#rip misfire

[skullcruncher]

[napping-sapphic]

and somehow I forgot my signature was 💫 and not ✨

Srry I'm a lil dumb but I swear I'm nice.

like that one cartoon character that's goofy silly n dummy n a lil of unlucky but everyone loves them y'know

The goofy one like

That's a lil shy but when you get to know em they're all super cheery n happy n would totally infodump you about geek stuff like superheroes or cartoons

(ever watched the owl house? Cuz it's amazing girl please go m search for it you'll love it especially the ship cuz they're awkward but romantic n cute)

-💫, previously✨ (srryyy for misfiring🥺🥺)

Haha I didn’t mind!! It took me like five asks from you to even realize that was your signature because I am Oblivious™️ so don’t worry about it :)! It’s always fine when people make mistakes around me because I will probably make more lol and also there’s a good chance i simply won’t even notice theirs😌

Also love how you have Defined your niche lol

I haven’t watched the owl house! I hear it’s good but I’m honestly not a big fan of the artstyle😅 cartoons are also usually a bit hit or miss for me so I never bothered trying it out but I’ll see if I can give it a try when I get time! Thank you for the suggestion :) <3!!

[dcxdpdabbles]

DC X DP Fic idea: Retired-Rouge.

Danny gets into making teddy bears. He didn't start that way; honestly, he was mostly trying to fix Bearbert Einstein after his mom accidentally burnt him with a misfired ray gun.

Jazz had broken down into tears, and it had ripped apart his heart and his core to see her so distressed. He went to the local- and only- fabric store in Amity Park to find materials and try to repair his sister's beloved teddy bear when his mom's attempts to fix the bear only made him look worse.

Just his luck that the only fabric shop for miles around was Weston Fabrics and that the person manning the cashier was Wes himself. The other boy had nearly thrown him out when Danny walked in, but thankfully his older brother Kyle had talked Wes down and helped Danny find fabrics for Bearbert.

Surprisingly, Wes had even helped him set up one of their sewing stations to get started on Bearbert.

The strange part was when Danny turned the machine on and found his hands moving independently. As if he had been doing it for years, he expertly put together the bear and even went through the other fabrics to make him new outfits. Wes had watched the whole time, raising a brow when Danny got up to pay.

"Thought you didn't know how to sew?"

"I thought so too. Must be a ghost thing." Danny replied then smirked as the redhead glared.

"A ghost thing?" Wes all but sneers. He still trying to expose Danny as Phantom and had yet to get proof, even with Danny teasing him in the open. As it were, Kyle, who was unpacking new needles rolled his eyes behind the red hair teenager.

"Yeah, since I have a protection core as Phantom, it sometimes transfers into my human side. Do you know how teddy bears guard children at night against bad dreams? Same thing"

Wes pauses, then slowly blinks; he whispers with a small baffled smile, "That's kind of adorable. A teddy bear to keep you safe through the night."

And Danny? He didn't mean to, but he found Wes sort of hot at that moment. Not the Wow, that guy is a celebrity hot but a Be careful who you call ugly in middle school because Puberty made them delicious over the summer break hot.

He will admit that he returned to Weston Fabrics to flirt more with Wes and made so many teddy bears as a disguise. The good news was that all his works were a hit, and even some kids at school started asking for special commissions when word got around about the special Nightmerica teddy bear he made for Sam's birthday.

He makes money, gets a boyfriend, and when he donates the teddy bears to a local hospital, he discovers a new power. Through items he made himself, Danny can send waves of comforting energy to the people around the item, like a miniature zen distributor. The patients that have his toys start to show greater rest from both nightmares and lower anxiety, depression, and general sadness.

He lets Wes name this power, which later becomes the name of his teddy bear business- Phantom Relief. After dating for two years and graduating, both boys agree the spark had been lost but remain good friends. Danny takes his thriving teddy bear-making skills to his new college in Gotham while Wes leaves for Star City.

In Gotham is where things get....stranger. See, Danny knows someone new to the city will never truly understand a city's problems. But the rapid amount of homeless kids is so shocking he starts making clothes and blankets to try and give them out because they shouldn't be out there freezing like that! He even tries passing along some teddy bears to them, hoping to soothe their pain with some Zen waves.

The key word is tries.

Gotham kids do not trust or like free handouts. Danny burst into tears when a thirteen-year-old asked if he wanted the kid to use his hand or mouth in exchange for the new blanket. The street kid seemed surprised when Danny was horrified by the question. No one else found it strange, the kid said, wrapped in a Superman blanket that Danny made only a day before, it's just how things are done around here.

The worst part is the homeless thirteen-year-old is right. Everywhere he looks, Danny finds more people needing protection- physically, emotionally, and mentally. Gotham is just filled with people suffering. He couldn't keep up. It's tearing him apart trying to help everyone.

His core feels like it will burst from all the overloaded cries of help it can pick up. One night Danny can't take it anymore, so he shifts into Phantom and flies out to the old Drake manner, abandoned since Janet Drake's murder, where the cries are muffled, and dials Wes' number with shaking hands.

His ex picks up listens to his sobs and tells him "You can't save people who don't want to be saved. But you can try to reach them in a way they understand."

It's precisely what he needs to hear.

Ancients, but he misses the man sometimes. Why did Danny ever let Wes Weston go? Well, as they say, Right person, wrong time. Maybe that was why.

So Danny decided the only way to get to Gotham was to be like Gotham. And who were the people that dramatically changed the city with every random plot? With every random heist?

Gotham Rogues.

So all Phantom had to do was become one, which shouldn't be too hard since people in Amity Park still debated if he was good or not years later. He fixes up his Phantom suit to something more Gotham villain, keeping the colors but removing the jumpsuit and adding a suit and vest alongside a mask and two giant needles.

He appears in Crime Alley- because that's where the most cries come from- and just challenges everything and everyone to take the area from him. He fights off so many gangs- even Red Hood, who puts up a great fight- but after the dust settles, he now runs the place.

He then starts- fixing the place. Starts sending out clothes for the homeless, starts fixing up buildings, gives Phantom Reflief out-teddy bears to kids, fake emulates to adults, starts sending the gang kids back to school, forces landlords to lower the housing, and illegally makes everyone get along.

He spreads his tyranny to the rest of the city, fighting the good and bad sides of the law. The bats give him one hell of a challenge, but Danny beat the Ghost King when he was an untrained brat. This is nothing. Batman gets better with every fight, and so do his associates.

Things look good until the Joker tries him too much when the clown somehow gets to Wes. Has the love of his life tied to a bomb with enough Joker Venom to fill half the city, and Danny sees red.

When he comes to, it's to Wes holding him in his arms, whispering reassurances, and Joker nothing but a smear on the ground. Danny can't live with what he's done; he runs away, shifts into his human side, and vows to never be Phantom again.

After four years of peace due to Phantom's hostile takeover, Gotham mourns the loss but doesn't fall into so much crime now that the ghost crime lord is gone. Danny thinks he's done his job and chooses to melt into the background. He opens a little shop for fabrics and custom-made teddy bears.

Wes finds him, agrees to try and rekindle their love, and a year later agrees to the marriage.

All is well until seventeen-year-old Tim Drake strolls into his fabric shop. Clutching a superboy teddy bear, he gave a shivering fourteen-year-old the first week as Phantom Gotham Villain with a stern look in his eye.

"Phantom- I need you to help me find Batman, who is lost in time, or I will expose your secret identity to the rest of Gotham."

Well, shit.

[marigold-hills]

Dunes & Waters, part 5

PART 1 • PREVIOUS PART • NEXT PART

“Don’t be absurd,” Remus says, teeth tight against the pain, pushing Black’s various bags back into his hands.

