where I was and direct me to Hydra.

I could feel my anxiety levels rising. Maybe the Avengers weren’t coming for me. Maybe they wanted to put me down as a threat. I had to hide. From everyone. Running now with no thought for the startled faces I pushed past, I made for the street level and ran on through the city. I saw a sign – Pittsfield, Massachusetts – well over 100 miles from New York. Had I walked all that way? But the moment of clarity passed and again all I knew was the urge to hide. Although weakened, I was still faster and had greater stamina than most people, and ran continuously, out of the glossy central areas and into a more rundown neighbourhood. By now evening was drawing in and the light was going. I saw an alley, between two shops, both now closed and dark, and skidded into it.

I huddled down in the alley, squeezed between a dumpster and a pile of mouldering boxes. The smell assaulted my senses, damp and musty. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I dropped my head and concentrated on being invisible. No just hiding from sight, but hiding from all the senses. I used my mental powers to focus on not existing. On not being. Look away, look past me, nothing to see here. I could sense the…presence… looking for me, questing along the mental link that had formed between us and growing frustrated that I had disappeared. I lost track of how long I sat there, shaking and exhausted by the power I was having to use, then suddenly, a hand on my shoulder, and I knew I had been found.

I tried to shout but I was too worn down and it came out as just a grunt. Looking up, the light was in my eyes and I blinked, trying to focus on the dark silhouette above me, then a voice, one I recognised, spoke to me and said my name. It was Bucky. I was safe. At once, I used the last of my strength to send a backwash of pain and fury along the mental link between myself and the unknown tormenter. I screamed inside my head as I tried to burn out the bridge and free myself. From unknown distances, I felt the shockwave as it hit them, the surprise attack they didn’t know – I didn’t know – I could use. As the link broke, I could feel the waves of agony flooding back towards me. People in the street walking by shook their heads and looked up, confused, as they sensed the fear and pain from some unknown source, although they weren’t sensitive to these things, it was too great to avoid. I saw Bucky stumble under the force, and it was the last thing I saw before everything went black.

[woolishlygrim]

Winter Weebwatch #1

So, because it is Good when I get to have opinions about things, I figured I’d try out doing a bunch of mini-reviews for the current season of anime, doing a new batch of reviews with each episode and seeing how they evolve and change over time, whether some do better, or some fall behind, or if I end up dropping any of them (and by any of them, I mean Plunderer).

The winter anime season is kind of a dead zone: Since it starts in January when everybody’s starting to get busy again and Christmas has screwed over their sense of work-life balance, it’s the season with the lowest amount of viewers, and so it’s the season where the shows tend to be noticeably low effort and low budget. It’s telling that, despite having huge franchises with a lot of brand recognition, Sunrise and A-1 Pictures put Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise and Sword Art Online on hiatus for the entirety of the winter season, choosing to take the hit that comes from a three month hiatus instead of wasting twelve or thirteen episodes on the Death Season, The Season Where Shows Go To Die.

So by and large, what we’re reviewing here are either the shows distribution companies didn’t care about, or the shows distribution companies did care about but couldn’t get a channel to pick up in any other season. We’re also not reviewing all of them, because there’s like ninety and my store of time and opinions is finite, so we’re reviewing seven.

While the intention is to follow these seven shows through to the end, what will probably happen is I might drop a couple that aren’t keeping my interest, and pick up a couple that catch my eye. If I pick up new ones, then whatever I pick up will get some kind of bumper review covering several episodes.

Also, I really dragged my heels getting this done, so most of these shows have already aired their second episodes. I’ll be trying to put out the second episode reviews a lot quicker, so that I can be relatively current by the time the third episodes roll around.

Anyway! Week 1, first episodes.

Infinite Dendrogram.

★★★☆☆

Infinite Dendrogram has a terrible and ridiculous premise that crumbles into dust if you examine it for more than 0.2 seconds, and I kind of don’t mind that at all.

The show follows Ray Starling, a player in the titular Virtual Reality MMO, which promises infinite possibilities owing to its two unique selling points: The first, that all the NPCs are fully-fledged AIs, meaning the world ‘exists’ distinct from its players or any manned oversight, with quests emerging naturally from the NPCs’ wants and needs, and with NPCs able to permanently die; and the second, that each player character has an Embryo, a superpower generated using their personality as a model, with infinite possibilities.

This is an inconceivably dumb premise. Leaving aside the obvious game balance issues with the Embryos, it’s clarified early on that this AI technology is unique to the game, which means that some game company discovered the technology to create fully conscious, sapient life, and decided to use that technology to create a video game (and in doing so, directly led to the deaths of thousands of those sapient lives).

But I … kinda don’t care? Infinite Dendrogram’s episode was fun, lively, not terribly original but consistently engaging, and managed to introduce five characters who I actually kind of like while telling a self-contained episodic story with good stakes and nice pacing. It feels like Sword Art Online if Sword Art Online was written by a competent writer and also not just a delivery system for creepy, irritating fanservice, and that’s pretty nice.

Also, bonus points for actually making the in-universe game look fun? We’ll call that one another advantage it has over SAO.

ID: Invaded.

★★★★☆

ID: Invaded has indisputably the strongest first episode of this season of anime (really first two, as it aired both episodes one and two back to back), by a gigantic margin. A video called ‘Defending ID: Invaded’ floated by my youtube dash a few days back, so clearly some people don’t agree with me on that, but that’s fine. It’s okay for them to be wrong.

When ID: Invaded picks up, a young man awakens in an empty white void full of floating chunks of a city, with his own body in pieces and no memories. Pulling himself back together, he realises, upon seeing a dead body of a young woman, that his name is Sakaido, and he’s a detective here to solve the woman’s murder.

Sakaido, it quickly turns out, is exploring a cognitive world formed out of a telepathic link with the killer, with a team of investigators in the real world watching through his eyes and picking out evidence to find the murderer with. When the murderer, a serial killer called the Perforator, kidnaps a member of the investigation team, the race is on to find him before he can kill again.

So, ID: Invaded has kind of mastered the art of dripfeeding information in a way that gets a viewer hooked very quickly while steadily delivering a series of twists and turns, and recontextualising the story and the mystery (which, it rapidly emerges, is not the mystery of the Perforator, but rather the mystery of Sakaido himself). It’s gripping and inventive, with a strong if slightly convoluted premise and a lot of interesting material to set up going forward in the series.

In a nice touch, director Ei Aoki turns the mental worlds Sakaido visits (two in the first two episodes) into homages to other surrealist anime directors, mimicking both their compositions and their cinematography. The world of the Perforator draws marked influence from the works of Mamoru Hosoda, an apprentice of Hayao Miyazaki and one of the original creators of Digimon Adventure; while the second world visited pays homage to the works of Akiyuki Shinbo, best known for the unsettling surrealist landscapes and equally unsettling cinematography of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/Extra Last Encore.

Pet.

★☆☆☆☆

Pet looks like a cheap OVA from 2004. Let’s just get that out of the way, it looks bad, but in a really inoffensive way where it just kind of looks cheap and outdated.

It’s … fine. It’s okay. If you’ve ever had a Burger King bacon and cheese burger, you basically know what Pet is like. If you haven’t ever had a Burger King bacon and cheese burger, go and have a Burger King bacon and cheese burger, and then you’ll know what Pet is like.

The first episode doesn’t really give away anything about the premise of the series, save that it involves psychic criminals, but it tells a decent self-contained little story about a guy who learns something he shouldn’t and is then psychic-ly tormented before his memory is eventually wiped.

There’s also just not a lot to say about Pet, though. It fulfills its function as a work of storytelling, and it doesn’t really ever do much more than that, at least in its first episode. It finds its comfortable niche in just being very average and unremarkable, and sticks there, being average and unremarkable.

Of all the first episodes I’m reviewing, Pet seems the most passionless. It’s such a middle of the road piece of art that I struggle to imagine why it was even made. It doesn’t seem like it’s trying to sell merchandise, it doesn’t seem like a passion project, it doesn’t really seem like much of anything. It feels like someone asked a creative writing class to write a short story about psychic criminals, and then one of those stories was turned into an anime episode.

Plunderer.

☆☆☆☆☆

Plunderer offers a moderately interesting premise that literally nobody watching the first episode will even remember because oh good god, from the second scene onwards the entire episode is just non-stop sexual harassment and assault, first from the protagonist to the deuteragonist and then from the antagonist to the deuteragonist, and I hated it. I hated it so much.

In a bizarre turn, when the protagonist sexually harasses and attempts to sexually assault the deuteragonist, it’s played as wacky comedy, but when the antagonist does basically the exact same thing, it’s played with all the sense of horror that those actions warrant.

I just … don’t really get how I’m meant to ever sympathise with the protagonist after this. I don’t know how you rehabilitate a character in the audience’s minds when our very first introduction to him tells us that he’s a sex pest.

Also something something numbers something something die if your number reaches zero something something magical items who even cares what the premise is, my patience for this show ran dry thirty seconds into the second scene.

If I had a way of representing it, I would give this first episode a negative number of stars.

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

★★★☆☆

Let it just be noted that ‘Sorcerous Stabber Orphen’ is the most unintentionally hilarious anime title of the season, so there’s that.

A remake of a 1999 series of the same name, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen follows Orphen, a disgraced former sorcerer turned small-time crook and moneylender whose ill-advised attempt to commit marriage fraud is abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a dragon crashing through the roof of his potential bride/mark’s house. This isn’t just any dragon, however, but Orphen’s sister, Azalie, magically transformed after a spell gone wrong, leading Orphen on a quest to turn her back into a human before the sorcerers of the Tower of Fang can kill her.

Side note: While he names himself ‘Orphen’ because he is an orphan, I’m not misspelling the name, that’s how it’s spelled in-show. This is everybody’s fault except mine.

So, this first episode rather shows the age of its source material. It looks very much like a spruced up late 90s anime made with current day animation techniques, and that’s actually not a bad look for it. It’s also not really a good look -- Megalo Box this ain’t -- it’s just kind of a … look. Which is there. It exists in a state of Neutral Retro.

As first episodes go, though, this is probably one of the emptier and slower ones, somehow managing to cover less of its plot than even Plunderer (although it wins out on a massive margin the basis of that plot not being 90% sex crimes), because seemingly not only is its animation style cribbed from late 90s action anime, but so is its pacing.

What’s there, though, is pretty fun. None of it is dazzlingly original, it probably wasn’t that original even in the 90s, but we get introduced to a likeable cast of characters, we get a decent central conflict set up, and the worldbuilding is, while bare bones at present, at least interesting enough to hook a viewer who likes fantasy.

Also, it’s called ‘Sorcerous Stabber Orphen,’ so, you know. Extra star just for that, man.

In/Spectre.

★★☆☆☆

I’m not sure what In/Spectre is trying to be, and it doesn’t seem to be sure either.

The marketing set it up as an atmospheric, brooding supernatural mystery. The first third of the episode frames it as a romantic comedy with emphasis on the comedy. The second third of the episode switches back to atmospheric, brooding supernatural mystery, only for the third third of the episode to switch tracks yet again, this time to an action comedy with an emphasis on the action.

