#seriously how many times will he say shit like this before someone whacks him on the head

[husbandhannie]

what gets me the most about the nct dream thing is that it was an edited video and not a live.....someone okay'ed these comments

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny Pt.6

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

Danny slumped over the table at the library. He’d feel embarrassed about it if it weren’t for the rest of the floor’s occupants. Around him, students were speed running through the five stages of grief like it was going out of style.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuck.”

“Same.” Danny replied, rolling his head to look at Tim. “I’m feeling like an academic victim instead of an academic weapon right now.”

“I should have stayed dropped out of school,” Tim grumbled.

Danny gasped theatrically. “And deprive the world of your awe-inspiring genius on…” Danny peered at Tim’s books and grinned. “On… the Krebs cycle? Seriously? They’re teaching that again?”

“I know! This is like, the third time.” Tim whined.

“At least you’ll be good at it, right?”

Tim scoffed. “I’m gonna drop out of college and become a stripper.”

“They do make bank,” Danny nodded. “But aren’t you like a millionaire or something?”

Tim brightened. “Oh, you’re right. I don’t need education! I’m filthy rich!”

Danny whacked Tim on the back of the head, laughing quietly.

“Whatever. Let’s go take a break. Snacks?”

“I literally don’t know how you eat so much.”

“Snacks have a separate stomach pouch. Normal food goes one place, junk food and desserts in another.” Danny retorted, quickly packing up his stuff. In reality, he didn’t need that much food. He’s half dead, after all. But food also converts to ectoplasm in his body, and ancients knows Danny needs all the energy he could get.

They made their way out of the campus library, passing stressed out looking students on their way to a taco truck.

“Does this even count as a snack?” Tim asked, amused. He tugged on his book bag, readjusting the vigilante pins on them.

“Is the sky even blue?” Danny snarked back, forking over the cash needed for the best fucking tacos on this side of Gotham. They sat on the benches, asking for an obscene amount of extra lime and cilantro before going to town.

“Holy shit, how many of those can you eat?”

“Dunno,” Danny mumbled though a mouthful or carne asada and pico de gallo. “Hungry.”

Tim snorted, pulling out his phone to scroll as he ate. A moment later, Tim showed Danny his screen.

“Hey, you live near here, right?”

Danny, cheeks bulging with food, peered at Tim’s phone and nodded.

“Oh, cool! Have you seen the green guy around?”

Danny squinted at Tim, tilting his head as he chewed.

“You know, the glowing green guy that’s been blowing up the Gotham Bay tag.”

Oh. Tim was talking about him, Danny!

Danny nodded. He quickly ate his food and wiped his mouth before replying. “Yeah, why?”

“Does he seriously just clean up the bay? Nothing else?”

Mildly offended for some reason, Danny shrugged. “I mean yeah? He doesn’t seem to pop up near any of the shady spots- oh, I saw him save someone from a mugging in front of my apartment once! But like, I think all he does is clean the bay. Which is good, because holy heck, that place is nastyyy.”

“Seriously?” Tim leaned in, looking super interested. “So he’s friendly?”

Danny raised a brow. “Yeah, he seemed pretty nice, I guess. Though, that’s not saying much considering your Rogues tend to be pretty chill when they’re not in the middle of a scheme.”

Tim snorted. “True that. You talked to him? When? Outside of his bay cleanings, right? I’ve noticed that he only talks to the Bats during those.”

Danny stared at Tim. “Tim… are you… stalking the guy?”

What Danny really wanted to say was: “Tim, are you stalking me?”

“I’m not stalking him!” At Danny’s suspicious glare, belied by his sauce stained mouth, Tim sighed. “Okay, maybe I am. But only some minor stalking!”

“Uh-huh.”

“But if you have, you think you could introduce us? Maybe he’d want to be friends?”

Was Tim asking Danny to introduce him to… Danny himself?

“Uh. Why do you even want to meet him?”

“Danny, he’s a glowing green guy that does community service for funsies. And he knows the Bats. That’s cool.”

“And here I thought you wouldn’t know cool if it smacked you in the face.” Danny teased. Well, whatever. He might as well do something nice for Tim. “Sure. I’ll text you when he pops up and see if he’s okay with meeting you.”

Tim grinned at him, a piece of cilantro stuck in his teeth. “Thanks!”