It must be such a tiny burn but the thing with silver and werewolves is that it spreads like a poison ivy rash. Remus feels the blisters forming down his palm and up his fingers and having the hand stuffed in the confines of his pocket really isn’t helping. The skin grates against itself, against the linen of his trousers and Remus wants to rip it off and just get it over with. Needs to put the hurt under cold water, infuse it with wolfsbane, but he’s in a middle of a muggle market and Black looks like a spell about to misfire.

“I don’t know what you think, Lupin,” oh and now Black decides to use his actual name, and isn’t that just perfect, wonderful, fantastic, “you haven’t been the most wondrous companion, but I didn’t think you’d add phobic to your list of faults.”

“Knock it off, Black. Just because someone doesn’t want to hold your hand in particular doesn’t make them phobic.”

They’re standing in the middle of the market, separating the tide of shoppers like a stone in a stream. Getting some very nasty looks, the longer they’re stationary, because they’re blocking access to a fabrics stall on their right and frankly it’s just rude, to stand in the middle of a pavement during rush hour just to have a whisper-shouted conversation.

Remus wants to walk away. The burn is up to his wrist now. Statute of secrecy be damned he’s got half a mind to just apparate back to the hotel straight from where he stands, but the Ministry’s number one rule (don’t let the criminal out alone) flashes alongside the pain.

“I get you must be used to people swooning at a mere touch of you, but you won’t get that here so keep your ridiculous judgement to yourself. Good?”

There are tears in his eyes and he thinks he’s shaking. Black looks absolutely affronted, like the mere idea that there is someone out there who doesn’t find him attractive never crossed his mind.

Remus isn’t that person. Obviously. But he would much rather cut Black’s ego down a few pegs (if such a thing can be accomplished by a too-lanky, too-tired academic with a propensity for sweaters) then admit what he is.

Funny, really, because then they could have it out over who actually is phobic.

“Sorted? Great. I don’t have time to indulge you anymore today. We’re going back to the hotel. Follow me or I swear to Merlin I’ll floo Kingsley and tell him you’re not cooperating.”

“Run straight to daddy, why don’t you,” Black grumbles and its so quiet Remus wouldn’t hear it were it not for his condition, so he ignores it. Anyway, he follows as Remus hurries through the crowd back to the apparition point. That’s all he can ask for and what a relief, to be out of the conversation and put of the risk of being discovered.

NEXT PART

@tealeavesandtrash

@moon-girl88

@hoje--aqui

@cocoabutterandbooks

@onion-sliced-apples

@prancingpony42

@digital-kam <3

@remoonysiriusly

(let me know if you do/don’t want to be tagged!)

[daengtokki]

hi!!! i love the way you write about reader and seungmins intimacy in the deity series. i was wondering for the requests leading up to minnie’s birthday, you could do a little oneshot or blurb about a first kiss between seungmin and reader??? doesn’t have to be related to the deity series at all hehe i just love your writing :)

Thank you anon! Here's a previous first kiss oneshot I did a while back, but I'm happy to write another one! We already know sk!Seungmin/reader's first actual kiss, so I was originally going to do something completely different. Instead, I decided to elaborate on their real first kiss, because it's actually quite important. I can't quite fluff it up, but...

serial killer!Kim Seungmin/afab reader

wc: ~860

rating: um....fluff? dark fluff? angsty fluff... (contains: DEITY themes; sex, death, murder, language, etc)

the difference between these two headers is something

Day 4 of Seungmin's birthday oneshot countdown!

“Hey, sweetheart…look at me,” he runs a soft thumb across your brow, and wipes away a stray tear running down your temple. Seungmin freezes, and the air catches in his throat. “Open your eyes,” he whispers.

It's been a long time since a lifeless body made him feel anything except relief and calm. Right now, his head is exploding with thoughts—it feels like a storm rolling in, slow and terrifying. The low rumble of thunder, and the flashes of light revealing the nighttime things you're not supposed to see...there here are so many parts of Seungmin's mind that he doesn't want to see.

He pulls at your chin until your lips part to listen for the movement of air. Still nothing. “Fuck.” The shakiness of his voice surprises him.

Who the hell are you, and why are you doing this to him? Dying in his bed without his permission. Seungmin doesn't have the time for this, nor the knowledge on how to fix it, but he has no choice. He has to either fix this or face the idea of gathering you up and finding somewhere to dispose of you. For a moment he imagines himself finding his phone and dialing 112, talking to a dispatcher... "I think I accidentally killed the person I was just fucking."

Shut up, he says to himself, but allows a nervous laugh to escape.

He climbs off of you and collapses onto his pillows, but his eyes don’t leave your still body

Why can't he just do that? Disposing of the body is the most important part of his job, so he's gotten very good at it. Looking at you, though...your soft, innocent face, your naked body, the scratch he left on your cheek. Something about rolling you up in his blanket and never seeing any of it ever again makes him want to scream. In some hidden part of his misfiring brain, a little connection is made without him realizing. He looks around at the dark room and sees a few pieces of the clothing he and you both ripped from your body.

Why can't he take it back?

He’s up again and walking on unsteady legs, still weak from the exertion

Is he shaky from the sex, or from fear? Both? The condom is ripped off and tossed to the side as he hunts for his sweatpants and pulls them up each leg.

Seungmin climbs onto the bed again and straddles your waist. Your cheeks are still flushed, and your lips, also still very alive looking, stay ever so slightly parted.

He listens carefully, and watches for the slightest movement in your chest.

he prides himself on his control, but sometimes he does lose himself in the moment

Your neck is still perfect and beautiful—not a single scratch or mark from his savage hands. He runs a soft finger from your jaw to the hollow of your throat, hoping to feel a slow pulse. Nothing. He looks at your lips...“Hey,” he moves a piece of hair away from your damp forehead, places his lips against yours for the very first time, and he fills your lungs with air.

Still so warm, and even softer in your impossibly relaxed state. Once...twice. He pulls away ever so slightly and looks at your closed eyes, not completely closed. He can see the whites of them just beneath your eyelashes from this angle. One more deep breath into you, and then he decides it's probably hopeless; why would any of what's inside of him help you come back? He wipes his thumb over your lips and closes them, but returns one more time for a selfish kiss. Seungmin take your lower lip between his and licks, tastes, and drags his teeth over the skin as he releases you and falls back onto the pillows.

“you see that, Daengmo?” he says, and points its face toward you, “I still can’t do anything right.”

He licks his lips and tries to get more of what he just took from you, but there's nothing left, and he can't make himself return to you for another taste. He's not very good at owning up to his mistakes, especially the big ones.

The bed moves, and Seungmin feels his heart beat against his ribs. He watches, frozen, as your fingers curl around the sheets...and you grip them, so fiercely your knuckles turn white. You don't make a sound, but the steady rise of your chest finally makes him move. He does it as slowly and softly as possible. Hands hover above your face, and he doesn't dare lay a finger on you. Not yet. Before he can think again, your eyes open, and you gasp and cough like you're ridding yourself of something poisonous. He doesn't have to touch you, because you come to him. Seungmin grabs you as you sit up and holds you steady as you gasp for air, but you don't want him. You push back.

Seungmin’s grip tightens on your shoulder, and he lets you fall back on the bed

He's seen plenty of terrified faces, but nothing like yours, because it goes right through him. There is no pleasure in the fear he's created in you.

“No…no, stop”

“I’m not going to hurt you…I promise”

His runs his palm down the cold, clammy skin on your chest, and then back up in a hopeful attempt to soothe something in you.

"Seungmin?"