I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with this show. I get mood whiplash constantly, as it veers from genre to genre like a drunk driver on the freeway. By the time the last third of the episode hit, I felt completely unmoored not just from the plot, but from how I was even meant to interpret the characters.

It’s not bad at any of those genres, either. The romantic comedy section was actually pretty funny, the supernatural mystery section was suitably ominous, the action comedy section established stakes and followed through on them pretty well. None of it was blow-me-away-amazing, but it was all competent, it’s just that there’s no coherent sense of tone to any of it.

Darwin’s Game.

★☆☆☆☆

Full disclosure, I completely forgot I was watching Darwin’s Game. I finished these reviews, thought ‘haha, well done, I’ve reviewed all six shows I wanted to review’ and didn’t remember that there was a seventh on my list until I saw its name come up on a streaming website.

That’s a large part of why I’m scoring it so low. It’s better than In/Spectre, Pet, or Plunderer, it’s probably at least as good as Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, but at least those shows actually made some kind of impression on me. Darwin’s Game is good, but I can’t exactly justify giving two or three stars to a show that had such little impact that it vanished from my memory as soon as I stopped actively watching it with my eyes, like some kind of middling Doctor Who monster.

So, Darwin’s Game follows, um. It follows … a guy … with a name that I can’t recall … who is unwittingly dragged into a death game played in the streets of Tokyo. With each player given Sigils, seemingly magical abilities that they can use to gain advantages in the game, and with points exchangeable for vast sums of real money, the players of Darwin’s Game are set to the task of hunting down and murdering other players. Unable to back out of the game, Some Guy finds help with, er … with … a person … whose name I also don’t recall … and …

God, trying to recall the details of this show is like trying to recall what you had for dinner last week just after a severe head injury. You know, but the details just aren’t there.

I’m kind of at a loss as far as opinions go, because I don’t … know? If I think hard, I can remember the order of events that happened in the first episode, but I can’t remember what, if any, emotional response I had to them. All of my memories of this show are a blank, emotionless void, this is like asking me to review Solitaire. Like, I guess it was fine? I guess? 

I can’t remember the main character’s face or voice.

Note to self, write all Darwin’s Game reviews from now on immediately after watching the episode, otherwise all recollection of it will melt like ice cream in a heat wave.

I’m still giving it one star, though, because I refuse to put it on the same level as Plunderer. For a start, the main character doesn’t belong on some kind of registry.

[pxiao]

Yeah I pretty much agree but if I want to say my general feelings. I hate Jud//ai the least of the three and if given the chance would beat him to death along with Yusa//ku. I mean Yu//ma is just a kid so he gets some more leeway from me.

Ok essentially Ju//dai is at the end of the day a selfish prick and he has always been a selfish prick. He’s ok in BBT but that’s because he’s the least focused of the three protagonists. And I’ll be honest I don’t think Ju//dai is gay or straight or any sexuality really because the only person he loves IS HIMSELF. He barely has enough care to think about his friends and even then if it doesn’t align with his desires, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t have it in him to pay attention to others enough to be physically attracted to anyone and I don’t mean that he’s asexual. No that’s insulting to actual asexual people as they still care about people! Ju//dai never grows up despite what GX likes to tell us. Ju//dai is a selfish jerk that doesn’t care enough of his friends to help them if it doesn’t benefit him and he ENDS the show that way. Doesn’t help that he seriously hogs the screentime in his show. His biggest flaws is his hero complex, his self-centered nature and just how lazy he is as a person and I don’t mean schoolwork either. The fourth season he was supposed to be researching Darkness and he SAT ON HIS ASS THE ENTIRE TIME TILL THEY ATTACKED! Au///stin DID ALL THE WORK! Season 3 is all about how he needs to grow up because everything comes to easy to him which is just faux-philosophy at the end of the day. Essentially they’re saying his flaw is HE HAS NO FLAWS! But at the end of the day Judai is just an aggreving character and doesn’t do any real harm. While his fandom worships him, they mostly stay in their own lane. So he’s easy to ignore. 

Yu//ma is also a dumbass douche like Ju/dai but like ten times stupider. His main issue is he’s just static so instead of maturing and growing, he just makes the same mistakes over and over. Despite the show saying that he’s nice and kind, he’s got a lot of douchey moments for no other reason than for bad comedy. Like he made Ko//tori get off from the rollercoaster control ride thing to have a serious duel and promises to get her when the duel is over and legit forgets about her. Leaving her stranded in an amusement park and only remembers when he’s eating dinner. After two of his friends, one of which is his BEST FRIEND no less were traumatized by a duel they had which HE SAW, Yu//ma went about the next day not giving a shit and walking around. And for As/tral when he gave up one of the Number cards for a kid that needed luck for an operation, he IGNORED As/tral’s worry that Yu//ma wasn’t going to get it back. Considering each number card is part of As//tral’s MEMORIES, it’s rather cruel to essentially ignore his reasonable fears about losing part of his identity FOREVER. But he is a 13 year old and yeah we can all be jerks and idiots. So I’m not going to be AS hard on Yu//ma as Jud//ai. But Yu//ma’s still an asshole. The issue is he has a legit flaw to him that the show just tries to say is really a strength. His naivete. There is a BIG difference between optimism and naivete and Yu//ma is very much the latter. Yu//ma honestly believes that if you DUEL with someone you’re friends now. Even if a duel is a conversation, I don’t become friends with everyone I talk to. See how dumb that idea is. Yu//ma also believes in everyone EVEN IF THEY HAVE HURT YOU AND INTEND ON HURTING YOU. Like wth Ve//ctor whose first real interaction with Yu//ma was trolling him to break his friendship with As//tral and very nearly killed him and his friends. And since then Ve//ctor has continued to be a sadistic freak that keeps trying to murder him and then he tries to save Ve//ctor and after Ve//ctor revealed it he was planning on letting Yu//ma die to save his own skin, Yu//ma was FINE WITH IT. And then the show KEEPS ON PRAISING HIM FOR HAVING A HEART THAT TRUST OTHERS WITHOUT ANY QUESTION. AND THAT’S FUCKING STUPID. I don’t think we should automatically think everyone in the world is evil and wants to harm you but going the exact opposite is just as dumb. Not everyone is kind and wants what’s best for you and if you aren’t careful, you will be used and be hurt. I hate Yu//ma more because he teaches a HORRIBLE lesson to kids about overly trusting. And it’s not fun watching him as his dueling is stale. He use his monsters just to power up Hope and if that doesn’t work, he cheats a card with Shinin//g draw.  And his fans are also annoying thinking he’s better than Yu///ya, which is 10000% wrong but in general they’re not a big issue due to Yu//ma mostly being rather unpopular.  

OH YU/SAKU or PM. I LOATHE HIM WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING. Like you said, he’s bland and that’s the nicest thing we can say about him. At least Ju/dai and Yu//ma had personalities, PM doesn’t even have that. He’s just PSTD kid with no background or interests. He’s at best character traits of stoic. His “comedy” isn’t funny and more just sudden shut ups. Everyone in the show worships him, that’s a literal fact of the dumbass show. And the worst part of it is, HE DOESN’T DESERVE ANY OF THIS SHIT. He’s honestly not that good of a duelist since he didn’t actually make his deck and even then he rarely wins duels with just the cards in his deck. THE VAST MAJORITY OF HIS DUELS ARE WON BY CHEATING A NEW CARD. His strategy is basic power up my monsters and try to get my LP lower than 1000 to use my skill. His PM design is ugly, everything goes his way and his deck is pure shit. The only decent card is Firewall and that’s banned so he doesn’t even have that anymore. He’s not that smart as he’s gotten into PLENTY of TRAPS because he rushed in head first. He’s not active at all with him being at best reactionary to threats even in season 1 despite him wanting revenge. THE ONLY THING HE DID OF HIS OWN INITIATIVE was storming SOL and even then nothing came out of it as he couldn’t decode the Ignis code. Narrative there is no reason to like him as he RARELY CARES ABOUT OTHERS. When G//o first turned against him, he didn’t care at all and went about his mission. Great way to show he cares about the people he worked with. HELL the next time he sees G//o, he brings up that they used to work together SO WHY DOES HE SUDDENLY CARE???? BUT THE WORST THING HE DOES IS SEND THE WORST MESSAGE TO PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM MENTAL SICKNESS. He says after his trauma, he got counselling but it didn’t work and he gave up on it and allow me to say this. FUCK YOU YOS//HIDA! As someone that had to take treatment due to mental illness that means Yu//saku is a wimp. My therapist told me this, “the treatment only works as well as you try.” I’m not saying all therapists are good but since Yu/saku apparently only tried ONE THERAPIST, he concluded it didn’t work and stopped. HE’S GIVING THE IDEA THAT THERAPY DOESN’T WORK. AND LET ME TELL YOU FUCK THAT SHIT, HE’S TEACHING PEOPLE THAT THERAPY DOESN’T WORK TO A COUNTRY THAT ALREADY DOESN’T LIKE THERAPY, WRITTEN BY A MIDDLE AGED MAN WHO PROBABLY DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT. THIS IS A SHIT LESSON AND PLENTY OF HIS FANS USE YU//SAKU TO NOT GET BETTER AND STAY MISERABLE! HE’S A HORRIBLE CHARACTER AND TEACHES THE WORST LESSON EVER AND HE CAN GO DIE IN A DITCH FOR ALL I CARE. 

Also his fans are annoying, they cuddle him and act like he’s great when he’s really nothing but a projector. And if anything his fandom is shrinking just to them realizing how boring he is. I would say about 90% of his fans are Data/storm/shippers and they’re their own bag of stupidity. 

[xxx-cat-xxx]

Devils and Dust

“He´s been going down for so long that he´s starting to yearn for the moment he´ll finally crash. But not tonight. It´s the Friday after Peter´s birthday, and Tony owes him a grand party at the very least, after all he´s made the kid go through.”

Steve witnesses a feverish Tony falling apart after Pepper has left. This is set in an AU where Civil War didn´t happen, where Cap and Iron Man haven´t known each other very long, and where Tony´s mental health is much much worse than shown in the movies. It´s somewhat longer than I intended it to be, and also darker than the stuff I usually write, but I was in the mood.

PTSD, angst, depression (maybe?), illness, emeto. Additional TW for alcohol overuse.

I've got my finger on the trigger And tonight faith just ain't enough When I look inside my heart There's just devils and dust

- BS

It´s been a quiet week and that´s exactly the problem. Tony has always been able to deal with pressure, with adrenaline-pitching situations, life-or-death decisions. It´s peaceful times like these that get to his bones, when the lack of distraction leaves him with numb and empty and feeling useless.

The flashbacks have been coming and going for the last few days, and it doesn´t help his fragile sense of reality that he´s caught a bug somewhere and is running a temperature. He´s so detached from the world that he might find it comical, wasn´t it for the bone-deep exhaustion, the pounding in his head and the sense of foreboding that´s been weighing down on him for weeks.

