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driftverse · 4 years ago

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ok guys. here’s the deal.

I’ve been putting off making this comic for a very long time telling myself “I’ll do something with it eventually” and I KNOW that I’m literally never going to finish it and I have no motivation to finish it. it sucks, because I was kind of happy with what I came up with for the conclusion back in 2019, but I just have no desire to dedicate time working on something that just isn’t vibing anymore for me and also caused me a lot of stress in trying to crank it out.

some of you probably saw this coming, seeing what happened to my other utmv comics, but I’m just not in the game anymore. if I had somehow managed to get this all out while utmv was still in the exploding process and while I was still into it (which also happened to be while I was still in college, which made it impossible as it was), it might have taken off more, but life just didn’t work out that way and I want to not worry about this anymore.

anyway, here’s basically what was going to go down. I didn’t plan to make the comic long, but at the point that it got to, it was about halfway done.

- the driftverse story -

nightmare and dream have been mysteriously combined into one person, under the identity of drifter. unconscious of this, they coexist as a single individual, until suddenly, they remember that they were once separate and split into separate consciousnesses with shared control of the body.

the two of them decide to venture forth and figure out the truth behind this mystery. how did they combine? was someone responsible for this? protagonist syndrome conveniently leads them exactly where they need to go, and after wasting time in underswap for 2 seconds and arguing the entire time, they go to xtale to discover that it isn’t a wasteland, and does, in fact, still exist.

after bumping into some teenager presumed to be cross, nightmare, who is in control of the body, attempts to make conversation, and then xgaster shows up and reacts kind of violently to their presence. dream takes over and makes them run away. nightmare and dream continue to internally bicker, and now they’re being chased by mystery boy, whose name is apparently wing and not cross. after dream insults nightmare to his face, nightmare gets very mad and basically gets them caught on purpose and also tells wing that his name is nightmare instead of drifter because dream and nightmare are both immature and stupid.

now we’re all caught up. the drifter condominium gets pushed into xgaster’s house, are told to take a seat at the table, and after a few tense greetings between two people who both talk like rich snobs, xgaster tells nightmare (who is still in control) that he knows who he is, and that his name is “drifter”. nightmare laughs it off. wing mentions that he was told that his name was nightmare, not drifter. xgaster’s expression has turned indescribably murdery, and nightmare continues to try playing it off while dream has a goddamn stroke in his head. xgaster tells wing to leave the room, and though he does, he waits outside the door and listens.

nightmare keeps trying to act like he doesn’t know anything even though xgaster vaguely interrogates him, mentioning that he should be “guarding the tree like he’s supposed to.” nightmare doesn’t budge until xgaster asks him why he’s ‘on a break’ for the first time in five centuries, and why he visited his world of all places, suggesting that he may be looking for answers.

nightmare and dream realize, by convenient memory plot glitches, that the reason they are one person is because of overwrite, and that xgaster is responsible for everything.

xgaster comments that he’s disappointed this outcome hasn’t worked out either, but he believes that progress is being made, although he’s saddened by the fact that he needs to start over again. nightmare explodes, demanding what gives him the right to toy with his and dream’s lives.

“you’re very naive, aren’t you? tell me, was it not my work and effort that saved you from your own incompetence? tell me it has not saved you from your inevitable mistake–a mistake that would affect the entire pitiful multiverse forever to come,” xgaster says, and it strikes a nerve in nightmare. “the only way you two will ever coexist is by coexisting by force.”

nightmare doesn’t even know what to think. he suggests that, perhaps, he has been saved from his mistake, but now he’s learned his lesson, got his memories back, and he can be separated from dream again. xgaster denies this, telling him that they can only coexist if they’re not aware of the past��aka continuing to live as one identity. xgaster brings up overwrite, about to reset everything again.

plot twist, wing was, in fact, listening the whole time, and xgaster’s villainous monologing has recovered all of his memories too. he runs in and stabs xgaster with his magic, and his personality suddenly seems different. xgaster starts blabbering about how wing was supposed to be the perfect son and that his coding had never failed him before. if you haven’t figured it out already, wing is a combination of ink and cross, just like dream and nightmare getting mashed together, and now ink has taken control and he’s not very happy that xgaster turned him into this against his will. “give it up for the world’s greatest asshole, and for once, it isn’t me!”

xgaster, after healing himself with overwrite, continues his villainous monologing, calling all of them fools for disregarding his judgment, telling them that what he’s doing is for the better of the whole multiverse. ink tells him yeah, sure, maybe things could be better, but then calls xgaster out on his perfectionism and tells him that perfect doesn’t exist, and it’s not funny anymore.

ink continues to suggest the possibility of taking overwrite from xgaster somehow to split them all up again. the three of them have a brief one-sided fight scene while xgaster teleports around the room and they pretty much destroy everything. xgaster is like “I have the power of a god, you can’t stop me,” and while this is going down, dream, still in the depths of subconscious, has a realization. they have access to the power of a god too.

dream and nightmare argue about this, dream suggesting taking the power of the tree and nightmare calling him an idiot, especially because xgaster could probably just undo it. dream says that, if they manage to get overwrite away from xgaster with it, they can just turn themselves back to normal. watching wing fight xgaster and get his ass kicked, nightmare is conflicted, but eventually concedes and tells dream that this is his responsibility only and he refuses to be the one who makes that choice.

dream takes control and they leave, xgaster and ink noticing and continuing to talk. after xgaster tells ink that there’s no point to resisting him, because ink knows inside how this is going to end, xgaster reveals to ink that none of this was even his idea.

putting nightmare and dream together, and putting ink and cross together, he says, was all dream’s idea in the beginning. to stop nightmare from taking the tree’s power, and to stop ink and error from fighting–error, who was implied to have never been created–they were all put together, and dream was to blame. ink takes this with a grain of salt, but this was all true.

from this point onward, the narrative gets foggy, because the script ends here. after fighting through the angry mobs of dreamtale that exist for some reason, dream consumes the power of the tree and plans to fight xgaster, but unfortunately he’s consumed by the overwhelming power because he’s kind of weak-willed. while he hunts down xgaster again, destroys him and likely takes overwrite for himself (note that he has the full power of the tree, and not just a percentage of it, so he’s basically in godmode), he and nightmare regain all of their former memories. turns out dream is partially to blame for nightmare’s original ‘life-ruining’ decision, thanks to his ignorance and insistent insensitivity.

their thoughts still separate, and nightmare still horrified at the events that have been taking place for the last while, he wonders why dream is silent and why he won’t tell him what’s happening. without a word, and a solemn expression on his face, dream overwrites everything again, creating a new rendition of the rewritten timeline rather than turning everything back to normal, and that was where the story was going to end.

so, yeah. the story wasn’t ever planned to have a happy ending. the cycle repeats, memories being lost, lives being manipulated and unqualified people playing god.

anyway, thank you for reading this comic while it was in the works!

#driftverse #I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this blog yet

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hongism · 4 years ago

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chaser - chapter 1

pairing: vampire!seonghwa x human!wooyoung x ??? synopsis: wooyoung is no stranger to one-night stands, but something about this one leaves a lasting impression on him and his body that he can’t ignore. seonghwa, on the other hand, considers himself smart enough to avoid making stupid decisions after living for so long, but alas, he must not be as smart as he thinks himself to be. rating: M/18+ word count: 6.0k warnings: language, violence, fighting, injuries, blood, explicit smut a/n: hi hello yes welcome to swm’s new and mUCH improved version chaser (i’m howling for you)!! this first chapter has some similarities to the original and is ULTRA heavy on the smut so pls be aware that this first chapter has VERY little plot and LOTS of smut

masterlist

Between the steady thrum of music in his ears and the sensation of his heart beating erratically in his chest, Wooyoung cannot sit still to save his life. He isn’t sure how his friend managed to drag him out to one of these places — a club (somewhere he normally wouldn’t be caught dead near usually) and a vampire one at that. Despite the never-ending insistence that this would be a pleasant experience for them both, Wooyoung still finds himself wondering as his gaze slips over vampire after vampire with glowing golden eyes. He is a bit desperate to get laid, yes, but that is neither here nor there, and he didn’t think he would have to find someone who wanted to suck every ounce of blood out of his system to sleep with someone. Wooyoung could not admit such a thing to San at the time (that would be far too embarrassing), so he simply agreed to come and sit in a back booth where he could properly hide himself from the crowds.

Dancing is one of Wooyoung’s skills, yes, but he cannot muster the courage to embarrass himself in front of a crowd of vampires. And by ‘crowd’ he really only means the one tall, dark, and fucking handsome vampire standing across from the booth Wooyoung finds himself perched in at the moment.

Curse him for being weak because this man is by far the hottest… creature… Wooyoung has ever laid his eyes on, so much so that he cannot even try to be discreet about the way he stares the vampire up and down like he’s the last slice of a cake at a birthday cake. There is a gross irony to that too — the vampire should be the one eyeing Wooyoung like he’s a meal, but Wooyoung is far too enamored with taking in every inch of deep purple velvet over the vampire’s body to think about specifics right now.

Although he wishes to blame it on alcohol, Wooyoung knows that he has not touched the glass on the table in the past hour he’s been at the club, so there is not nearly enough alcohol in his system to cloud his judgment. The staring must have tipped the scales, however, because said hottest creature on the face of the Earth is now making his way over to Wooyoung’s table in long strides. Wooyoung fumbles to grab for his drink and down some of the liquid — a desperate attempt to busy himself and save face in case the vampire is bothered by the way Wooyoung has been eye-fucking him for the better part of the hour.

People move out of the vampire’s way as he walks, such a domineering presence in the club that Wooyoung feels his knees trembling under the table a bit just from the sight of him. Even guzzling the alcohol before him does nothing to quell the sudden burst of nerves in Wooyoung’s system, and the black-haired vampire slides into the booth across from him with a barely-there smile.

“It’s not good to be alone in a club, let alone a vampire one,” he says, tone so low that Wooyoung has to strain to hear the statement. That steady and persistent thrum of bass and electronic music rumbles on in the background. Wooyoung feels like he is swimming in it. It nearly drowns the vampire out, but he moves as Wooyoung leans forward to catch the words. Suddenly their faces are much closer, mere inches between them. Wooyoung inhales sharply. He swallows hard around nothing, and his Adam’s Apple bobs with the movement. The vampire’s gaze traces down the expanse of Wooyoung’s exposed neck, tongue teasing the corner of his lips with little purpose.

“I’m… not alone,” Wooyoung responds with some struggle, thinking back to where San might be, disappeared into the crowd of bodies on the dance floor.

“Not anymore, no.” The man smirks a bit around the words, and one corner of his lips drags upwards. The action is so stupidly simple, yet it has Wooyoung clenching his thighs together harshly and trying to press the arousal in his gut down. “My name is Seonghwa, and you are?”

“I-I, um, Jung Wo-Wooyoung. No, uh, just Wooyoung.”

“Fitting and beautiful. A strong name too… although I can’t say I’m too surprised.” The vampire — Seonghwa, as he called himself — lets his head fall to the side.

“Are you always so charming with people you just meet?” Wooyoung inquires, unable to hold his gaze on the man any longer thanks to the influx of nerves rushing through his body.

“Only the ones that catch my eye.”

“I’m sure that gets everyone crawling to your bed,” Wooyoung scoffs as he lets his hand toy mindlessly at the edge of his glass. The words do have an embarrassing effect on him, of course they do, but Wooyoung doesn’t want to seem so desperate and needy quite yet. Seonghwa returns the smile with one of his own, then releases a small, mirthful chuckles. The sound rumbles through Wooyoung’s system with a shocking effect, and the arousal peaks as Seonghwa’s eyes glint with desire. Almost like Seonghwa enjoys the banter and feistiness Wooyoung is putting out.

“I wouldn’t know… you’re the first person I’ve approached.”

“To-Tonight?” Wooyoung stammers, caught a bit off-guard by the sudden admission.

“I don’t make a habit of coming to clubs like this, but I might have to make an exception for you. If you come often, that is.” Seonghwa is nearly too smooth for Wooyoung to handle, and he hardly realizes how close the vampire has gotten until hot breath fans over Wooyoung’s lips. The distance between the two of them has decreased to centimeters now, yet Wooyoung still finds his body eager to press forward as well. “I’d be more intrigued if I could see such a vision before me every time I came here.”

Fuck, Wooyoung is either very deprived or it’s truly been a long-ass time since someone was this smooth and at ease with him. He can play this game well himself, but to be on the receiving end of it? That is a different ballpark and Wooyoung feels as though he is striking out right now.

“A-Ah, well, this — this is my first t-time here. At a club. Um, one like this. I – I’ve been to clubs, just n-not, yeah,” Wooyoung explains through his flustered state. The hints of his struggle don’t escape Seonghwa’s notice, but the vampire only seems more amused by the way Wooyoung is reacting to his teasing. That damn cocky grin painting Seonghwa’s lips will end Wooyoung if it grows any larger. (The growing issue in his pants is not helping either — that might end Wooyoung as well). “My friend – he dragged m-me out here with him.”

“Hm, then we have something in common, Wooyoung.” His name sounds like honey on Seonghwa’s tongue. Wooyoung’s mind quickly takes that thought further south, guided by his intense lust for the vampire, and he vaguely wonders what Seonghwa would sound like moaning the name instead of merely speaking it. “My friend dragged me out, as well. Said I would find it… enlightening.”

“And is it?” Wooyoung asks, once again swallowing around nothing. His lashes flutter against his will, almost like his body is urging him to just get on with the flirting and speed this process up. Wooyoung doesn’t intend to be so flirtatious or gaudy, he truly doesn’t! It just… slips out in times like these — where arousal rules his brain rather than reason. “Enlightening, I mean?”

“I have yet to find out.”

Some supernatural force must possess Wooyoung because he has no idea what on earth is going through his head as he pushes his way out of the booth to step around the table separating him from Seonghwa. He slings a leg over the vampire’s thighs, straddling his thighs as though‌‌ Wooyoung has done this very same action a million times over, and Seonghwa sits as straight as a rod out of sheer shock.

“Might I be able to enlighten you then?” Wooyoung whispers, tone so sultry and low that he barely recognizes his own voice speaking the words. Seonghwa’s lips fall open, partially in shock and in other parts unabashedly intrigued by Wooyoung’s proposition. Wooyoung has obviously affected him quite a bit if the hardening bulge under that purple velvet is any indication to go by. That sends a surge of confidence through Wooyoung’s veins and causes him to guide his lips down to Seonghwa’s deep red ones. The vampire meets him halfway after recovering from the initial wave of shock and doesn’t waste a second before slipping his tongue out to caress Wooyoung’s lower lip. Wooyoung shivers into the faint touch. The heavy film of lust over his mind deepens further, shrouding every ounce of reason like a veil, and Wooyoung forgets where he is when his lips are on Seonghwa’s.

Seonghwa is an enthusiastic kisser, as well as a passionate one; his tongue dances over Wooyoung’s lip to the rhythm of the music until Wooyoung finally decides to drop his jaw and let the man into his mouth. The second Seonghwa pushes into his wet heat, Wooyoung releases a startled moan thanks to the sheer coldness on the vampire’s tongue. Seonghwa eats the sound right up and presses harder into the human’s body with such fervor that Wooyoung thinks he might melt from the sensation. He doesn’t dare stop for a breath — he can breathe later and surely Seonghwa doesn’t need to breathe; right now he just needs Seonghwa’s lips on his like it’s a drug. Slowly but surely, Seonghwa’s arms fold around his waist to form a delicate cage that keeps Wooyoung secure against the vampire’s sturdy and lean muscle. He is cold all over, colder than Wooyoung expects him to be, but he supposes that makes perfect sense since Seonghwa is a vampire.

Nonetheless, Wooyoung tenses as cold fingers trace over the bit of exposed skin on his lower back, toying with the hem of the crop top he wears. Seonghwa uses the moment of surprise as an opportunity to thrust his wet muscle further into Wooyoung’s mouth, exploring his palate and tasting every inch of the human’s wet cavern as though it’s his last meal.

The delicate sensations have Wooyoung grinding down hard on Seonghwa’s tented erection, and his own erection rubs deliciously over Seonghwa’s suit. It’s Seonghwa’s turn to groan into Wooyoung’s mouth, however, and the sound is better than ‌Wooyoung could have imagined; if his gut could pool with more arousal, it surely would at this point. He repeats the jerking motion a second time, shifting the angle a bit this time so that his cock rubs more directly against the outline of Seonghwa’s straining member. A weak whimper slips through the kiss and permeates the air around the two of them — Seonghwa’s gaze grows so dark with desire that his eyes don’t seem gold any longer and Wooyoung thinks that the vampire could devour him on the spot.

Seonghwa finally pulls back from the kiss and sits back against the booth to admire the sight of Wooyoung above him. He’s almost too cheeky in the way his tongue continues to tease the corner of his mouth, arms coming up to rest on the back of the booth like he’s sitting on a throne with Wooyoung on top of him. Wooyoung can’t get enough of that smug and arrogant demeanor, though, something about it sends him into an erotic frenzy, nor can he recover from the arousal still plaguing his mind. Thus Wooyoung braces his hands on Seonghwa’s shoulders and grinds down against his clothed dick with more force than before.

The vampire tilts his head back, teeth bared like an animal. Air hisses through them as he tries to maintain his formal composure. Wooyoung knows what he is doing though; he is dismantling Seonghwa piece by piece, and that is painfully obvious from the lust in his eyes and the erection between them. Seonghwa doesn’t let his gaze leave Wooyoung for even a second, watching him with such intensity that Wooyoung sees himself falling to pieces under it. He stays in one piece at least until the vampire beckons him to come closer with a single finger. Wooyoung falls against his chest without a drop of hesitation.

Seonghwa doesn’t bother explaining what he’s up to; he merely leans until his lips find the base of Wooyoung’s neck and exhales hot breath over the sweat-slick skin there. His tongue pokes out to brush the warm, all-too-human skin underneath him. It brings an audible sigh from his full lips, the taste of Wooyoung on his lips and filling his senses in no time.

“May I bite you, lovely?” Seonghwa inquires, tone thrumming with desire. Wooyoung wouldn’t dream of saying no to him, not when he is so pent up with this combination of sexual frustration and arousal.

“P-Please,” Wooyoung pants into the shell of his ear. He delights in the goosebumps that travel over Seonghwa’s skin as his words caress the vampire’s ear, and Seonghwa inhales sharply before letting his tongue once again lap over the warm skin beneath his lips. Then his teeth — well, his fangs rather — sink into the junction of Wooyoung’s neck and shoulder, piercing the human with a sudden burn of pain. It catches Wooyoung off-guard for a prolonged moment, but that sting is merely momentary as it dissolves into a strange pleasure he can’t really explain. Heat swarms his veins, like a fire has been ignited in him from the inside out, and it makes him almost light-headed despite the fact that Seonghwa hasn’t pulled a drop of blood out of him yet. In fact, Seonghwa doesn’t suck any blood from his body right away, leaving that heady sensation to thrum through Wooyoung’s veins until his muscles lose some of their tension. It is like an itch Wooyoung can’t scratch, a buried need for something more, and he blindly pushes himself further against Seonghwa’s mouth.

Seonghwa doesn’t have to question what Wooyoung is asking for; it is already more than evident in the human’s erratic movements. The tips of his fingers tingle as Seonghwa begins to drag blood from the puncture wounds in his neck, and he feels his eyes fluttering as a dull throbbing blossoms there. Seonghwa eases him through it with gentle laps of his tongue between soft sucks.

Wooyoung doesn’t expect for it to be as pleasurable as it is, but his dick throbs behind the confines of his pants and pulses with each suck Seonghwa provides. He ruts like a dog shamelessly against the other’s cock in an attempt to feel more of that heady pleasure before daring to bring a hand down to ghost over the tent of Seonghwa’s arousal. Thinking with reason and rationality left him long ago, and Wooyoung only makes matters worse by pressing his fingers over that button and zipper, tugging the material back so he can slip the same hand below the band of the vampire’s underwear.

His member is slick with precum against Wooyoung’s palm, and there is a small wet splotch to be felt on his black briefs from said substance that makes Wooyoung practically preen. Precum continues to spill from the vampire’s slit the more he laps at Wooyoung’s neck, taking the blood onto his tongue and swallowing it down with a practiced ease. Wooyoung uses that slickness like lube to jerk his cock with hasty movements. Seonghwa twitches against his palm.

Pulling back from the human’s neck, said vampire heaves several deep breaths that come out in ragged gasps despite the lack of need to breathe, and that alone is a cue that Wooyoung is bringing him closer and closer to the edge with each passing second.

“F-Fuck, need to – ah, need to close that,” he stammers while motions towards Wooyoung’s neck with his head. A swell of pride rises in Wooyoung’s chest as he hears the stutter, glad to have a similar debilitating effect on the vampire. Thus, he leans his shoulder back towards Seonghwa’s mouth and exposes the pretty line of his neck further. It’s an invitation for him to continue to pull blood out, but Seonghwa seems to pull some restraint out of his ass and shakes his head. “Can’t take — mm, fuck — can’t take too much. Don’t want you to pass out before the real fun begins.”