"I'm sorry"

[princesstarfire1234]

Random ideas for a hypothetical Scavengers (mini) series

So I made a google doc a few nights ago and filled it with random ass ideas for how a cartoony likely-episodic Scavengers series could go... It was around the same time I wanted to get to animating a Scavs-related thing but no promises there or to this ever becoming more than rambles

Anyways... heres an unorganized collection of my silly thoughts:

POST-WAR!! War’s over, Autobot-Decepticon alliance is great and dandy for everyone except of course the folks who got left behind and forgotten by respective High Commands and have had to make their own dealings in space to get thru life and shit; focusing on the daily struggles of your average low of the low genericons/bots, the Scavengers

Optimus and Megatron are definitely married (trust); we go the IDW MTMTE route but instead of Megs off on a quest with Roddy and gang, he’s with Optimus and they both publicly surrender/call truce or whatever on-video and agree to help repair cybertron instead of squabbling, sending a message to all cybertronians taking refuge amongst the stars blah blah blah its time to go home (pilot should open with this i think, set the worldview up straight from the beginning)

It could either be set in the slums of like some populated city or smthn, like maybe Dead End of Kaon or smthn OR… now consider… Set NOT on Cybertron, literally anywhere BUT Cybertron; the Scavs wander space, at least every few episodes or so would be set in a different planet or smthn, having them do their usual shenanigans and (failing) their supply/scavenging runs, as well as the occasional star station too for like a pit stop i guess; there’d be atleast one episode where they go to earth probably

Main characters (scavs duh, but lemme write some shit down here rq):

Krok - the dutiful, ever-patient (one can of engex away from losing it) leader of the Scavengers; he’s the one that usually has the single functioning brain cell

Crankcase - the skillful pilot of the crew’s beloved Decepticon-hijacked Autobot vessel, always in a sour mood, think TFA Ratchet but up the old man crankiness to 500; really good at fixing things (mechanic)

Spinister - a little stupid… all the stupid actually… but he’s got things rattling in there too, don’t worry! The Scavengers’ medic; would probably be Cybertron’s greatest surgeon if it weren’t for everything else

Fulcrum - Defunct?? Rejected?? Something-class Decepticon, a bit of a coward, found in a dumpster by Misfire; he’s a technician too! Score!

Misfire - ideas are about as good as his aim (which is not at all); the really really talkative and social one; rejected Rainmaker/Seeker (bro didnt pass Decepticon Academy, rip)

Additional members that get added to the crew later on!

Grimlock - resident Dinobot and the only Autobot on the crew (for now or smthn idk), thinking of either having them find him during the pilot episode or a bit later on?; i think Krok would definitely have a thing where he’s super wary of him until a big character development episode thing happens like in MTMTE #46

Nickel - hmmm idk yet.. Maybe a former high ranking decepticon officer whose position has been stripped from her the more fucked up and bad the faction ended up becoming because she was very vocal about its problems til the current day? (I just don’t think her being connected to the DJD would work here womp womp)

Flywheels (unsure) - some mech that tagged along with them during one random shenanigans episode

MP3 / or some other new human character (unsure) - they have an episode where they go to Earth and befriend silly human… may or may not keep them, maybe they could be an honorary Scavenger but only appears sometimes or stays on Earth but keeps in touch with the Scavs (look I just think having a human on the crew would be kinda silly and funky for the dynamic)

Meanies to the crew (weekly bad guy):

Novastorm - leader of the Rainmakers; has beef with Misfire

Skullcruncher- Krok hates his guts; he’s the TFA Sentinel to Krok’s TFA Prime, probably served together on like whatever the equivalent of a Warworld ship would be in this

Raiders??? Space pirates??? Idk but I’d def make em be related to Spinister’s past or smthn (this was inspired by some fanfic I read a bit ago, I think Fool’s Paradise on AO3)

Needlenose? (Spin trusted him, betrayed copter boy :((( or smthn)

Scorponok - probably the biggest threat of the show (ofc not in universe), but he’d be like IDW Scorponok in that one Scavs issue, all kinda silly and dramatic but def a threat, he kinda reminds me of Dino/BW Megatron a bit

DJD (absolutely unsure, maybe a passing mention or not at all) - would probably have to sillify them a bit (a lot, idk how the hell Cyberverse managed it with Tarn)...

There's more in the doc but they're not fully formed ideas yet... My countless hours scrolling the Scavengers tags on tumblr have also given me ideas for certain kinds of episodes that could happen but again, nothing concretely written down yet

If I have the energy or remember this, I'm def gonna be updating it with some more ideas cuz whether this becomes real or not, its fun!! Maybe I could write it as a fic one day or if someones wants to idk

Okay bai bai for now, I gotta eep 👋

[lizardlicks]

Thank fuck for friends who don't bs and will sanity check your ass into self kindness

For the longest time I had twisted myself in circles trying to excuse or justify the mistreatment I got from people who I trusted as good old fashion stress+miscommunication+trauma triggers misfiring. Telling myself I'm being paranoid and overdramatic and uncharitable if I considered any other reason for what happened.

Only for someone else to look at it and go "yikes, they were bullying you."

And to realize not only were people that I had trusted and thought were my friends actually being complete jack asses, but that they had in all likelihood intentionally orchestrated events that would end up completely ripping me out of a loved community for their own gain, and that it's actually possibly the worst instance of targeted bullying I've had to date, including when I was trying to navigate grade school as an undiagnosed autistic little weirdo.

It's one part relief, and a scoop of revulsion, and heap of anger. Knowing they did that and got away with it and that I let them because after everything I still wanted to trust and believe in their friendship and good will.

[qveerthe0ry]

hi! i just read misfire & omfg?😭😭 pathetic dieter is top 2!! i was wondering if you would consider doing an alternative to where the reader does engage??

Sweet anon, what a wonderful question.

The answer is absolutely, and I have, and also I may have written the bulk of this earlier today instead of doing my job.

Thank you so much for reading Misfire and your kind words! Without further adieu I present you: Misfire (Anon's Version)

Summary: Dieter gets waxed for a role and is way too into it.

Word Count: 1,494

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x GN! Reader

Rating: 18+ explicit

Warnings: 18+ mdni, body hair waxing, pain kink, humiliation kink, degredation kink, praise kink, sub!Dieter, dom!Reader, anal fingering, prostate orgasm, coming untouched, minimal aftercare, no use of y/n

It isn’t the stickiest situation Dieter’s ever been in, but it is still quite sticky. 

The last thing he expected for a Tuesday at 8am was to be ass naked on a cold esthetician table, hard as a rock. All for a stupid role about stupid Olympic divers.

Because your hands are so gentle, which is the sexiest fucking contrast to the sting your wax leaves as you rip it from his fuzzy asscheeks. 

His breath leaves him in little whimpers as your wax stick gets closer and closer to his entrance, and he’s drooling from his mouth and his cock at this point. 

Which is fine, since he’s on his stomach. And maybe he’s grinding into the medical grade sanitary paper that covers your waxing table, and trying to disguise his squirming as discomfort. 

It would’ve worked, too, if he didn’t have to wax every inch of the front of his body as well.

But now you’re telling him to flip over, and he doesn’t want to move. Any other time he’d be dying to get his cock out and swing it around. But you’re just trying to do your job, and here he is, leaking onto your poor little waxing table, soiling it.

With a heaved sigh, he rolls onto his back, clambering all awkwardly on the small space. You’re turned away from him, preparing the next glob of hot wax, and his cock throbs. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, quiet and shameful, and you barely hear him.

“What’s that?”

Dieter can’t say it again. He just grumbles and covers his eyes with his arm. 

“Oh. Look at you, you poor thing.”