He´s been having trouble sleeping, the dreams turning more and more violent every time he tries. They leave him breathless and sobbing when he awakes in his too-large double bed, Pepper´s absence so overwhelming that it´s nearly tangible. She´s been away for a month, and he´s been going down for so long that he´s starting to yearn for the moment he´ll finally crash. But not tonight. It´s the Friday after Peter´s birthday, and Tony owes him a grand party at the very least, after all he´s made the kid go through. .

He´d shifted all appointments to have the day off for preparations, but owing to another sleepless night he was finished with everything at noon, leaving him wandering around his own empty tower, unable to come up with something worth doing. He´s lacking the motivation to even enter the lab and fix the pair of robots he broke during his latest week-long workshop binge, which would probably get him worried if he could spare any energy to care about it.

When it´s time for him to get ready, his hands are shaking hard enough that he´s having trouble fixing his tie.

“How do I look, Friday?” he prompts when he has finally managed to make himself presentable. Tony has neglected the AI recently, and he can practically hear her scowling when she replies.

“Dead tired and high on caffeine, Sir, so nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Yeah, that´ll do,” he mumbles to himself and startles when he hears the doorbell ring.

The security cameras inform him that the whole group has assembled at the front door, carrying a protesting Peter on their shoulders, throwing him into the air with shouts of Happy Birthday, Spiderman. The ease of the whole scene makes something in Tony´s chest ache with longing. He takes a last look into the mirror, draws a deep breath, and opens the door.

“Look who´s here! Underoos, isn´t it past your bedtime? You´re what, 14 years old now?”

The world presents itself through a haze, making it feel like he´s watching everything on a movie screen. He hugs Rhodey a few seconds longer than usual, prompting the older man to examine him with dark, concerned eyes.

“You okay, dude? You look...worn out.”

But if there´s something that Tony Stark has become an expert at, maybe even more so than at contriving genius inventions or saving the world, it´s pretending to be alright when he´s not. He´s made it through months of Palladium poisoning, so a touch of fever and anxiety feel like a walk in the park.

“I´m great, Rhodes,” he grins, “Whaddaya say, wanna try some cobweb brownies? Took me ages to find a shop that bakes them in this shape out of the Halloween season...”

He makes his way through the evening alright, joking, catching up, and avoiding anyone who might notice his sweating and the constant jittering of his hands, which means Nat, basically. She´s been watching him closely all the time, and he has no doubt that she has realized something´s off, just as she did when he was dying a few years ago. She doesn´t say anything, though, and neither does he.

The giant cake arrives, and Bruce recounts elaborately how he managed to convince Clint not to prank Peter by hiding a bunch of real spiders inside of it, and Tony laughs and claps his way through it all, smiling at the kid whenever he catches his eye. Pete looks so happy, and he deserves it. But Tony doesn´t. He hasn´t earned himself the right to be part of anything so good or pure. The piece of cake that´s forced into his hands nearly makes him gag.

Finally, most of the group settles on the various couches for a movie. The inevitable Star Trek versus Star Wars argument commences, and Tony zones out, exhausted, slightly nauseated, thinking how he only has to last a few more hours before he can drown himself in scotch and Heavy Metal. But then Peter elbows him back into the present, and there´s a black hole on the screen that´s swallowing a spaceship, and suddenly it all comes back at him without a warning.

He barely has time to bolt to the toilet before the cake comes up together with the memories. He feels disgusted at himself when a thick stream of vomit hits the bowl, but he can´t stop retching. He´s long past empty when dry heaves are still tearing him apart, making his whole body scream in pain.

The wormhole closes in from all sides and pulls him down, deeper than he ever was. He´s retching, then shivering, then hyperventilating, and then he feels like he is dying. And what scares him most is that he can´t bring himself to really mind it anymore. He rests his aching head on the rim of the toilet, finally succumbing to the horror film that´s playing in his mind.

----------

Steve has been having an unexpectedly good time. The restriction on hard alcohol that even Tony had agreed to because of Peter´s age means that the conversations are actually making sense even a few hours into the party. Peter´s constant happy chatter keeps everyone engaged, and whoever prepared the food has absolutely outdone themselves.

He doesn´t really catch the reason for everyone getting worked up about which of the sheer infinite list of silly alien-battle movies to play, nor the fun they seem to draw from watching things being blown up in outer space. But he goes along with the general mood and relaxes as good as he can. They are a twenty minutes into the movie when he feels the urge to use the bathroom and excuses himself.

When he opens the door to the floor´s common restroom, he is greeted by the sound of violent retching carrying over from one of the stalls.

“Hello?” he calls out hesitantly. “Do you need help?”

The answer is silence, and then what sounds like a suppressed sob. Steve is just about to leave - there are a few people at the party whom he doesn´t know closely, after all, and he doesn´t want to disturb - when the door of the stall opens. The man who staggers out, pale, trembling and wiping sick from his mouth, is the last he´d expected to see in such a state.

"Tony, what...?" is all he can say.

"I´m okay, Cap, just..." he trails off breathlessly and stumbles, apparently caught in a dizzy spell.

"Whoa, whoa, easy." Steve motions to hold the other man up when he sways on his feet.

"I´m okay, I´m okay, " Tony seems to say more to himself than to Steve, batting his hands away and leaning heavily against the basin.

“What happened, Tony? Did you drink?” Steve asks, trying not to sound disappointed.

“Always assuming the worst, Rogers, aren´t we?” he coughs. It´s meant to come out lightly, but Steve can hear the bitterness swinging along. “No, even I wouldn´t pull that one on the kid´s birthday.”

“Sorry...” Steve says. “But in my defense, your records aren´t exactly the best.”

“Just leave me alone, Cap.” Tony rebuts, sounding tired.

Steve examines his teammate´s appearance, and he is taken aback by how worn down Tony looks, almost old. He seems to be having trouble taking even breaths, and there´s an expression on his face that Steve would call afraid if he didn´t know better. Tony Stark might be a showman more times than not, but from all Steve knows, he is certainly not someone to be scared of things. Rather, what causes trouble is usually his lack of fear and respect in situations where such feelings would be appropriate.

But still, Tony looks...haunted. It reminds Steve of Bucky on his worst days. And then it dawns on him.

“Tony, I don´t want to interfere- ”

“Then don´t.”

“Did you have an anxiety attack? PTSD, flashbacks, something like that?”

Tony gives him an exasperated look. “Rogers, I´m serious, just do what you came here to do and then get lost.” He swallows hard, apparently fighting the nausea. “Okay, that came out rude, but what I´m trying to say is that it´s not the first time this happens. I can deal with it. Alone.”

For a moment Steve imagines Tony in the tower all by himself, shivering his way through panic attacks, and something pulls in his chest. He has heard of the break-up with Pepper, and he also knew about the PTSD, but he´d never had any idea that it gets this bad with Tony.

Still, the man is right, it´s better to leave if he is not wanted, and hovering will most likely only make things worse for Tony.

“Okay.”, he finally says. “But I´m here if you need...someone to talk, you know. Not only me, the whole team is there for you.”

There´s no conviction in his eyes when Tony fakes a smile. “Sure, capsicle. I know.”

----------

The party continues till late into the night. Cleaning up, which Steve commits to despite Tony´s insistence that he´s got robots to take care of it, takes even longer. By the time he is finished, most of the guests have either left or gone to sleep, so Steve decides to stay over as well. But once he is lying in his giant guest room´s ultrasoft twin bed, covered in smooth sheets of silk, he is entirely too comfortable to be comfortable.

When sleep doesn´t come, he starts walking the halls, searching for someone else who is still up. Most of the Avengers have trouble sleeping for one reason or another, and it wouldn´t be the first night he has run into Bruce killing time in front of the TV, Clint hitting the gym at 2 in the morning, or Nat just sitting in the darkness, silent, unmoving, practicing invisibility. 

He isn´t disappointed, but the sounds he hears when he enters the common area are not what he´d hoped for. Ragged breaths and curses carry over from the direction of the bar. Steve nearly steps into a heap of large ceramic shards lying on the ground, spotted with dots of blood. They appear to be remains of a mug that has the Iron Man mask plastered on it. Steve recalls seeing Tony gulping coffee from it several times, and he briefly wonders whether it was a gift from Pepper, but then discards the thought, bending to pick up the sherds.

“I was gonna trash it. But it just...broke”, a toneless voice mutters from behind the counter.

Tony is slumped on the ground, the bar barely holding him upright. He looks so much worse than earlier that Steve wonders for a moment whether he wound up in some sort of time-travel experiment and skipped a few days. His teammate is deathly pale, only his cheeks flushed red, the breathing shallow, sweaty curls plastered against his forehead. His suit jacket and tie are gone, the half-opened shirt is soiled by flecks of vomit and blood from where he must have cut himself on the shards. One of his hands is clutching his chest where the arc reactor used to be, the other crushing a bottle of something high-proof.

"God, Tony...” Steve exhales. The man is a mess. “It´s fine, I can fix the mug.” He knows it´s stupid the moment he says it.

“Doesn´ matter.” Tony slurs, his eyes glistening wet. “I don´t wannit. Won´t make anythin´ right.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve soothes. “Is there - is there anything I can do?”

Tony just shakes his head before lowering it onto his knees. “I don´ need your pity, Rogers.” He takes another swig from the bottle. Steve doesn´t know how to comfort him, but he doesn´t want to leave, either. They sit in silence for a while.

"´s all my fault", Tony mumbles suddenly, less coherent than mere minutes ago. His breathing hitches up. He tries to pull himself up at the counter, failing and losing his balance. Steve is there without thinking, supporting him, but it turns out to be a bad idea. Tony swings a fist at him, his eyes large and glazed over, his whole frame trembling. “Don´t- “ he croaks, “Don´t touch me-”.

“Alright, alright”, Steve mumbles, easing him back to the ground and then taking a step back, not failing to notice the heat radiating from the other man´s body.

“I don´t  wanna - I can´t - no- “ Tony pants, gesticulating into empty space. Steve has no idea where he thinks he is, but he´s sure it´s not here.

“It´s me, Tony,” he says as calm as can manage, “We´re at the tower, remember? Breathe, just breathe, okay?”

“Fuck”, Tony exhales. “It´s just... all going to shit.”

“It´s okay, Tony. You´re running a fever, it´s messing with your senses. Whatever you think you are seeing, it´s not real.” Steve slowly moves into his direction, empty palms raised in front of him. “Let´s get you to bed and- ”

“The fever´s not the problem, Rogers!” Tony yells in a hoarse voice, and Steve is shaken by how desperate he sounds. “You don´t understand, you, you don´t know what´s going on in my head  - what´s happening  - you can´t get -” he breaks off, gasping for breath. The look on his face is pure terror. “It´s not getting any better. I´m - I´m losing this one, Steve. Everyone.”