His words leave a clever insinuation that has heat rising up the back of Wooyoung’s neck. Seonghwa pulls him close before he can think too hard about what it might mean, and this time when the vampire brings his lips to his skin, it’s only his tongue that pokes out and touches Wooyoung. Sharp fangs pull back into regular canines to let him close the wound, saliva hot and scalding against Wooyoung’s skin, and the human mewls under the ministrations.

“What? Does your spit ha-have some sort of magical healing properties?” Wooyoung huffs out as the man tongues over the puncture wounds.

“Hm, something like that. Perhaps I can explain it to you sometime when we aren’t… otherwise occupied. Unless hearing archaic verbiage and medical terms increases your pleasure, in which case I can surely speak more.”

“F-Fuck, no, pl-please not now. I just wanna t-touch you.”

Wooyoung can’t keep the same pace on Seonghwa’s cock any longer, hand jerking in haphazard and stuttered strokes along his length. Seonghwa brings his arms tight around Wooyoung’s midsection and squeezing him tight; the motion indirectly forces Wooyoung’s cock to rub harder against where he has his hand shoved down the vampire’s pants. It is tantalizing and teasing in a way that hurts almost — he can’t quite reach his high like this, it isn’t enough to push him over the edge, but Seonghwa does end up breaking. His cock twitches and spills surprisingly warm come over Wooyoung’s hand.

The human doesn’t think twice before bringing that same hand up to his lips, pulling back so Seonghwa can watch the action clear as day, and Wooyoung pulls his tongue over every centimeter of his fingers and palm until the come has fully disappeared behind his lips.

“That’s… damn, that’s most definitely enlightening, doll,” Seonghwa exhales. His breaths remain shaky, and his eyes still contain that thick film of lust like nothing has changed and he hasn’t just come. Wooyoung can’t look away even for a second.

“And what about that real fun you promised?” Wooyoung inquires in a tone that suddenly sounds small and weak. The confidence ebbs away as need settles in, cock still throbbing painfully in his pants. Seonghwa smirks back at him. His gut surges with anticipation.

“Why don’t we get out of here so you can find out?”

That’s how Wooyoung finds himself in the passenger seat of an all too sleek black car with Seonghwa in the driver seat. The vampire is far more cool and collected than Wooyoung, with his hand curled on the upper portion of Wooyoung’s thigh and close to his crotch. The touch burns and stings in a beautiful way, one that makes Wooyoung even more needy for a release. He left San in the club — along with a quick text that he was on his way out — before letting Seonghwa open the door for him. And ever the gentleman, Seonghwa offered to merely drop him off and nothing else, but Wooyoung has already thrown caution to the wind and refuses to come unless Seonghwa is the one to make him do it.

“You live in a rather convenient spot. Easy access to lots of things in the city. I’m assuming because of work?”

“Um, y-yeah,” Wooyoung stammers. Seonghwa’s index finger digs harder into the flesh of his thigh. “I’m a receptionist a-at a brokerage firm. Kinda boring but… uh, it’s temporary.” Seonghwa massages the leather around Wooyoung’s leg again. “I — f-fuck.” Wooyoung can’t figure out what he was wanting or trying to say; it’s all blurred by that hand on his leg that just rubs and massages his muscle with such intensity that he cannot think straight.

“Hm? Am I distracting you, doll?”

Doll.

Wooyoung wants to melt through the floor of the car.

“I-I need…” Wooyoung trails off.

“What do you need, Wooyoung? Say the word and it’s yours.”

“I n-need you to touch me please,” Wooyoung whispers with a fragile shakiness to his tone. It betrays how much desperate he is, and Seonghwa is right there to reward him by pushing his hand further up to cup his strained erection through the leather.

“I can touch you more once we’re at your apartment, precious,” Seonghwa purrs, eyes flitting over the GPS with Wooyoung’s address typed into it.

“Will you… fuck me?” Wooyoung asks as he shifts to glance over at Seonghwa. The vampire’s fingers tighten around the wheel and clutch the leather like it’s a lifeline.

“Perhaps not tonight… I would not wish to fully ruin you during our first night together. However, I can promise that after over a millennium of practice, there are numerous ways I could have you falling apart under my ministrations if that is what you desire.”

Two things stop Wooyoung in his tracks.

First the realization that Seonghwa has lived (if it can even be called living – perhaps undead living? Wooyoung isn’t sure what the proper term would be) for over a millennium.

And second, the implication behind this being their first night together. Wooyoung is not loath to admit how desperately he wants to figure out every single manner in which Seonghwa could ruin him, and as such he will happily settle for whatever else Seonghwa has to offer.

“Okay,” Wooyoung whispers, equal parts breathless and overwhelmed. Seonghwa’s palm alleviates some of the pressure on his cock. Wooyoung darts his own hand out to clutch tightly at the vampire’s wrist. “Please don’t stop.”

“Then how will we ever get inside, darling?”

It’s only when Seonghwa utters those words that Wooyoung realizes the car has come to a stop in front of his apartment complex, and he doesn’t fight it this time when Seonghwa’s hand slips away from him. He does, however, wait in the car as the vampire loops around to his side of the vehicle and pulls the door open.

“I’m not used to anyone being a gentleman with me,” Wooyoung murmurs as he climbs out of the car, trying to shift his uncomfortable erection a bit so he can walk better. Seonghwa’s hand comes to find a home on the small of his back after shutting the door and locking the car. Cold breath brushes over Wooyoung’s ear.

“Then it seems they have all been treating you improperly. In fact, it wasn’t very fair of me to take my pleasure before you did earlier. I promise to make it up to you by letting you come as many times as you would like.” Wooyoung can feel the way Seonghwa’s lips curl into a smirk with those words, and he would be lying if he claimed that they didn’t make him want to get on his knees and suck the vampire dry in this dingy parking lot. He manages to maintain some dignity — enough to make it into the building and onto the elevator — before he is pressing his flushed body hard into Seonghwa’s cold one. The vampire catches him with ease, like he weighs nothing, and Wooyoung is sure that he must seem rather light compared to that superhuman strength.

“Well if you don’t plan on fucking me tonight, then I would very much like to explore the numerous ways you can make me come otherwise,” Wooyoung says through a smile that borders on lecherous. He catches the velvet choker clinging to Seonghwa’s neck with his index finger, tugging the man down to his height so their lips can brush over each other. “I’ve never come more than four times in a night, you know. But then again… I’ve never been with a vampire either.”

“Are you insinuating that I can do better than your past lovers, doll?”

“Don’t you think you can manage five in the very least?” Wooyoung quips back, glancing up at Seonghwa’s dark golden eyes through fluttering lashes. “I hear that a vampire’s bite just before an orgasm can be quite intoxicating and addictive. Is that true?”

“Depends on the type of bite.” Seonghwa’s lips won’t lose their smile, even as the elevator dings and announces their arrival on Wooyoung’s floor. “We have feeding bites like the one I gave you earlier which are quite pleasurable for both parties, but then we also have marking bites, and those are the ones that are as intoxicating and addictive as you’ve heard.” Seonghwa guides Wooyoung into the hall with hands gripping hard at his hips, pushing the man through the corridor like he knows where he is going, but he stops a little ways away from the elevator to let Wooyoung guide him the rest of the way. Wooyoung lets his hand fall from the vampire’s neck down to the soft velvet belt loops on his pants, using them as an anchor to tug Seonghwa along. He refuses to let go even as they reach his door — room 427 at the far end of the hall on the left. He is silently begging that his roommate Hongjoong won’t be home, but those hopes are crudely dashed when the door swings open just before Wooyoung inserts his key.

Seonghwa stumbles back as Wooyoung does, but he braces the human against his chest with hands on either shoulder when Hongjoong’s mop of red hair pops out of the room. He startles just the same when he spots Wooyoung and the guest behind him, eyes quickly darting between both without saying a word for several seconds.

“Ah, that explains it,” Hongjoong mutters at last after some time has passed.

“Are you on your way out?” Wooyoung may or may not be in a fucking rush to get Hongjoong out of the way because his raging boner hasn’t gone down in the slightest. If he gets cockblocked at this point, he won’t—

“Yeah, Sannie asked me to pick him up from the club because he’s had a lot to drink. I’m gonna take the bus to get to the club then take him home in his car.”

“Oh good, then you’ll be gone a while!” Wooyoung chirps, pulling himself up straight once more and pressing forward to get past his roommate. He grips one of Seonghwa’s hands tight in his own; an encouragement for the man to follow after him and join him inside. “Might want to stay gone a while too!”

“I plan on it!” Hongjoong calls after him through a snort, then the door snaps shut a moment later to leave Seonghwa and Wooyoung very much alone once more. And the first thing the vampire does is stand beside the door to slip his pristine black loafers off. Wooyoung can’t help but to laugh to himself as he sees them because they simply look so out of place in his dingy apartment that is covered in Hongjoong’s art projects along with scuffs and chipped paint.

“You look too expensive to be standing here,” Wooyoung murmurs, taking the fabric of Seonghwa’s purple vest between his fingers. The vampire tilts his head to the side in question.

“Would it help if I took my clothes off?”

Wooyoung almost rolls his eyes at the tone the vampire uses.

“You would still look… it’s in the way you carry yourself. You just look expensive and elegant, so I’m sure being nude wouldn’t change that a bit.” Wooyoung sucks his lower lip between his teeth as he thinks, suddenly withdrawing from the man to lead the way to his bedroom. “Well, don’t be a stranger! You’re still planning on breaking my record, aren’t you?”

With that, Wooyoung turns to look at Seonghwa over his shoulder as he pulls his sheer crop top up over his head. He tosses the fabric at the man with a high-pitched giggle, delighting in the sudden haste in Seonghwa’s movements when he catches the shirt and rushes to join Wooyoung in the bedroom. The human had forgotten about the stories of how quickly vampires can move, and Seonghwa’s reflexes alone are something to balk at. But what really gets Wooyoung going is the speed at which Seonghwa reaches him; crossing the living room and pinning him flat on his back on his mattress in less than two seconds flat.

It’s a maddening combination of something horribly terrifying and inexplicably arousing. He hadn’t even gotten to take his pants off.

“You enjoy teasing that much, Wooyoung?” Seonghwa hums from above him, fingers closing around the man’s wrists. He simply arches a brow in response as though testing the vampire to do something more, then spreads his legs further apart to let Seonghwa slip between them with ease. “I’ll take that as a yes then.”

Wooyoung inhales so sharply that his chest burns. Next thing he knows, Seonghwa has descended lower and taken Wooyoung’s pants with him, hooking two fingers around the leather and tugging it down until it hangs about his ankles. And admittedly, Wooyoung had forgone wearing underwear because he had hoped to pick someone up while at the club yet the way Seonghwa’s teasing gaze flits from his leaking member up to Wooyoung’s face sends a surge of embarrassment through the human.

“You grow more fascinating by the second, doll,” Seonghwa murmurs. The tone leaves Wooyoung shivering; either that or it’s the cold air brushing over his now naked body that has him getting more chilly by the second. Seonghwa doesn’t let that sensation last much longer. He folds lithe fingers around the base of Wooyoung’s cock. Just seeing the vampire’s hand around him makes Wooyoung feel helplessly small. He has never been insecure about his dick size, and if anything, the way Seonghwa dwarfs him with his large palm and sprawling fingers makes the arousal in his gut even more intense. Wooyoung squirms under the touch. He’s so embarrassingly hard that he might just come after a few jerks of Seonghwa’s hand, but even that seems to be an overestimation — all the vampire has to do is drag his hand up to the head of Wooyoung’s cock and dig his index finger into his slit.

“A-Ah, Seonghwa!” Wooyoung chokes out a moan, slapping a hand over his lips as the sound escapes him, then he’s coming all over Seonghwa’s hand like he’s never been touched before in his life.

“Don’t cover your mouth. I want to hear it all.” That’s all Seonghwa says before he is descending on Wooyoung’s dick with his lips. He takes Wooyoung all the way until his nose brushes against the bare skin of his crotch, leaving the man crying out. His tongue feels impossibly long on the underside of Wooyoung’s cock as it teases a bulging vein there even as Wooyoung softens up. Seonghwa doesn’t budge on bit for what feels like hours, and Wooyoung grows mildly concerned as the minutes pass before he realizes that Seonghwa has no need to breathe, so he can’t possibly choke or run out of breath while cockwarming Wooyoung. Seonghwa’s mouth is as oddly cold as the rest of him, but it isn’t an unpleasant feeling in the slightest. Especially not as Seonghwa starts to suck over his member.

Now, Wooyoung is young, yes — the ripe and youthful age of 23, fresh out of university and in his prime — and as such, he usually can last around seven and a half minutes before coming. Note, usually, because whatever the fuck Seonghwa is doing to his cock right now has Wooyoung coming down the vampire’s throat in less than two minutes. He can’t even make a sound beyond a weak and shaky whimper this time. Seonghwa swallows around him, taking down every last drop of come, and once he’s done, he pulls off Wooyoung’s softening member with a wet pop.

“I thought you said this would be a challenge, darling, but that’s already two of five.”

“Oh, bite me,” Wooyoung scoffs without thinking twice about what exactly his words might entail. Seonghwa shifts to be eye level with him a second later.

“Is that how you’d like to come next? Untouched and at my mercy?”

That should terrify Wooyoung. Make him want to run and hide like any normal person would, but Wooyoung doesn’t consider himself or his interests in the bedroom normal in the slightest, because all those words make him do is sling an arm around Seonghwa’s shoulders and fist a hand through the man’s jet black hair. He guides Seonghwa down to the curve of his neck, right over the place where Seonghwa bit him before, although that mark has dissolved into nothing now.

“Show me exactly how intoxicating and addicting it is then.”

Seonghwa hesitates, hands braced on either side of Wooyoung’s head, and even as Wooyoung tries to push him down, the vampire manages to maintain some distance between his lips and Wooyoung’s neck. Wooyoung almost thinks that he’s going to be left high and dry like this because of how long Seonghwa ponders. Then a tongue teases his skin, tasting the sweat clinging to his body. The groan that leaves Seonghwa reverberates in his chest and sounds practically visceral. He makes good on his promise with his next action though.

This time when teeth sink in Wooyoung’s neck, the pain increases tenfold, like there are two sets of fangs pushing into him rather than just one. Wooyoung cries out, and his hips cant forward as pleasure seeps into his body. It’s like a drug — one that clouds his vision and makes fire run through his veins. The soft velvet of Seonghwa’s pants allows for some comfort as Wooyoung ruts helplessly against him, and all the while, the vampire laps his tongue around the puncture wounds he left at Wooyoung’s neck. Wooyoung is too far gone to think about whether he’s also pulling blood again; he isn’t even sure if his eyes or open or not at this point. The white light clogging his eyes is too strong and powerful for him to think about anything other than the sheer euphoria he’s experiencing in this moment.

Seonghwa guides him through it, hands reaching down to roam Wooyoung’s searing body like a cool breeze. Wooyoung doesn’t feel a thing when he comes again; all he knows is that his hips come to a halt and something eases him back to the bed to rest comfortably there in a daze. Cold hands brush over his forehead, the white light starts to fade from his vision, and when Wooyoung comes back to his senses, Seonghwa is leaning over him with a furrowed brow and concerned eyes.

“Fuck,” Wooyoung exhales.

“Perhaps it’s been too long since I engaged in that… I forgot how intense it would be for a human’s body.”

“Oh, it was intense alright.” The words slur together. All the strength is leaving Wooyoung’s body quickly, and instead a pleasant floating sensation takes over him. “Best orgasm I’ve ever had too, holy fuck.” A small huff of laughter escapes Seonghwa.

“I’ll spare you your challenge tonight. Any more strain on your body wouldn’t be good.”

Wooyoung has enough willpower to pout at those words, but Seonghwa’s resolve remains, and the vampire merely tuts and thumbs over Wooyoung’s chin.

“Now, now, doll. Only for tonight. We can break your record another time. For now, let me get you cleaned up so you can rest comfortably.”

“Towels in the bathroom…” Wooyoung drawls as his eyes fall shut again. He feels Seonghwa’s cold fingers brushing over his cheek once more before sleep overtakes him, dragging him down into a peaceful and dreamless rest.

↢ ♡ ↣

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erinhime83 · 3 years ago

Photo

Since APPARENTLY I did the designs all wrong (I won’t lie - doing my own design of Evangelia was sort of a thinly veiled attempted to get @callistochan87 to redesign her herself. >.>), I figured I’d make it my life mission this week to go through and, like, fix them. Partially because in my fuming about finding out that two of the people were talking about this behind my back, I kept giving myself ideas. >.<

I am pleasantly pleased with the design that @callistochan87 did for Evania/Evangelia, although I’m worried how much is actually influenced by my design and how much she actually decided to do on her own. *shrug* I just like the simplicity of it and how it does make her look like a goddess. I kept forgetting to add in the pieces in front of her ears, lol.

Antigonus I did fiddle with a little bit. Mostly, @callistochan87 mentioned that she thought it was funny having this super old guy traveling with a bunch of teenagers, and she wondered why I didn’t just...make someone new. Well, mostly because I didn’t want to, and mostly because when she did create someone new when I decided the Guides were supposed to be younger, it felt...wrong.

SO, I decided to age him down a little. Which I suppose sort of defeats the purpose of @callistochan87 creating another character when I wanted to do the same, but ignore that. He basically has the same backstory - he was the youngest Guide of the previous generation. He’s the heir of the empire, being the Emperor’s nephew, and now that his Guide duties are over, he’s preparing to take over the Empire. EXCEPT, the idiot new Guide managed to get himself killed, so Antigonus is temporarily taking over the duties as they try to find someone else to take over. BUT THEN GUESS WHAT? He’s about 35, so while he’s old, he’s not stupidly older than than, and is sort of more of a chaperone than anything else.

His outfit come from an old one @callistochan87 designed, and I figure it’s just, like, a traveling outfit? idk

Freyja...omg, Freyja. She caused most of my strife. Like, I honestly didn’t change THAT MUCH of her design, just sort of little piddly stuff to make it look more visually appealing, but APPARENTLY, that was still bad. I stewed and hemmed and hawed on this for quite a while, annoyed before it hit me - this is a a redesign. Shizuka sort of went back to her roots. Why couldn’t Freyja as well?

(And yes, I realize I was in the wrong, but like I said, I hadn’t changed her that much from her last design, and, well, these were done years ago so I sort of...forgot that she didn’t originally look like that. >.<)

And I figured, ya know, since I had minorly changed Freyja and she didn’t like that, I had better change Desiree, too, because I drastically changed her. I don’t care what @swankifiedcos says about this one, I am IN LOVE with her outfit. <3 Her hair, though, was inspired by a recent picture of @swankifiedcos of her hair between dye jobs where it was pink at the tips and she looked SO PRETTY. Sure, Desiree is brunette, not blond, but I like that look on her so much I wanted to recreate it somewhat, and she looks so nice!

Frejya, well, I did sort of tweek her design slightly to what @callistochan87 did, mostly giving her cold shoulder sleeves as a sort of call back to her old sleeves. I won’t lie - I did attempt to do them again and failed spectacularly. Sorry. But apparently she approves of this sleeve, so that’s...one less problem for me to deal with. XD Just so you know, I gave her hearts rather than flowers merely because I can’t draw flowers. Consider it a style thing. Like, in reality, she has flowers, but i just draw them as hearts. I am SHOCKED that I was able to make the feathers as nice as I did, though! This look makes SO MUCH more sense than the way we used to draw it. Me likely.

(Also, you might be thinking that she’s still wearing the pants. I originally indended that, with the thought that she comes from a cold kindgom, but then decided they’re actually shorts that she ended up added to her outfit for modesty sake, much like Sethos did with his shirt. :P)

I really wanted to redo Nannin’s outfit as well, but I’m sorry - I’m lazy, and her original outfit is both too detailed and too simple. So I just made her top layer a darker pink, and I like it better.�� Also made her a blond again with the idea that the people of Melohdia like like normal ass humans, and the Chosen have colored hair, and the Guides have unnatural colored eyes, which is how people can tell they’re Guides.

Geoffrey (I’m thinking of renaming him Geauffery, because that’s how I prenounce it in my head) over there gets a new design as well because I didn’t care for his other one. >.< Also, decided, as much as I like the name Dimitri Kaminiski, I;m going to go ahead and make him Owen again. Mostly because he’s sort of shifted more into being Owen. I was sort of going with this old look while making it look a little more medieval, and I like it. I also decided he’s not a soothsayer, but rather a magician.mage.

Which is sort of similar to Evangelia’s power, but not quite. She uses the power of miracles, whereas he uses actual magic. Its sort of like how Shizuka and Freyja’s power is similar, but Frejya’s is a little weaker. (Shizuka has mastery over all weapons, whereas Freyja just has mastery over bludgeoning people with a huge ass axe. But she has the benefit of also having magic, whereas Shizuka can just use some fire magic.)

The next design is where it get all long and involved. Basically as I was stewing about having my feelings hurt and how I was going to hide everything in my annoyance, I THINK I was briefly reminded of the last time I screwed up and within that instance a brilliant idea came to me, mostly because I needed more villains.