Dieter’s blood runs cold at the sound of your teasing voice. Well, all the blood that isn’t in his dick. The dick that’s now dribbling another stream of pre-cum as it jerks in the air. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he tells you.

And he looks so pretty, with his wide brown eyes and his flushed face. But he’s anything but innocent, and you know it. 

“Did you not, Mr.Bravo? Was I just imagining you humping my table like a bitch in heat, then?” 

You watch his chest expand with a gasp, see the wheels in his head turning for a desperate attempt at getting him out of this unscathed. 

He’s going to be fun to play with, you think. 

“I’m so sorry. I’ll uh, I’ll go, and I’ll make sure you’re paid triple for the trouble— I can do this myself at home.”

He starts to move to climb down from the table, but you don’t let him. Your gloved hands press down firmly on each of his thighs respectively. His prick bobs and sputters at the contact, and you’re sure your grin is devious.

“Nuh-uh, you aren’t going anywhere, Dieter. You want to act like a needy whore, then I’ll treat you like one.”

There’s a split second where apprehension gets the best of you, and Dieter freezes up, and you think maybe all the debauched tabloid entries you’ve read about him aren’t true at all. Maybe you’ve made a horrible mistake, and he isn’t a completely unhinged, freaky sex fiend at all. 

But then his body goes lax and his eyes close as he whimpers. 

“Yes, yes please.”

You huff out a sigh of relief and let your hands smooth up and down his thighs. 

“There you are, good boy. You know your place, don’t you?” 

“Mmm-hmm!” 

He nods his head and looks back at you with not a sliver of an iris to be found. 

“Get on your hands and knees for me, then.” 

He’s so eager to comply, crinkling up the paper on your table as he flips to his stomach, then eases up onto his hands and knees. 

His back arches as he hangs his head between his shoulders, and his freshly waxed ass is gorgeously on display, all for you. 

“For such a naughty thing, you’re being awfully good for me now,” you say, swiping your gloved fingers along the back of his thigh. 

He shivers, and goosebumps break out all over his smooth skin, and you don’t think you’ve ever been this turned on in your life.

“I’ll be so good, promise,” he whispers. 

You hum and squeeze the meat of his asscheek. He pushes into your hand and keens, and you watch another clear bead pour from his straining cock onto the crumpled paper underneath. 

Your other hand reaches up to grab him and spread, and you’re filled with awe as his puckered hole flutters at the attention. 

“Oh god,” he sighs, slumping slightly, balancing himself on one hand as the other makes a valiant effort to wrap around his own prick. 

It falls just short, though, when you grab his wrist and pin it behind him. 

“Did I say you could touch yourself?” 

The noise that works from his throat is pitiful, defeated and impatient and pleading. 

“N—no, no, you didn’t. I’m sorry.” 

You squeeze his wrist harder, and watch his dick bounce wildly between his legs, begging silently for any friction at all. 

“That’s what I thought,” you coo. 

His breaths are coming in more ragged, now, and his hips wiggle with desperation. Having such an influential, powerful man reduced to a puddle under you rministrations sends you reeling. Mad with power. 

So, you throw caution to the wind, and hawk a mouthful of spit directly onto his hole. 

He jolts and gasps and his face falls against the table as his arm gives out on him. His ass tilts up even more, and he spreads his legs farther apart and whimpers as your saliva drips down past his taint and onto his heavy sac. 

“Please let me come,” he begs, “I need to come.”

“Aww,” you mutter, “so eager.” 

He gulps another lungful of air, stuttered and wet, and you realize he’s crying, little droplets streaming from the corners of his eyes and wetting your table. All of a sudden, you find sympathy. 

“You can come,” you say. 

He tries valiantly to reach for his aching prick, but your grip on his wrist doesn’t waver. 

“Ah-ah,” you tut, “you can come, but you’re not touching your cock.”

He groans, and at first you think he’s defeated, but his dick throbs between his legs and sputters another few dribbles. The paper below him is transparent now, soaked and soiled from pre-come and drool and tears and your own spit. You want to see him come so badly, make an even bigger mess, and he doesn’t seem very far off. 

His legs are shaking and his hips rock back and forth absentmindedly, searching for anything he can get and coming up short. 

So you relent, and you help him along. Your gloved finger presses against his hole and it damn near sucks you in, greedy and ready. 

“Oh god, oh shit.” 

You feel the warmth of him draw in the tip of your finger as the ring of muscle spasms and relaxes. You enter so easily, a smooth, slow slide until you’re knuckle deep and Dieter is rocking his hips back and forth to urge you to move. You press in and out in minute motions, barely drawing back before diving in again. 

And then you curl your finger, and he yelps, and his legs tense up. 

“Have I– have I been good?” 

His little hiccup of breath is sweet, pathetic music to your ears and you let out a satisfied hum. 

“You’ve been very good for me, Dieter.”

“Yeah– fuck. Please–”

“Come for me, make a mess for me. Be a good boy and come.”

You can feel it before you’re even done speaking, his tight hole clenching around your finger. His legs tremble with the force, pulled taught and strained, and his groan almost sounds pained as he finally releases. 

His cock jerks against nothing as rope after rope of his seed sprays your table, each streak just a little less forceful than the last, until the final few drops weakly ooze from his spent cock. 

He whines when you slowly slip your finger from him, and curls into himself when your hands leave his body. 

You round the table to look him in the eyes, sleepy and sated and red from the tears. 

“Okay?” you ask, disposing of your soiled gloves. 

He sighs, and you thread your fingers through his sweaty curls. 

“I’m good,” he tells you with a hoarse voice, “thank you. For uh– For all of that.”

You give him a sweet smile, and he returns it, so vulnerable here, curled up into a ball, shivering from his cooling sweat, and lax. 

You find your handy box of tissues behind you, and set the on the table beside him. 

“Now clean yourself up and we can finish your wax.” 

Dieter watches in disbelief as you leave the room with a nonchalance that makes him burn.

He aches with the hope that you'll let him return the favor next time.

[lyscot-blog]

I find adding scars to elves makes them 10x cooler. As a kid, Illidan is my warcraft 3 pick, I love it whenever Iorveth opens his mouth and Captain Mithrun is one of my all-time favourites. All of them have scars and all of them are hunters (demons or humans). Of course there are other scarred elves. But my love lies in the three. They have a common pattern be it by design or story arcs. But why? Why do I like this pattern so much? Let me try to justify myself to myself.

*Spoilers for Dungeon Meshi, Witcher 2 and Warcraft 3??? (not that heavy I guess, spoilers for Mithrun's past tho)

For my heart to elven scars, let’s talk about an archetype of elves. To be honest, I like dwarves more (love Senshi of course and Muradin). Elves are usually portrayed as the word "divine", attractive, forevermore, pure, vined and shaped with the letter V. They are humans but "better". An impossibly polished human. But maybe that’s why I find most elves boring. They're too clean, too good, too skilled. Many put elven flaws as being too prideful with their perfection that they refuse to lower their sharp noses for other races. Nothing more to that than an arrogant side character. I want more but for me they're either so perfect or have a veneer of perfection.

Elves with scars? The outer layer of perfection is slashed open. You can see the scars, the flesh, the mistakes, the flaws, and they bleed just as any other creature. It tells you a lot. To see a misfire and their eyes are often the target. Ethereal beauties with enchanting eyes and nigh accurate vision, gone. Scars runs down their face, forced to show their flaws. Their pride stripped away. Nothing left but a ruined elf. A mess in both appearance and style. Illidan overcomplicates himself, Iorveth’s wears ragged leftovers and Mithrun cannot do anything. But I much prefer this over the polished and decorate look of typical elves. It's like preferring to wear ripped jeans over a cleanly ironed skirt.