And that´s when he understands that Tony has been broken for a long, long time. Steve has been to war, he has had his fair share of trauma to deal with in the aftermath - but it was never like this. He has come to terms with his conscience. Whereas Tony... Steve used to think that tech and sarcasm are all there is to the man, that all his reckless, death-provoking actions are simply evidence of how he fails to take anything about life serious. But now it dawns on him that this was just Tony´s way of keeping himself from falling apart. Steve wonders how a person can talk so much about himself and yet reveal so little.

He doesn´t know what to say. And it doesn´t matter, because he is not the one needed here.

“Does Pepper know?” he finally asks.

Tony is sunken together, looking like a shadow of himself, but his eyes focus on Steve, and his ashen face seems a little more lucid.

“Not...not all of it.”

He attempts to collect himself and fails. When he looks at Steve, his mask has nearly fallen, and he is an inch from pleading.

“Cap, please, just don´t try to help in that.” He takes a shallow breath, then another, and swallows frantically. “This is my mess, my fault, and trust me, you don´t wanna be pulled into it. I´m - I´m gonna get it under control, somehow.”

He reaches for the bottle, misses it. He doesn´t try again, and that´s how Steve knows his words were empty. Because Iron Man wouldn´t give up, ever.

He takes a decision.

“Just let me get you to bed, at least.” It´s not a question. Steve pulls the other man up and frowns when he realizes that Tony has lost weight, a lot of it. The shirt dangles lose around his body.

They stop at a trash can halfway through the corridor for Tony to heave up bile and what smells like pure alcohol. He´s barely conscious anymore when Steve positions him into bed and drags a blanket over his trembling form. Once Tony has fallen into a fitful, feverish sleep, the lines of exhaustion and pain never leaving his face, Steve sets water and aspirin on the bedside table and quietly leaves the room.

He pulls out his phone. Tony is going to hate him for that, maybe forever. But if there is something Steve Rogers has become good at doing, it´s taking hard choices. Most of them were of the kind that would haunt him for the rest of his life, but if he had do, he´d take them all over again.

The phone rings two, three times. It´s late, the night already melting into morning, but he knows that she will pick up eventually, as clear as he knows that she will help.

Pepper doesn´t sound sleepy when she answers the call.

“It´s Steve”, he states, preparing himself to speak the words Tony could never say. “We need to talk.”

part 2

[marvelmando]

let there be light - pt. 2

summary: y/n has been living with tony stark since she was three, after a lab accident killed her parents, and left her with the ability to create and manipulate light. since then, she battles as an avenger, and eventually, as a babysitter for a certain new hero. she doesn’t mind it though, because she’s always wanted to live a normal teenage life… and possibly also because peter’s cute.

contains: swearing, angst, fluff

notes: what the actual fuck the last chapter literally blew up i don’t think i can say thank you enough????? i appreciate every single message, reply, note, and reblog, and im sorry if i don’t respond, or upload frequently. i just had major back surgery and im now back at school so im literally drowning in make-up work. but ill try my very very best!!! also: please send me an ask if you’d like to be in my taglist! if you only reply i can’t promise i will see it :) but thank you all sososososo much!!

part 1

For the following two months, Tony you prepare to go undercover at Midtown School of Science and Technology as yourself, Y/N Stark.

Now, you weren’t really the biological child of Tony’s, but his adoptive daughter. For reasons you didn’t know, you’d been sent to live with Tony when you were three, after an accident had killed your parents. Or, at least, you pretended not to know. The real reasons were strictly confidential, and only a handful of people knew besides Tony, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, and the highest ranks in government.

Keeping secrets was second nature to you by now, which made you ideal for an undercover mission. Also, Natasha had taught you a few things after your heroic debut in the Battle of New York, wherein after you became a full-fledged Avenger despite only being 11 years old.

The world had not yet known that Tony Stark had a daughter, whether biological or not, which made you unsure. However, Tony made the point that you were going to grow up into an adult one day, and he hoped that you would keep his surname. Of course, as a slightly anxiety-ridden girl, you worried that would cause a lot of unwanted attention towards you. But Tony was right. Besides, what other surname could you use?

Now, you weren’t really going undercover at Midtown. You didn’t have a fake name or a fake backstory, like you usually would. You were just... you. But you were going undercover to Peter, as Artemis. You would watch over him, guide him as a fellow superhero by night, and a friendly girl by day.

Luckily, and not surprisingly, Tony had already thought ahead.

Now that he didn’t have much to worry about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, he put most of his effort into this spider kid. Sometimes you wouldn’t see Tony for days, as he holed himself away in his workshop, only briefly scampering to the kitchen for water and food.

You were concerned about Tony. You knew about his nightmares, and vaguely about something called Thanos, but every time you tried to confront him, Tony would shut you down.

“Hey, Kiddo, ready for your first day of school?” A brown paper bag plopped on the counter in front of you.

Looking up, you saw Tony across from you, sporting a tight smile. The corner of your lips twitched as you snatched the bag. “Ready as ever.”

Tony drove you to school in his Audi R8, obviously the most conservative car he owned. The drive was long and silent, as you mulled over everything that could possibly go wrong.

As if he could hear your thoughts, Tony awkwardly reached over the console and patted your hand, which was rested on your knee. “You’re gonna do fine, Light-bulb. After all, you are a Stark.”

This made you smile genuinely, as you thanked him with your eyes. For the past twelve years you’ve lived with Tony, as much as he was caring, you never felt like you belonged there. As much as you had the last name, you weren’t sure that you could be a Stark.

Pulling into the school, you could see heads turning as you passed, through the tinted windows. You instinctively shrunk in your seat, feeling as if bugs were crawling over your skin.

The car in front of you, a silver convertible, honked its horn twice, as a lanky figure dodged it as he crossed the street. Almost immediately, you recognized the boy as Peter. He hurried up the stairs of the school, and you had Tony stop the car.

You stumbled out of the car, giving Tony a quick goodbye. You barely noticed the whispers and the glances as you hurried your pace to catch up with the boy.

“Peter!” You whisper-yelled, although you weren’t sure why. It’s not like you were trying to keep your interactions a secret.

After months of doing research on his powers, you knew he had heightened senses. However, if he heard you, he didn’t act like it. You figured he hadn’t, due to the earbuds in his ears, and the loud chattering of the students.

You pushed your way through the crowd, watching as Peter slipped in the front doors. You kept him in your sight, weaving through the conglomerates of social groups clogging up the hallways.

At one point, something had tugged on your hair, hard. Apparently, one of the students had a drone of some sort, and was struggling to control the thing. It got caught in your hair as you passed, and the boy holding the control squeaked as the drone continued to malfunction. Trying not to break the device, you took hold of it.

You untangled your strands from the metal, and handed it back to the kid. He was younger than you, skinny, with dark skin and glasses too large for his face. He took his drone with shaky hands, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. He stuttered out an apology, and you gave him a warm smile.

“Try fixing the circuit board, one of the motor hinges is loose.” You said as you walked away from him. The kid’s jaw dropped. You laughed to yourself.

Once again looking for a sign of the curly-haired boy, you made your way down the hall. You noticed a group of cheerleaders, who had suddenly taken an interest in you. They whispered among themselves, looking you up and down as you passed. You gripped the strap of your backpack tighter.

You almost hadn’t seen it, but there Peter was, at a locker behind the cheerleaders.

“Peter!” You sighed in relief, and hurried towards him. “Thank god I found you, I almost—” 

You stopped shortly when you noticed the larger boy across from Peter, mouth open mid-sentence, and holding a small Lego figure. “Is that Emperor Palpatine?”

Both boys’ eyes widened.

“Um, hey, Y/N, ri—right? What—uh, what are you doing here?” Peter laughed awkwardly, folding his arms. “And—you know who Emperor Palpatine is?”

You shrugged, clutching your backpack. “I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. But um, yeah, I kind of go here now?”

The chubby boy looked back and forth between you and Peter, obviously confused.

“Oh! Um, Y/N this is Ned, my best friend. Ned, this is Y/N—”

“Hi,” You held your hand out so he could shake it. He seemed hesitant, still perplexed at how you and Peter knew each other. “I, um, work for Tony Stark. That’s how we know each other.”

“Right!” Peter cried, realizing now what your angle was. “The internship.”

Ned seemed satisfied at this answer, the shy expression from earlier gone and replaced with a bright grin. “Well, you like Star Wars! Right? Because I got this sick Death Star Lego set, and it has 3,803 pieces!”

“That’s insane!”

“Wow, that sounds rad.” You chuckled, and you heard the group of cheerleaders snicker, as one of them didn’t even attempt to hide their distaste as the said, “so lame”. You looked down at your feet, hiding your face as you tried to contain your embarrassment.

“I know right! So I was wondering if you wanted to build it tonight?” The three of you began to walk down the halls, and you walked beside Peter, Ned on his other side. “You can come too, Y/N!”

Before you could respond, Peter stepped in. “No, I can’t tonight, I’ve got the Stark—”

“Stark internship. Always about that internship.” Peter scratched his neck. “What about you, then, Y/N, or do you have the internship too?”

“No, um, I’m free tonight.” You smiled across at Ned. You were looking forward to go home so you could read or work of Spider-Man’s AI system, but you reminded yourself that this was good—normal. Hanging out with other teens after school. Right?

Peter shot you a look but you avoided his gaze.

The two friends began to discuss jobs, but you watched your feet, clutching your class schedule from your pocket.

While Ned talked on about the Death Star, Peter’s focus drifted. His footsteps faltered, and his eyes pinched in the corners so it looked like they were smiling. Curious as to what caught Peter’s attention, you followed his gaze.

Whoever this girl was, she was beautiful. Her skin was tan and smooth, and even though she was only in a sweater and a skirt, she still managed to look like a model. Her lips were full and her eyes were warm, and you couldn't help but shiver. You looked down at yourself, noting the dull skin color and frizzy hair, paired with jeans and your old band t-shirt, and wondered if anyone would ever look at you like that.

Glancing at your schedule with a heavy heart and an aching feeling behind your nose, you realized that class started in just five minutes and you still had no idea where you were going.

“Hey, um, do either of you have AP Physics with Mrs. Warren?” You asked.

Ned nodded. “Yeah, Peter does. He could take you there.”

Peter smiled to himself, although it appeared as though he wasn’t even listening to you. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

At that moment, a sharp ringing noise sounded. You cringed at the horrible sound. “That’s the warning bell.” Ned told you.

“I’m gonna be late, shit.” You glanced up at Peter. You grabbed his clothed arm gently, drawing him out of his trance. Looking down at you, you took in the warmth of his dark eyes. “You ready?”

He nodded, head turning to catch the pretty, dark-skinned girl disappear behind a wall of lockers.

As it turned out, you shared all of your classes with Peter Parker. You were grateful to have someone you knew in all of your classes, but you were annoyed at the great probability that Tony had meddled in your scheduling. You had to remind yourself, however, that you were not just here for the hell of it, but you were actually supposed to be “babysitting” the new hero.

But as much as you tried to tell yourself that this was only a mission, you couldn’t help but feel like this was going to turn into something much more.