——

Danny made a duplicate of himself and went ghost. Danny and his duplicate looked at each other and sighed.

“We’ve done stupider things.”

“But we’re still not telling Jazz.”

“Agreed.”

Danny paused. Did he just make a deal with himself? No, he’s busy.

Doppelgänger Danny went invisible and left the apartment by going through a wall. Danny followed in a sedate pace, the normal way.

Outside, he pretended to catch sight of a suddenly visible Phantom. He’d heard the heartbeats outside his apartment ever since he got home all those days ago, and he’s pretty sure the vigilantes were watching his place ever since. Luckily, he made sure there weren’t any bugs or hidden cameras- Sam beat cautiousness into his head a while ago- before starting the plan.

One of those heartbeats sounded like Tim’s which left some… interesting connotations.

Danny sighed. Who was he kidding? Of course he’d be friends with a vigilante.

“Hey, Phantom!” Danny shouted, waving. Phantom floated over.

“Danny. Hi. Did you need something?”

“Oh, not really. My friend wanted to meet you, he’s a huuuuge fan. Think you’ve got time today?” Danny held up his phone.

Phantom hummed. “I can stay for a bit. Thirty minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll call him. His name is Tim, by the way. Thanks for taking the time to meet him!”

“No problem.”

Danny texted Tim, and minutely frowned as he picked up the sound of Tim’s ringtone. Shit, that pretty much confirmed his suspicions. He got a text back from Tim.

Timsy

[5 nin]

Nin

Nin

Nin

Min

Danny huffed an amused breath. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Alright.”

Danny texted back an okay.

Five minutes later, a flushed and disheveled Tim peeled onto the street and right to the curb.

“Here!” He said as he tumbled out of the car.

“Damn, bro. You good?”

“Fine- oh my god, you’re the green guy!” Danny had to hand it to Tim. If he didn’t already figure out he was Red Robin, Danny would’ve believed the act. Holy shit, wait, he called his friend broke. Hah!

“It’s Phantom. Nice to meet you, Tom.”

A quick sliver of sullenness flashed over Tim’s face. “It- it’s Tim.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, human names sound so similar.” Danny leaned back and hid a grin as his doppelgänger messed with his friend.

“Oh, wow, you’re not human? What are you then?”

“Oh my god, Tim, you can’t just ask him what he is!” Danny scolded. These vigilantes were really similar.

“Sorry…” Tim apologized.

“It’s fine. To answer your question, I’m dead. Ghost.”

“Do you really pay taxes?”

Phantom tilted his head. “Yes, of course.” By the, Danny meant that he paid both human taxes and oversaw the Zone’s taxes. “You know that saying, something about never escaping from two things and that’s taxes and death? You can escape death- might come back a little wrong- but taxes are in the afterlife too.”

“Come back a little wrong?” Tim asked, eyes suddenly sharp.

“Come back a little,” Phantom gestured to himself. “Green. More emotive and prone to irritation.”

Tim stared.

——

“Jason, are you a ghost?” Dick, crouched on the top of Danny’s apartment building whispered.

Red Hood, crouched in the same area, stayed silent.

——

“How did you die?”

Phantom snarled and disappeared.

Tim whirled around, looking bewildered. Behind him, Danny struggled to stay calm.

“Where’d he go?”

“He probably didn’t want to hurt you.” Danny sighed.

“What? What did I do?”

“You asked him how he died. That’s like, the ultimate social taboo.”

“I didn’t know that!”

“It’s common sense, dude. Trauma like that has to be shared instead of asked about. Generally.” Danny sighed. “Come on, let’s get off the street and I’ll give you a crash course in manners.”

——

Bruce, upon hearing about the conversation, dove headfirst into researching the after life.

“No, go suck a goat’s genitals, Batsy, I am not helping you adopt a being of the infinite realms!” Constantine hung up on him.

“Hn.” Bruce will adopt the child and give him a home. It’s only a matter of when… and what inter-dimensional loopholes he could find and use in the relevant laws.

Jason was right behind him, because he was going to get answers, dammit.

[kingsonne-zedecks]

Beware of Riverseed

Wei Shi Lindon had wanted to defy Fate, reach for the heights of the Sacred Arts and escape the weakness of his past. Classic Xianxia hopes and dreams. Though honestly? Looking at his memories, it really felt like he actually had this whole main character thing going on—a visit from the Heavens and a fantastic quest to save his homeland and everything. Too bad miss 90’s anime space-age magical girl had been completely right about how likely he was to die on this path. 