I remember I really like Astrid’s design, but looking back, I’m sort of confused as to why? It doesn’t look at all better than Freyja’s. >.< Anyway, the thought is simple - when the Chosen are originally yanked into Melohdia, Nuncio replaces one of them with one of his own that would be easily manipulated. Why Freyja, you ask? Plot reasons, since it does help explain the whole Nannin thing a lot better. The thing is, though, that Ariadne and Atalo sort of find out and drag Freyja in as well, except she ends up in Baldernan rather than Azibo with the rest of the Chosen.

So the Chosen are in Azibo thinking Astrid is one of them, except they don’t really vibe with her that well. They just figure it’s because they can’t like everyone, and ignore it. Astrid herself doesn’t really suspect anything. But then they travel to Baldurnan and find Freyja there, who they do vibe with very well, and they find out that Astrid is a fake.

Which would be all fine and well. Even Freyja’s willing to give the girl a chance because, hey, it’s not her fault she was falsely brought into this world with no purpose. Except Astrid is a spoiled bitch and takes it as an affront that they would even want to include Freyja at all. So she just sort of runs off and Nuncio catches up to her, and convinces her that she’s the real one, and and she goes around antagonizing the group from time to time. They think she’s in league with Atalo at first until they find out of the truth.

NEW IDEA. I actually had this very vague idea while musing around, but @callistochan87 had another idea that was similar enough that I can change things to make it work WAY better. So, the new idea is mostly that Nuncio pulls Astrid into Melohdia way before the others. The people are rather confused, certainly, but it’s not 100% unheard of one Chosen being brought over. So she’s treated like something of a god and spoiled further, and Nuncio pretty much convinces her that she’s the soul savior of Melohdia. He assigns Thor to be her Guide, although he’s just some Random Dude (because I decided that matching genders to the Chosen is sort of weird, so Nannin is a full Guide now).

BUT Ariadne and Atalo end up pulling the REAL Chosen a month or so later, which REALLY pull the people for a loop, and they realize that Astrid is a fake once they realize that Thor isn’t a real Guide and that Nannin claims Freyja. The group attempts to assimilate Astrid in with them, because they realize it’s not HER fault all this happened, but since she’s a fake Chosen AND a narcissistic bitch, they end up not viving all that well, and she ends up running away in anger and embarrassment.

Nuncio sort of blames the whole thing on Atalo somehow, since the people forgot that Ariadne is the only one who can pull true Chosen into the world, mostly to save face.

Astrid and Thor do end up joining with Atalo for a little bit, because he’s trying to be sympathetic to her as well, but their goals aren’t really the same. She does prove to be a major threat to the group because she DOES have the power of a Chosen, although they’re sort of weak.

Her real name is Katelyn Davis, and she’s pretty much the opposite of the other Chosen. She’s a complete social butterfly, the sort to think the world revolves around her. She’s not happy unless she’s around people, whereas the other Chosen are pretty much introverted and would prefer to keep to themselves.

Her Guide’s name is Thor (I keep calling him that in my head, I think because of Frejya being named after a god), and he is, in fact, a true Guide. It’s just that he’s not a very good one, nor is he a good person. He’s a bandit and delights in the misfortunes of others. The other Guides avoided him at all costs, and wasn’t sure why he was chosen to be a Guide. He goes off with Astrid after they kick him out of the group when Freyja chooses Nannin over him. (The two of them became close in the month Frejya was stuck there on her own, so of course she’d want to have her stay with her.)

The last picture was just me giving them their original hair colors just for the hell of it, and now I’m torn. >.< Because I like these as well. I mean, I like the idea of the colored hair being how you can tell they’re the Chosen, BUT I also, you know, like the original colors BECAUSE they are the original colors. >.<

#original charcters #designs #mi #evangelia #antigonus #frejya #nannin #geoffery #alden #astrid #thor

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frankchurchillsaysrelax · 4 years ago

Text

Malex week day two: trope day - This is something I affectionately refer to as the “there’s only one coffee shop to lovers” au

Michael has been going to the same coffee shop since his first day at UNM over two years ago. At his core, he is a creature of habit, so when he found a place that served coffee almost as good as the Crashdown’s on his first try, he didn’t bother looking anywhere else.

This was his place, filled with his people. There is Thomas, who never cares if he takes over two whole tables to work on a paper and Ashley who always sets aside the biggest cookie-of-the-day for him when she knows he has an exam. The owner, Gus, gives him a job when he stays behind on campus during the summer months instead of going back to Roswell.

It’s during one of these shifts that it happens. The southwest isn’t known to get much rain but when it does it never comes quietly. Monsoon season brings storms between one breath and the next, torrential rains starting in the blink of an eye highlighted by bright streaks of lightning and the echoing boom of thunder.

Michael runs the three blocks from his apartment with only his jacket as cover and finds the shop is closed. He quickly pulls the keys from his pocket and lets himself in, calling out for Gus or Ashley as he does. Thomas has already gone home for the summer but the others should be here. It’s quiet inside, so quiet he immediately knows that the power must have gone out at some point. It explains the emptiness.

He makes quick work of grabbing a couple of tea towels from behind the counter to keep himself from dripping all over everything and simultaneously pulls his phone from his pocket. One new message glows brightly back at him.

“Hey kid, you really need to learn to answer your phone. Power’s out so no need to come in. If your stubborn ass does turn up, don’t go back out into this thing y’hear me? Alright, call me if ya need anything. Bye.”

Michael shakes his head at the familiar exasperation he can hear in Gus’ voice. Something about the man has always reminded him of old Sanders. He’s just about to call Isobel and check on things back home when a figure walking down the sidewalk catches his eye out the large picture window.

He’s tempted to pretend he didn’t see as soon as he recognizes him.

“What the hell, Manes?” Michael shouts through the now partially opened door. “Get in here!”

Alex Manes. Michael didn’t believe in having an arch-nemesis, but if he did it would be Alex Manes. They grew up together in Roswell and Michael would have sworn the youngest Manes son would have followed in his brother’s footsteps and enlisted after graduation. Instead, Michael had walked into his first day of Music Theory I Freshman year to see a familiar face.

No one really knows when or why the animosity between the two of them formed. It might have been when they were twelve when Alex in all his wannabe rockstar glory told him if he wasn’t serious about making music he had no business playing the guitar. It could have been during their eighth grade camping trip when Michael was caught kissing Alex’s best friend, Maria. It could have been Senior year when Michael tried to ask Alex to prom and was flat out rejected.

Whenever it started, the tension between them had only grown stronger since the start of college. Alex, with his stupid sexy hair hanging in his eyes that are always rimmed with the perfect amount of eyeliner, had found Michael’s haven in the small hole in the wall coffee shop and invaded it with his constant presence. Normally they had an unspoken agreement to stay at least two tables away from one another and pretend the other doesn’t exist, but during the summer when Michael was working he had to put aside his feelings in the name of professionalism.

Technically, he isn’t working now.

“What the fuck are you doing walking around out there?” Michael locks the door behind them and motions for Alex to stand still while he runs behind the counter for more towels.

“It’s not that bad, Guerin.” Michael throws the towel at Alex’s face, his eyebrows raising with unguarded judgment. Alex doesn’t take the bait, focused on running the towel over his hair, and taking off his soaked hoodie to reveal the now see through shirt pressed tight against his skin. He glares when he catches Michael staring.

Face flushed, Michael turns around and busies himself with taking two chairs down from a nearby table, pushing one vaguely in Alex’s direction.

“I’d offer to make you a drink man but, uh, power s’out.” Michael shrugs, taking out his phone in a clear gesture that says he is done talking.

Several long moments pass. Michael texts Isobel and then Max when he doesn’t receive a response.

“My dad’s here,” Alex admits softly. Michael’s head snaps up so quickly that a wet curl flies out before slapping him on the face. His fists clench without permission at the mention of Jesse Manes. His gaze is soft as it traces Alex’s face looking for any new injuries. Michael’s known about his father’s violence for years, another reason Alex hates him he’s sure.

“He showed up for a surprise visit and I,” he pauses, his fingers starting to tap a random beat against the table between them. “I just had to get out of there.”

Michael can’t blame him. He thinks he’d probably choose walking through a summer storm over being near Alex’s father too. He takes a moment to watch Alex a little closer now. He can see the way his eyes flit toward the windows every few seconds and the tension in his shoulders that slightly pushes them up toward his ears.

“Feel free to hide out here as long as you want.” He forgot how pretty Alex was when he smiled.

“Thanks, Guerin.”

It was going to be a long night.

#malexweek20 #malex20 #my fic #malex fic #malex #roswell new mexico #total honesty: this is a first draft #and this was originally going to be longer #but that didn't happen #because it is 3 am and i actually do need sleep #yes i am a mess #malex week 2020

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florenceandthemachine · 5 years ago

Note

okay but jackson falling for single dad stiles (◕‿◕✿)

SO (and I feel like I’m going to be saying this a lot) HERES THE THING.

@jacksonstilinskis, as you can assume, the first time they meet is a fucking disaster.

It’s a disaster because Stiles moved to New York for his bachelor degree, partially in an attempt to chase the highest scholarship he was awarded and partially in an attempt to get the fuck out of Beacon Hills, the place that killed his mother, his father, and his best friend — and the place that left him with a squirming three month old less than a year after he graduates high school, a gift from the recently departed.

He gets a major in Criminology and a minors in Mythological Studies, rocks the single father gig, and manages to teach Claudia (Scotts idea, Stiles had cried when he found out) what is okay to bite and what is not okay to bite, but getting into grad school is a whole other animal.

It’s a disaster because Stiles decides to forgo taking out a mortgage in student loans and tries to save up for his masters program by joining up with the NYPD. They have amazing benefits, amazing child support, and a legal team that could kick anyones ass.

It’s a disaster because six years later, when Stiles and Jackson first meet, Stiles is in uniform (a uniform he looks damn good in, Jackson begrudgingly acknowledges) and Jackson’s Porsche just hit about 87 miles per hour in a 55.

The best part is (well, the best part if you ask Stiles — the worst part if you ask Jackson) is that Jackson has been pulled over hundreds of times before, and he always — always — gets out of it with a smile and a laugh and an apology, and Stiles could not give less of a fuck. Jackson breaks out all the tricks. The smile, the pout, the puppy eyes. He actually thinks it works for a second — Stiles is smiling back at him, and Jackson isn’t above tilting his head to get a better look at the way the uniform hugs him, but then Stiles is asking for his registration and insurance and Jackson’s smile falls into a scowl.

Finally, he brings out the big guns — he casually gestures to his scrubs, mentions he’s on his way to a surgery, because being top of his class at Harvard Medical had to count for something — and he really was in a rush, officer, he had to get to the patient right away.

Stiles has the audacity to roll his eyes and laugh as he hands Jackson his ticket, and Jackson has to pretend that the sound didn’t make a shiver dance over his skin. “Well, I certainly hope you take more time and care with your patient then you do on your commute. Have a better day.”

The cruiser follows him all the way to the hospital, and Jackson feels a moment of petty anger before he realizes that the 23rd Precinct is basically right across Park Avenue from Mount Sinai Hospital. If he looks out the window of his office, he can see a steady stream of police cars going in and out of the underground garage.

Huh.

—

Jackson allowed himself a full week to whine to everyone who would listen about his ticket after he plea bargained it down, but then even he got tired of sulking —

(“I am not sulking, Laura.”

“It was over a month ago. You are absolutely sulking, you baby.”)

— sulking over who he had only thought of as Officer Asshole. Who the fuck gives a speeding ticket to a doctor, a doctor that was on his way to surgery?

Not that Jackson had actually been on his way to surgery. He was never in a rush to surgery, because he was never late to surgery, because he barely left the hospital on his days off, let alone a day he had a surgery scheduled.

Either way, that was months ago, and even Jackson couldn’t hold a grudge that long. He was in rotation today — Mount Sinai may have been one of the best hospitals in the nation, but it was first and foremost a children's hospital, and being in rotation — and seeing the people that they were helping, the kids they were helping, really helped bring that home to everyone.

He grabbed the next clipboard off of a stack and pushed open the door to the waiting room, taking count of all the parents and kids waiting for everything from a bruised knee (helecoptor parents) to any number of fakers (midterm season was rough on everyone).

“Claudia and Stiles... Stilinski?”

What the hell was a Stiles?

Jackson only had half a moment to think about it before a dark head popped up, a child that couldn’t have been more than six in his arms, and Jackson almost felt resentful when he realized that he was staring at Officer Asshole again. And Officer Asshole had a kid, who looked absolutely miserable, and Officer Asshole looked miserable in proxy to his kid, and Jackson really needed to start thinking of him as a “Stiles” before he accidentally called him officer Asshole out loud.

Jackson guided them back to an exam room full of stuffed toys and bright colors on the wall, letting Stiles take his time setting Claudia down on the bench before sitting right beside her. He introduced himself and smiled down to Claudia — who had a low fever and was squirming uncomfortably, rubbing her little hands against her flushed cheeks, and Jackson would never think that was not cute. Even a sick kid was a cute kid, and though this kid was sick...

“...it’s nothing to be worried about. Kids get sick all the time, and it sucks, but it happens.” Jackson said, using his full soothing doctor voice on Stiles, who looked at the same time utterly relieved and totally embarrassed.

He confirmed as much as he stood up, taking a prescription from Jackson for some children's medicine to help bring Claudia’s fever down, shaking his head slowly. “Sorry. It was probably overkill to bring her to a hospital, but I’m still pretty new to this parenting thing. I just... I don’t know, I have a tendency to assume the worst, after... well. I just do.”

Jackson almost laughs again, shaking his head. “Don’t ever apologize for advocating for your kid. It’s the best thing you can do, next to pulling over innocent doctors who definitely aren't speeding.” He reaches out to shake Stiles hand, dazzling smile on his face, and Stiles’ blooms into recognition.

“You’re the doctor! The doctor I pulled over. Sorry, I forget names and faces, but I could never forget that smile.” Stiles said, a grin on his own face, shaking Jackson’s hand for a few seconds before his eyes widened in horror, yanking his hand back. “Oh god. That sounded so creepy, I’m so sorry, she’s kept me up for three days straight. I didn’t mean it in a weird way. I just—uh, I have to go. Thank you again! Please don’t think I'm some freak in a uniform!” he says, almost tripping over a nurse as he backs out of the room.

Jackson is grinning even wider, a real smile splitting his face, and he can’t help but call after him. “The coffee cart on 102nd is great for long nights. Favorite for all on call doctors and most of the boys in blue.”

Stiles smiles weakly and gives a thumbs up, disappearing down the stairway.

Officer Asshole — Stilinski, he reminded himself — wasn’t just hot, he was actually kind of cute. He was a cute dad.

Jackson was kind of fucked.

—

Jackson is sitting on a bench on 102nd Avenue, looking up at the dark night sky, when a danish lands in his lap. Jackson just looks at it for a minute — he’s just finishing up a thirty hour shift, and he’s only vaguely sure what’s real anymore — before he looks up, staring dumbly at the cup of coffee extended to him.

“It’s uh, a peace offering. And an apology? I mean, I’m not sorry for writing you a ticket. You were speeding. But I am sorry for calling you Doctor Dickbag for like a week afterward. But that medicine you gave me had Claudia back to her giggly self in no time, so I think you’re even. With yourself.”

It’s Stilinski, and judging by his pressed uniform, styled hair, and bright (if not nervous) smile, he’s just getting on shift while Jackson is mentally checking out of his own.

As soon as he puts two and two together, Jackson gratefully takes the cup and takes a too long swig of what tastes like frothy sugar milk, almost gagging as he looks at Stiles like he had been poisoned. “What the hell is this, a hot milkshake? Oh god, I should have known you were the type who drinks hot sugar, not coffee.”

Stiles has the audacity to laugh as he sits beside Jackson, and the two of them fall into easy, if shallow, conversation. They talk about work, and themselves, and soon Stiles is checking his watch with an apology, because his shift starts at 4 and he has to get into the precinct.

Jackson watches as he stands up and puts on his fancy police hat, and later, he’ll blame it on sleep deprivation, but he calls out after Stiles’ retreating form.

“So, coffee and a danish, maybe breakfast next time? I’ll buy.”

Stiles stops and turns, looking Jackson over, and he grins as he nods his head, even if his cheeks are pink. “It’s a date.” He winks and turns back around, and Jackson actually feels goosebumps on the back of his neck.

Oh, Jackson was fucked. He flops back on the bench and smiles to himself, before frowning, whirling around to yell at Stiles’ retreating backside.

“Wait, what the fuck do you mean you were calling me Doctor Dickbag?!”

—

They manage to have several coffee / breakfast / here’s a meal dates, and Jackson is almost proud of their timing—Stiles kisses Jackson on date number two, a quick peck that leaves Jackson’s world on it’s edge as he grins at Stiles blushing backside as he speaks rapid fire into his radio, now buzzing with life. It’s cute on their first date, but gets old by their fourth date, they manage to kiss for almost twenty seconds in the ambulance bay at Mount Sinai before Jackson’s pager goes off. He groans and pulls away, glaring at the device as though it personally offended him, and Stiles laughs as he brings Jackson’s hands up to kiss Jackson’s knuckles.

“Go, go save lives. But, uh, if you were free on Thursday, I was thinking... maybe we could have our next date at my place? I’ve already got Mrs. Bobrowski on speed dial to babysit.” Stiles says, his tone confident even if he’s chewing his lip nervously. It’s a trick question — Stiles is off, and Stiles knows that Jackson is off, and Stiles already secured a babysitter, and Jackson can feel Stiles eyes dipping back from his lips to the low V of his scrub top, and Jackson wastes no time before agreeing wholeheartedly.

“It’s a date.” he murmurs against Stiles lips, squeezing his ass through the uniform, and Stiles squeaks in appreciation as he swats Jackson toward the hospital doors.

Thursday rolls around and Jackson puts on a tight pair of jeans, a button down shirt with far too many buttons undone to be decent, and adds just a drop of cologne to his pulse point. He looks good. He feels good. He buys flowers, for fucks sake, which means that of course when he knocks on Stiles door, Stiles is wearing a ratty tee shirt and sweats and has a pained look on his face.

“Jackson, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bobrowski cancelled on me and I couldn’t get another sitter and I wanted to call you and tell you but I left my phone at the station and—”

Stiles looks miserable, and that’s all Jackson needs to know he’s telling the truth, that he truly is sorry, and that he’s going to tell Jackson “another time”, like having a kid involved would ruin a dinner date. Jackson takes a split second before shutting Stiles up with a kiss, brushing past him with a grand flourish as he says Claudia in the living room, bending down to give her first choice on Stiles flowers.

Stiles just stands in the doorway, stunned, looking as Jackson goes to the kitchen, Claudia skipping along happily behind him, excitedly waving her new purple flower in the air.

“Jackson, you don’t have to—”

“Stilinski, you have three seconds to shut up and tell me where to find a vase, and then tell me how I can help you with dinner.” Jackson says expectantly, and Stiles feels something warm curl around his chest.

—

They have dinosaur nuggets and carrots and peas for dinner, and Jackson loves it.

They watch a Disney movie and Jackson holds Stiles hand on the couch, and he loves it.

Stiles puts Claudia to bed and then turns to Jackson with such a hungry look in his eye, he can hardly blink before Stiles has him pulled into his bedroom, and fuck, Jackson loves it.

They barely get each other naked before they tumble into bed, and Stiles is rubbing against him so deliciously, and Jackson mouthes at his neck and bites at his pulse, and he would almost be ashamed of how quickly he comes, his body warm against Stiles, thrusting against his hips, but Stiles is right behind him, and they’re warm and sticky and have a mess on their abdomens.

Jackson just looks at Stiles in surprise, and they both stare a moment before they’re both laughing, desperately trying to stifle the sound so they don’t wake Claudia. Jackson wipes them clean with something on the floor (”that's my shirt, you ass!” Stiles basically squawks) and then they both lay there in bed, listening to the sounds of the city from the window, and Stiles starts to talk.

He tells them about his best friend Scott and his wife Allison that married right out of high school, and Allison who got pregnant before her first day at UCLA. He tells them about how after Claudia was born, they made Stiles the godparent, and then left Claudia in his care while they went on a much-delayed honeymoon to the coast, and then he tells them about how a little gas leak in the hotel robbed him of his two best friends and robbed Claudia of her parents.

He goes through it quickly — “what happened then sucks, but there’s no sense in wishing it was different” — but it brings him to his next point, lying with his head on Jackson’s chest, fingers tracing the lines across his stomach.

“Usually, guys run like hell when I say daughter. I’m a 26 year old cop with a 6 year old kid, and something about that is terrifying. Not that I think you’re going to be terrified, but—”

“Stiles, if this is the part of the show where you tell me that you and Claudia are a package deal, can it. I know. I’m not mad about it. Hell, I’ve already fooled you into thinking I’m more than just a dickwad, I’m not backing out now, I’ve put too much work into this.” Jackson snarks, and Stiles looks at him for a minute like he was crazy before he reads into Jackson’s facial expression, and his smile softens again.

“You’re still a dickwad. Doctor Dickwad.” Stiles says, playfully squeezing Jackson’s side. “But I guess I can keep you around as long as Claudia finds you useful.” he says with a dreamy sign, nosing along Jackson’s jawline once more.