At the moment, Peter sat next to you with his head buried in the screen of his laptop, as he diligently watched a video of Spider-Man stopping a car from smashing into the side of a bus. You rolled your eyes at his lack of subtly. How did everyone not know his secret by now?

“Okay, so how do we calculate linear acceleration between points A and B?” The teacher pointed to the board, and then to a kid that sat in the row in front of you. “Flash.”

“It’s the product of sine of the angle and gravity divided by mass.” He answered confidently. You snickered, knowing he got it wrong.

“Nope.” Mrs. Warren said. “Peter. You still with us?”

Peter’s head snapped up, only taking a second to look at the board before answering. “Uh, yeah, yeah.” He shut his laptop carefully. “Uh... Mass cancels out, so it’s just gravity times sine.”

Looking at him from the corner of your eye, you were impressed at how easily Peter managed to get everything correct, despite the distractions.

The teacher also seemed impressed, but not surprised. “Right. See, Flash, being the fastest isn’t always the best if you are wrong.”

As the class snickered, Flash turned in his seat to Peter and whispered, “You’re dead.”

You narrowed your eyes at the boy. You wanted to reach over and smack him upside the head, but you promised to behave. For some reason, Peter had been glancing back at the clock hanging up on the wall every couple of minutes.

The next period, Peter had used the opportunity to mix some of his web fluid right in the middle of class. You were close to screaming at that point. This kid was definitely going to get caught. You made sure to warn him with a harsh whisper whenever the chemistry teacher neared.

After that was lunch. You sat across Ned and Peter, and glanced down the nearly empty table, save for the girl immersed in a book a couple of seats down. Digging into your school-bought lunch, you noticed Peter’s glazed over eyes as his head rested on his propped up arm.

You turned, realizing he was staring at the same pretty girl from earlier, who stood on a ladder, hanging up a paper sign that had “Homecoming Is Almost Here! Are You Ready” in painted cursive. You turned back around, stabbing your steamed broccoli angrily with your fork. 

You weren’t sure why exactly you were mad, you barely knew Peter. Perhaps it was the adoring and endearing look in Peter’s expression that made your stomach twist itself into knots.

“Did Liz get a new top?” Peter said absentmindedly. You glanced up, but he was still transfixed on the girl, Liz. Even her name was beautiful.

No. We’ve seen that before, but never with that skirt.” Ned answered.

“We should probably stop staring before it gets creepy.” Peter mentioned, but it seemed like he wasn’t planning on stopping any time soon.

“Too late.” The girl a couple of seats piped up, startling you. You faintly noticed a purple section in her ponytail. “You guys are losers.” She turned back to her novel.

“And absolutely ludicrous.” You quipped, and met eyes with the girl, who gave you a small, amused smirk in return.

“Well, then why do you sit with us?” Ned pointed out.

“Because I don’t have any friends.” The girl responded, effectively ending the conversation.

Somehow, Tony managed to get you into the Academic Decathlon team with little dispute, which is where you went next.

You sat on the sidelines, observing the team, as Liz quizzed them. The members were funny and eccentric, and you liked most of them, except for Flash, who was on the team somehow.

You watched Peter as he talked to the team’s sponsor, Mr. Harrington. “Peter, it’s Nationals. Is there no way you can take one weekend off?”

“I can’t go to Washington because if Mr. Stark needs me, I have to make sure I’m here.” Peter said, clearly exasperated. You watched him intently, wanting to say something about how Tony would most likely not call on him for another mission again anytime soon, but feared his response in case he grew suspicious.

“You’ve never even been in the same room as Tony Stark.” Flash shouted.

“Wait, what’s happening?” One girl asked.

“Peter’s not going to Washington.” Said another girl, lying on the floor on her stomach next to them.

Cries of protest came from Peter’s teammates, as one kid, who you knew was Abraham, dinged the bell to ask, “Why not?”

“Really?” Liz asked, genuinely concerned but too sweetly for your liking. “Right before Nationals?”

“He already quit marching band and robotics club.” The girl from lunch, Michelle, Peter told you, mentioned. As heads turned to look curiously at her, she simply shrugged. “I’m not obsessed with him; I’m just very observant.”

“Flash, you’re in for Peter.” Liz announced.

“Oof, I don’t know.” Flash said. “I gotta check my calendar first. I got a hot date with Artemis coming up.”

Before you could stop yourself, you snorted loudly. “As if.” You scoffed, before realizing what you had said. Everyone looked at you, and you hid your face behind your hair again.

The rest of the school day, Peter grew increasingly restless. By the time the final bell rung, Peter shot out of his seat and bolted for the door.

You could have easily caught up to him if you were allowed to use your powers, and you were practically itching to release the contained energy. But you couldn’t, so you didn’t.

“Peter!” You called out to him, crashing through the doors after him. You saw him jump the extremely tall fence, and cursed at him silently.

Knowing already what you needed to do, you met Happy in the car waiting for you the next street down.

“Happy, take me home, and make it quick. I gotta change.”

TAGLIST:

@phoenix-fire-fangirl @twenty-two-airplanes @i-love-superhero @andyl394 @milllionthingsihaventdone @eliza-hamilton-helpless @pugsandkisses14 @oxodianaoxo @arctxcv @vanam0 @scorpiostunner1027 @prancingdestiel @tmrhollandkay @miathefangirlwriter

[kimmysfandomblog]

So Nae/giri, Kamu/koma, Toukomaru and Kii/ruma for the ship meme ? :P You can do all of them or pick the ones you want to talk about, I just wanted to give you one ship per game ~

Thank you so much for the ask Serahne!!! :D I’d be more than happy to do them all!!!

From here: https://kimmysfandomblog.tumblr.com/post/168063250112/send-me-a-ship-and-ill-give-you-my-brutally

Since there’s 4, I’m gonna have to put it under the cut! And they got very long, sorry ^^;

obviously, V3 spoilers for the last one!

Nae/giri (+)

So, funny thing about me: I actually started DR with the Animation (I hadn’t even known a game existed at the time). Anyways, because it’s an anime, you don’t get those free time events, and everything is much, much faster. Basically…. I’m a real dunce when it comes to romance, so I hadn’t even realized Nae/giri was pretty heavily hinted at ^^; I spent most of the time thinking Kirigiri was gonna betray Naegi (which… I mean I wasn’t completely wrong, kinda? XD She didn’t mean to throw him under the bus at all, of course).

Now, I didn’t ship anyone in DR by the time I finished the anime. I’d seen it mostly as friendships, and that Naegi and Kirigiri’s was the strongest one. I don’t know when exactly it sprung on me that, hey, this is a ship!!!, but my best guess is that it wasn’t until I stumbled across DR again when it came out on Steam. A let’s player I kind of visit occasionally was playing the game and I got sucked into nostalgia, and he did Kirigiri’s FTEs. It was probably during that time that I recognized this was definitely a ship, one that was practically canon, and that actually, I’m okay with it, and even like it! If two characters like each other, and can support each other this well, then why not?

I’m not the biggest Naeg/iri fan (that spot for favorite DR1 ship belongs to another pairing, but admittedly it’s more of a pre-canon ship). I’ll admit, a part of me still thinks Naegi forgives Kirigiri too easily after all he’d been through, but if he gave her a hard time, he wouldn’t be Naegi! And I was a little salty she threw him under the bus, but Kirigiri made a mistake, acknowledges it, and even returns the favor back to him! It wasn’t even really her fault (she clearly didn’t know what would happen or she would have definitely let herself be sacrificed), so I forgive her, too!

If DR3 proved anything about Naeg/iri, it’s that Naegi and Kirigiri very clearly care for one another, and are able to balance each other out. They understand each other so well, and I’d say they definitely like, probably even love, each other. So, given canon events throughout the series, I ship it! It’s been good for both of them, the way I see it! I sincerely hope they continue to care and love each other post canon, too. They both deserve happiness after all they’ve been through together!

Kamu/Koma (-)

Okay, this one… this one actually irks me, I’m sorry to say. I know Kamukura is Hinata, and I definitely ship Koma/Hina, but Kamu/Koma…. it’s very different. I’ve read Kamu/Koma fics, and seen the fanart, (and sometimes I actually like the fanwork). I get why people like it. However, to me, it’s a very unbalanced ship.

Ko’s obsession with Hope and Talent, with Kamukura being the embodiment of Talent, and of the Hope Ko originally fixates on, makes it much too unbalanced because Kamukura is given all the power in this relationship. Not only that, but it would be Ko constantly trying to be useful to Kamukura, or trying to make things interesting for Kamukura. And Kamukura, well, I can’t see him reciprocating or giving back much. Kamukura’s kinda weird, as in he’s pretty selfish in a way. Maybe he’d do things back for Ko, but would he mean it? Would Ko even know if Kamukura cared? It doesn’t help that the majority of the fanworks don’t really do anything to disprove how I feel their relationship would work. People write/draw fanart for Kamu/Koma using this power play: Ko revering Kamukura like a god, doing demeaning things for him, or being like his housewife or maid or something, and Kamukura kind of staring blankly back, or barely reciprocating or acknowledging any of it. It’s also portrayed very sexually (?), with no amount of fluff, and I end up feeling sorry for Ko. I really can’t ship something this one-sided where only one person has affection for the other, or at the very least, where it’s difficult to see how affectionate one is for the other.

And, I suppose, another thing is just the fact that I like Haji way more than Kamukura. Sometimes Kamu/Koma shippers portray Haji as the one losing out, the third wheel left behind, or even saying Kamukura should have fully returned. I’m glad, in the end, Haji is seemingly acting like he’s mostly Haji to his friends.

However, I admit that besides how I see the Kamu/Koma dynamic playing out… the really extreme shippers were the reason I can’t stand it most of the time. More than a year ago now, there was this huge shipping war, and at least to me, with the people I was following at the time, it seemed like it was mostly between extreme Kamu/Koma shippers against the extreme Hina/Nami shippers. The sheer hatred and pride at being so hateful disgusted me. I unfollowed a few people that I used to like because of all these scathing remarks against Nami (by that I mean DR2 Nami) and basically mocking the fans for liking and defending her, and then being proud of it, even celebrating it in a congratulating post to themselves. I mean, I know now it was aimed at the Nami lovers that were just as bad as they were being, but it still hurts either way. I wasn’t following anyone that was strictly Hina/Nami at the time, but I did see a lot of Ko discourse flying around, too (and heavily disagreed with them of course). Even after that, people were tagging their hate for Nami and Ko, and the ships. I couldn’t escape it. Maybe I’m over-imagining it, but that’s how I feel about it. I’m glad it’s settled down now that V3 is mostly distracting people from it these days.

As for how I feel about Kamu/Koma today, sometimes seeing Kamu/Koma (or Hina/Nami) makes me cringe, and other times, I find it okay (though it’s mostly the former. I always felt weird about Kamu/Koma because of the power dynamic).