I came-to in the middle of dear old Wei getting his ass beat by some stereotypical pissed off and jumped up initiate. Let me tell you, that was horse shit. Wei was kind of an idiot for not going to ground the moment he’d pissed the dude off. Like, how many times did he have to get warned before he was going to take things seriously?

Luckily another disciple was kind enough to haul my twitching body back to the Medicine Hall, talking the whole time about how he had planned to take Wei to get his fancy spiritual elixirs himself to make sure something like this didn’t happen as if he wasn’t actually just miffed that someone else had gotten to my stuff first.

It only really hit me that I was in magical china land while I was moaning in pain in the infirmary. Apparently one of the kicks had hit poor Wei hard enough, and in just the right way to stop his heart and kill him. And there, curled up on the ground, I got shoved in. At least I got his memories, and the knowledge on how to actually cycle the medicine that I’d been given.

That and enough context to hide to stupid wooden badge around my neck. I mean—come on—the dude was literally walking around with a neon sign saying “please beat me up, I can’t defend myself and no one will care if you hurt me.” I was ditching the thing the moment I got a chance.

Maybe that wasn’t a very kind way to think about the guy whose body I was living in—but I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable given that not only had I landed in the middle of a sect and a valley whose definition of honor was so out of whack that it would make Merriam Webster weep, but I’d landed in the body of literally the weakest guy around in a world with no goddamned mortals!

Everyone cultivated here! Everyone! My first instinct was to run as far away from any Xianxia tropes as physically possible, but even the trees and the insects in this Valley could end me with half a thought. Let alone all the bridges that grouchy had been burning in his rush to get out of this place. Working in the archives was a perfectly fine fate! I’d have ran home and jumped on that in a heartbeat if Wei hadn’t pissed off the Patriarch and his grandson in his hurry to get here. 

I wouldn’t have even had to have stuck around long enough to get crushed by the giant monster. A couple of decades to hit Iron and then out before the mountains fell down. I don’t know why the idea hadn’t occurred to Wei, he could have taken his wife and kids and run and called it good. That’s not true, I knew why he hadn't thought of it—protagonist syndrome—and look where it had gotten him. Look where it had gotten me. 

My insides twisted and I couldn’t tell if it was the situation I was stuck in or the absolutely brutal healing pill. If there was one thing Wei’s residual instincts and I agreed on at this point, it was that we weren’t sticking around long enough to cycle this thing the slow way. I was getting out of here and throwing myself at sword girls feet. Hopefully she’d keep me alive long enough to find some bolthole on the outside. Somewhere that no one had ever heard of Wei Shi Lindon the Unsouled.

[midorikittykun]

Okay I was going to comment but had too many thoughts in response to this.

I'm going to begin by saying I agree that a majority of what wasn't perfect about OFMD S2 lay LARGELY with the lack of episode time. 8 episodes instead of 10 is an HOUR that was cut compared to first season. Given that the finale was only 30 minutes and what they had to cram into it, they could have done a lot with an extra hour.

Now, was Ed abusive in late season 1/early season 2? Yes, of course. He marooned the crew and cut off Izzy's toes and threatened Jim and Archie to fight to the death or he'd kill them all. That being said, I do think a lot of people are glossing over the context of (a) Ed being truly pissed at Izzy for his betrayals and broken trust (note that Izzy is the ONLY one he inflicts direct violence on) and (b) Ed was desperately needling for SOMEONE to put him out of his misery by making sure they had no choice but to put him down because Ed felt both unloveable AND hopeless, the man was seriously suicidal. (I don't have a great explanation for the marooning "getting rid of Stede's (other) playthings"; given show logic, I guess somebody was bound to row by and pick them up eventually?? Interestingly, in s2ep3 Izzy does allude to marooning someone as being merciful, still giving them a chance at survival, as opposed to just killing them directly and being done with it. Ed didn't want the Revenge crew DEAD, he just wanted them gone.) But still, shit was whack (and the show acknowledges that what he did was fucked up). But what I feel like y'all are totally missing here is that Ed WANTED TO LEAVE PIRACY and Izzy FORCED HIM BACK INTO THAT ROLE WHEN HE WAS MOST VULNERABLE. Stede says, in s1ep1 "piracy is a culture of abuse" YES. Stede represents an alternative path, the option of softness no other character perceived before. WITHOUT STEDE and with Izzy needling him, Ed retreats into that culture of abuse status quo because he no longer feels safe and is completely heartbroken and he feels unloveable (as s2 explores). All characters have all that trauma to unpack (and there are SO many callbacks to valuing softness instead of violence, healing over status quo ALL season) and I don't think it was meant to be glossed over that Ed's trauma response was mirroring his dad.