But ultimately they would despise whoever ripped them apart. Illidan, Iorveth and Mithrun are willing to sacrifice themselves to meet face to face with those that disfigured them, the enemy they vowed to rid the world of. The enemy that sought to ruin them forever, to ruin what makes an elf, an elf. Ostracizing them. Sparing them, reminding them. Morphing them into a vassal of vengeful vendetta, cynical and blunt. It will forever be a part of themself. But it's hard to say if they ever truly accept their scars. Still, they don’t care to keep up the elven grace and pride anymore, they are outsiders now. But they are not alone. They are leaders of their own group of course. Illidari, Scoiathel and Canaries are a collection of outcasts, far from perfect.  Though they might suffered alone back then, they found their own community and companions that accepts them. In each of their stories, they even found unlikely loyal allies (at least in a Witcher 2 path and Warcraft 3).

It’s still the rule of cool in the end, but I definitely will be attached to them as I dive deeper into their character. I root for those dead-focused haywired eyes. Getting myself so engrossed to see them being not so heroic, yet trying to their best to seek their own justice and self-worth.  They’re never truly aimless, they just need to find their target.

[tomi4i]

50+ Israel lies in 5 weeks

No 40 dead babies

No baked babies

No beheaded babies

No children in cages

No eyes gouged

No raped women

No ripped breasts

No paraded captives

No tortured captives

No mutilating dead bodies

No pregnant women cut open

No mass rapes with broken pelvises

No Israel did not found Shifa hospital

No Biden did not see pictures of dead babies

No October 7 was not “unprovoked”

No Pro-Palestine are not “pro-Hamas” rallies

No 8 yr old Emily Hand was not found dead

No “Global Day of Jihad”

No planned cyanide attacks

No all-female Israeli unit killing 100 Hamas

No Hamas coming thru US border

No Hamas headquarters under hospitals

No Hamas hostages in hospital basements

No Hamas tunnels under Rantisi hospital

No Hamas tunnels under Shaikh Hamad Hospital

No Hamas charter published in 2017 is anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish

No small blasts do not prove Israel did not bomb Baptist hospital

No “misfired” rocket was destroyed by Iron Dome before the Baptist hospital bombing

No “misfired” rocket can’t be both fired from cemetery and southwest of Baptist hospital

No “misfired” rocket trajectory does not align with IDF version of events at Baptist hospital

Exposed crisis actor Eli Beer

Fake baby crib photo

Fake blood splatter photo

Fake booby-trapped school bags

Fake Al Jazeera journalist twitter account

Fake audio tapes released by IDF

Fake AI-generated images of Hamas leaders

Fake “official Al Qaeda material” on dead Hamas fighters

Fake antisemitism controversy over Greta’s toy octopus

Fake antisemitism allegations on Palestine campus activists

False grandstanding evacuation orders

False subtitles for Palestine protest chants

Fake Mein Kempf book in Gaza children living rooms

Fake ‘terrorist shift list’ by mistranslating an Arabic calendar

False labeled a Gaza 4-year-old toddler martyred in airstrike as a doll

False crisis actor accusation by using old pictures of West Bank raid survivor

False crisis actor accusation by using old pictures of Thai children in ghost costumes

False crisis actor accusation by using old pictures of Al-Azhar university students protesting

Yes, many Israeli civilians were killed by crossfire at festival

Yes, many Israeli civilians were killed by Israeli tanks/helicopters at kibbutz

Yes, many Israeli civilians said Hamas was kind to them during attacks and as captives

Yes, Israel exaggerated its death toll for October 7

[sapphicwhimsy]

i am like a poor victorian child on the streets with a cup asking for crumbs of your au? perhaps? :)

first off, thank you for this ask. it made me laugh. SECONDLY. OH BOY. YOU ARE GETTING MORE THAN CRUMBS

SO. the premise is, after nearly twelve years of the rift being closed, those on empires awake one morning to find their world slowly starting to fall apart. placed blocks don't always place at first, and then at all. they rubberband around when trying to walk. holes appear in the ground, straight to the void below. entire chunks disappear, or reset to their natural state. magic is faulty, not always working, or causing frequent misfires. food no longer grows properly, and the sun and moon move slower through the sky. it's a gradual change, but the magic can be felt in the air, slowly charging as things get stronger. as things get worse.

Shelby, being the resident witch and having fought to become supreme witch not that long before, is the first to figure it out. the rift has reopened, and has begun to destabilize their reality. it quickly becomes a race to save their universe, as it's slowly ripped apart and taken from them. slowly destroyed before their eyes, while they try everything to save it. gem, being the resident universe hopper, is recruited in Shelby's attempts to save their home in their race against time.

on the Hermitcraft side of the rift, nothing really has changed. there's no destabilization. the rift is open, but they cannot enter it, not that any would want to after gem tells them how badly the other side is affected. they pool together to try and save the linked server... while also preparing for the worse, in case it can't be saved. they'll readily accept them as refugees, though everyone hopes it won't come to that.

synopsis out of the way. I do wanna write something for it. it would absolutely be a multi POV story, one that changes every chapter. since it would take place after witchcraft smp, it'll be tons of fun to explore how things have changed in the decade between the finales and when the story takes place.

i do have a lot planned out already cause I've been sitting on this for at least a month now. gempearl is a given, along with nature wives. they're the main four in the story, which is probably not surprising at all lol.

if you want specifics PLEASE feel free to ask because I am BREWING things up. I won't spoil the plot BUT I am so down to talk about where I think everyone will be after the decade.

[telesodalite]

With Krok now on my mind, it's reminded me of like, the whole deal of him coping with the loss of his squad by believing they'd just become separated? Because that bit is such a fascinating aspect of his character to me.

It's vague in a way that doesn't totally confirm whether he truly 100% deluded himself, or if he just kept telling himself that to try and distract from the truth and memories he didn't want to face.

(Which, for some reason this pisses Misfire off? Which implies something really interesting there about Misfire and his own coping mechanisms and issues that we don't get much of a peer into unfortunately.)

Anyway, I spent way too long thinking about it when I was reading through the comics. And it's like, did studying battles and strategy play a part in this delusion/lie?

Like, you're a being that lives for millions of years, in the middle of a war spanning those millions of years. So, at some point, surely those battles are going to start to blur together. So you've got that, and then you go and face a frankly horrifically traumatic fight that quite literally rips the people you cared about most, and felt responsible for, apart.

Presumably, Decepticons aren't the greatest at handling shell shock and other such side effects of war. So they just take this freshly traumatized mess of a dude, take him off the front lines and plant him on a warworld to aid the fight from a more comfortable distance.

With all this, the mind is bound to be fickle when faced with such sudden loss and change. But Krok obviously did his job there, or at least he was very knowledgeable on history and tactics beforehand.

Either way, he studied battle after battle, went through records of fight after fight, planned for what's next and reconsidered what had already happened. Hundreds of wins and losses.

So did it get jumbled there? In having a head full of battles, did some of them blur and mix with the one that took everything away from him? In trying to solve the failures of past battles, did he try and find where a victory could've been had against the wreckers that day? Did he find a solution that would've had his squad still whole and alive?

From there, did it slip into delusion, or a desperate lie to keep himself going?

I feel like his "mental health matters" moment was an interesting insight into it and possibly the average soldier's rough outlook on trauma. But it was still very surface level I think, but I guess going too deep into the why's and how's wouldn't have been important until maybe the Scavenger centric comics that uh, never happened :/

[patheticpaprika]

Jon was dead

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Tags: poetic prose, surreal, character study (kind of), angst, mixed media, angst with a happy ending-ish Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57573712

Jon was dead.

One might try to describe the feeling as floating. Losing touch with one’s physical identity until there is nothing but the void of infinite nothing.