Unrelated: Weirdly enough, even though I don’t like Hina/Nami, I ended up liking Kamu/Nami, but only because AI Kamukura exists ^^; I actually participated in Kamu/Nami week, too, and… yeah I actually like it. My guilty pleasure ship, lol. Just... not so much for Hina/Nami. DR3 Hina/Nami was that bad.

Sorry that answer was very negative, but brutal honesty right? I know I have followers that ship it, and I don’t really mind as long as no one is trying to force me to like it or see it!

Toko/maru (+)

Well, I didn’t like Another Episode as a whole that much, but I did like the interactions between Toko and Komaru a lot. Their friendship was just so good! They were able to help each other, see the faults in each other, and call them out. Komaru helps Toko learn to trust her through her genuine kindness and loyalty, and Toko helps Komaru find solutions and helps break Komaru’s habit of seeing herself as just a normal girl with no way to change what happens around her.

And the ending, where Toko decides to stay with Komaru instead of leaving with Togami? It makes me feel a lot of joy, honestly. Nothing against ToFu, but her choosing Komaru over Togami was great! Like, from what I remember of her FTE’s Toko has had trouble trusting people. Neither of her moms wanted her, and she was even dated as a part of a dare. Her moms and that boy both treated her nicely, but they actually didn’t like her (actually I wonder about the moms, but I’ll have to revisit those FTEs eventually). The reason she is so infatuated with Togami probably has to do with how rudely he treats her, on top of being the SHSL Heir. If he got with her, it would be like a romance novel come to life, and he wouldn’t be pretending to like her. However, it’s unrealistic the way it is in canon. Togami may be getting better, but at least at the point canon left off, he still needs some work.

I’m very glad Toko has Komaru. Komaru treats her normally instead of being scared off or angry at Toko’s accusations and jokes, and she openly shows how much she cares about Toko. I can see Tokomaru both as a strong friendship, or a future romantic relationship, given time. And, based on the one DR3 episode, it seems like their bond has done nothing but grow! They trust in each other and work really well together. May they remain this close or more post-canon!

Kii/ruma (+)

I don’t know if anyone was expecting this to be appealing? I usually don’t like the characters that spew vulgarities, so I thought I’d never like Miu. I was so wrong! And, knowing what I did, I never thought I’d ship her with Kiibo, who’s just… so pure??? I remember, back when I was trying to avoid spoilers, that one CG where Miu was apparently performing maintenance came up, and I totally misjudged it. 

However, this game… it subverted my expectations. The CG was not as uncomfortable as I thought! Miu got a bit too close, and I’m 99% sure she knew what she was saying and how it could sound, and Kiibo just came for maintenance, and he doesn’t really get the double meanings to her words, but somehow ends up saying things that could be suggestive too XD It was so funny! I honestly thought, upon getting spoiled that CG before playing, that he wasn’t consenting to whatever was going on, but while I can’t say it was “innocent,” it was clearly not that bad. And after that, Miu is introduced to the Neo World Program and Kiibo gets jealous of the computer XD To try to get the most out of my V3 experience, I actually went up to every character each FT to get their “FTE starter,” so I know he’s always been either in the hall right before the computer room, or (not much farther away from there) next to the three empty rooms. I’m pretty sure the first FTE of that chapter, he even gets defensive over his not-jealousy of a computer, lol!!! There was also that part in Chapter 4, before going to the Virtual World, Monotaro calls Kiibo “Daddy” and Miu “Mommy” XD and even after her death, he was so sad he wished he could cry for her, which just punches me in the feels… and from what I remember in Trial 4, Kiibo was pretty much trying to defend her as the others pretty much admitted to not caring that much about her? I’d need to replay that trial, but that’s what I took from it in regards to Miu. Also, I guess another reason I like it is because Ouma bullies both of them, so they are similar in that regard haha.

I guess, maybe as the sole complaint, I wonder how Miu felt about Kiibo? I mean, clearly, she was interested in him because he’s a robot, but I wonder how she felt about Kiibo as a person? I think she respected Kiibo, but I can’t gauge how much she liked him from what I remember of the game. She was certainly proud and happy to give him upgrades, and Kiibo doesn’t seem to mind so much when she does, even though he hates sci-fi things, or generally any reminder he’s not as human as he’d like to be. She always kept her upgrades rather simple, and he was always so proud to have them! Maybe she wanted to add all that fancy gear from his Ultimate Lab, but didn’t push him when he said no. Maybe that’s why he was fond of her?

Kii/ruma’s a really cute ship to me! It’s probably more funny, than cute (but the fanart is so very cute...), but either way, I still really like it! And well, it’s about one of the only ships I care about in V3 as well, hahaha. It didn’t seem forced, I didn’t really feel like it was necessarily one-sided, and their dynamic was great and interesting!!! I should really check out those anthologies sometime to see if there’s any more Kii/ruma in it, hahaha.

[pettyotome]

Mystic Messenger Another Story: V Route Review

Spoilers undercut. Proceed with caution. :)

Okay! So I freaking loved just about everything in this route. It’s incredibly story packed with SO MUCH NEW CONTENT that was totally worth 300 HG. From the talented voice acting, new twists, and getting to know the characters-- Cheritz does not disappoint with this one! Don’t get me wrong, this route wasn’t perfect. There were a few things that fell below my expectations, but overall this route was wonderfully written and I’m replaying this shit after this review.

Prologue: So the introduction for this was very unique, same concept, but with a creative twist. When Unknown messages you for the first time, it actually feels like he’s breaking the fourth wall-- but technically he isn’t. I’ll get to that in a bit! He basically tells you to download the app under the pretense that you’ll be playing a dating sim-- but none of the character’s we’ve known up until this point are real. The MC in this route thinks they are AIs. Unknown’s characterization in this route is so different from the main stories because he’s actually much more tolerable. It honestly feels like they’re not the same person, I didn’t even care for Saeran up until this route so I really liked spending a lot of this route with him. 

Common Route: Day’s 1-4 are just heaven and hell all mixed together, on one hand you’re trying to make the game branch for V’s route so that you can get a happy ending, but on another hand-- Saeran, known as “Ray” takes you to this place to go play the game, and he is being such a huge sweetheart. I just wondered WHY would Cheritz make Ray act this was knowing that we’re supposed to pursue V!! It broke my heart bc I love the both of them. Through these days, you can see that V is the fastest one to accept you. Mostly because you dropped Rika’s name but still. V hopes the best from you and desperately wants you to be someone he can trust, so he starts showing up a lot more because of you, and you can also see that he sort of opens up, it’s very beautiful to see. And then there’s Ray, who gets attached to you a little too quickly here but he’s always caring about your well being. But don’t get too comfortable. Remember when I said he didn’t technically break the fourth wall earlier..? Well, as you go deeper into this route, the MC starts to feel that these characters are so real that it’s not even funny. And at the very end of the common route on day four, you start to question Ray-- your trust in him starts to waver at this point. At the very last second of his route, V shows up at Mint Eye to save you. He’s not an AI. Ray lied to you. It hurts Ray a lot to know that he’s lied to you more than it hurts the MC, depending on your choices but you’re basically torn bc V couldn’t save you from him but he swears that he’ll come back for you and LORD did this kill me.

V and Rika’s relationship: There was a big corner of the MM fandom that was reluctant to have a romantic V route because of V’s deep love for Rika-- how would Cheritz handle giving V and the MC 11 days to bond knowing that V is still recovering from an abusive relationship? Well, good news. Cheritz tackles this issue head on, no tip toeing around this situation. Days 5-10, when V comes to Mint Eye to save you, there is a scene where he is telling Rika that the two of them used to be obsessed with each other. Key word: obsessed. From the main story until now, V always thought that he loved Rika. This was one of my favorite scenes from this route because Cheritz KNEW what we wanted to be addressed while pursuing V and they delivered. And in the chats, V starts to come to the realization that he might have loved Rika at first, but then later what they had stopped being genuine and just became so unhealthy. He was blind to that at first, but then starts to see their relationship for what it really was with help from the MC. 

Romance: As to be expected, this is gonna take some time. Depending on your choices as the MC, you could either throw yourself at V, show him no respect and rush him to forget about RIka and date you-- or you could aid V through his pain and understand that he’s not a bad person for not being able to fully figure out what love is. V’s been dealing with a lot of Rika’s shit for the past six months. While he DOES actually fall in love with the MC, the two don’t even get together until day 11, which is set two years after the events of V’s route. And I loved that Cheritz handled the romance between V and the MC this way. 

Rika’s characterization and interactions with her: I’m the minority of the fandom that actually likes Rika. But I’m also the minority of that minority that wanted to beat her senseless for the shit she’s done. What I really liked about her in this route particularly was that you actually get to talk to her for yourself-- not through the RFA’s clouded image of her. I enjoyed reading the VN scenes where she talks to Jaehee and recruits other members in the RFA. Rika actually had some very cute moments and I lived for them! I empathized a lot with Rika about how she felt like she couldn’t show her dark side to her loved ones. Cheritz unraveled a much more detailed story of her and V’s relationship and answered the questions that were unanswered in the main story. BUT BOY DID THIS BITCH REALLY TRIED ME LIKE I WANTED TO DECK HER SO BAD BUT I FELT FOR HER PAIN. There were actually a lot of moments near the end where Rika chats with the RFA members and... man it breaks my heart to see her so hurt. And right after days 8/9, shit goes down at Mint Eye and for the first time we see that Rika actually actually does care for the people she’s manipulated and hurt-- Ray. In the main story, it seemed like she didn’t care for him that much outside of his loyalty to her and Mint Eye. But when there’s a bombing at Mint Eye and Ray seems to not have escaped-- she cries for him. She REALLY HOPED for him to find a place where he belonged and I’m really proud of Cheritz for showing us more of her emotions. 

V’s development: Let me just say that you gotta be HELLA PATIENT with this man. V means well, incredibly well, but he’s always carrying the burden of his emotional abuse and the RFA on his shoulders. You learn so many new things about how he met the members, his friendship with Jumin, and you get VNs from his mothers point of view! Not only did we get a completely new story, but we have so many new Jihyun details to gush over and it’s great that we got to see VNs of V as a kid, and how that affected his relationship with Rika. Basically, I felt like V’s relationship with Rika was to prepare him for real love-- love that he would have with the MC. In the beginning V is mourning, in denial, trying to hard to sacrifice himself so that nobody gets hurt. He’s stubborn and self-less to a huge fault. But in this route, you as the MC help him to learn how to love himself and care about himself more. it gets to a point where V shuts down Rika and hopes for her happiness-- but says that it’s over. That what they had was not love. V is finally standing his ground and he’s being so much more honest with himself and with Rika. He admits that he shared some faults within the relationship too, like how he suffocated her with love rather than face her mental illness realistically. And the way he wants to protect the MC from her is literally the best thing ever. V cares about you and is genuinely interested in you, telling you that you made him feel things not even Rika gave him. It’s a slow and frustrating development but the MC is patient enough to help him get there. I just love how V cherishes you so much, to the point where Rika has noticed that V has fallen in love with you. And even V knows this himself, but as I’ve said, the romance takes a lot of time but ultimately he chooses you in the end and comes out a much better person-- following his real dreams and being happy!