In s2ep1, Ed says "I'm the fucking devil and these are the kids," Ed does throw shit around like his father did which makes Stede flinch (though I don't think that Stede's flinch and Mama Teach's flinch were at all the same), Ed talks about having daddy issues and the shame of killing his father in the Gravy Basket and again after the Ned Low party crash, Ed reflects on the trauma inflicted on him by Hornigold (his other father figure) in the Gravy Basket and how much he hated him and was terrified of him (similar to his real father), Ed has that interaction with Pop-pop getting violent with him and telling him to "if you were ever good at something, go do that" (another father parallel guiding his behavior). These are all very purposeful depictions of Ed's daddy issues (which Stede ALSO has but the only callback to that this season was surrounding him killing Ned Low). When you hate yourself (which is a common side effect of abuse, as the victim tries to rationalize why their abuser was so awful to them "I must have deserved it because I am BAD, so I hate me too"), it makes sense to act like your abuser, someone you hated. It drags you down a spiral of self-hatred that you believe you deserve with concrete evidence of the horrible things you've done to back it up, which Ed's psyche in the Gravy Basket identifies. This is a very interesting exploration of the way that trauma responses manifest that I feel like most shows don't get into in such an explicit manner.

Now, do I think Ed was Abusive to Stede, specifically? No, absolutely not, given the context and how Stede feels. Ed hurt Stede and startled Stede into flinching (I really don't believe Stede was afraid Ed was going to hit HIM, I mostly think he was unhappy that Ed was so upset by learning such a sensitive bit of information with no context), but no I don't think Ed abused Stede and I don't at any point see Stede as being victimized by Ed in any way. These two instances also occur ONLY in s2ep4, which is immediately after Ed wakes from a coma and is half-dead and still furious about Stede leaving and they'd had zero time prior to the Couch Talk at Anne and Mary's to process any of what happened between them. There's no "pattern of abuse" between Ed and Stede anywhere.

And also...yeah, both instances are also part of the comedy and not meant to be taken totally seriously. Stede wakes Ed from a coma with his love, will we get true love's kiss? No, Ed is still mad at Stede obviously so gives him a headbutt instead. Ed finds out in a really inappropriate way with zero context that Stede "left him for Mary," what does he do? He stands up slowly, politely excusing himself from the table, and turns around and breaks a chair and knocks over a vase while Anne and Mary watch in delight at the drama they caused, then flees to other other room to hide under a blanket. And Stede's little "I told you in confidence" line before he goes after Ed to talk it through. That was funny!

Y'all are really forgetting that Stede isn't actually afraid of Ed. Even when Olu is so adamant Ed will kill Stede if he ever sees him again, Stede has absolute faith that Ed wouldn't do that. Stede yells at Ed for headbutting him! But, again, we're given this "pirate culture" context of "well you hurt me, so I wanted to hurt you." Is that healthy? NO! But Stede doesn't let Ed off the hook for that without acknowledging that was shitty.

Gosh, they spend the rest of the season trying to move away from those mechanisms and going back to talking things through and making positive changes instead. There are so many instances in s2 where "talk it through" is attempted but everyone is so emotionally activated/triggered that other, less healthy coping mechanisms (let's have sex about it, I'm leaving) get in the way! Because nobody gets a damn minute to relax and emotionally regulate so they CAN respond in an optimally healthy way! This is what they'll need to work through in s3 to reach that more "mature love" that David Jenkins has teased.

Also would like to point out that Ed is never violent toward anybody (outside of the English soldiers which are well-established as enemies to ALL our characters) or really anything after Stede opens him back up with his love confession during the Couch Talk. The last remnants of Ed's violence died at Anne and Mary's house once Stede acknowledged that he was staying, that Ed is loveable, and that Ed's "safe space" where he could be himself and be soft was back.