Jackson just grins and turns to kiss him, taking a moment to realize—

he was so, so fucked.

#jackson whittemore #stiles stilinski #kidfic #teen wolf #stackson #officer stilinski #doctor whittemore #I love them #ask #flospeaks

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baekchelor · 5 years ago

Text

𝕕𝕒𝕪𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕕𝕖𝕔𝕖𝕡𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

pairings: George Mackay x reader genre: romantic comedy rating: pg13 synopsis: on the set of his new film, golden boy George Mackay learns a basic human truth: that the heart is deceitful above all things. warnings: slight smut

❝i love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions and him entirely and all together.❝ ― emily brontë

FOUR | ENDINGS & BEGINNINGS ◄ ᴘʀᴇᴠ

George has six different scripts waiting for him on his red mailbox when he gets back to his apartment building. The tail end of this autumn is a chilly, constant rainfall —one of the coldest London has seen in recent years.

Alma rolls down her window and waves, "Call me if you need anything." She's in the passenger seat of the Range Rover that picked them up from the airport.

"My sister sent over food," George responds. Daisy's text came in shortly after they landed. "I'll survive, Alma."

"That's not what I meant," his manager replies pointedly.

A mob of fans had been queuing in wait at the airport. George knew they were in for the hysterical cries and invasive photography, the obstacle course of thrust-out gifts and feet to trip over. He wished he could have had his last goodbye in peace, a memory in a hushed corner, however brief. But the sheer mass of bodies had been too much to contend with. In the end, he and Y/N were escorted out through separate gates. She took a flight to Los Angeles, he to London.

So again, with only the slightest fluctuation in tone, George says, "I'll survive." Because he and Y/N's friendship remained on good terms, and now that her T.V. Series promotion summoned her to L.A., he will have time to get over his little infatuation. When they see each other again, George's heart won't be able to jeopardize their relationship, and the prize will be to have Y/N in his life forever.

Not even an hour later... his plan goes to shit. George considered himself a man with a strong will. Apparently, when it comes to the girl who stole his heart in Mumbai, his resolution is tossed to the trash. He played London Boy first, then the Heartbreak Prince song, and before he noticed, he had ordered Chinese, simmered his ass on the sofá, and listened to Taylor Swift's entire discography as thoughts of Y/N, Mumbai and the way she makes him feel invaded his mind.

It takes almost a month for George to meet up with Dean, who's finally back from his filming schedule in France.

They kept in touch via texts. Dean asked for advice in certain scenes, described his character and his approach to him, and narrated funny anecdotes on set. In turn, George told him about Mumbai in vague, emotionless terms. He's had no contact with Y/N since they got back to their real life, and instead of making him forget, it filled him with a deep sense of loss. George partially blames Taylor Swift for that, but he doesn't tell Dean. It would be too humiliating, especially since George has never been lovesick before. The feeling is persistent and tactile, and terribly unsettling.

Today, they're at Dean's flat, smack dab in the centre of Soho. Dean has got his head bent over his phone, reading some table nonsense to not lose the habit. George nurses an iced coffee he ordered from UberEats and delves upon the fact he doesn't even like Taylor Swift's music yet his phone automatically play her songs whenever it is connected to Bluetooth.

George still holds out hope that he's going through a phase. A Y/N induced phase. Maybe, sometime soon, it will pass.

"You okay, Geo?" Dean is looking at him with concern.

George blinks, and he realizes belatedly that his friend is no longer at the table. He's standing by the water dispenser in the kitchen.

"I'm just thinking," George says dismissively, eking out a smile. He doesn't want to talk about this.

Dean smiles back, understanding, but he refuses to cave. Once his glass of water is filled, he returns to the table, and with a sigh, he asks: "Have you read the news lately?"

"No, not recently." George drums his fingers over the table. They produce a dull sound. "Why?"

"I'll show you," Dean says, handing the phone with a window open in a gossip article that headlines Henry Cavill and Y/N Y/L/N had ended their long term relationship. This time for good.

George's mouth quirks, "I see."

Pressing his elbows to the table, Dean nestles his face between cupped palms. "What are you gonna do about it?"

"About what?"

Dean's eyebrows slope and George traces the wood grain of the table with his fingertip. "You could be happy, you know? If you tell her," Dean addresses him openly.

There's that all-too-familiar twinge again; a heartstring plucked. "You don't know that," George bites the inside of his cheek. "We never even..." He trails off, and of course, he remembers: Y/N's fingers lacing into his, Y/N's warm body wrapped around his… Y/N's mouth, slick and soft and open for a kiss.

"That doesn't mean nothing happened," Dean mutters. "I know you, George. I know how much you're keeping from me. Your texts were dead giveaways if anything at all. Do you know how sad you look right now?" That word, again. "It's the first thing I noticed when you came in. I've never seen you like this. Like you're lost, or something." He puts his hand on the back of George's chair. "You realize everything's changed, don't you? And it's never going to go back to the way it was, no matter how much you force the issue?"

"What do you want me to do, Dean?" George says, feeling caged and itching with defensiveness. "Throw away our friendship, this special bond we have for an infatuation? For all I know, she can only think of me as a friend. Nothing else." He's embarrassed by the tremor in his voice. "I don't even know what I'm doing, pining over a girl like this, and she and I —we never discussed what this was, between us. And it's like you're asking me to risk it all, our friendship, Daisy, my peace of mind, so I can try for something uncertain with, with..." He hasn't said her name in a while, so his tongue stumbles over it. "Y/N."

"Yes." The word is as solemn as a prayer. "Because, clearly, you don't love Daisy, you never had, that's why things between you were nothing but a fling. You love Y/N. It's not just an infatuation."

George breathes silently, heavily, staring at the table.

The next words that come out of Dean's mouth are gentle, designed to coax, not provoke, "You have to stop torturing yourself, George. It's just making you miserable."

"Dean..."

"Listen," he sighs, clearly exasperated. "You say you don't want to put your friendship with Y/N at risk, but you already did. You're losing her in every fucking way possible. You haven't talked to her in weeks. Right now, you two are as close as strangers. All because you're scared."

"I am not scared. I am rational."

"You are not, Mackay. And you need to realise it."

They would've most likely kept going in circles if friends-with-benefits Daisy hadn't chosen that moment to text George. He replies because he wants a distraction and needs reassurance that what he is doing is the right thing to do, but the words of a dinner date and romantic plans sting nonetheless because it's something George wants with Y/N and can't have.

When George leaves the apartment, promising Dean to meet on Sunday for a match of Call Of Duty, the latter looks over and asks for George's well being.

George pulls up a smile to reassure him, but it's acted, and he knows it. All he can think about is that barely-there brush of lips in a hotel bed, that Thank you for Mumbai, that last look at the crowded airport, that question Y/N never asked him fading away like so many summer days.

It takes another four more months after that, and up until the very end, George vacillates between doing it and not doing it, making up his mind only to change it again at the last minute. But when he finally ends things with Daisy, it's almost like she's prepared for it.

They're sitting in her car, in somewhere's basement parking lot. Daisy doesn't have a speck of makeup on. It makes her look younger, more fragile.

"I wondered who was going to end it first," she says, thumbing at the steering wheel. "I thought it might be better if it was me. Maybe it would hurt less." She shrugs, and a lock of hair falls over her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," George mumbles. He brushes it back, out of habit, before he realizes he doesn't have the right to do that anymore. His hand recoils. "I never wanted to hurt you."

She shrugs again, but her mouth twists this time. It's a defence mechanism. "I shouldn't be this upset. We weren't dating, you didn't love me, and since day one you made it clear you didn't seek for commitment," George can't stand the look on her face —one of pure defeat. "I told myself so many times that I could win you over. For a while, I was convinced I would actually get you to love me. There used to be this shiny little space in your eyes, reserved just for me... but when I visited you in Mumbai, I'd already been replaced without even knowing why."

"Daisy..."

"Do you really think I believe you want to end this because of your agenda, George?" she murmurs. Her laugh is brittle, like clattering metal. "Don't lie to me. I know it is because of Y/N." Her lip trembles, so she sucks it into her mouth.

She had known, after all. And she's angry, of course, she is. George deceived her. The shame of it makes his stomach roil with acid.

"Daisy," he entreats her, "She never...we never...I didn't..."

"It's worse that way," she hisses back at him. "It's even worse." She doesn't expound, but George understands her perfectly: a betrayal of the heart, not of the body.

When she adds, "I always knew you would fall in love. I just thought it would be with me," the blood rushes straight to George's head.

"I am not —I am. I don't know," George answers helplessly. He's dizzy, and he feels naked. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I loved you so much," unrelenting, she whispers. A plump tear rolls down her cheek, followed swiftly by another. She draws herself up; proud as the Ophelia she plays in the theatre. "I don't want to see you anymore. Not anywhere. Delete my number. Delete our pictures. Don't bother sending back anything I've left at your place —you can have it all. Throw it out, if you want. I don't care."

George thought he'd been prepared for the consequences. He didn't realize it would feel like he was tied to a whipping post, his back exposed, as Daisy's words lashed him again and again.

The worst part is that she probably feels the same kind of pain, too.

"Why couldn't you love me?" she shakes out. Her cheeks are wet.

And George doesn't care if she hits him, doesn't care if she bruises his chest and his face with her balled-up fists that still smell like the coconut in her lotion. He reaches across the passenger's seat, pushing right past the boundaries he'll have to observe from now on, and he envelops her in a fierce, hopeless embrace.

She cries silently, her tears and sobs suffusing his shirt with damp heat. He holds her through the whole thing, knowing full well it will be another one of those last times until, after a long spell, she calms.

"I did care for you," George says then, tenderly, his voice breaking. "How could I not?"

Her entire face gentles, just a moment, before the softness is gone; the keenness of fresh heartbreak taking its place.

Daisy nods, perfunctory, and looks away.

When the door on his side unlocks with a quiet click, George knows she's telling him to go.

The bitter afternoon turns worse as George settles down on his couch, back at his apartment. His phone rings with a notification from Dean claiming it is better if Georges hears such news from him. A link is attached, and as soon as George opens it, he feels his heart rip apart.

All along, Dean was right. The time spent worrying over Dev Patel and Henry Cavill was a waste. He never saw Luke Hemmings coming, the thought didn't even cross George's mind, and now Luke and Y/N had been spotted together. Several times.

They went to Trader Joe's, left the store with bags of organic food and bottles of pink lemonade. They spent a weekend in San Francisco, Luke's nails painted red, and his fingers resting on the small of Y/N's back. They shared a cigarette at Sunset Strip, outside some old bar 80's rockstars use to hang out at. It annoyed George the most. She smokes with Luke but refused George's cigarettes the many times she came along to watch him poison his lungs with nicotine.

Dean was right.

Taylor Swift is right too, it feels like death by a thousand cuts. There's no use to get drunk, it won't be enough, he knows it. George pretended it was okay for so long when it isn't. The morning will come, and Y/N won't be his baby, won't be his friend. She is Luke Hemmings', and it is all George's fault.

At the pre-screening party for Dharma, two days before the film is slated for release, George finally sees Y/N again.

It's been months since Mumbai, months since Daisy, months since Luke Hemmings and months since they've had any sort of contact.

George's dyed his hair chestnut in preparation for a new role. Tonight, he wears eyeliner under his eyes (it reminds him of those days he filmed Hamlet) and a leather jacket. Greta thought it would be fun to throw a rock-themed party, she hired a band to perform live and required the dress-code to be inspired by the Age of Rock.

Y/N is wearing a black chain embellished mini skirt, a white turtleneck underneath a fucking 5SOS t-shirt, and she's, again, hanging off Luke Hemming's arm. His hair is a blond silk sheet draped over his forehead, and his lips hover close to Y/N's ear, speaking into it confidingly. It gives George a pang, right in the centre of his chest.

There's no avoiding each other. Not when Y/N is looking at him, all smiles and excitement, and she excuses herself from the conversation with Luke, Timotheé Chalamet and Florence Pugh to run straight towards George. He is tongue-tied, yearning, and all he manages is a lame nod that suits neither him nor the object of his affections. Y/N stops right in her tracks.

"George." Not London Boy, neither Heartbreak Prince. It sounds unnatural.

"Y/N," he replies. Not Gorgeous. "It's been a while."

They shake hands, and George is satisfied with that, but Y/N encircles her arms around his neck, hugging him as tight as George had wanted to hug her all those months they spent apart.

"I missed you," she says, a whisper. If only she knew how much George missed her, and the lengths he went to get her out of his head. He tried to hang out with new people, meet new girls. Hell, he even went out with his ex-girlfriend Doone. Twice.

Before George can be honest, his body tingling from the embrace, Luke greets him. He is polite and keeps things as brief as possible, but George forgets about him immediately after. Y/N is here, right here, within his grasp. She's with a handsome man, and it's been so long, and George is afraid she's forgotten all about their time in Mumbai. But there it is —that blessed, steadfast question flickering behind Y/N's orbs, and George clings to it like a port in a storm.

The moment Luke excuses himself to the stage (he will bless every guest with a song —George want to roll his eyes at it), the atmosphere shifts between them. She attentively waits for Luke to start singing; everybody is cheering and excited, and people let out awe sounds when Luke strums the first chords of Eye In The Sky. Of course, he would sing such a hit. Of course, his voice sounds perfect, and George grows embarrassed over his two songs from the Been So Long soundtrack. Of course, he feels, once more —The first time was when he walked inside and Here I go Again blasted on the speakers—, attacked by a song tonight.

"How've you been?" Y/N murmurs, eyes trained on a point across the room. The stage. "We haven't spoken to each other since we got back." She licks her lips into a cautious smile.

George follows the movement closely. "I ended things with Daisy," he says. Just like that.

"Did you?" The smile falters. "I mean if that is what you wanted... I'm —I'm glad..." If George hadn't spent so much time with Y/N before they stopped spending so much time together, he would have missed the subtle quake in the girl's voice. "How are you holding up?"

"Better." George looks over at her. He doesn't mean he felt terrible because of Daisy, and now he is better. George is better now because she's here, near him. "It was a big mess, but now I feel free." He licks his lips too because they've gone dry. And then he catches it —Y/N's gaze darting quickly to his mouth.

He places his hand on Y/N's thigh. It tenses, just for a second, before giving in. George realizes, at this exact moment, when Luke sings about how he can read someone's mind by just looking at them, that he can read Y/N's mind, and gaze, and body language, and he knows what Y/N has wanted to ask him. He's just been a coward.

"That's good," she exhales. "I'm glad."

Well, he won't be a coward anymore.

"We should talk," George says, voice pitched low. "You should come over to my suite, and we should catch up."

"Tonight?" her limbs tense again, muscles shifting under George's palm.

"If you like." George wants and wants and wants. "But only if you haven't got anything planned with your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," Y/N tells him, and George knows there's an unspoken yet in her words. His heart skips a hundred beats. He still got a chance. He can still get the girl. And he can't wait for this party to be over.

"I'll come over tonight," Y/N agrees. "After this, whenever it ends. Wait for me." She passes her hand over the one George's resting on her thigh. Every meeting of skin on skin is a promise. George wants to hear it out loud for once.

"Perfect," the last of George's fingertips traces over her knuckles. Luke is weaving his way back through applauses and clinking champagne flutes.

"All right then, Geo."

George French-exit at ten, because he just can't sit still any longer. Plus, parties ain't something he is kneen of, they are a part of his job, and he has to endure it as much as filming in cold-ass water. He didn't even attend The Oscar's after-party, to begin with. Tonight he decided to come along because he wanted to see her, be near Y/N at least one more time. If everything goes well after midnight, he will lay eyes on the girl of his dreams forever. It gives George hope.

He squeezes his way out of a cluster of guests and quickly pulls Y/N aside.

"I'll see you around midnight," she whispers. George's thumb traces soothing little circles into the underside of her wrist.

"Midnight." He feels the skinship all over his body, like concentric ripples of water. "I'll be waiting."

George is wearing sweats now, showered, changed, and just...ready. His bangs are flopping into his eyes (he grew his hair for the same role he dyed it, and it is long enough for him to tie it in a small bun at the back of his head). With arms exposed to the warmth radiating from the fireplace, George rests on the duvet in front of it, staring at the flames and cursing himself for blowing it out of proportion. The fact he has felt blue since Mumbai is his own doing, and taking such responsibility, is what tells him this love is worth the fight.

The clock on his wrist reads half-past twelve. It's not that he is afraid Y/N won't come —although the thought of it makes him lose his mind. It's that the build-up to this moment has been torturously slow, achingly indefinite and he just hopes this thing, whatever it is, works out the way he wants it to. Which is Y/N, telling him that her heart belongs to him, that they'll be just fine.

It's a quarter to one when the doorbell sounds. On the other side of the door, Y/N's face is exhausted. "I'm sorry. I couldn't get away until now."

"It's fine," he says, stepping aside so she can come in. "You've never been late before."

Y/N slides off her jacket at the entrance. She's still in her party outfit, and even though she's still wearing that damn 5SOS t-shirt, George has never seen anybody look so perfect. Perfect for him, especially.

He doesn't know what his body is telling his brain, but suddenly he's reaching out and curling his fingers into Y/N's hair.

Both freeze on the spot, unsure of their actions. When she looks up, George's ocean eyes are perilously wild.

"I don't wanna lose this with you," he says.

And finally, velvet-toned and whisper-soft, she asks: "How do you feel about me?"

George is standing in the portal of the foyer, a step above her. Barefoot, in a tanktop, shutting the door close. This is it, he intones, brimming with everything he's kept to himself all these months. Finally.

"How do I feel?" he mumbles, more to himself than anyone else. Then he rests his forehead against Y/N's, his hand cupping her face with such love, if they were still filming Dharma, Greta would have gone nuts. He once told Y/N that James and Marina's love seemed out of this world, and now, he understands them. He feels such. "I'm in love with you."

All the resistance seeps out of Y/N's body —a vapour, escaping. Her shoulders sag in relief. Her expression softens, turns bittersweet.

They've wasted so much time.

"That's good to know," she breathes out, shaky "because I am in love with you too."

It's George who steps forward and presses her against the wall. Y/N is ready for him, craning up, so their lips latch together like magnets. At first is gentle, soft, almost fearful, but it slowly morphs into a kiss hot and heavy, deep and merciless. They breathe in through their nostrils, so they don't have to stop kissing. There are no polite introductions, no tentative licks against the seams of their mouths. She opens up for him willingly, without being asked. Their tongues circle in a primal dance and George gets completely drunk off of it, plunging in for more.

The sound it pulls out of her makes George kiss her harder. He takes one hand from where it's tangled in Y/N's hair and trails it down her neck, her shoulder, her chest, and back around to her bum. When he creeps a hand under the skirt to palm her legs all the way up to her smooth back, the girl breaks away for air.

"Do you know," George rasps, "how crazy you make me?"

"Do I?" The question isn't provocative, is innocent. Y/N really is clueless about how she makes him feel.

"You're making me jealous all the time," George mutters. He pushes their hips closer together, and they both let out sibilant gasps.

"I thought you were in love with her. When you brought her over." Y/N is trying to regain control, but George presses in to make her shudder. "Thought it was over between us."

"It was never over." George tugs at Y/N's bottom lip with his teeth then lave over the spot with his tongue. "My body is mine, my lips and skin as well. But I am not. I am yours."

On cue, Y/N slips a hand under his tank. Her fingers meander over the grooves of George's abs, searing the skin. "Your body is yours, your lips are yours, your skin is yours. And I am. Yours," she murmurs, chest heaving.

George shuts his eyes. It feels so good. All of it. He brushes his thumb, feather-light, over her lips. His voice is dangerous, "What parts of you?"

"Everywhere," when she answers, George pulls the girl flush against him, peeling away from the wall so he can walk them both in the direction of his bedroom. Y/N lets him lead the way, as she sucks at the side of his neck. She's going to leave marks at this rate —a row of dark red roses—, and fuck it, he wants her to, so he can see the evidence of their mutual longing tomorrow. Y/N feels George's heat and his strength, there, between her legs, and it's enough to make her shudder. "Everywhere."

They don't say it while they're naked, writhing at every touch to uncharted territory, sweating from their exertions towards climax as they come together as one.

George does say, "I didn't look at anyone else since I saw you," and Y/N whispers, " I didn't think of anyone else since I thought of you."

They say it in the daylight, over the pot of coffee Y/N brews and the out-of-a-magazine waffles she blushes at when she sheepishly serves it to George, sprinkled by powdered sugar and syrup.

"Hey," George says, pushing around the berries. She's sitting on his lap, wearing his shirt, his scent on her skin, and George feels in heaven. "I love you."

He strokes the side of her face, slowly, sweetly, shyly, until the two of them are blushing. He suspects this is one of those moments he will carry around with him like a photo in a locket —a small and lovely secret.

"And I love you, Geroge Mackay," she says in return. "More than anybody else."

►

A/N: aaaand, that’s it. Hope you enjoy it. Next week I will post the Epilogue and the heartfelt message for all of you who have read this. Lots of love. xx

#did u see the captain fantastic easter eg?? haha #George mackay #dean charles chapman #Luke hemmings #Henry cavill #william schofield #schofield #Thomas blake #blake #1917

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witchy-anna · 5 years ago

Text

Play with Fire (Dabi songfic)

Quirk: Homeostasis- the ability to force someone’s body back into its stable condition. Requires physical touch to activate. Examples are regulating the body's blood pressure, heart rate and temperature. Disadvantage: May cause the person to go into shock if the quirk works too quickly.