Other things: Yo Yoosung pissed me the fuck off a lot in this route bc it felt like he was trying to justify the shit Rika did just because of the good girl image he has of her, and although he does come to accept that she’s beyond saving and even drags her away from drugging people at the party in the end, it was so hard not to be mad at him in this route. But he’s someone I had to be patient with too. Yoosung is a good kid and I love him but he drops her name in this route more than he did his own and THAT’S saying something. I understood that he was grieving but he was dead tryna defend a criminal and that had me all the way fucked up. 

JUMINV!!!! Their friendship!!!! And the way Jumin kind of shipped you and V in the end is just the best thing ever, if anyone knows me, I’m a huge Jumin fan so seeing him accept and trust the MC and compliment her strengths had me swooning. OH AND WHEN JUMIN CHECKED RIKA IN THAT ONE CHAT ON DAY TEN, HE WAS BEING SUCH A SAVAGE I FUCKING LOVE THIS MAN. LIKE YES!!!! DEFEND YOUR BEST FRIEND!!!! 

Ray deserves to be happy. Ray deserves his own route. I wanna romance this man and help him escape from the Mint Eye ideology. WHY WOULD CHERITZ MAKE A V ROUTE AND THEN HAVE RAY BE SO SWEET TO US LIKE THIS I LOVE THE BOTH OF THEM SO MUCH BUT I HATED HAVING TO HURT RAY. 

Draw backs: I felt like Cheritz fell back on Rika’s backstory. When Rika tells you that she’s been bullied or that her parents didn’t love her-- I felt like Cheritz didn’t go into enough depth about it so it was hard to sympathize with vague ass stories. As a person whose been bullied and emotionally abused by my family, I felt like Rika didn’t explain enough of what happened to her and it really didn’t cut it for me. And I was also slightly disappointed that Cheritz built up Rika’s character so much only to give an anti-climatic ending where Rika is STILL up to her Mint Eye bullshit, trying to drug everyone at the party with an elixir, only to get dragged away by Yoosung. Which was probably the only good thing he did in this route if I’m being honest. I felt like we never got any answers as to what happened to Rika or Ray after the party and I hope those questions get answered in new V DLCs and After endings when Cheritz updates again. I’m also a little annoyed that 707 doesn’t find out that the hacker is actually his brother but maybe if Ray get’s a route, that would be addressed? I really hope so bc the route was so perfect up until then, bc it didn’t make sense that they never crossed paths in this route. But that’s pretty much all that bugged me.

In conclusion: Whooping Rika. JuminV. RFA shenanigans. RAY’S BLUE FLOWERS. And Jihyun Kim’s happiness!!!! This route was everything I expected it to be and so much more. It was so fucking emotional and had my heart hurting a lot for the past few days, but I’d do it all over again just to see Jihyun’s smile. Thank you, Cheritz. We truly don’t deserve such a good company. 

[renaroo]

Wednesday Roundup 26.7.2017

Wow! So I can honestly say that I was ready to finish all these reviews up and post everything yesterday in a timely manner like a good comic fan and then the sleep factor hit me so hard in the head that it left my eyeballs spinning!

…

Anyway so I got real tired yesterday and took a nap, then had a lot of work today which led to this being late. But I like to think for the lack of timely publication, I give you all some higher quality review here this week and…. mostly that’s because nearly every comic gave me a lot to talk about and I mean a lot. There’s some great stuff out this week and before I ramble much more, I think it’s time for us to just get into it!

DC’s Batman Beyond, DC’s Detective Comics, IDW’s Ghostbusters 101, Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,  Kodansha’s Princess Jellyfish, Image’s Saga, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo, IDW’s Transformers: Lost Light, DC’s Wonder Woman

DC’s Batman Beyond (2016-present) #10 Dan Jurgens, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo

Well. You’ve heard it from me here first, folks. I’m dropping a Batman Beyond book. I know, I know. Shocking. I haven’t done that since the last Batman Beyond book, or the Batman Beyond book before that. It’s just astounding how bad DC is at capitalizing on what made one of their properties not just one of the most successful series it had out at the time, but literally my favorite animated series that they every produced.

Jurgens’ Batman Beyond in a weird way was always doomed to not capture the magic of the original series because, for one, Jurgens was one of the most enthusiastic people about the awful crossover event Futures End that spawned the New52’s Batman Beyond series to begin with, a series that pretty much focused around the murder of an unproven Terry McGinnis, and then he spent a few years writing a Batman Beyond book that did not involve Terry at all, centering around Tim Drake as Batman instead, and missing the point with just about every supporting character in Terry’s world.

So I was always probably going to subscribe to this book out of nostalgia rather than hopefulness that the creative teams loved Beyond for all the reasons I did, but I have been surprised by just how much in this second arc that Jurgens and company seemed determined to strangle any vitality from the series with a noose of continuity they weaved themselves.

Not only are they wanting me and other readers who love the Batboys enough to buy a comic based on an early 2000s Batman cartoon, but they also want me and others to accept that this continuity is the same continuity that the current comics are in including the excellent Robin: Son of Batman series which, more than any other series, proves that Damian has more than outgrown his honoring of the al Ghul bloodline and is a hero of his own making and in his own subtle way makes countless sacrifices even as a child to keep these things going. And then I’m supposed to buy that he becomes the next Demon’s Head, mostly out of jealousy for a new adopted brother, and is now going to blow up the world even though he… already watched the Brother Eye apocalypse happen.

And yes. That is what they are saying because Jurgens bothered to bring Goliath in… and have AI-crazed Terry strangle a beloved fluffy Bat-Dragon to death with a chain (that he doesn’t even wear anymore in real continuity but whatever obviously my point is that this series is a middle finger to continuity).

Once again, DC has taken something hopeful and unique and beloved and turned it convoluted, unnecessarily unpleasant, and without any foreseeable joy.

There’s one issue left to this arc, so I do have a debate on whether or not I want to take up the next issue and at least complete the story or just stop cold turkey now and…. honestly? I’m not even interested anymore in how this story is going to end so. Probably the first.

DC’s Detective Comics (2016-present) #961 James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, Brad Anderson

So. I guess we’re… just at the point where it’s accepted that Cassandra is mostly monosyllabic except for when she decides to deliver perfect Shakespearean quotes. That’s a thing that we’re just… gonna take for granted now I guess. Was this built up to. is this truly a good thing for her character. Who knows because she got a focal story in another arc, guys, we can’t dive too deep on it anymore!

And I guess Kate and Bruce are following the previous continuity’s grand tradition of doing nothing themselves with helping Cass learn to read, write, and evolve her vocabulary. We’ll just… keep supplying her with crimefighting costumes and not worry about the fact that she’s collecting trash and living in the attic of a ballet studio like the freaking Phantom of the Opera complete with a literal Christine.

But. Believe it or not (and for me it’s hard to believe) this is not entirely a book judged on the merits of its Cass. Which is good for it because while not the worst thing ever in that regard, it continuously raises its own expectations and then fails to meet them. No, I need to evaluate how the rest of this story goes because it is, at the end of the day, an ensemble book.

Azrael is taking over Jean Paul and Luke who is his best friend, no homo (for now), has the solution of bringing back the literal embodiment of terrible Batman fashion choices of the 90s but without the full ZUR-EN-ARRH-esque color scheme. Because the solution to any evil suit is an evil suit. And yet they STILL won’t give Cass a decent costume— sorry, sorry, no more about Cass.

Bruce and Zatanna’s moments and history is sweet but we’re like… back at the drawing board when it comes to invasive mind control/memory erasure procedures in the DCU which has never been a good thing and worked to DC’s benefit so I’m still not sure why we go down this road.

That being said, Kate got a few fun lines, and I do appreciate that Jean Paul’s plight is at least sympathetic to him especially since he’s always had the undertones of mental illness. And I’m genuinely invested in how all this works out and why Bruce magically (heh) knows he needs Zee and the weird orb’s help to stop whatever BS Ra’s is up to.

IDW’s Ghostbusters 101 (2017-present) #5 Erik Burnham, Dan Schoening, Luis Antonio Delgado

We’re getting incredibly close to this series ending and honestly that makes me a little sad. As much as I like all of the IDW Ghostbusters universe they’ve built, it’s been a whole other pleasure seeing the 2016 cast of Ghostbusters get to show their stuff and even work off the criticisms I’ve held of the way the movie last year handled them and their characters.

But this issue did something even more special, at least in my mind. It was determined to give us a moment between Abbey and Erin specifically that addressed the inadequacies and fears a lot of fans of the 2016 movie have felt in the wake of its tumultuous response from the general Ghostbusters fandom. Which again is something I never really understood even as someone who loves Ghostbusters as much and as unapologetically as I do because there are so many other things since the 80s that have been done with that original movie that could be pointed to as “selling out”, the only different between any of them and the movie last year was the all female cast. But whatever.

The fact is, especially with IDW, you can have your cake and eat it too. Everyone can be Ghostbusters, there’s a whole damn Ghostbusters multiverse that includes freaking Caddyshack just because Bill Murray was also starring in it. And you know what? I love that. I love that media’s at a point where we can love two different takes of the same thing for wildly different reasons, even if we default to one more than the other. That’s something we’re allowed to do.

And Turnham and Schoening just do their stuff, proving to be wildly creative while at the same time understanding all of these characters far more than almost any fans of Ghostbusters before them. And I love it.

Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2015-present) #21 Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain

I read a fair number of child-age comic books for a few reasons. I find them particularly important for growing the next reader base because there’s no better way to get people into comics than having them grow up with comics (as I like to think of myself as being a shining example of). Another reason is that I have a lot of people in my life, specifically friends and relatives, with young children who are very interested in reading comic books because of the saturation of superheroes and other comic franchises in the world right now but are themselves not comic book fans so aren’t sure what to get for their kids.

As a result, I personally have given out comics like Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Princeless, Young Justice, and, of course, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur out to many of the children in my life and have been very happy to read along with them.

And honestly, none of them are as engaging both for me and for the children in my life as Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is. The stories are simple, but the emotions are complex without being unreliable to children. They recognize the relationships between Lunella, her parents, her friends, and especially with Devil and even when they’re in different dimensions, kids know that the emotions that carry from one adventure to the next is what makes them happy to read. Which is why even in a kid’s comic we get cut aways to the family life without Lunella even there and aren’t afraid of losing the attention of the kids.

It’s a great comic that uses color and themes in ways that are truly unique to the age group its aimed for and also make it a joyful break from my usual Wednesday comics fare.

If this book isn’t something you want to read on your own, I really encourage you to at least share it with some of the children in your life because it’s truly something special.

Kodansha’s Princess Jellyfish (2008-present) Chapter 83 Akiko Higashimura

Higashimura continues to baffle me by defying all the expectations I hold for how a medium can handle women’s rights, LGBT issues, and mental illness all at once. And it’s one of the most relaxing yet fulfilling reads I have every time it comes out. 