Ideally, I would have liked to see Ed make up with each crew member individually and have a bonding moment, if they had the time. I think it made sense to prioritize Lucius, Izzy, and Fang because those three were closest to Ed in various ways. Lucius was the emotional support, Izzy was Ed's first mate, Fang was Ed's oldest original crew member. Interestingly, they all kind of "get even" through violence. Izzy weaponized shame and threat toward Ed to get him to resume the Blackbeard persona and when Ed did EXACTLY WHAT IZZY SAID HE WANTED, Izzy goes "I had it coming" (I ALWAYS think of the "Be careful what you ask your god for, she just might answer" quote from Ed in s1). Fang is very open about feeling like he got even with Ed "after savaging your body with punches and kicks." Lucius recreates his "overboard" scene with the roles reversed (and admittedly needs pep talks from Izzy and then Black Pete) to be able to forgive and move on. Ed meets both Lucius and Fang with sensitivity and apologizes and expresses desire for closure for them both. Ed does not meet Izzy with this same level of sensitivity but does apologize for his actions. Given that IZZY doesn't apologize to Ed AT ALL for sicking the English on him and Stede and then backing Ed into a corner, I don't blame Ed for this lack of sensitivity since Izzy never showed him any either. Ed falls into some amicable banter with Izzy on the docks but they remain very emotionally distant up until they apologize to one another and are finally truly vulnerable with each other as Izzy is dying.

For the rest of the crew, I suppose Calypso's Birthday was their making up with Ed. It's actually pretty accepted in pirate culture to go crazy on someone or double cross them and that be fine?? Look at Calico Jack, Spanish Jackie, Anne/Mary. Stede is very explicit that Ed told him to his face that he was planning on burning his face off and assuming his identity and "I got over that pretty quickly!" The show acknowledges "I've never had anyone apologize to me before so I thought it was great" and "the bar is on the floor" and tries to work with that, meeting the characters where they are. But Ed clearly makes an effort to make amends and his behavior does change for good. STEDE is the characters' ONLY role model for how to behave in a more healthy way and Stede had no positive role models himself, he was just acting with the kindness he thought was right (opposite of his father and how he wanted to be treated), but good lord the man's got his own shit going on too. Frankly, everybody's a mess but they do the best they can, hence Stede's iconic "life is a dick" line, recognizing Ed's trauma responses for what they are.

I don't hate Ed in season 2. I love him. I am literally Stede looking at the front and back wanted poster list of Ed's crimes going "Oh but he's so lovely, he's just hurting so much 🥺😍" Ed's not a perfect person, none of them are. He's done terrible things but he's not a terrible person, he's a complicated and traumatized person who wants to change, and heal, and be better. Ed's an imperfect person who is loveable and deserves to be loved anyway. That is literally what season 2 is all about. I see Season 1 as being focused largely on Stede, Season 2 focuses more on Ed. They're not out of the woods yet at the end of Season 2 and it sets up Season 3 as the setting where Stede and Ed can finally work through their trauma and build a relationship and life together that brings them true happiness.

Renew as a Crew, COME ON SEASON 3!

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

[skinni-girls-eat-books]

Tuesday, March 5th, 2024!

1:07am: Just going to keep journaling so I don't go insane. My ex keeps jerking me around and I can't continue to care. He's so wrapped up in his own emotion, he will never be capable of actually being a good friend. He never asks if I'm ok or tries to make casual conversation, it's just all about him and his constant state of drama. I just can't relate to him anymore and I can't continue on the way I've been trying to. There's literally not much I can control or change about this situation, I can only be responsible for how I react to it I guess.

On another note, I finished my laundry! Tomorrow I will get up, take a shower, shaving is not necessary I just need to clean myself so literally no pressure. Drink some water, take my vitamin, hang out with my cats. Probably take a tums bc my farts are DEADLY rn and I don't know why RIP. If I do shave it would probably just be my coochie tbh. Some light weed whacking lmao. If I keep farting like rotten eggs I'm definitely not making any man plans tomorrow 🤣 I cantttttt haha

I think tomorrow I might clean out my closet now that it's clean?? There's so many items I never wear tbh. Maybe shave up to my knees and get a pedicure?? Maybe go on FB marketplace or thrift for some nightstand things or some dollar tree cubbies for this stuff I've had on the floor forever. I just randomly remembered my coats are in my trunk and I feel like I'm gonna forget where they are. Maybe return those things to the library omg and go to bath n body works and get real deodorant and laundry detergent

So many thoughts going through my mind omg I just had diarrhea while writing this 😭 please go away tummy problems. I wonder if it was me pounding tajin with my margarita I literally don't know.