But somewhere. So many more somewheres he could not name; he was alive. He had no form, he had no mind of which to feel but still he felt it. A foreign buzzing sensation flowing through invisible veins and misfiring sensation like a damaged nerved.

He felt it all. Like a limitless number of statements on loop, whirring like a cassette tape and percolating in his mind. A haze of thought and emotion multiplied exponentially. They blurred together into a powerful wave of incoherentness that threatened to blot out what strange sensation he had left of himself. Well… the self he considered him . If that was even still a thing left to exist. If he was even himself by the end.

If Jon had a mind left to think, he thought he finally understood what it was like to be a man stuck within the harsh confines of code. He finally understood what Gerry meant about the pain of being forced to be a hint of alive upon a page.

But he also didn’t. Because this strange state of inhumanity was not from being trapped; it was from being too free. Ripped out of the confines of what your mind could function in until there was too much.

You’d think he’d have some experience with a mind that knows too much, what with being The Archivist. But this felt different. Each piece of knowledge was fragmented into a thousand different truths. Everything was both right and wrong in such a way that not even The Spiral could replicate. There were no lies or half-truths here; it was simply so in both directions. He could gaze and Know, but there was so much to Know it all became a meaningless unconscious stream like the scenery outside a train window. He was Jonathan Sims, and somewhere else, Jonathan Sims was someone else.

It was an odd thing to feel with no way to feel anything but someone not quite yourself.

But it wasn’t just that, was it?

There was Martin too. Or at least someone almost Martin like he was almost Jon, and it felt right in the quiet way that only reveals itself in this horrible wave of wrong. They were here, wherever here is. Together. If he focused on the not-feeling, he could almost feel Martin’s hand in his. It wasn’t quite right, a little jagged in corners and blurry around others, but somewhere in the god-forsaken everywhere, they were still together, and that was more than enough for him.

Continue reading on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57573712

(Sorry folks, I do not want to attempt to reformat it for Tumblr lol)

[christinesficrecs]

Bit of an odd request maybe but do you know of any fics that features Sterek when they're older? In thier 30s or 40s and getting together for the first time or as an established relationship? Thank you!!

Oh yes! I am definitely a fan of future fics. ���

Believer and a Homecoming by lsdme | 11K | Mature

“I’m serious Derek,” Stiles whispers. “Come home.”

Good Intentions by yodasyoyo | 6.4K

In which Stiles thought he fake wolf-married Derek twenty-six years previously. Turns out it wasn't as fake as he thought.

ladybugs by thepsychicclam | 20.7K | Explicit

In which Derek and Stiles have been married for ten years, have two kids, and are planning their five year old's birthday party.

Every stumble and each misfire by everchanginginks | 14K | Mature

Stiles hasn't seen or heard from Derek in ten years. It's a bit of a surprise to find out about Derek's return to Beacon Hills through Tinder.

One Door Closes by KouriArashi | 27.7K | Explicit

Derek knows that Stiles is too young for him, but Stiles doesn't agree. Eight years after Derek rejects him due to the age gap, they meet again where Derek has settled in Wyoming as a ranch hand, and Stiles is the new deputy, and still pissed as hell about the way Derek turned him down. Things don't go as either of them planned.

into the ripe air by unpossible | 13.3K

Stiles,” Ted says as he rounds the front of the car. His eyes flick to Derek, and then to James, and there’s an indefinable change in his face that has Stiles’ shoulders tightening and he takes a long, slow breath, the better to take careful hold of his temper, because there are consequences for everything he says and does now, and he’s not a sixteen year old smartass anymore.

(Never) Let Me Go by Jerakeen | 5.8K | Explicit

Now Stiles is older, not exactly wiser, but definitely well-versed in hot guys, and he feels qualified to say that yeah, his memories are spot on with the hotness factor, and Derek hasn't changed a bit.

Watch as the waves, fall back into place. by DropsOfAddiction | 32.5K | Explicit

Derek rakes his eyes over Stiles’ exposed arms and his gaze lingers on the lithe muscle there. The evidence of years of staying in shape, working as an FBI field agent is blatant and was he always that hairy?

Derek’s mesmerised by the dark hair running up his arms and it’s only when Stiles clears his throat and flails his hands at him that Derek manages to bring his eyes to his face.

Stiles’ brown hair is longer and he looks taller somehow, fitting his body in a way Derek’s never quite seen on him. He looks totally comfortable in himself, propped there against the jeep like he does this every day, like he’s not making Derek readjust his entire world view, just by being there.

Derek scents the air blatantly and he steps closer to him, pleased with the way Stiles’ heartbeat spikes a little, despite his cool demeanour.

“Hey Hale. Looking good,” Stiles grins, still not moving an inch, even when Derek’s only about a metre away.

everything you do [sends me higher than the moon] by crossroadswrite | 4.5K

When Derek opens his door to see Stiles standing there with four full suitcases, his massagers’ bag thrown over his shoulder, two big cardboard boxes that barely close and his demon cat cradled on the crook of his elbow all he can say is, “Why?”

Not “what” not “what happened stiles” not “get out” not “please let me kiss you this pinning thing is really getting old for me” not “why are you bringing satan into my home”.

Just a simple “why”.

The Rest of Your Life by paradis | 4.1K

“Seemed like a buttercream guy,” Stiles says innocently, and grabs two forks and pours two huge glasses of milk. They eat in silence and when Stiles finishes his mouth is filled with the too-sweet taste of peanut butter icing and chocolate cake, and he’s full, but he feels good, too. He stares at Derek, who’s licking his lips after his last bite of cake. “I think I’m probably not straight,” he says suddenly. And Derek says, “I ripped down the whole top floor of the house this morning thinking about Laura.”

Much Ado About You Two by clotpolesonly | 2.2K

In which Professor Stilinski and Stiles are such different people that nobody makes the connection.

Until I Stayed Away Too Long by melofttroll | 14.8K | Explicit

NY Times bestseller Derek Hale hates a lot of things about being a modern author. Like being recognized, like needing a social media presence, like not being able to buy his own boxed spaghetti noodles without being asked for a selfie. Facing writer's block, he escapes to his old hometown of Beacon Hills, at his sister's insistence, for some reprieve and hopefully motivation. It's there his attention is captured by a gangly, socially awkward teacher, and the tiny little toddler at his side who know him only as that one basketball player who fled town at fifteen after his girlfriend burnt his house down.

[papaver-decervicatus]

“Under No Circumstances…”

How Farah ended up just beneath Gromsko and Soap on the “Under No Circumstances Allowed to Use a Rocket Launcher” list. 1.5K words, rated Teen, Gromsko POV.

CW: Medical Procedures, The Lord of the Flies (awful I know).

A/N. This is just a quick silly Drabble between the three because Gromsko does not get enough love in the fandom! Thanks to everyone who enjoys the headcanon pages I put out, your enthusiasm has really inspired me!

The nearest table is littered with palpable annoyances, from gauges in the fake wood where one Simon Riley stabbed hunting knives in frustration (which, in his defense, it would be rather frustrating to wake up to pissed in tac-boots, offender still at large,) to pen-marks scribbling in games of tic-tac-toe between Reyes and Chuy (which culminate in a perfect 5 win, to 5 draws, to 5 win ratio,) and even a perfectly Kleo shaped bite mark (she was overdue on her shots and that never goes over well,) out of the bottom left corner. The sound of tweezers hitting a small glass vial consistently rings out, along with the gentle splutter of matter dropping into alcohol.