A/N: I’m going to go with vigilante fem!reader, sorry it took so long Fox! You’re a Doll 😘 Each section is essentially a time skip.

Warning: cursing (I curse a lot, can’t control my potty mouth)

Taglist: @soldier76sbabygirl

Message to be added to taglist

youtube

Insane, inside the danger gets me high Can't help myself got secrets I can't tell

Another string of deaths caused by the serial arsonist. When will it end? The news anchor reads off the prompt with obvious faux concern. Is this another travesty caused by the League of Villains? Find out tonight on the Hero News Network.

You sigh and grumble, “What a crock of shit.”

A husky voice says close to your ear, “You sound more irritated than concerned.”

Without startling to the closeness you crane your neck around and level a glare at the person intruding in on your space.

A raven haired man stands close, sunglasses obscuring his eyes and shirt collar pulled high covering the bottom half of his face. How strange.

You tsk and turn back to the screen now playing an expose on a local pro heroes love life, as if that matters. Gesturing vaguely at the screen you spit out, “They sound so..fake...People are dying and instead they focus on who crawled out of bed with some pro.”

“This world is so full of suffering, who can blame them for being desensitized to it,” the man says with an oddly cheerful tone.

“I suppose so,” you say but it falls on deaf ears. Gone.

In other news, the police and pros are still on the lookout for a masked vigilante...You spin on your heels before the news anchor can finish their report. With a quickened pace to trudge another monotonous day of desk work. Fun stuff.

I love the smell of gasoline I light the match to taste the heat I've always liked to play with fire

Another night, another secret patrol, hood pulled high, mask secured, and ass kicking boots laced with vengeance. Monotonous desk job during the day and vigilante at night.

Illegal being the operative word, the one floating in front of your vision akin to an annoying bug. Following you around each and every night you took off on an excursion.

This night was the same as any other night, some unsuspecting fool thinking they could pull one over on you. Sorely mistaken darling. Your quirk may not be the most suited for combat but you had worked hard to get where you are now.

Again and again late into your sleepless nights you question why you are doing this. Why pick up what the pro heroes leave behind.

The words etched into your mind of popular top ranking heroes saying: My quirk isn’t suited for this. Let someone else handle it. Over and over again.

You want to scream in their face, Neither is mine but you don’t see me giving up!

Bitterness will get you nowhere in life, so instead, you chose to focus that venom on helping those left behind. At least, that’s how it was at first.

I ride (I ride) the edge (the edge) My speed goes in the red

The concussive shock of an explosion nearly knocks you off your feet. Without a second thought you take off in a sprint to the source.

“No,” you whisper. Just a moment too late. To slow, what you wouldn’t give for a speed quirk.

Blue flames roar, reaching and clawing high in the sky. There is the distant scream of sirens signaling their approach. Someone is crying, a wail, a whimper, the harsh dissonance of fear.

Ash falls like snow, blue and black tinted snow. It’s eerie but strangely beautiful.

Emergency lights reflect off shattered pieces of glass littering the sidewalk and a single silhouette stands framed by the flames. The wind picks up causing ash and debris to fly everywhere; and almost comically his beat-up coat to flair behind him.

A dry humorous laugh escapes much to your dismay. What is this an action movie?

Intense eyes matching the azure flames turns to you, meeting your own (e/c) and rooting you to the spot. A flash of stark white teeth stretches the skin at the corners of his mouth, cut in half by scarred skin. No fear, no panic of being caught.

“Wait!” you shout, desperation evident in your voice. “Stop!” Something nags at your subconscious, that feeling when you leave the house and your mind insists you forgot something but have no inkling what it could be.

The man leisurely lifts a hand from his pocket and waves without turning around, disappearing around the corner. A wave that says: Until next time.

Hot blood (hot blood), these veins (these veins) My pleasure is their pain

Another week passes before you see him again. Lying to yourself, you had dropped everything to sprint to another howling blue fire, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. To save people? Or to...no don’t finish that thought, you grumble internally.

The stench of burnt flesh makes your stomach churn and you stifle a gag even through your mask. Steeling yourself you search for the source, is it a body or a person in need?

You follow your nose to the source. “Oh,” the word leaves your mouth with barely a sound. Just a puff of air really.

There he sits, reclined against a trash bin partially hidden in shadows. If not for your keen sense of smell he would have stayed hidden. The smell is strong enough to make your eyes water. He watches you with narrowed luminous eyes, the only thing visible in the dim light. You step closer and he raises an open palm pointed at you, the blue flames dance and kiss his skin.

Steam rises from his skin and he pants, clearly in pain.

“Your quirk hurts you,” it’s a statement not a question. “Let me help.”

His eyes narrow to slits before he gives a quick nod and you carefully moved to kneel beside him. The palm with the flame clenches closed to extinguish the flame but stays poised to react if you try anything. He lets out a heavy breath that literally steams the air, he’s overheating.

“I need to touch you,” you warn and slowly reach out your own hands. “I can cool you down.”

There’s a pause and he nods again, staying silent. Up this close the amount of scarred skin is jarring, as well as the staggering amount of piercings or are they staples? No matter, your hands slowly reach up to cup his cheeks and let your quirk kick to life. The steam rising from his skin slowly dissipates as your quirk works to regulate his temperature, cooling him down to his body's normal level.

Part of you wonders why he is even letting you touch him so...intimately. His temperature now back to as it should be but your hands remain.

“Is anyone there?” a stern voice calls from the entrance of the alley causing you to jump. Someone shines a flashlight down the alley, it’s a police officer.

“Leave now,” you hiss to him and stand quickly to move out of the cover of shadow. To the police officer you call out a soft, “Hello?”

His mouth opens as if he wants to say something but snaps it closed. Without a word he stands to leave but not without throwing a curious glance at your retreating form. Mask now gone but he can only see the back of your head, he watches as you put on an act for the police officer.

“Interesting,” he says to no one in particular.

I love to watch the castles burn These golden ashes turn to dirt

And again, he’s toying with you. This is a game to him.

It’s a mansion this time, his flames eating up the opulence like a cavity. Eating up the perfect expensive abode and turning it to rot; to ash. “How cliche,” you mutter to yourself. “What an idiot.”

A low chuckle sends shivers down your spine, “I have a name.”

With a half interested turn of your head, you glance back over your shoulder. “Oh? And why would I care?” Lie.

Another chuckle, but closer this time. He calls you out on your bluff, “Oh Doll, we both know that’s a lie.”

Right behind you now. You sense no malice, only curiosity coming from the man.

Your entire body locks up when you feel the barely there brush of a single callused finger at the base of your neck. It flicks the spot where your mask is tied and a breath of hot air sends goosebumps crawling across your skin.

“Dabi,” he whispers. Another long finger adds to the first, pads whispering against the soft skin of your neck. Heat radiates from both the fire in front of you and the man at your back. He tugs gently enough at your mask tie to not remove it, yet. “Why did you help me?”

That’s a good question, why did you? Because he’s a pretty face or someone in need, regardless of villain or civilian status.

You dodge the question, “Why did you let me?”

“Maybe I just want to unmask a certain little vigilante,” he chuckles again and it vibrates against your back. A single finger slips underneath your mask brushing against your cheek and dips to ghost over your lips and you let him.

“And maybe you’re just a pretty face,” you say, just a tad breathlessly.

He hums, “Oh so you think I’m pretty?” He chuckles at the blush creeping over your neck but then curses when there’s a shout about a pro arriving on the scene.

Dabi says directly into your ear, “Until next time Doll.” Gone.

I've always liked to play with fire Play with fire Fire, fire Oh, watching as the flames get higher Oh, I've always liked to play with (mm)

This time, he finds you.

“Are you following me?” you ask. It’s quiet where you sat, luckily far away from the view of any passing civilians as he could be easily recognized.

He sits beside you, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankle. “You never answered my question last time,” it’s a statement, ignoring your attempt at deflecting.

“I- I don’t know,” you admit staring down at your hands as if they hold all the answers. They clench and unclench in your lap.

You are the antithesis to his sturm and drang. A man who clearly is the type to take what he wants, simply sits beside you, waiting and watching the war going on inside of you.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he teases. “It was a simple question.”

Little did you know at the time it would only take one little push, or rather a gentle pull to flip your already wavering resolve. A hand catching yours, rough calloused thumb rubbing a line across your knuckles distracting you. The other shoots out and releases the tie of your mask before you can react.

“Maybe I just want the satisfaction of turning a vigilante hero to our side,” he says but spits out the word ‘hero’.

That’s what you get for letting your guard down. That’s what you get for letting a villain get so close.

“Get away from me,” you snarl and shoot to your feet. Reaching to yank back the mask he took from you but he keeps a firm grip on it. With a frustrated growl you rip the mask from him and storm off, face lit with a flush.

A dry raspy laugh sounds from him, and he says those stupid infuriating words again, “Until next time. Doll.”

Right of passage classic maverick Match in the gas tank Ooh that's wretched Unstoppable legendary animals (mm)

Just in time, you find him face to face with a pro, no, it’s a sidekick but dangerous nonetheless. The sidekick is clearly a newbie, shaking slightly in their boots but standing firm against the notorious villain.

Dabi has clearly overexerted himself again, the steam rises from him in waves, a drip of blood leaves a trail that disappears below the collar of his shirt.

Both swivel to face you. One pair of stern eyes that immediately recognize you as that vigilante. The other pair of eyes at first looks annoyed at the new addition but then relaxes to an easy expression, one of familiarity.

There’s a challenge in those azure eyes, asking what will you do? Who will you side with?

The sidekick starts to advance turning their attention away from you. You sprint, desperate to get to Dabi before the sidekick does.

Dabi sends out a flare of him fire directly at the sidekick but aims it away from you, over your head. What? Impossibly warm arms close around your waist, shielding you from harm. Again, what?

A camera flash. At the last second you realize your mask must haven fallen off in the chaos.

Right time for them; wrong time for you. Shit.

Digital justice Now you're gonna know us

Your face is displayed across tvs, newspapers, online articles, everything.

Vigilante Hero unmasked. Connections to the League of Villains?

An entirely unflattering picture from your workplace displayed beside the picture from the previous night. You, held in the arms of Dabi.

Your apartment had already been raided and is being watched by the police. An entire lifetime of stuff out of your reach in an instant. What did you expect to happen with this type of lifestyle anyway? Only the clothes on your back and a long since smashed cell phone tossed into a dumpster.

You go back to the place where he first took your mask, bearing your naked face to the world. Baring your face to him.

Hail to the king and queen of the ruckus Yacht Money wired No denying I've always liked to play with fire

“There’s no going back now Doll,” he says in a hushed tone. There is an edge uncertainty hidden under his usual bravado, maybe even vulnerability.

You shake your head, “Who said anything about going back.”

Azure eyes meet your own (e/c) and matching grins split both of your faces. Rough callused fingers slip into your palm and twine through your fingers, tugging until your nose to nose. His tongue darts out to taste the ash stuck to his scarred lip, it floats all around you both like a gentle but haunting snowfall.

“No going back now,” you repeat the sentiment before sealing your now flipped resolve with a kiss.

I've always liked to play with fire

#witchy-anna writes #dabi songfic #Dabi x reader #dabi is a todoroki #bnha x reader #mha x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #my hero academia x reader #i love this dang song #I listen to it on repeat #i am not at all consistent with the section lengths oh well

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ckret2 · 5 years ago

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y’all can we spend a minute thinking about the logistics of celebrating Christmas in Hell

Dozens of posts I've seen cheerily discussing/writing/illustrating all the cute ways Hazbin Hotel characters would celebrate Christmas and absolutely zero have I noticed so far that mention the fact that characters who are literally in Hell would have a really really fucking complicated relationship with Christianity & Christmas.

Long examination of this under the cut. If the cut doesn’t work, blame tumblr, merry crimmus.

What if they're not even allowed to celebrate Christmas? We're told that Hazbin Hotel takes place in the America-ish portion of Hell, where the folks who die in the U.S. tend to plop down; nearly everyone there who's died in the last couple hundred odd years would be used to Christmas being a big public holiday as the default, even if how & how much it was celebrated has radically changed. Imagine going from Americanized Christmas Mania straight to Lucifer being like "EXCUSE me, you are NOT throwing a birthday party for my ex-boss's son, don't be stupid! That's not even when his birthday is?? By royal decree the next person who attempts to go caroling is getting a pine tree shoved up their ass, don't test me. I'll give you a better birthday to celebrate, it's called Charliemas and it's on June 6, you're welcome." What a shift, from oppressively aggressive Christmasing to Christmas itself being completely oppressed. Anybody who wants to celebrate Christmas would have to be really determined and really secretive.

What if he doesn't care, though? Even at that, everyone’s still going to have to heavily rethink their relationship with Christmas.

Like, no small part of the bargain at the base of Christianity is “if you worship this dude we say is God’s kid, do the things we tell you are good, and apologize very sincerely when you do the things we tell you are unacceptable, you get to go to heaven.” If you are a Christian in Hell—and, being in Hell, with Lucifer strutting around looking like he’s ready to lead a marching band, sort of implies that your religious belief was at least partially correct—then that means somebody didn’t hold up their bargain. Is it God & Jesus, not letting you into Heaven when you did everything you believe you were SUPPOSED to be doing? Or is it you: did you fail to be the good person you were supposed to be and/or did you misunderstand what the requirements were? Those are the only two options if you’re a Christian in Hell. Either Jesus failed you or you failed Jesus.

Say you went to Hell because you were a self-righteous hypocritical douchebag who violently misinterpreted the Bible to suit your own needs and confirm your own biases, and your Christianity is fanatical but predicated on the belief that it's shaped to accommodate you. You're probably going to be absolutely furious that you're in Hell. You might blame your position on The Bad People Whom Jesus Definitely Doesn't Love, if you can find a way to twist that logic around in your head—but then, seeing you weren't rewarded for your faith like you were promised, and now that you're in a place where there are no more future rewards promised to good little Christians maybe you turn your resentment against the faith itself and the figures worshipped by this faith. Maybe you have a personal grudge against Jesus Christ himself.

On the other hand, maybe you're still a cruel person but you genuinely do believe, in your heart of hearts, that your cruelty is in line and in service to Jesus. Or maybe you compartmentalize the parts of your life where you're hurtful and spiteful from the parts of your life where you're devout and loving. Maybe you are 100% zealous worshipper—but nevertheless, the second you realize you're in Hell, you know EXACTLY what you did to end up there, and you believe heart and soul that you deserve it. You still worship Jesus because you think it's good and right and he deserves it and he's still going to save the worthy... it's just that you aren't worthy.

And then there are the "doomsday cultists." Lots of times, when people are in a "the world will end on X date" doomsday cult and that day comes and goes with nothing happening, they don't realize they were wrong and go home—they double down on their beliefs. The psychological mechanism behind this is that basically, people in a cult like that have given up their lives, families, friends, jobs, everything to serve this cult; when it looks like they gave up everything for NOTHING, they go "I can't afford to be wrong, I gave up my entire life on this belief.” For a lot of Christians who end up in Hell, they’ll probably double down on their beliefs, too—telling themselves that they didn’t spend their lives following this religion just to fail and end up damned for all time. Maybe they’ll tell themselves that if they’re good enough Christians in Hell they’ll be forgiven and allowed upstairs. Maybe once they’ve tallied up enough goodness points, maybe during the second coming, whichever. Eventually.

Or say the criteria for getting into Heaven are actually incredibly strenuous and almost everybody goes to Hell—if you say "oh my god" one time then you took the Lord's name in vain, no take backs, no second chances, no repenting undoes it, you're damned for all time. (We know so little about what gets people damned in this series that that might well be the case, it all remains to be seen.) Most people might not even know what specifically they did to end up in Hell. Some of these confused people might just exist with a vague sense of guilt, some might resent the powers that be that sent them to the shittier afterlife for seemingly no reason.

So, conclusion: if you're Christian and you're in Hell? Being in Hell is going to force you to completely reevaluate your relationship with your faith—and you’ve gotta do all that reevaluating in in a place NOT designed for healthy self-reflecton and growth! The disillusioned bigots are going to be pissed off at Jesus, the guilt-stricken zealots are going to feel ashamed to face the concept of Jesus, the “doomsday cultists” are going to be twice as intensely Christian as they ever were in life. And then there are going to be all the normal non-extremists who have to grapple with the uneasy knowledge that if they’d done things right they wouldn’t be here but here they are and now they’ve got to redefine their beliefs—or perhaps abandon them—based on the knowledge that they’re now beyond Jesus’s salvation.

AND THEN JESUS’S BIRTHDAY ROLLS AROUND HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY JESUS CHRIST OH MY GOD IT’S CHRISTMAS.

There are going to be riots started by the people who feel like they shouldn’t be in Hell and are righteously infuriated by the idea of celebrating the birth of the guy they personally blame for putting them there. There are going to be riots started by the people who think they need to be as religious as possible and go into a red haze at the sight of anyone who they think isn’t living up to those standards. There are going to be broken sobbing wrecks overcome with guilt and shame at this reminder of the dude they let down. So, you know... all the usual ways people have breakdowns around Christmas, except it’s everyone having them, and it’s ten times more intense.

Even the relatively normal, well-adjusted people are going to feel kind of uneasy trying to celebrate. Like, the fact that they’re in Hell means they’re permanently on God’s naughty list. Is it, like... inappropriate to celebrate the birthday of God’s son when you’re on God’s naughty list? Like is Jesus gonna be glaring down accusatorially at them for celebrating Christmas in Hell? Christmas is supposed to be jolly, are the damned allowed to be jolly?

What about the raised-culturally-Christian atheists in Hell who, before dying, celebrated Christmas because they always had, because their family did, because their friends did, and they decided long ago that it was nice to just keep going along with it for the tree and lights and food and gifts and general goodwill-toward-man feeling even if they didn’t believe in Jesus. Being in Hell, where actual honest-to-God angels swoop down once a year and actual Lucifer is married to actual Adam’s actual first girlfriend, kind of implies that all the things they didn’t believe in are at least partially true. (And for all we know somewhere off screen Lucifer is going “oh, yeah, Jesus, met him couple times, watched him do some miracles, he’s real, look I got a photo of him here”—so it might be confirmed-confirmed, not just strongly implied, in universe. We just don’t know yet how much of Christianity is gonna be canon to Hazbin.)

So suddenly Christmas can’t really be a Santa-and-reindeer “I leave out the Jesus stuff because I don’t believe in it” celebration, because hey what do you know it looks like the Jesus stuff was probably true, so what are the atheists gonna do? Are they going to be, like, super sheepish about celebrating Christmas? Do they have to decide grimacingly whether they’re gonna start doing nativity decorations instead of Santa decorations if all that nativity shit is actually historically accurate? They lived their lives not worshipping Jesus because they didn’t believe in him, does the fact that it seems like he really is real and really is the son of God mean they’ve got to start worshipping him now, or can they just... keep not doing that? Can they keep ignoring Jesus and focusing on Santa instead? Is it okay to keep celebrating Christmas without Christ if it turns out he’s real? Even if they decide that is what they’re gonna do, boy, they’re sure gonna have to put some thought into it first.

And that's not even including the possibility that not all the characters are Christian or raised-culturally-Christian. (I say "possibility" because we know so little about the logic/mechanics/rules behind the worldbuilding in Hazbin—for all we know, people in this setting are judged only by the standards of their own religions/cultures and go to their own religions'/cultures’ respective afterlives, making everyone we see in Hell either Christian or Christian-adjacent; if that turns out NOT to be the case, then ABSOLUTELY there are going to be characters of other faiths down there somewhere.) If there are people of other faiths down there can you imagine how fucking exhausting it would be to spend your entire life having Christmas shoved in your face, dying, going to an alarmingly Christian-looking hell, and these fuckers are still shoving Christmas in your face, like “holy shit y’all are in HELL jesus is not going to be your friend if you throw him a birthday party can you shut up about christmas for five minutes I’m so tired—”

What about the imps, the demons, the ones for whom Christmas is yet another foreign cultural artifact the silly little dead humans brought in with them, the ones for whom God and all his family have always been the enemy, the ones who predate Jesus Christ himself? What’s it gonna be like being a human-loving princess of hell who might adore the fur-trimmed red robes and the bright colorful lights but who knows that this is a celebration for the son/avatar of the guy who kicked her dad out of Heaven and annually sends down exterminators to slaughter her citizens? She’s not even Christian but would she not have the most complicated emotions of anyone if she attempted to celebrate Christmas?