I need to figure out where I wanna take myself out to before the show tomorrow! Aaaaa so many possibilities!! This week has already been so perfect and it's not over yet! I love my life! It's so crazy to love my life after going through so much trauma but here I am, stronger than ever!! :) I'm so proud of myself ❤️

8:57am: Nah tell me why I got on tinder this morning (early bird 🤣) and damn these guys are just ehh. Idk how tf I'm ever gonna take any of them seriously again. I'm just pretty hardened after everything, not really in a bad way, but in a needed way if you ask me. I feel like I don't know what I'm looking for lol I feel like if you know what you're looking for, you go out and pursue it?? But idk so it's more challenging. Tbh I just want to have fun like I'm in my fboi era fr. Curving dudes when they get serious n shit 💀

9:40am: ok time to get up lmao. I'll find a guy eventually so actually no rush 🤣 I got my two little furry boys and that's what really matters. I want to get all gussied up today just bc I can. Lil man bawling his eyes out not being able to speak to me anymore bc he knows he fucked up is a crazy way to live. Having to live with the guilt of cheating on someone.... Couldn't be me 🙄😂

I get to continue my life knowing that I'm a bomb af gf and anyone would be damn lucky to have me (once they get to know me!) if I don't meet people then they'll never know! I got ppl who don't even speak English wanting another date fr.

11:02pm: I'm just gonna keep shooting my shot until something sticks I think. I really do believe it's a numbers game anymore, if you talk to 0 ppl or put all your eggs into 1 basket likeeee you're not going to get far and it's gonna take 500 years, 100 years to even get a date at that rate. I wanna be like that girl who went on what 50 dates in a year?? Like go off queen 💅 at least you'll have 50 stories to tell if nothing else haha, plus I need the practice ong.

I like the journaling instead of trying to text him, it's so much better. N+T were right, he just needs to learn his lesson, that's so sad your friend literally had to say that about his best man like if my MOH turned out to be a flaming bag of shit like how embarrassing (for the POS) and seriously sad and fucked up :( .

[hwascripts]

Domestic life with Hawks (Keigo)

Desc: What it’s like being married to Hawks, living with him, my own personal headcanons and how he is as a husband overall

TW// Swearing, very brief mention of Hawks’ childhood trauma (you’ll miss it if you blink kinda thing)

oh my god I have not posted a headcanon in over 2 months- let’s hope this makes up for it

Masterlist

-Let me just get the ball rolling and say this man will tease you 25/8. He 100% uses his feathers to snatch things out of your hands, or he’ll move every piece of furniture a few inches so that you’re confused but not suspicious.

“Keigo was this table here before?”

“Yeah babe, it’s been there since we first bought it”

“Strange...I could of sworn it was closer to the right”

-Little shit can barely hold back his chuckles as he watches you knock into everything like a baby deer.

-Aside from teasing you relentlessly I don’t think he would ever pull any seriously harmful pranks- he hates when you’re angry with him.

-Because of how busy he is being the number 2 hero neither of you get to go on as many dates as you want. Dates with Hawks usually only happen once a month- twice if you’re lucky.

-But it’s okay because Hawks is the type of husband that won’t ever let you feel forgotten.

-Expect him to fly by your office while you’re in a meeting because he does it so often that your co-workers place bets on when he’s going to pop by next.

- He’s definitely flown into the window before

-Aside from ambushing you at work, he’ll send different flowers to your office all the time with a little note attached explaining the meaning.

-He’s the type of husband who can read you like a book, you cannot get ANYTHING past this man.

“Babe I know you’re mad about me taking all of your left shoes and making you late to work”

“How the fuck-“

“I’ve interrogated class A villains for years, reading you is a walk in the park”

-No but for real it’s scary how quick he is to catch onto your feelings, it’s like a sixth sense. You could be having a bad day at work and suddenly:

Message from Kei❤️💍: Why don’t we go out for dinner tonight?