On Farah’s abdomen, there is a 3-inch gash, approximately 1.25 centimeters deep. It was made by a shrapnel blast that cut through her gear, pieces of cloth and metal remain to be picked out. Her head is nestled in the area just beneath Soap’s crotch on the table. Gaz sits cross-legged beneath the table that she and Soap recline on. Her hair cascades downwards into Gaz’s soft and patient hands, idly doing then undoing her trailing braid. Soap prattles endlessly while holding her shoulders down.

“And then, the fucking eejits go huntin’ it. Goes to show, Brits and their violence…” He sneers and Gaz huffs.

“They are like. Thirteen, mate. The book’s a satire for Chrissake!” Gaz responds. Farah winces when he pulls on her hair a little too hard, and he apologizes with a hushed ‘Oh, sorry.’

“They worship a pig's head on a stick the way you worship your damn Queen, Garrick. No fucking satire to me.”

Gromsko continues his work, picking debris out of the wound, as the two men continue to bicker animatedly about their latest disagreement (and since when did Soap care about British literature, or The Lord of the Flies?)

“How much longer?” Farah wheezes underneath the disagreement above her.

Gromsko takes one last look through his surgical loops. The wound appears to have nothing foreign left in it. He hums in satisfaction at his work.

“Not much, Kochanie.” Gromsko soothes in the sort of quiet voice he summons on instinct when working with Farah. Something in the furrow of her brow always tells him she would appreciate a quiet sort of kindness, that is, when she even allows herself to be helped. She seems thankful when she throws her head back into Soap’s crotch and his rant is cut short by a winded noise. Gaz falls over laughing at the realization she’s just headbutted him in his… particulars. Gromsko takes the opportunity of her momentary levity to catch her unawares with the first stitch.

It’s been approximately 38 minutes since a dazed Farah was rushed into his makeshift office with a frazzled Soap. In between explanations of a misfired explosive, frantic apologies to the woman hanging off his shoulder, and labored insistences that she receives stitches, Gromsko barely gave the two time to blink before he had sprung out of his cot and had started laying out his supplies. Within 4 minutes, the wound was assessed. Within 3 minutes of the assessment, Soap had dragged a still groggy Gaz to Farah’s side saying something about Alex’s preference that he be there should she get hurt. Gromsko paid it very little mind as he typically did. Anything to make a patient more comfortable.

The wound was far from life-threatening in any sense of the word. It was, however, in a position where standard stitches would likely get ripped from friction with tac-gear. A medium-level challenge, but certainly no challenge at all to a medic like Gromsko.

“You are doing well, Farah.” He says. She turns her head in frustration at the lingering pain as he goes in for the third and what will likely be 17 total stitches. “Do not fall asleep on me, kotku,” he smiles when her face scrunches in disgust. “Concussion protocol.” She sighs.

“There is nothing kitten about this situation, medic.” Farrah spits, Soap keeps his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from bucking upwards to claw at Gromsko, now rethreading a suture needle.

“There is, this scratch, it is a kitten’s scratch. It will heal easily.”

The encouragement seems to lighten her mood. When Gromsko tunes back into Gaz and Soap’s conversation, he elects to immediately zone back out when Soap tries to swat at the man beneath him for implying he couldn’t read.

She yells something at the two, and while Gromsko does not know any Arabic, he figures he knows what it means when the two immediately stop their horseplay and go back to bickering, albeit at a much quieter level.

With the distraction of Gaz and Soap, Farah’s stitches go by much quicker than she seems to have suspected. Gromsko makes use of one of his medic tricks (the one his old commander taught him about squeezing the flesh 4 inches to the left of the wound to calm the patient) and much like a kitten, Farah does indeed soothe.

Her whole face brightens when Gromsko finishes the last stitch and goes to toss out his sterile gloves.

“Ya done, doc?” Soap asks, hopeful as ever.

“Hmph,” he nods his head. Gaz scrambles off the floor and examines the stitches on Farah’s abdomen. He lets out a quick whistle in appreciation.

“All that in under an hour? You’re a magic man, Gromsko.” He gives a curt nod which Gromsko returns. Gromsko goes to the metal folding chair that was holding part of his supplies and tenderly picks up Farah’s shirt (which Soap had folded perfectly while awaiting medical instruction,) and hands it to her. She smiles and shrugs it on.

“I am sure I don’t need to inform you of heading instructions, do I?” He asks, his sarcasm unusually quiet. Farah just gives a dry laugh.

“I’ve been through worse.” She claims, chest full of pride. She’s always one of the worse to corral into medical attention, he’s learned from his months with SpecGru. She wears battle scars like medals and hates to admit to anyone, even a medic, that she may need any special treatment. He’s just happy she let him get to the wound at all.

“But-“ her face visably sours as he continues. “Concussion protocol, no sleep for the next 6 hours.”

She sends an irritated look to Soap and Gaz who both put their hands up in defeat, likely aware of what happened the last time someone didn’t listen to the man’s medical demands. (If Ghost wasn’t pulling his stitches out all the time, maybe, just maybe, those tac boots of his wouldn’t have gotten the treatment that they did… not that Gromsko knows anything about it, of course.)

“I have sentry in 4 hours,” Gaz offers weakly, genuine sadness in his voice that whether or not he wants to, he will be unable to care for his friend through the duration of her mandatory awake period.

“Fine. Sleep. And if Alex is back by then, tell him I ordered you to leave.” Farah says, voice firmly intoned back into its comfortable commanding sound. Gaz gives a faux salute and leaves with the haste of a man who’s forgotten what a bed looks like for months checking into a hotel room. Soap looks at Farah expectantly.

“You too-“ She starts.

“Nope.” He finishes.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean ‘no.’ I’m not leaving yer side until you can rest. Not gonna happen.” He shrugs nonchalantly. Ever the faithful soldier, no man or recently-concussed-woman left behind.

Farah looks at Gromsko, apparently expecting him to save her from being babysat. He laughs louder than he has all night. He feels the tension of the situation melt away as he returns to his usual volume.

“Don’t look at me like that, kotku,” she mocks throwing up at the pet name, “I would order him to as well. You do not have a good track record of listening to doctors orders.” She pouts much like a child denied a night home alone with her friends when her parents are away. It reminds Gromsko of an argument his older sister got into with his mother when he was 13. Farah smiles the same way as that sister, she shows the same amount of teeth, he noticed. “Alex is not here. Soap will do.”

Farah looks entirely displeased by this assessment and brings a hand to thumb at the bottom of her now French braided hair. “We’ve finished all of our assignments before we went out. What is there to do?”

Gromsko looks to the armory outside.

Gromsko looks to Soap. Soap looks to Gromsko.

Soap looks in the direction of an unattended car he is more than capable of hot wiring.

Gromsko looks to the direction that the abandoned training maze that Price put a demolition order for.

Gromsko and Soap look to Farah.

“Doncha worry Bonnie,” Soap smiles the way fire meets Gasoline. Gromsko is already putting his fire-resistant jacket onto her shoulders and ushering Farah out the door. “We got just the thing.”

-

When two days later Alex returns from his own assignment and asks why there is now a large picture of Farah, Gromsko, and Soap outside the armory with the inscription “UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE ROCKET LAUNCHERS ALLOWED TO THESE THREE.” Gromsko just laughs in his face.

“Anything for a patients comfort.” He supplies as though it makes perfect sense. Alex’s frown displays his confusion, but Gromsko is not one to give away the secrets of another.

When he got scolded by an irate Price the day before, Gromsko just remembered Farah’s smile with fire reflecting in her eyes 6 hours previous when he and Soap were put on toilet scrubbing duty.

He remembers that smile now, as Alex stares him down while he walks away.

Worth it.