And sure, there’s going to be some dead humans who just, celebrate Christmas because they’ve always celebrated Christmas even if they don’t consider themselves Christian specifically because they have never put an ounce of critical thought into it, the kind of people who unironically say “but EVERYONE celebrates Christmas”/“but Christmas is basically a secular holiday now” and genuinely believe it. You know—the people who do, like, zero self-examination of their culture and are completely oblivious to how much of their moral & ethical system and understanding of how religion works on a fundamental level comes from Christianity even if they do not literally believe in God and Jesus and thus don’t consider themselves actually Christian. Those people are going to be celebrating Christmas in Hell with just as much blithe self-unawareness as they ever celebrated it in life. And those people with their complete lack of deeper meditation on the implications of their own actions, going around cheerily wishing everyone a merry merry Christmas hey it’s coming up soon aren’t you excited of course you're excited everyone’s excited for Christmas there’s nobody that doesn’t celebrate Christmas—are going to be making things very uncomfortable for everyone else, including even a great many of the hardcore religious types who persisted celebrating in Hell. That tension is going to haunt them no matter how oblivious they are.

So, basically? Absolutely nobody in Hell is going to have a normal relationship with Christmas. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Christmas is a reminder that either you let down your God or your God let you down; or Christmas is a reminder that all the things you never believed in were actually true all along; or Christmas is a reminder you’ve been judged unworthy.

Every single candy cane, ugly holiday sweater, and wrapped gift is laden with an implicit reminder of eternal damnation.

Christmas is going to be a weird time.

It’s going to be an extremely fucking weird time.

Let’s mix a little of that theological existential horror into our Christmas headcanons, yeah?

#(i've got a headache so i didn't proof this post)#(i apologize if there are any uhhh random unfinished paragraphs)#(i'll edit this later)#hazbin hotel #headcanons #meta #christmas #christianity

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fritzllang · 5 years ago

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#7 for Pink/Orange?

Thank you so much for the prompt, and also for your amazing art which partially inspired this.

This is actually the longest piece of fanfiction I've written, so there's that. And I still have a couple of ideas about it, so who knows, maybe I end up writing a second part.

Hope you enjoy.

7. “Everyone keeps telling me you’re the bad guy.” + Pink/Orange

"Well kids, that's it for today. I've got places to be, should I drop ya off?"

White is half-turned in the driver's seat of his car to look at Freddy in the passenger side. Pink occupies one of the back seats; the three of them have just spent the entire afternoon staking out the diamond's place, eating junk food and listening to White's amusing but intentionally vague stories about his past jobs.

Before Freddy can say a word Mr. Pink answers for him:

"Actually… Orange, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out for a while?"

Freddy is surprised by the question, but he sees no good reason to say no; he can even justify himself saying it's good for his assignment to spend time with the guys. Still, he looks at White as if he's asking for permission. White looks back at him with a raised brow but says nothing, so Freddy shrugs.

"Yeah, sure. Bye, Mr. White."_ Shit, I sound like a fucking school kid_. He tries not to cringe as he gets out of the car and shuts the door behind him.

"Bye, boys." By the sound of his voice, White seems to find the whole situation entertaining.

As the car drives off the curb Freddy finds himself standing on the sidewalk along with Pink and suddenly feels self-aware, so he lights a cigarette and starts walking without direction, just to keep his feet occupied. For a while, Pink just follows beside him. Freddy's not exactly sure what it is that the man wants to do.

"So…" he starts, but he doesn't really have anything to say.

"Yeah, right. So, I was wondering…" Pink seems twitchy, but that's not out of the ordinary. "I heard you say you like action movies? There's this one I want to see…" Pink's fumbles with something in his pocket and produces a rolled cigarette, lights it with nervous hands. "Just came out. It's called Point Break. Wanna go see it?" Pink looks like it took him a lot of effort to get the words out.

Freddy ponders the question for a moment. Is this guy really asking me out on a date? He's not sure if he's reading the signs correctly; but if he is, well, he's not really opposed to the idea. Admittedly, Pink's not the nicest fella he's ever met, but at least he's pretty sure there's more to him than that coat of assholery he seems to wear for an armor. And then again, probably Holdaway would congratulate him for fraternizing with one of the guys. Sure Freddy, probably the man would also be glad to know you've been checking the boy's ass (not bad, for a man so scrawney).

In the end, he chuckles and nods. "Yeah, why not. I haven't been to the movies in a while."

Pink seems to light up. "Great. Uh… there's a theatre this way…"

They find themselves in an old, dusty-looking, two-screen movie theatre; Freddy buys a small tub of popcorn, and the movie hasn't even started when he's already regretting not ordering the large one, because Pink is stealing them and even has the nerve of complaining about the lack of butter. He thinks he might be starting to find the guy adorable. Freddy wonders if Pink's gonna try any kind of move on him during the movie, and the thought makes him nervous. What if he takes my hand or some shit like that? He already has enough with feeling like a fucking lovesick teenager around Larry, doesn't need the trouble of getting involved with another guy from the team. He decides to make an effort to keep his hands on his lap, staring straight ahead at the screen, and immerse himself in _Point Break _for the next two hours. (*)

Pink doesn't make a move; Freddy spends the whole time squirming and fidgeting in his seat anyway. He couldn't have picked a worse movie to watch if he had tried. Pink's constant hushed commentary doesn't make it any better, either. Fucking Hollywood movies with their fake-ass sexy FBI undercover agents and their homo plots. Fuck. Is the universe trying to laugh in his face? Has Pink discovered he's a cop and this is his fucked-up psycho way of telling him? But when the credits roll and the lights come back on Pink is staring at the screen teary-eyed and looking like he's ready to suck Keanu Reeves off. He doesn't blame him, either; he might have enjoyed the movie if he hadn't spent every minute of it expecting the man by his side to turn to him and say "Hey, could you imagine if there was a fucking undercover pig in our group, Orange?"

He's not telling Holdaway about this.

So as Pink is turning to say something Freddy gets up rather quickly and goes straight to the bathroom, ignoring the man behind him. He takes a couple of minutes to compose, wash his face and throw looks at himself in the mirror. He even whispers to himself, quietly, after making sure no one else is in the stalls.

"He doesn't know shit. You're super cool. You're fucking Beretta. You can do this Freddy. Shit. You can do this."

When he gets out of the bathroom Pink is waiting for him outside, absolutely oblivious to Freddy's nervousness (thank the man for his lack of social skills). "Was that a good fucking movie or what?"

Freddy gives him a lazy smile and agrees, and doesn't have to do much else because Pink starts going on a full review of every scene in the movie, with analysis of the subtext and innuendos, and he only has to nod and hum from time to time for the guy to be content.

By the time Pink is wrapping up his critique, they've been walking around for half an hour and Freddy's feeling a lot better. Pink seems to have been too enthralled by Reeve's and Patrick Swayze's intense relationship to give any thought to a possible rat in their job. It also clears any suspicions Freddy might have had about the man's tendencies. He definitely finds him adorable. Suddenly Pink stops and looks at Freddy with a smile on his face, he's taking something out of his pocket. "Hey, back there you seemed a bit on edge… you want to relax, for a bit?"

Pink opens a small tin can and shows it to him. There's a few rolled cigarettes and a joint inside.

This time Freddy lets out a big laugh, because if that isn't an advance then he hasn't seen one. But the truth is, he's starting to have a lot of fun with Pink.

"Yeah, let's go."

"Wait, I wanna grab a coffee first." He signals to a cafe on the corner.

"I thought you wanted to relax."

"I want you to relax. Anyway, I'll order decaf."

They order two to go and when Freddy goes for his wallet Pink puts a hand on his arm and smiles nervously.

"I'll pay. Owe you one for the popcorn."

Freddy lets him, but when the waitress brings the change back and Pink picks it all up Freddy lets out a chuckle and fishes a single from his pocket for the girl. Pink doesn't notice, he's too busy sniffing his coffee suspiciously and taking a cautious sip.

"Are you sure this is decaf?"

The waitress is trying to reassure him but Freddy's already on his way out, tugging at Pink's arm.

"I'm sure it is, leave the lady alone."

They sit side by side at a solitary part of the pier, almost sprawled on the wood planks. Pink takes the neatly rolled joint from the tin can and lights it up, huffing it a few times and then passing it to Freddy. He brushes Pink's fingers when he takes it, just to see if there's a reaction (there is, a twitch of the hand) and gives it a tentative puff. He hasn't smoked weed in a long time, almost since high school, and wants to be careful; the only thing he needs now is a high-induced burst of honesty or something like that. He doesn't want to look like a rookie either, he's supposed to be a dealer after all.

Stop it, Freddy, you're thinking too much.

Almost immediately he starts feeling the old-familiar dizziness and knows it's affecting him more than he wished.

The sun is starting to settle and the sky is tinted with orange and pink hues, it's like they've bled their code names into the dusk. Freddy stares at the clouds and is torn between finding it enchanting and terribly corny. The truth is, it does cast a beautiful light on Pink's face, softens his sharp edges. The guy's smiling too, in a way Freddy had never seen yet. Pink talks first.

"So, are you nervous about the job? Your first big thing, isn't it?"

Don't be too honest, Freddy. Don't be too honest.

"Uuuh… I mean, yeah, but just a little. The normal amount. You?"

"Nah. Well, I'm always nervous. But not about the job. I feel confident about it, we're supposed to be professionals."

"Yeah, I guess…"

"I mean, I wouldn't pick any of those guys for a friend, but if Joe chose them he must've had a reason."

Freddy lets out a soft laugh, he feels a bit lightheaded. "You wouldn't, uh?"

"Of course I wouldn't. Have you ever been alone with Mr. Shit?"

"Brown? Can't say that I have."

"Never met anyone more obnoxious in my life. The man can't fucking shut up." That sure sounds a bit like someone. Pink takes another drag before talking. "Always going on and on about Nancy Sinatra or The Breakfast Club or whatever thing he saw the night before in his mom's basement. And they say I'm annoying? What a nerd."

Freddy bursts out laughing, and Pink looks at him surprised but then does too. It takes them a minute to calm down.

"What do you say about Mr. Blue?" says Freddy, "is the man eighty or what? Always looking like he's about to take a nap."

"Yeah, totally. Sure, the guy must be old school, probably has a ton of amusing anecdotes about serving in the Second World War."

"Maybe even the First."

Pink wheezes, a cloud of smoke coming out of his nose and mouth at once. He passes the spliff to Freddy again. "And don't even get me started on Mr. Blonde, the psycho. Every time you so much as bother him a little he looks like he's ready to break your nose."

Freddy couldn't agree more. He won't say it, but that Mr. Blonde guy scares him; reminds him of some of his worst colleagues. He takes a long drag, longer than he intended, and returns it.

"And what about that "Nice Guy" Eddie?" Freddy makes the quotes with his fingers. "Yeah I get that he's the boss' son, but does he do anything? Is his job to babysit us or something?"

Pink shakes his head. "Nah, he's there for when Blonde's stressed and needs his dick sucked."

Freddy chuckles. "Whoa, you're so right. Can't believe you just cracked "Nice Guy" Eddie's."

The sun's long settled now, and the shadows of dusk have overtaken the pier, surrounding them in a bluish darkness stained by the yellow light of a distant streetlamp. The bright-red end of the joint shines when Pink takes a last drag and passes it to Freddy, almost finished.

"You know what, you're so right." Freddy says.

"Uh?"

"You're a bit of a punching bag, aren't you?"

Pink stays silent. Freddy stares at joint in his fingers before huffing it to the butt. It's late, he should be getting home.

"They all joke you're such a bad guy. Well, I don't think you're so bad." Freddy says. He doesn't say My real boss wants me to look at a bunch of mug shots and find your face. He doesn't say If everything goes right in a few days you'll be going to jail and it'll be my fault. He doesn't say I'm scared shitless but I don't know what to do.

Pink doesn't say anything, either. Freddy reaches with his hand to his side to let the finished spliff fall between the wood planks, and then keeps reaching, until his fingers brush Pink's and his hand in resting on top of his.

He can feel Pink is trembling, only a little.

(*) Point Break is a very extra 1991 movie about an FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) who infiltrates a gang of surfers suspected of commiting bank robberies. He ends up becoming friends with them and developing a very intense (very gay) relationship with the leader (Patrick Swayze). Drama ensues. And when I say very extra, I mean there's a scene in which, after finding out the truth, Swayze sky-dives off a plane to get away, and Keanus jumps without a parachute, catches the other midair and points a gun to his head shouting at him to open the parachute. That extra. Please watch it.

#my writing #reservoir dogs #pink/orange #ficlet #fic #anticmiscellaney #ratweasel

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gryphons-of-aentha · 5 years ago

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The Approximate Plotline of the Gryphonverse (pt. 2)

Because this is what you were getting yourselves into when you followed me.

Right, so, Talon and Iadra join up with Kyran to overthrow Kyran’s asshole father, who happens to rule the country. They end up working well together and form a sizeable group of aquei and one or two additional gryphons who Iadra managed to convince. If not for the fact that it was all being headed by a seventeen year old with absolutely no martial experience at all (not to mention a much greater talent for dividing people than uniting them, which was great for starting the rebellion but not finishing it), it might have worked. Unfortunately, it was being headed by a seventeen year old, and he doesn’t believe in stealth or subtlety because he’s melodramatic enough to want an audience when he confronts and in theory usurps his father. While they do manage to make a heavy dent in the king’s guard/soldiers and cause a lot of problems for him, they’re overpowered without much effort in the end. Talon and Iadra manage to escape the aftermath mostly unscathed, though not all the gryphons do, and Kyran is arrested and very promptly exiled on the spot. The king’s hope was likely that the humiliation of such a complete and public defeat would prevent him from ever showing himself in Andolia again, but as it turns out humiliating Kyran has roughly the effect of throwing water on a grease fire, and he was already plotting revenge before he’d even finished storming out of the room.

Meanwhile, Talon and Iadra are trying to figure out where to go from here because this whole fiasco has made the Andolian impression of gryphons even worse (largely because the king is actively pushing the narrative in that direction to throw the blame off himself, since Kyran managed to make himself into a massive PR disaster). Even Talon is finding himself less welcome in a lot of places than he used to be, and distances himself from the places he is welcome to avoid bringing unwanted attention to them, so he mostly hangs out in the no-man’s-land with other gryphons unless his town has some kind of monster-of-the-week situation he needs to deal with. Iadra does have to rescue his ass more than once when he overestimates the goodwill of a few villages, because he’s entirely too optimistic when it comes to judgement of character, but while she's more wary about which aquei she’ll interact with, she enthusiastically jumps on the reputation-grinding sidequest train (gryphons are very fond of three things: proving how badass they are with dangerous heroics, being complimented about it, and receiving shiny things, so this is really the gig they were made for) and even becomes cautiously friendly with Talon’s hometown.

Barring the occasional snag, they do this pretty successfully for a couple years until who should show up again but Kyran, with an even bigger chip on his shoulder and an even more horribly ill-conceived plan to get back at the king.

Among the many powerful eldritch forces and arcane loci that can be encountered in the wilderness around Andolia is what I vaguely dubbed the Powers of Darkness and then never got around to actually naming properly. Anyway, the Powers of Darkness are a sort of multi-consciousness/hivemind/sentient form of malicious energy that feeds on suffering and conflict, generating from and partially comprising what I equally vaguely refer to as the Eleventh Dimension. Just don’t ask too many questions about this one. Obviously, Kyran looked at this extremely powerful malevolent force that has no agenda other than causing more misery that it can feed on and a resume of imprisoning souls via impulsively-made contracts as long as time itself and thought “yeah I can probably use that and deal with the consequences later” because he has learned nothing in the last two years and is still holding a massive grudge about his previous defeat. He proceeds to summon and make a bargain with this thing, certain that if he inflicts enough collateral damage along the way it will satisfy whatever price the Powers of Darkness would otherwise take from him.

He doesn’t tell Talon or Iadra this, he just states that he’s found a source of power that can potentially raze the capital to the ground, to which both are like “okay, no, committing war crimes over your unresolved daddy issues would be bad, actually.” Iadra has been pretty thoroughly done with him since he almost got them killed last time and is wary of burning the bridges they’ve been carefully rebuilding, but Talon, giant stoic golden retriever that he secretly is, still thinks that Kyran has potential if he could just be steered off the wildly destructive path he keeps going down and probably would be, if not a good king, at least a better king than Shale given a few years to mellow out. Two years ago this was probably true, but now he’s strongly underestimating how much Kyran should not be put in charge of anything. This leads to the first major conflict Talon and Iadra have ever had, which eventually ends in Iadra just throwing her hands up and going back to Talon’s town to brood about it and continue what they’ve been doing, assuming Talon will come to his senses after the plan inevitably goes to shit, having known him long enough to be confident that he’ll survive the consequences just fine.

Those would have been safe assumptions if not for the fact that Kyran was much more dangerous and stupid than either of them were prepared for, and even Kyran wasn’t prepared for the fact that the Powers of Darkness also possess the more subtle tendency to slowly get into peoples’ heads and drive them to extremes they’d never reach on their own (not that this absolves him of wanting to destroy a city but he was very much under their influence by that point). Now granted, his desire to work with Talon was sincere; they’d become very close during the first rebellion attempt because Kyran’s lack of a competent father figure matched up well with Talon’s deeply ingrained Mandalorian Instinct™ and there was a good reason why Talon was so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here. The problem is that Kyran didn’t think to read the fine print while making deals with actively evil eldritch forces and was confronted with the consequences of his actions much earlier in his plan than expected. Suddenly realizing that he’s much less impervious to said consequences than he flippantly assumed, and pretty thoroughly cornered, he does the last thing available to him that doesn’t involve actually dealing with his own shit and paying the price himself, and turns on Talon to sacrifice him instead. Normally a moderately competent but inexperienced teenager against an adult gryphon whose day job is fighting things would be a laughably unfair fight, but the Powers of Darkness have a vested interest in Talon losing, and to the surprise of both of them he falls very quickly to Kyran, who hacks off one of his wings (unfortunately for Talon, the Powers of Darkness don’t feed on death or amicable defeat) and leaves him to bleed out, then flees into the hills, very much traumatized (albeit not as traumatized as Talon) but confident that he’s off the hook and determined to now proceed with his plan.

Luckily for Talon, this all went down not far from a fairly isolated aquei homestead, and he’s found by the couple who lives there, who heard all the crashing and screaming and are both 200% ready to throw down until they arrive on the scene and find nothing but an unconscious gryphon hybrid in a puddle of blood with one of his wings laying several yards away. Given the current state of interspecies relations, they probably would have killed him had they not recognized him as that guy from that one weird town, but fortunately all the sidequests have paid off. They haul him back to the farm and he eventually makes an impressive physical recovery, though due to the circumstances of losing the wing he’s kind of stuck between forms and can no longer shift to fully humanoid or fully gryphonic, which is an unusual state to get stuck in but still very livable in his case (he mostly just looks a lot more like a winged aquei than an regular half-gryphon). Still, losing an entire limb and all ability to fly is a lot, and he’s down for the count both physically and psychologically for a good chunk of time.

Iadra, when she doesn’t hear from him or Kyran for a while, starts to wonder if maybe something went wrong. Eventually word reaches her that Talon is dead (which even Kyran believes to be true, since the only two people who know otherwise are keeping their mouths shut) and she immediately decides to hunt down Kyran herself and absolutely murder the shit out of him. He’s not easy to track down, as he’s currently laying low and gathering power for what he’s determined will be the final assault on the capital and his father, and she has to increasingly rely on her human form the deeper into Andolia she goes, but Iadra is extremely determined and Kyran is pretty bad at being subtle, and she eventually tracks him straight into the capital. The ensuing fight between an accidental evil warlock who’s also the king’s bastard son and a horse-sized flying apex predator with fairly recognizable plumage almost immediately causes a scene and also a lot of property damage, and the king’s guard arrives quickly to apprehend both of them (or they will, just as soon as everyone stops flailing claws and dangerous forces around). Kyran, who this time lacks both the biased support of the Powers of Darkness and the element of surprise, fares much worse against Iadra than he did against Talon. So, in a last-ditch move of desperation, he calls on much more power than he’s already paid for to try and portal himself out of there.

Which is how he, and by extension Iadra, find out that Aentha has an inherent interdimensional connection to the planet Earth, and specific humans who live on it. And unfortunately, this is getting too fucking long again so I guess there’s going to be a part three.

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dcarevu · 6 years ago

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DCAU #18: See No Evil

“Hey! Who locked the bathroom?!”

Watching this show in production-order as opposed to airing-order is drastically altering how I perceive it. This is an episode that I had no memory of. Like, none. And then when I watched it, yeah, I managed to sense some vague familiarity (at least enough to know I didn’t miss it the first time I went through the show), but it was basically like watching it for the first time. This time was different, though, and I actually think that this episode is not only worth remembering, but it’s kinda another key episode! I know, you probably have your doubts, but hear me out. Maybe by the end of today’s blog post, you’ll at least see where I’m coming from.

Episode: 17 Robin: No Writer: Martin Pasko Director: Dan Riba Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: February 24, 1993 Grade: A Where do I begin with See No Evil… Talking about an episode like this is weird, because knowing that I can praise an episode you don’t see praised as often as, say, Heart Of Ice puts more pressure on me to say what I feel I need to say. With Two-Face I didn’t really need to worry about getting my points about how great it is through. Everyone already knows. I was preaching to the choir. But this episode doesn’t have the flashy villain. It also doesn’t have the landmark status. Hell, its airing number was 56. By that point, this episode wasn’t special at all. The series was more than halfway over. The airing order wasn’t all bad, I mean, let’s bring up Heart Of Ice again. It’s a wonderful episode, but imagine if it aired more than halfway through the series. We’d probably be looking at it at least a little differently. I believe that See No Evil got swept into the cracks. No real harm done, don’t take this as me saying that losing this episode like that was a travesty. I still wouldn’t put it on a top 10 list or anything (at least, I don’t think I would). But I want to shine the spotlight on it, even if it’s just through this post. Give it a little bit of love, and hopefully at least get a few to acknowledge it as an achievement within Batman the Animated Series, despite it often being seen as a standard.