This time around we’re still knee deep in the drama unfolding with Tsukimi’s new line of dresses (I can’t begin to explain how astounding it is that a comic is making me feel things for the fashion industry as a plot point at all), but mostly this issue gives us a lot of calm reflection and character interaction more than anything else. 

Tsukimi has very subtly grown into her own over the 83 chapters, and it was never change she needed but confidence, and the ability to express herself in ways she never realized she needed. 

We also got the ever deepening and ever important relationship between the brothers, Kuranosuke and Shu, both still pining for Tsukimi but both still each other’s greatest support in the raw environment their family has given them emotionally and the difficulties of their current situation with Tsukimi and the Nunnery. I thought it was fascinating that Shu remarked that his dream would be to one day live together with Kuranosuke and Tsukimi, even if it wasn’t romantically. Just having a home and a family he loves as much as them all together. That’s... such an oddly millennial goal and it really resonates with me. Romance isn’t truly the objective, companionship and valuing people are.

We also get more drama unfolding, which involved Kuranosuke’s unintentional outing. We’ll have to see how this storyline is handled coming up in future chapters, but I have faith in Higashimura and in Princess Jellyfish. 

Image’s Saga (2011-present) #45 Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughn

Saga is, impressively and unconventionally, Saga. This comic book is such an unreal read, such an unexpected gem that it’s hard to really quantify it compared to other monthly comics because, well, it doesn’t feel like other monthly comics. Not just because of the breaks between chapters, but because more than any comic I’ve ever read before it, Saga manages to live up to the name of being a complete and total immersion into the long story that follows all the lives of its gigantic cast.

It’s really difficult to explain what Saga has done for comics just yet, really. The expectations are higher, the question of mature content in opposition to “adult” content feels like it’s being completely flayed and laid alive for us all to posture on.

The comic is just something else, and I really wish there were better ways for me to fully dive into just why it is such a gigantic deal for comic readers to have so much quality available to them.

Saga’s not perfect, but it’s one of the most experimental and surreal experiences that edges damn close to that ambition to be perfect, and right now it’s the kind of story I really really need.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011-present) #72 Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz, Dave Wachter, Ronda Pattison

It’s time for my monthly fawning over the IDW experiment that is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and failing to fully encapsulate just how much my mind is blown over how much this series has managed to incorporate every part of every beloved series of the franchise while still amazing everyone with its unique storytelling, much loved subversions of various genres, and ability to still hold true to the dynamic that has made this series so beloved to begin with.

I just genuinely wouldn’t have believed, if you told me years ago, that this series would do all that while also weaving in its world’s own very unique, very unexpected mythology. Not mythology in the sense of greater TMNT canon, I mean mythology in that it has its own pantheon of original godhead figures from around the world that weave into the histories of the characters we know and love and build the world out even more.

I’ve talked before, at least in part, about how each of the turtles’ personalities and personal interests lends the whole franchise the ability to deal with different comic book staple genres. Mikey’s interests make them superheroes, Don’s personality and ingenuity make them sci-fi figures, Leo’s stalwart interests in family and honor make them ninja, and Raph’s high emotions and tendency toward fighting authority and also falling into tumultuous love lives makes them teenage dramas.

And I think it’s telling that each time the IDW comics focus on any one of those genres, the corresponding turtle tends to take the lead of the story. But here we have something unique. High fantasy and mythological epics is something that — for all their magical tampering and run ins — has never been the central focus of the turtles’ stories. It’s usually tied into one of the above mentioned genres more than anything else, and this mythologizing started very similarly, growing out of Kitsune and Japanese lore first in a storyline that was, very much, the IDW’s series most Leo-heavy storyline “City Fall.”

This broader focus on fantasy really makes it more clear that this is a purely new IDW take, and that none of the turtles are taking focus here, but rather the family they have made for themselves — the Hamato Clan — are center stage to take on something that’s bigger than any one of them individually could be.

It’s interesting though. We borrow from so many different Ninja Turtle continuities and this “Father Dragon” that the Immortals refer to really only reminds me of… one villain from the TMNT’s past…

And while the main four aren’t magical… they did once… have a fifth turtle… who… was a shaman… who fought that dragon…

Hm.

Naaaahhhhhhhh.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo (2017) Stan Sakai, Tom Luth

Okay so, I have actually been looking forward to this crossover for a while because if you’ve been following my blog for long you know that I am a real shellhead at heart and just adore every version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles even to my greatest fault, and I also am just a huge fan of and greatly admire the masterpiece that I consider Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo to be, and the fun, loving, mutual relationship that both works have shown for each other throughout the decades and how TMNT has honestly gone out of its way to continue to keep Usagi in the public’s eye beyond the diehard comic readers who already would know of him is something I truly enjoy.

And while this isn’t as bombastic and fun as the last big crossover they head, well, ages ago in all honesty, over in the Usagi Yojimbo comics, this was a fun adventure that is meant to introduce IDW fans to the Usagi Yojimbo canon.

There are lots of interesting bits to this crossover, like the revelation that of the IDW turtles Mikey is the only one fluent in Japanese, which I find strange, the fact that Usagi considers himself and Leo to be good friends and his confusion and upset at being attacked by him, and just the fact that … well I guess Usagi’s greatest nemesis, Jei the demon, is just wandering around the countryside now without his precious niece. And also that this is like… Jei Prime as opposed to the current Jei.

Basically the continuity is a mess here for both franchises but it’s a purely enjoyable mess and I can write off a lot of it being that Sakai is known for not always using a linear storyline to tell the stories he wants to. We’re talking about a series that had a crossover with feudal War of the Worlds because why not.

In any case, I found this comic enjoyable, and while I think the coloring was a compromise between the very elaborate coloring that the TMNT books get and the simple black-and-white of Usagi Yojimbo’s normal titles, seeing a crossover by Sakai and Luth themselves without the classic black and white kind of makes me appreciate the simple beauty from their usual style. But that’s perhaps just me.

Now, this is a costly comic, far more expensive than any comic I usually buy, and my justification for it was I want to support IDW reaching out to other creators and other properties more, especially someone as important yet as underrepresented in comics as Stan Sakai, but I absolutely understand that being a much harder sell for other comic readers. So use your money as you see best, guys!

IDW’s Transformers: Lost Light (2016-present) #8 James Roberts, Priscilla Tramontano, Joana Lafuente

People have incredibly high expectations for the IDW books and it’s not without reason. For the last several years they have provided some of the most consistent quality, diversified and reconnected the canons of much beloved decades long franchises, and have also managed to keep refreshingly new and experimental without straying from content. But I have to say, that this is the issue of Lost Light that has me feeling like I did when I first discovered More Than Meets the Eye myself a while back and re-submerged myself into the Transformers lore.

And not only is that a pretty impressive feat, it was a feat accomplished purely through the value of the characters which this book has provided us. Anode, Lug, Velocity, and Nautica would not exist without this book and the relationships, the diversity, and the love which they bring along with them are purely thanks to the creative team and to IDW for allowing what was once one of the most aggressively masculine toy commercials in the world to become something greatly new and unexpected.

I love this book, and I love the way I can be at the edge of my seat for a book that’s 90% four lady robots walking around a flea market.

I have been curious, given the track record of popular characters not staying dead in the series, if or how Skids could be returning but I have to say, that ending was… wow. Horrifying and surprising to say the very least.

And why are blacksmiths being targeted!? There’s so much great stuff going  on.

Also how pissed is Rodimus going to be that they’ve been gone for basically one day on their trip to find the Knights of Cyberutopia and they’re already sidetracked by his crew not obeying orders. I’m fucking dead I can’t even. I look forward to that explosion.

DC’s Wonder Woman (2016-present) #27 Shea Fontana, Mirka Andolfo, Romulo Fajardo Jr.

I won’t lie, this was a particularly weak opening for a new creative team. Not necessarily substantively, but as far as developing a new villain and trying to wrap things up within two issues. I’m not sure if that sort of introduction was the wisest, planning wise, after Rucka’s tightly knitted together, year-long double epic, regardless of my criticisms of it. There is definitely a sense of less grandeur here and… honestly wondering how this will impact the rest of Diana’s narrative at all.

This minor, minor character within the span of two issues was introduced, shown to be evil due to shitty American healthcare systems (which is… unfortunate bc I am definitely feeling crushed by healthcare atm), and then… without any real warning kills herself after revealing she feels hopeless about her terminal diagnosis.

Basically there wasn’t very much joy to be had in the conclusion of this thing despite the HARD left turn the tonal shift took at the end with Diana planning to eat cookies and enjoy watching Friends with Etta. I mean, I love my girls and I love how much emphasis these two issues put on their friendship but… #toosoon?

I mean. Speaking as someone who was kicked off her healthcare recently for preexisting conditions, there’s some real disconnect between showing someone literally killing herself due to a lack of health coverage or research for her illness let alone having no money after her mother died of the same genetic disorder bc America, and then shifting immediately to Etta who has what we must assume is government health insurance covering her as she has a nice hospital room to herself. I mean. Two years ago I stayed with my mother after she donated her kidney to my uncle and uhhh they did not have such nice accommodations and we were at one of the best hospitals in the country.

Basically this is… weak sauce for a Wondy story to introduce us to the creative team and… kinda really tone deaf for those of us who are kinda struggling for these same reasons.

There’s also the matter of the flashbacks to the Amazons that Di keeps having. Nothing too alarming just yet, but it definitely seems that we’re striking a harder edge to their interpretation than Rucka’s and that always puts me a bit uneasy because people are so bad at giving the Amazons their due justice. I’ll reserve judgment for later because I want to be fair to Fontana but I’m wary.

That being said, I am grateful for a shorter wrap up and a story that seemed more down to Earth with Diana’s every day life after having a whole year of grand arcs and epics even if this particular story had some squick and reservations for me. And I’m really hoping for this team to prove themselves because it’s still such a rare thing to have a female-led creative team helm the most important female superhero icon and I’m hoping we’re starting to see a shift in that.

So it’s time for that pick of the week portion, the part that no one really cares about and yet consistently seems to get the most commentary of all the stuff. That’s fine. Nothing wrong with that, I just think it’s funny. And now I’m also postponing. And while this had a lot of great comics competing this week, I have to take my hat off to Transformers: Lost Light this week. There was just so much good wrapped up in this comic and it is hard to compete with this creative team when they’re firing on all cylinders. It really is one of the best, most unique comics to come out of IDW, and if you read the reviews just for this week alone then you know that that is quite a statement coming from me. 

But those are just my choices! What did you think about this week’s comics? Think I missed something I should’ve picked up? I’d love to hear from you.

Once again, before I end entirely, I’d like to ask that if you’re interested in helping me out with making more time for content like my reviews, and for access to reviews in the future which won’t be hosted on this blog like my in progress review of Spider-Man Homecoming (2017), please help me and my aspiring start up comic career by contributing to my Patreon! I couldn’t thank you enough for the help.

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