[maxwell-grant]

I'm curious for your thoughts on Dan Hibiki

Dan is real special to me mainly because he was the first time I actually had fun cosplaying, in terms of putting the outfit together and attending the event. I was very young at the time but he was my second cosplay, with the first technically being Bison the year before but I barely remember going as Bison and the costume was basically rented whole, where as with Dan I actually had to take the time to put him together peacemeal.

Looking for shitty ponytails and testing out hair gels and glue to get that doofy spit curl right, ruining a judo gi by cutting the sleeves and dying it pink, painting the eyebrows and kanji in the back and practicing those dumb faces and animations of his, and I was really happy that day with the reception I got. Best part of that day by far was when they were doing this cosplay wrestling thing where people could sign up to enter the ring, and I got to really ham it up with the taunts and pratfalls and Dan-isms I memorized from heart (and I did play the fucker a lot in SSFIV, not even ironically, his Hurricane Kick and normals were really solid in IV) and just, one of the most fun times I ever had. I think of Dan pretty fondly for that if nothing else.

Although frankly I think I like him a little less nowadays than I used to, mainly because a lot of the other characters grew on me more or got better redesigns over the years where as Dan's just, Dan, and Dan's always gonna be Dan, no more no less, little room for improvement because he was just kinda perfect at what he set out to do from the go. I think some of that also has to do with the fact that he pulled Blanka big time into his joke character orbit for well over a decade and I'm not really a fan of that? Idk it definitely got better with 5 and especially 6, just for a while there Blanka's role as being primarily Dan and Sakura's dumb sidekick really sucked and made me resent them a little, still can't say I'm too big a fan even if he doesn't take a backseat to them as much anymore.

Dan becoming essentially one of the co-protagonists of Street Fighter over the years I think has a lot to do with the devs figuring out over the decades that there was a lot more they could do with the character, besides taking potshots at SNK (and honestly in that regard, I feel like Remy does it better, in spite or maybe because they don't play him as a joke on purpose). And I do think Dan has several legs up other fighting game joke characters and not just because he came first, not just because he's funny, but because he's filling in some important niches and they ground him in just enough legitimacy, from a lore and gameplay perspective, that he's worth bringing back. Dan is a joke, but he is also important, in his own way, he's an important character for Street Fighter to have.

If your setting and story are defined as a gathering of the greatest fighters and representatives of martial arts and countries the world over, you kinda do have to address what does a Bad Fighter, The Worst Fighter, representing The Worst Martial Arts, looks like, and basing it on "the guys that ripped us off" is the icing on the gag. Both Dan and Sakura were designed around parodies of the Art of Fighting characters, but they did the right call in assigning Yuri Sakazaki's childish braggart antics to Dan and letting Sakura be treated more seriously.

As much as I may complain that Dan dragged Blanka into the funnyman idiot orbit, Dan's existence prevents a lot of other characters from becoming parodies of themselves (more so than they became, at least), at minimum it definitely pumped the breaks on Blanka and Sakura from doing that because, no matter what, they'd always have to suck less than Dan, because nobody (cept maybe Rufus) is allowed to suck more than Dan (I feel like Sean's joke status was a total misfire, but more on him when I got to Sean).

Dan also works because he's got a legitimate backstory and motivation to be here, and to be the way he is: His father was the one to take out Sagat's eye and Sagat mauled him to death in the ring for it, and desperately driven to take revenge, he took up training under Ryu and Ken's master Gouken until being expelled when Gouken learned his true intentions (and the last time a man with power-hungry intentions was trained in Ansatsuken, Akuma happened), and so Dan had to fill out the rest of his training on his own, which is why his playstyle is the way it is, why he's like Ryu but bad. Dan fills out the other end of a scale occupied by the prior shotos, the worst practicioner there is, the lame and pathetic counterpart to Ryu and Ken opposite Akuma as the strongest. Akuma is Bad Ryu, and Dan is Bad Ryu but in a totally opposite sense. He had symmetry with the existing characters and his backstory was treated with as much seriousness as he can be allowed to have, which isn't much most of the time, but just enough.

Dan being a joke from an in-universe also wound up lending a lot of meaning to Sagat's character arc, because Dan became the catalyst for Sagat's redemption. Sagat was confronted by this pathetic fool wholly consumed by revenge and struggling fruitlessly to defeat a stronger martial artist, and he saw himself in Dan, himself and his obsession with Ryu and the lows he'd stooped to in order to achieve that revenge, and so he lets Dan win, giving Dan his one and only victory that we know of. Sagat, at his lowest point emotionally in the series, who is still supremely prideful and regal and very much not a nice man even as a hero.

The strongest man alive letting the weakest man beat him in a fight to save said man from ending up just like him. If it was against anyone else, it wouldn't be anywhere near as meaningful, but starting the supremely prideful and mighty Sagat's redemption arc by having him realize the futility of his vendetta and let himself get beaten by Dan of all people, The Final Boss letting The Joke Character humiliate him, I think was a very inspired choice.

Much as I enjoy his characterization, I do miss a little how Dan was depicted sometimes in the Alpha series, where he'd be treated with a little more seriousness. Like in the backstory blurb describing how Gou died and how Dan still wakes up with nightmares about it, or in Sakura Ganbaru where Dan's kind of a comedic straightman to Sakura and they take some steps to show that Dan IS knowledgeable and observant about ki and martial arts, and is even pretty good at beating average fighters in local circuits; it's just he's Dan, y'know, and all his hard work and self-mythologizing can't make up for his incomplete training, ego issues and him hanging around Sakura and Blanka, who are freakishly talented and either quickly surpass his teachings or, in Blanka's case, never actually need it.

I don't like the Udon comics very much but I do think they get this right, I like the emphasis they put on Dan having a genuinely impressive ability to take a beating and playing up Dan as a guy who gets up to all these offscreen adventures and picked up all these other skills to make up for his incomplete training (and him becoming Chairman of the CWA I thought was pretty inspired). It nicely reflects what the games have done with him, where he's always showing off new skills and moves added to his playstyle, his fireballs get a little farther and stronger every game (and he doesn't fling himself back when firing them anymore), some characters even comment on his progress and potential. Dan is a joke by World Warrior standards, but by regular person or fighter standards, he can be impressive.

And I think Dan also stuck around the way he did because there's a certain necessity for a character who pokes holes at the premise and mythology, not just a comic relief for levity sake but someone who's there to help the writing avoid the pitfalls of excessive self-seriousness. A character who's an absurd cartoon of a martial artist but not in the cool badass way all the other characters are absurd cartoons of martial artists, instead someone who's kinda lame and full of himself the way that, really, most martial artists, especially self-taught, can be. Everyone on Street Fighter, no matter how nice they are as people or what truly motivates them, is joining the tournament sure that their martial arts are the strongest and that they can and will make their way to the top by beating all the other inferior fighters standing in their way. Dan is like that, it's just that nobody takes him seriously for it. He may not even be the funniest joke character in fighting games, but nobody takes as incisive a punchline to the genre as Dan.

Dan, in his own right, does represent an important, maybe even the most important, facet of martial arts there is: the kind that everyone does when they start out or just don't bother growing as people or fighters. In my experience, myself very much not excluded, the gyms and dojos of the world are full of Dan Hibikis trying to be something more by mythologizing themselves into former losers turned invincible fighting machine blowhards the minute they learn how to kick above their heads or take a punch in the gut, whose training is perpetually incomplete, who think they get to teach others, and who go out there thinking they'll get to show off that invincibility any second now and that once everyone sees how badass these karate chops are, or how much ass I can kick when playing Smash Bros or KOF or Street Fighter, I'll show em all how cool I am, just you mess with me and I'll show you my flying kick WA-TCHAAA! *miss* HUP, WORYEEAAHH *crash*