(“Hey! Who locked the bathroom?!” Try knocking, asshole!)

What’s funny is that the first few minutes are more engaging and have better atmosphere than the entire climax of our last episode. And that had explosions and fires galore! This is essentially just a little kid talking to a seemingly supernatural being! Wait. A little kid? In a Batman TAS episode? I know you’re going, “I thought you said this episode was good.” As I said. Hear. Me. Out. Now there’s something that creeps me out about things such as dolls coming to life, whether they’re actually sentient, or some creepy invisible thing is manipulating them. Especially when intentions are clearly malicious to everyone except for the naive child. It’s that creepy manipulation aspect. You ever see a horror movie where the mom asks their kid who they’re talking to, and at that moment you know that it’s not just their imaginary friend? That something sinister is lurking around? Hell, when I was a little kid I used to partially wake up in the middle of the night and see things in the dark. Apparently one time I asked my mom over and over if she could see/hear the lady with the guitar wandering through the house. If I were my mom, I woulda packed my bags and moved out until I could get ahold of the god damn Ghostbusters (by the way, Ghostbusters 3, what the actual fu-).

(Char thought this scenery was really spooky. I’d have to agree!)

But anyway, getting back on topic… Now, we later of course find out that this “ghost” is just a regular dude, and is in fact the girl’s father. But, despite concerns, that doesn’t remove the tension from the episode at all. There’s a horror movie called Hush which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I was going to. But one minor nitpick is that, although it helps alleviate the cliché, when the killer removes his mask and we start to slowly see them as more human than blank, creepy slate, the scariness takes a hard hit. I hear a similar complaint with how some of the modern Halloween movies make Michael too human, and although it can often create a stronger character, that doesn’t exactly help improve the Halloween movies. Michael Myers is scary because of how mysterious and inhuman he is. My point is that relatability alone cannot always take the place of that haunting alien quality. And our villain, Lloyd Ventrix, goes through a similar transformation as we learn more about him. But here, it doesn’t hurt the episode, it only makes it more interesting. I’m usually all about sympathetic villains on this show, but it would have been so easy to turn this into a typical emotion-driven story about a dad who misses his daughter and uses his invisibility to see her sometimes. Granted, this story could have worked. It worked in Spider-Man 3 with the Sandman (I actually like that movie, despite having some major problems with it). But instead we go for a different route where somehow our character gets scarier when we find out who he is and what he wants. The best way I can put it is that we found out what he wants without finding out what he wants after he gets what he wants. Whatever it is, though, it’s likely not good. Something is so off about Ventrix. And it’s actually explained why. The chemicals in his invisibility suit are basically making him go crazy. He’s not going crazy in a cartoonish way, it’s a legitimate mentally ill way.

(Look at that fixated glare. <Shudders>)

He stalks. He steals. And despite the super villain element, there’s a realness to it all that puts the real accounts of child kidnapping and stalking at the back of your mind. Enough to get a slight case of the willies. We find out from the mother that Ventrix has basically no redeeming qualities at all, but she doesn’t know much more about his motivations than we do. Even his daughter. She has no idea who he is when he reveals his face to her. Add in the fact that he ignores his restraining order at one point in the episode to try and show his ex wife that he’s a changed man because he has money now, and it makes you real glad that Batman exists in this world to protect the more innocent.

(“Goth Mart”. Love it. This store would eventually become Hot Topic.)

I legitimately feel like his daughter would have been in danger if she would have gotten into that car. Ugh. Yeah. That’s another thing. Ventrix trying to get his daughter into his car (when she has no idea who he is, they likely haven’t communicated face to face since before she can even remember), and her saying that her mom told her to not talk to strangers. Ahhhhhh! Scary! And she sees his face and gets creeped out that he’s a grown-ass man she’s never seen before. Like, am I the only one so disturbed by this guy? In a world that unfortunately contains child-molestors and killers, can you blame me?

(I really love this little girl’s character model. Beautiful eyes!)

Now, if you’ve never seen this episode (go watch the series, dude!), you’re probably a little surprised about this being an episode of Batman the Animated Series. But they don’t play everything quite so scary. In fact, there was a decent amount of comic relief, and it was genuinely funny. There was one moment where Batman jumps onto our villain’s invisible car as it starts racing through the city. At first, this looked stupidly campy. I was thinking of the Invisible Boatmobile. And also, since we can’t see the car, we just see what appears to be Batman flying around in an incredibly static position at 90 mph. But the show was smart. Martin Pasko knew that this would look stupid. So they embrace it. We see a civilian who notices Batman speeding by, and he goes, “I didn’t know he could fly too!” in a pretty funny voice. Char and I both laughed out loud. It was very well played.

Speaking of funny voices, by the way, holy hell, the voice work in this episode was incredible. Every character’s voice had so much…well…character! My favorite voice performance in the episode was actually that one scientist (Sam Giddell was his name) that Batman talked to about the invisibility plastic. He was kinda funny sounding, but not in a cartoony way. He sounded exactly how he should, a nerdy, dedicated, hard-working researcher. He was no Seymour the scientist (anyone who gets that reference gets a bat-cookie. Or maybe a lava cookie…), that’s for sure. Y’know who another surprisingly great voice came from? Batman. You’re probably thinking, “This is Kevin Conroy, Collin. His Batman voice is always great.” You’d be right…kinda. Watch The Cat and the Claw, and then go watch the Superman TAS episode World’s Finest. One is really good. One is great, and the Batman voice we’ve come to know and love from Conroy. I think that See No Evil is our first episode with the definitive Kevin Conroy Batman voice. Especially when compared to The Cat and the Claw where everyone was barely talking above a whisper (I still don’t know what that was about, honestly). Really, The Cat and the Claw coming right before this episode just highlights why this episode is a key episode even more. The Red Claw ended up being a little bit more gimmicky and stock than I would have liked. And she was a little bit too…exaggerated? Think back to that attack on the train. See No Evil indeed has a villain with a gimmick, don’t get me wrong. But this gimmick is one that provides a lot of plot-points that don't feel empty. It’s how he manages to frequently talk to his daughter. It’s how he managed to kidnap her. It’s how he committed so many of his crimes. It’s how he gave Batman so much damn trouble. Compare this to the level of meat that Red Claw provided for that story. Miles apart.

Underneath this gimmick, which essentially is a way of giving someone in this show a super power, we have a regular guy (well…kinda) without even a supervillian name. Bruce Timm and co from the beginning wanted the show to focus on good stories rather than freaks of the day. They made it clear that sometimes this would involve regular mobsters or, maybe people like Ventrix. We’ve already done similar with It’s Never Too Late, but I think that this episode is even better in some aspects.

It isn’t perfect, though. The scene with Batman on top of the car, yeah, the joke was funny, but it goes on a little too long for me. Also, the bit where Ventrix pulled that robbery of the jewelry at the beginning I had mixed thoughts on. Like, dude. You’re invisible. You manage to quietly sneak an item into your pocket, but then decide to throw the idea of stealth completely out the window by ripping jewelry out of people’s hands, shoving people around, and dumping out displays right in front of people? Oh, good job, now you alerted Batman, you moron.

(An in-costume Ventrix, visible.)

At the same time, though, we do establish later on that this guy isn’t mentally there, so maybe that’s a decent enough reason. Either way, these are nitpicks through and through, and calling them anything but would be doing an injustice. This episode is awesome. I haven’t even talked about the step up in action scenes yet. This is probably the best the series has been so far with action. Except for when Mr. Freeze rode that fire hydrant into a building. That was amazing. Batman gets the shit beat out of him in this episode. I think that maybe they could get away with more because the villain was invisible for most of the hits or something, but the way that they were animated still makes them look just as painful as any hits from a completely visible person would have.

(Caption this?)

(Or this.)

(Or even this.)

Yeah, the animation here was done by Dong Yang. Y’know. The same ones who did Nothing to Fear and I’ve Got Batman In My Basement. Before I checked on who the animation studio was, I totally would have guessed TMS or Spectrum. It looks that great. A major step up from those two mentioned episodes. The only weird bit was that Batman’s face looked a tiny bit off occasionally, but it's barely noticeable. It’s mostly in his nose, and how it tends to hang down. Anyway, yeah. Lots of great action scenes. Probably one of the coolest was when water is raining down on the battlefield, and Batman uses that to keep an eye on Ventrix and take him out. Here, he is totally visible, but they don’t cut back on the damage being done by Batman’s fists and feet. But y’know what the main thing I noticed with this bit was? The live action Daredevil movie totally got the final fight scene from this episode. Coincidentally Ben Affleck is a common denominator.

There are lots of other little things I could say. There were a few more funny bits, a particular scene where Batman is rummaging through some files and tension skyrockets, and even the technical mumbo jumbo that surprisingly made a lot of sense and didn't seem to jump the shark much… It’s mostly all great. This is why production order is so important for this episode in particular. By the time episode 56 arrived, much of See No Evil’s achievements had already been seen! But watching it this way, we see a huge boost in good comic relief, a huge boost in action, a huge boost in tension/borderline horror elements, a huge boost in animation (at least for this particular studio), a huge boost in voice work, and a solid, entertaining story to go with all of it. I really liked this episode, as did Char, and this is why it gets a proud, sturdy A from me. Char mentioned to me that this villain felt like a one-shot, and I’m guessing she’s right (I can’t quite recall). I bet they could have done another interesting story with Ventrix, and maybe he found his way into some of the DCAU comics? Speaking of that…

I made a post earlier, but I wanted to reiterate! There are DCAU comics. There are actually a lot of them. Now, I have no idea which ones are technically still considered canon (or which ones ever were). But what I’d like to do is put in a little research and start including them in this blog! Unfortunately, these likely won’t align together as nicely as the episodes do. Because I’m watching Batman in production order, it’s kinda hard to then look at the comic dates and place them appropriately throughout. So I’m going to treat them more as a separate thing and check them out at my own pace. I don’t even own any right now, so it’s likely gonna be a while before I even get to them. I still don’t know if I want to do all of them, or just the confirmed canon ones? Any input? Lemme know! With that, I’ll see y’all next week, most likely, as we…um…head west…

Char’s grade: A

Next time: Beware Of the Grey Ghost Full episode list here!

#dcau #dc animated universe #batman tas #see no evil #batman the animated series #batman

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bhadpodcast · 7 years ago

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Know Your History aka Here’s Why You’re Wrong aka Thanks, Dan!

It’s amusing to me when people who are new to the fandom and don’t fully understand the festering cesspool that is Teen Wolf fandom, do the barest amount of research into the drama and THEN create elaborate defenses to validate their stanning.

I’ve accepted that Sterek fandom is still very much a threat to Teen Wolf and to their general Scott McCall / Tyler Posey stanning collective and because of that they like to make giant posts filled with lies and misconceptions to make Sterek look like we’re the villains.

The good thing is that all you have to do is click around the comments or do even the bare minimum of research and their arguments fall apart. The bad news is that so many new stans won’t do this.

I started watching the show spring of 2014, I was into the fandom by that June and I was a full fledged Sterek by July. I was a HUGE Posey fan and had loved him in Lincoln Heights and White Frog. All of my fist fics were skittles or sour!skittles.

I’m telling you this to let you know that I get it. As a woman of color, the opportunity to have a ship that consisted of a character of color was huge to me. I didn’t understand why it seemed like Stereks hated Posey/Scott. I knew vaguely about BWT, but at the time I was so much more involved with the way the show mistreated him, I shrugged it off as “crazy fans, mad because they didn’t get their ship”.

Then I started interacting with some stereks because of the podcast and I would hear them reference things from a viewpoint I’d never even considered. I went back and did the research and I found out about the true reason and fallout for BWT-gate, I found out about Jeff’s exoduc from Twitter, and the thing that tipped it for me? Cookies4Sterek. They LITERALLY ATE OUR COOKIES knowing full well they were going to screw us over royally in the coming seasons!

Anyhow, this isn’t entirely what this is about. This is about knowing your history kids. I was commenting on a post and of course a Posey stan came in talking about how Tyler Posey was sunshine and roses and blah blah blah, but then they gave their own reasons for why BWT wasn’t only not so bad, but in fact, was necessary.

justaddgigi: So that how it's works. You do gay charity work and make a few half assed apologies and that automatically erases all the homophobic shit you do.

tylerscottpupper: @justaddgigi If you honestly believe Posey is homophobic, you seriously need to open your eyes and explore him more. He wouldn't hurt a fly, much less be/do anything against the LGBT community. He had to apologize because a harmless statement was turned into a butchering knife by and to the LGBT community.

stickykeys633: Oh Scott stan, the irony of telling someone to do research on Posey. I love the idea that we wouldn't jump at the chance of someone supporting LGBT. That we just misunderstood him and it's nothing to do with his pattern of homophobic behavior

tylerscottpupper: @stickykeys633 Pattern of homophobic behavior? I think you mean "the fandom perceived pattern of homophobic behavior." Posey has done nothing remotely homophobic. It is the fandom that twists it into being homophobic, which it is not. Not once has he said something negative about the LGBT community. He has made harmless jokes, which I'll reiterate, were turned into "insults" towards the community. So, yes, you are misunderstanding him. Horribly, I might add.

stickykeys633: Bwt was not a harmless joke, fake coming out was not a harmless joke, trying to grab his friend's dicks or trying to shove their hands into his pants is not a joke. I know you think he's sweet but you honestly don't know him. And it takes more effort to excuse the things he does than to just admit he's got a lot of growing to do. He hurt people and he didn't apologize point blank. That makes him a dick and he'll be one until he changes.

tylerscottpupper: @stickykeys633 BWT was not a joke, it was a thing that needed to be said. If you watch the show for just Sterek as Posey says, you are watching the show for the wrong reasons. It wasn't directed at the shippers. His coming out joke was personally funny to me, and I don't see how it could actually hurt anyone. (Im an out Bisexual myself.) Quite honestly, I do know him, far better than you do apparently. He is not homophobic, and even so, he made a 3 part apology on Twitter after making the lamp joke. He saw that people didn't catch the joke and were getting offended, so he apologized. So yes, he did apologize after "hurting people." (I reiterate, if you get hurt by a lamp/sexuality joke, toughen up.) I don't need to excuse him because he hasn't done anything wrong. The fandom is the one who skews everything he says into a personal attack.

To conclude: Posey is not homophobic in the slightest. BWT needed to happen because Sterek was poisoning the fandom. Nothing Posey has said has hurt anyone, period. In fact, what the fandom is saying/has said to him has hurt him far more than you think he is hurting us. (A point which had been proven even by his late mother.) His behavior is a little quirky, but that's just Posey. He's different, and that's partially why I love him.

Now let’s break this down:

BWT was not a joke, it was a thing that needed to be said. If you watch the show for just Sterek as Posey says, you are watching the show for the wrong reasons. It wasn't directed at the shippers.

No. You can twist this into anything, but it’s simply not true. There are no right or wrong reasons to watch a show. Also, Posey’s statement was fueled by bitterness which automatically makes it suspect. You think Posey cares about the lore? He can’t get half of the fantasy elements right now, you think he actually cares about werewolf mythology? Nope, he cares about the fact that people are watching a show with him in it and not for him. So even if he’s right, he’s still wrong.

Also, shippers are viewers and they’re the ones he deemed not watching for the right reasons so OF COURSE the comment was aimed at them. If not, then whom?

His coming out joke was personally funny to me, and I don't see how it could actually hurt anyone. (Im an out Bisexual myself.)

Then my guess is your white and VERY closeted.

Quite honestly, I do know him, far better than you do apparently.

Oh dear heart... you don’t. You know the part of yourself you see in him, sure, but that’s not the same thing.

he made a 3 part apology on Twitter after making the lamp joke. He saw that people didn't catch the joke and were getting offended, so he apologized.

No, he was told to apologize and only did it because he had to. And that apology skated so far on the “I’m sorry you’re offended” line, I don’t even know if it was worth it.

So yes, he did apologize after "hurting people." (I reiterate, if you get hurt by a lamp/sexuality joke, toughen up.)

Dictating the experiences and reactions of others based on nothing but your own limited view of the world? Oh you are bright white and no one knows you’re bi. I’m not even really going to touch to rest of that paragraph because that’s another post entirely on his own, but if you really think Posey is different, then you’re more sheltered than I thought. He is the definition of typical, and that’s what makes him so sad.

BWT needed to happen because Sterek was poisoning the fandom.

This is what I really want to talk about. This idea that what Posey said was a response to mistreatment by stereks is WRONG WRONG WRONG. Stereks poisoned the fandom? Stereks BUILT THE TEEN WOLF FANDOM. How many viewers do you know who saw OUR photosets, OUR fics, OUR gifsets, OUR drabbles, OUR meta and decided to watch the show? Stereks literally brought them hundreds of thousands of new viewers and the show LOVED IT.

Y’all love to forget that the very first fanfic competition hosted by the show had a sterek fic as the winner. You forget the endless articles that mentioned us from Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Backlot, Logo, The Advocate and so many more that brought more and more viewers into this show. You forget the conversations between Greg Berlanti and Jeff Davis about how great Sterek was and how Greg was gonna steal it from Jeff (and god I wish he had).

You forget that RIGHT BEFORE poseygate, Stereks created the Sterek Campaign which raised over $7000 in Posey’s name. That helped save actual wolves in California and purchased Posey a lifetime membership. You forget the creation of Team Lionheart aka McHaleinski aka sour!skittles was a creation and effort of Stereks to show that even though we were stereks, we still love and respected Scott.

And it was never enough. Posey was feeling pressure from the network and losing control of his show so rather than fight tptb and risk losing his show, he decided to punch down. He punched down, completely and shellshocked an entire base of shippers who were suddenly being told we were part of the problem. We were told to leave and when we did, we still got blamed for everything else wrong with the show. Posey never apologized and the show even gave us that award as a way to apologize without having to involve Posey, but as with anything messy, what goes around comes around and he couldn’t even do right for that. Passing the trophy off not only to a fan, but to one of the most notorious SDCC anti Sterek fans out there.

So while I understand that as a young bisexual you feel no one got hurt, I invite you to tell that to the thousands of people who did and the amount of people that STILL feel the effects of Poseygate and the shunning of the show. Get out of your bubble and actually see this mess for what it is, or mind your business and shut up. Either way, just do better.

And encourage your boy to do the same.

#posey problems #twfp #Posey has been bitter from the beginning #but it's never been about the show #it's been about him #stop excusing dickishness sk17

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nyxiesilverfire · 7 years ago

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If Everyone Survived

My Happily Ever After head canons where Voldemort basically didn't ever exist

FIRST OF ALL NO ONE FUCKING DIES!!!!!!!!

Harry would be the oldest of four children. In age order it would go Harry James Potter (July 31 1980), Bailee Lily Potter (June 22 1981), Angel Stella Potter (January 9 1983), and Erin Lunas Potter (October 31 1984).

James tries to talk Lily out of making Severus Erin's godfather (suggesting Frank Longbottom as godfather instead) but Lily refuses. She explains that James' friends get to be a godfather to one of their children and she wants her childhood friend to be a godfather to one of their children.

Sirius would be Harry's godfather. Remus would be Bailee's godfather. Peter would be Angel's godfather. Severus would be Erin's godfather.

Bailee would've been in Ginny's year. Angel would've been two years behind her older sister. Erin would've been two years behind Angel.

They first meet the Weasleys on Platform Nine and Three Quarters when taking Harry to the Hogwarts Express. Harry needs a little bit of encouragement from Lily to introduce himself but after that it's pretty much all in his hands.

Severus is Potions Master at Hogwarts and is nicer to his students, though he does still play favorites with Slytherins. He's not as bitter but I like James and Lily as a couple so...he still lost Lily. So he’s still a kinda bitter.

Harry isn't famous. He isn't in mortal danger. There's no prophecy. Harry gets a normal childhood.

Lily and Petunia eventually reconcile, though never to the point of being overly friendly towards each other. Just to the point that they are willing to visit one another occasionally (like once a year on Christmas maybe).

Lily and Hermione get along quite well. Lily also gets along well with Hermione's parents.

Fred and George get to meet and learn from the Marauders. And they get to share the story of how they managed to get the map back from Filch. They even get expressed permission from the Map's creators to keep it for their school years (as long as they promise to pass it on to Harry before they leave Hogwarts). Fred and George still pass it on to Harry in Harry's third year because they have the map memorized.

Lily joins Mrs. Weasley in making sweaters for her family and her family's friends.

They meet Nymphadora through Sirius when Sirius invites Andromeda to bring her family to one of their gatherings with the Weasleys.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione alternate between their three houses throughout their summers. While they're with Hermione's parents Harry and Ron get to experience all the cool muggle stuff. And while they're at Ron's they get to hang out with all the Weasleys. And while they're with Harry they get to hang out with Harry's family.

Harry is an amazing older brother. The perfect combination of shitty teasing and supportive awesomeness.

Umbridge is still appointed as a teacher in fifth year once the Ministry decides that Remus is a “danger to his students and fellow staff.” The Marauders and Lily and everybody are ready to make an absolute stink at the Ministry on his behalf but he talks them out of it. The students (especially Fred and George and the Potter kids and Ron and Hermione) manage to get Umbridge kicked out of the school by the end of the year and then quickly drive out the sixth year replacements until Remus is reinstated as the DADA teacher. Then everyone suddenly calms down. The students also expose Umbridge for being an absolute bitch, especially to muggle-born students. Umbridge gets in trouble. This is mostly just because I am very attached to the Weasley twins crashing the OWLs with their fireworks.

James ships his kids (and his kids' friends and pretty much all the kids he spends extended time with) and it's really fucking cute because the kids don't actually know. It's a popular topic of conversation between the adults though. James and Sirius have been known to fight. They all end up making bets on who is going to end up with who.

The group reconciles with Severus, though for a while he and Sirius especially are still at odds, glaring at each other every time Lily isn't looking. Though in saying that it takes James and Peter a while to adjust to Severus being a part of the group too. Lily however is very firm in her insistence that there is nothing wrong with Severus and there's no reason to be mean to him.

Being the “best godfather” becomes a competition between the group. Especially Sirius and Severus since Sirius believes it's his job to be fun and spoil the kid while Severus believes he is a secondary source of guidance and has to be as good a role model as he can. Remus and Peter land somewhere closer to the middle of the two extreme views.

Sirius and Regulus reconcile as well (partially thanks to Severus oddly enough). Sirius remains quietly protective of his brother and the two don't ever quite interact but they become quite peaceful in each other's presences. And Sirius stops blaming Regulus for believing their parents' pure-blood supremacy shit.

Nymphadora loves entertaining everyone with her ability. Andromeda also has plenty of stories about the trouble Nymphadora's abilities have caused over the years.

Peter helps Lily cook dinner. And Peter is an amazing baker and makes boss ass sweets. He also makes the kids' birthday cakes every year. He can always be counted to have snacks and to be more than happy to share.

Remus is Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher at Hogwarts and stays there. Severus never leaks his secret and makes wolfsbane for him every month, even if he isn't at Hogwarts. (Severus and Remus become friends the fastest out of the Marauders).

Alice and Frank Longbottom visit pretty much every summer too. Harry and Neville were basically raised as cousins and are already friends when the two of them get to Hogwarts. Neville also has a little brother named Augustus Longbottom.

Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Lucius aren't nearly as extreme (though they still view Andromeda, Sirius, and eventually Regulus as well as blood traitors). That means that Draco isn't nearly as extreme. They all still hold their pure-blood supremacy views though. Draco's views start to change when “Uncle Regulus” is labeled a blood traitor out of next to nowhere (at least in his view). He also witnesses first hand the shit muggle-borns go through, and sees, and is forced to participate in, what amounts to torturing them. And it makes him sick to his stomach (that isn't until he's older though probably 16).

Lily is basically super mom. Four kids, a childish husband, her childish husband's childish friends, and Severus, as well as her kids' friends. SHE IS SUPER MOM. And she gets along really well with Mrs. Weasley and Mr. and Mrs. Granger.

Whenever Fred and George manage to piss off Hermione they run away screaming “Granger Danger! Granger Danger!”

Harry and Dudley are on speaking terms even though they aren't particularly close at all.

Nymphadora and Remus survive. Teddy has his parents and gets to grow up with them around. As well as his dad's friends. And his mom's friends.

Charlie and Nymphadora are inseparable besties and she visits him often to “check up on my nieces and nephews” aka the dragons Charlie looks after.

Charlie brings some of the nicer baby dragons home to the Burrow a couple of times. He tells Mrs. Weasley, “Hey, Ma. I just brought a couple of the kids. I hope that's alright.” Mrs. Weasley is like “Of course. Of course.” Charlie nods and walks away and then Mrs. Weasley is like, “Charlie! You don't have children!” And Charlie runs away, snickering. There are two dragons that he always brings (at least until they're too big to be able to come and then he drags his four siblings out to visit the two dragons) that are very fond of Ron, Fred, George, and Ginny. He also brings other dragons. There are a couple times where Mrs. Weasley is like “You didn't bring the dragons again, did you Charlie?” And he's like, “No of course not, Ma.” And then they hear something that sounds vaguely like an explosion and Charlie goes all pale and is like, “I'm, uh, I'm gonna go check that.” He hurries away before Mrs. Weasley can rant at him. He always gets lectured for bringing dragons home but Mrs. Weasley never makes him take the dragons back before he is leaving to return to Romania.

Ginny, Bailee, and Luna become very close while at school. Bailee is more than aware of Ginny's crush on Harry.

James, Sirius, Lily, and Peter start trying to set Remus up with Nymphadora in both very discreet ways and obnoxiously obvious ways.

Marlene is basically the Potter kids' aunt. She comes over a lot and is always down to have some fun.

Fabian and Gideon Prewett are very involved in the Weasley family. Fabian is closer to the younger kids (Fred, George, Ron and Ginny) while Gideon is closer to the older ones (Bill, Percy, and Charlie). They're not visiting often but they write almost weekly and they do visit when they can.

Charlie manages to find a dragon that likes Percy and that Percy likes. He then lets Percy name the dragon. The dragon is named Lux. When Lux gets too big to bring with him to the Burrow he has Percy come and visit.

Dumbledore probably still dies but much more peacefully, simply from being an old ass fucker.

Lily Luna, James Sirius, and Albus Severus get to know their grandparents.

Lily wins the most from their betting on the kids' futures with Remus coming in second (James and Sirius were pretty fucking wrong and never hear the end of it).

Bailee ends up with Seamus and has two kids named Aliyah Astral Finnigan and Raine Ever Finnigan. Dean is basically their uncle and lives with the family (OT3 here. Bailee, Dean, and Seamus. It's cute).

Angel is pretty fucking gay and lives happily with her classmate/wife Mary Thompson. They have an adopted son named Brandon Sun Potter-Thompson.

Erin ends up with a classmate called Samantha Jordan and has three kids named Matthew Cloud Potter, Sarah Snow Potter, and Erica Thunder Potter.

#harry potter #happily ever after #headcanons #if nobody died #im in a harry potter mood today #i did all of this all at once in like two hours #alternate universe

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afterspark-podcast · 5 years ago

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Mars Attacks the Transformers: Transcript

Episode Show Notes

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

S: The reason the Decepticons are evil is because they're trying to support their wives and children.

[Intro Music]

O: Welcome to the Afterspark Podcast! On today's episode we're gonna be talking about the one-shot crossover comic from IDW, Mars Attacks the Transformers!

S: This is going to be an experiment.

O: Yes! The Mars Attacks 1996 film was based on a trading card game from the 60’s. It was about some goofy looking aliens from Mars that invade Earth. The biggest thing you should take away from this if you haven't seen it is that--you should never, ever, ever, trust the aliens as they are complete and total bastards. Anyway these alien designs scared the shit out of me as a child, so on with the show! Or comic.

S: [laughs] On the cover we've got Optimus Prime and Megatron standing shoulder to shoulder firing on aliens as flying saucers destroy a city in the background, all against a burning sunset sky.

O: We open with Optimus whaling on Megatron, finally knocking him down and declaring the Autobots the victors. There is an amazing big panel of the victorious Autobots.

S: Bumblebee is sitting on Soundwave.

O: Ironhide has Starscream in a headlock.

S: Thundercracker is, uh...face-first through a skyscraper in the background.

O: We laughed so hard when we found that.

S: Um-hmm.

O: Grimlock is holding Ravage and his teeth. Kind of like a mama cat goes with her kittens? [laughs]

S: It’s adorable! But--and then Astrotrain is out cold on the ground, framed by Optimus Prime's magnificent thighs.

O: It's amazing! Speaking of the art, it is excellent in this!

S: By artist Matt Frank and colorist Josh Perez.

O: It's bright, it's colorful, it's expressive!

S: Everyone has a wonderfully emotive expressions and body language and you just know that they had a great time working on this.

O: I really hope they did, cuz it looks like they did.

S: Ah, I really hope so too.

O: And it really feels like it's the G1 cartoon, if the G1 cartoon was done well. Like they--like it was actually drawn well instead of extremely blocky.

S: And written well.

O: And written well, yes. With the just the Decepticons having been defeated they are led away into stasis cuffs never to be seen again, surely.

S: Megatron gets his own bed though.

O: Truck bed!

S: With his legs in stasis cuffs as well.

O: They really want to make sure he can't move--not that I blame them! This is a good plan.

S: It really is. And then Spike shows up, super excited about kicking some Decepticon keister.

O: An army general is a dick, making fun of Spike’s bright yellow rubber boots and yelling at poor Spike.

S: Poor kid. In the next panel we see a dejected Spike walking towards Bumblebee who appears to be attempting to cheer his buddy up because you know, Bumblebee is such a good Bumble-buddy.

O: [laughs] But as the general’s going on about the U, S, of A he is suddenly disintegrated.

S: A surprised Optimus looks into a sky that has suddenly been filled with flying saucers and Martians in jetpacks with laser guns, who are so down for demolishing the city.

O: Oh yes, and at the bottom of the page we get a panel of all the Autobots clustered together reacting to the ‘surprise’ aliens.

S: Some of these expressions are greatttt!

O: From Bumblebee’s confusion to Prowl’s dumbfounded shock, all of it is delightful. A ten out of ten.

S: Optimus is concerned about his Autobots being dragged into another battle with them still being so worn out from just defeating the Decepticons.

O: Ironhide’s relatively uncon--unconcerned about all of this though.

S: “They're tiny, what could they do?” to paraphrase Ironhide.

O: Very shortly, Ironhide learns that they can do quite a lot, as his arm is blown off by the aliens.

S: The framing for that--for that realization that his arm is gone is fantastic.

O: It is also great, yes. [laughs]

S: Optimus orders everyone to seek cover.

O: Cliffjumper gives Ironhide shit about his underestimation of small things.

S: Ironhide proceeds to bonk Cliffjumper on the head with his dismembered arm in retaliation.

O: Elsewhere Bumblebee and Spike are hiding in a partially demolished building.

S: Spike asks Bumblebee if he can understand the aliens and wants to know what they're saying.

O: What are they saying, you may ask? Well, they're saying, “Surrender now or we shall do unspeakable things to your faces and your pets.”

S: Bumblebee’s expression as he listens to this and replies to Spike saying, “Nothing good,” is amazingly disgusted.

O: [laughs] Because he can, in fact, understand the aliens. The alien fire hits the vehicles hauling the Decepticons which, frees them...of course.

S: Somehow getting thrown off the trucks breaks um, Megatron's stasis cuffs and I guess that ends up--I don't know, all the other stasis cuffs end up being broken too?

O: I--I think it broke Megatron's and, I want to say [either] Thundercracker or Skywarp’s? Um, and they both broke everybody else out, I think.

S: That would make sense, yeah.

O: Also, we see that Megatron's Fusion Cannon has its own trailer hooked up to Megatron's and Soundwave is also on a separate truck. Probably safe to say all the Cons had their own at this point, but the separate one for the Fusion Cannon really amused me.

S: Um-hmm. It’s like, gotta keep ‘em together, but you gotta--

O: You gotta keep them together and then I still stand by, maybe hand the Fusion Cannon off to the Autobots who hopefully will know how to handle this black hole generator!?! It's not a black hole generator, but black holes are involved somehow--I'm just saying, I don't know if I trust the army with that!

S: Yeah, it draws its power from a black hole or something.

O: Yeah. By the way that's from the G1 comics and I was reading the comics, and was like, “Wait a minute! You're telling me they didn't pull this out of nowhere!?!” [Referencing IDW’s MTMTE run, which had Megatron himself using black holes during the Dying in the Light arc.]

S: Nope, nope, that’s been there from the beginning, it’s so weird.

O: It is very weird!

S: With the Decepticons freed they seem about as disturbed about the alien menace going on as the Autobots are.

O: Megatron seizes an opportunity to speak to the Martians, much to Starscream's consternation.

S: And to the surprise of literally all the other Decepticons, Megatron asks to be taken to the Martians’ leader. Just looking at Soundwave’s and Starscream's faces here, they are so not down for this. They were expecting crushing.

O: Why crush when you can be a conniving bastard instead? [laughs]

S: Everyone just wants to double-cross each other here.

O: I told you, don’t trust these aliens.

S: Which makes me wonder by the Autobots freaking trust the Decepticons anytime Megatron challenges them to a thing!

O: I don't know! Uh, meeting with the Martian leader Megatron offers a deal. They'll work together so they can wipe out the Autobots otherwise the Martians will have to fight with both factions.

S: Soundwave attempts to correct the aliens‘ vocabulary without success as Megatron waves him off.

O: The aliens are calling the Cybertronians ‘machine men’.

S: And Soundwave just likes his accuracy, which I can't blame them for.

O: Me neither.

S: The Martians agree to this deal..

O: Never mind that as I've said, you should never trust either of these parties.

S: The Autobots prepare fight back and poor Optimus is wondering how the hell Megatron got here.

O: Last he saw, he was being taken away and now he’s on the other side of the battlefield, again.

S: It’s like, “Whyyyyyyyyy!?!”

O: [laughs] It’s just like, if my problems could stop piling up today that would be great. Megatron proceeds to look like a snarky ass bastard as the Decepticons look ready to throw down.

S: Particularly Astrotrain, who's like, I need, to give someone some payback.

O: Megatron orders an attack while mocking Prime's tendency to spout sanctimonious speeches before and during fights.

S: And then we got another great panel of the Autobots and Decepticons fighting.

O: Starscream is panicking in the background as Grimlock seems to be lunging at him in a vaguely ready to eat him kind of way.

S: Megatron and Optimus are clashing in the mid-ground.

O: And Bee is shooting at Astrotrain, while Ravage lunges at him from below.

S: And then Ironhide and Soundwave are facing off in the foreground and it's just very nice organization.

O: It is, like very good job, very um, good composition.

S: Yes.

O: Clear what's going on and it looks interesting. Also--Face-Off!

B: [laughing]

S: The Martians trapped the Cybertronians in a green, glowy force field doohickey thing betraying the Decepticons.

O: As I was saying earlier, never trust these aliens!

S: They're all conniving and they're all planning on backstabbing each other. Except the Autobots, the Autobots are the upstanding, sanctimonious ones.

O: Apparently!

S: Megatron is enraged, how dare they betray him!?!

O: Pot, meet kettle. [laughs]

S: And then Cliffjumper’s reaction is pure perfection here.

O: His dialogue, his deadpan expression.

S: His positioning. He's just--he looks like the peanut gallery. He's like right underneath Megatron, looking up at him.

O: As he says, “You know for someone with a name like the Decepticons, you think you would have seen this coming.”

S: You really would, you’d think so.

O: It's great. As the aliens walk away we are treated to another entertaining panel this time with Optimus telling Megatron they will need to work together to get out of this.

S: Prowl and Starscream are standing, well ok, so the way there actually posed: Megatron and Optimus are in the background with their backs towards us and Starscream and Prowl are in the foreground. So, Prowl and Starscream stand behind their respective leaders with great uncomfortable expressions, as they attempt to tune out to this awkward but very necessary conversation.

O: Megatron reluctantly agrees with Optimus’s assessment of the situation, and orders Blaster over.

S: Blaster seems pretty game for this plan! Despite, you know, being ordered by Megatron. A plan that involves him and Soundwave combining their, you know, assorted sound abilities in an attempt to break the force field.

O: We also get some more Bumblebee sass as he takes issue with Megatron's bad attitude--some Bumble-sass if you will.

S: Blaster and Soundwave’s synced abilities do take down the force field with the combined forces of the Autobots and Decepticons charging to meet the Martians.

O: Megatron has some of his signature dialogue about the “Might of Megatron!”

S: Cliffjumper and Thundercracker share a moment commenting on Megatron's ego and then the aliens retaliate by shooting Megatron with a shrink-ray. And we quote, [in an alien voice] “I have shrunk your master to the size of a small girl's plaything.”

O: So I think Megatron is even smaller than a human here and it is amazing. [laughs]

S: Um-hm, because you can see like a crushed coke can beside him?

O: In like--yeah, and so it looks like he's-he's about, yeah toy size. We-we had jokingly said we think he's about the size of the Masterpiece toy? Which was funny, because I had gotten that like, the day we were scripting. So it's just like--oh my god that's amazing!

S: Yep, yep. The lead Martian begins monologuing but tiny Megatron shoots him through the head with his tiny Fusion Cannon.

O: Proving that even ridiculously small Megatron is a stone-cold badass.

S: Awkward team-ups abound as the Autobots and Decepticons fight against the Martians side-by-side.

O: Cats and dogs--living together!

S: In harmony.

O: [laughs]

S: Except not.

O: To a point. Uh, next we see Starscream do an incredibly Starscream thing.

S: That thing that we see him do every other episode. He tells Megatron he's going to crush him and take his rightful place as leader of the Decepticons.

O: Megatron's face here is fucking amazing by the way. He looks so, so done. Like, Starscream, really, you're really going to do this right now? [laughs]

S: And then Megatron pounces on Starscream's face. He just--Starscream leaned down to--

O: To like, tell him this.

S: To deliver it directly to his face and Megatron's like, [evil laugh] pounce! Right on his face, leading to Starscream running around in the next panel screaming, “Get him off! Get him off!” With poor Soundwave following behind having reversed the shrink ray to attempt to get Megatron back to normal size.

O: Elsewhere, the aliens had been enlarged some ants that are ready to attack Jazz and Ironhide.

S: I don't really know why the ants would have been ready to attack Jazz and Ironhide? I mean since they’re just normal ants honestly, they probably should have collapsed dying due to lack of oxygen. Uh, but yeah.

O: Then it's the Insecticons to the rescue as they transform into their insect alts to challenge the ants, who flee.

S: Because apparently...the ants have sense of self-preservation about giant metal bugs.

O: More so than the Martians do right now.

S: Yeah. Next we see Spike standing in a puddle of water coming from a broken fire hydrant surrounded by Martians who are ready to fire on him. A loose electric line hits the puddle, frying the aliens but leaves Spike perfectly fine due to his rubber boots.

O: He exclaims, “Yeah, in your face general!”

S: Take that, dead dude!

O: [laughs] Indeed!

S: Spike gets the last laugh.

O: He does.

S: The Martians begin to board the ships, ready to fire on the Cybertronian forces but our deus ex Cosmos emerges from the sunset and blows them all up.

O: [squeals] My baby! My baby spaceship, I love him so much and we haven't got to see him in the show, but I got to see him with this. He was the deus ex machina and I loved it.

B: [laughing]

S: He has a very convenient alt mode for this.

O: Yes, like Prowl even comments on like, he hadn’t seen the point of his alt mode before now--which was also pretty great.

S: Um-hm. Optimus and Megatron are shaking hands as the comic ends. Optimus giving a very in character motivational speech about cooperation before pausing and asking Megatron, “You're just going to go back to trying to kill us aren't you?” To which Megatron replies, “Absolutely!”

O: It’s very in character.

S: It is, it is.

O: So, what's our verdict about this special? For me, it was very well done. It feels like such a good homage to G1, has a lot of the humor and silliness that I get when I watch the cartoon but in comic form.

S: It was campy and it didn't take itself too seriously, and it's a good addition to the franchise. Pairs well with the G1 cartoon and the Marvel Comics.

O: The art was excellent, I know we've mentioned that multiple times but seriously. Uh, I-I adored the characterizations uh, everybody was written in a way that like, it felt like them but enjoyably them.

S: Yup, and Josh Perez's color work is always lovely to see.

O: And we both really enjoyed it. We certainly recommend it to you if you enjoy kind of campy Transformers media as well. We will post a link for the comic itself as it is sold online by IDW for about two bucks and it is a one-shot, so you only need the one issue.

S: You don't need to have previously seen the Mars Attacks movie for this to enjoy it because it's perfectly enjoyable on its own, and I mean, I haven't seen the movie or--actually any of the other uh, previous Mars Attacks, uh--

O: Stuff?

S: Media? Stuff, yeah. And I read through this without issue it was--it was great.

O: I actually have seen the movie. I'm not very fond of the movie (sorry movie fans!) Um, it was nice to have a background on just how much of a dick these aliens are um, within that context, but it’s really not required. And that's all for us today, thank you so much for listening! Hopefully this was enjoyable, as we said--we really enjoyed this comic and we want to try to do things like this when we kind of come to milestones. In this case we finished season one. Um, and let us know what you think! Join us next time as we will begin season 2 with, “Autobot Spike.” Did someone say Frankenstein?

S: Um-hm, and that just about wraps it up for us today. Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links we may have mentioned. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word) and various other locations by searching for Afterspark Podcast, such as AO3, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Youtube just to name a few. Until next time, I'm Specs!

O: And I’m Owls!

S: Toodles!

[Outro Music]

#transcript #afterspark podcast #mars attacks

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