-Man his perceptive abilities are god tier.

-He’s the type of husband that quietly comforts you by letting you cry on his shoulder while he holds you. Hawks is great at smooth talking, but Keigo genuinely has no idea how to verbally comfort you.

-He feels like he can completely let go of the Hawks persona when he’s around you. He’s not “Pro-Hero Hawks” when he’s alone with you, he’s just regular Keigo.

-And he’s a very trusting husband because if he can let go of that persona and be vulnerable self around you, then he has no reason to have even the slightest bit of doubt.

-Oh you thought he was protective when he was your boyfriend? get ready for “mother hen Keigo” after the two of you get married.

-He has so many enemies and now that you’re his official other half he needs to increase your security- he would hate himself if he allowed you to get in harms way.

-Of course he knows you have boundaries- he would never want to make you feel overwhelmed. He’ll just ask the hero’s patrolling your area to report to him if there’s anything suspicious.

-Now that we’ve gone over what he’s like as a husband, let’s talk about the process of moving in with him.

-Let’s be honest, he won’t feel confident enough to ask you to move in with him until you’ve been together for at least 4-5 years.

-He needs to know that you’re here to stay before taking such a big step with you. Don’t be surprised that he’s asking you to move in with him on the day he proposes.

-Hawks lives a fast paced life, never having someone who stuck around for more than a few years. He’s hesitant to propose because in the back of his mind he fears you’ll leave him too.

-Once you say yes and agree to move in with him, he starts to panic a little.

-His penthouse apartment feels so empty because he’s never had the time or patience to even personalize it- he’s always busy working, why should he care?

-The logical side of his brain makes him realize that the two of you will make it feel like a real home.

-Once the day came around he helped pack all your belongings and he just marveled at all your interests- civilians had the free time to have interests whereas he barely had the time to rest.

-He packs each of your belongings with care after analyzing each piece. You end up bonking him on the head because what the hell is taking so long?

-After all of your things are put away in your new shared home, he can’t help but grin a little bit. He was finally experiencing what a home is supposed to feel like.

-The first few months you need to stop him from buying ridiculous things.

“Keigo what the hell?! I said no stupid purchases!”

“An inflatable banana pool floater is not a stupid purchase”

-He has a nasty habit of throwing his dirty hero costume on your favourite rug whenever he gets home.

“Babe I’m sorry, I’ll stop doing it”

“You said that yesterday, and the day before!”

-Whenever he’s exhausted he’ll flop on top of you and ask you to rub the tender spots around his wings.

-Good luck getting him off you if he falls asleep while you rub his back, man sleeps like a damn boulder.

-You have to teach him how to make nutritious meals because this man will literally eat anything so long as it’s quick. As a hero he rarely has time to eat, so cooking good food is completely off the table for him.

-You end up cooking him filling lunches/dinners for him whenever he goes on patrol. He always gives you a sweet kiss as a thank you.

“The meals don’t taste as good whenever I leave without giving you a goodbye kiss”

-He’s actually got a habit of stroking your cheek whenever he gets home from patrol and you’re already asleep.

-Sometimes he forgets his wings are huge obstacles so don’t be surprised if he whacks you with them by accident. Asshole thinks it’s funny when you squeal.

-Nobody can say he doesn’t have a habit of texting you cute photos of dogs he sees while on patrol.

-He’s slowly working out of his habit of suddenly slipping away whenever you try to sneak hug him. His childhood trauma makes him react like that.

-He has the cutest habit of nuzzling your jaw with his nose before he flys off for work. Also has a habit of touching your waist when he passes by you

-The two of you will always cook breakfast together- no if’s, ands or buts.

-It’s one of your favourite domestic things to do with each other and it makes him feel like a normal couple.

-When he comes home from a rough day he immediately searches for you and gives you a “I’m back” kiss- no matter how bruised and battered he is, he’ll always give you a kiss when he returns home.

-When he gets into bed with you he’ll rest his head on your chest and listen to your heart beat, it reminds him that all of this is real and that you’re not just a figment of his imagination

-Patching him up and then kissing his wounds has become another daily ritual for the two of you- even if it’s just a pesky paper cut. He does the exact same for you.

-No matter what, the two of you always make time to talk about your day over coffee or tea. again, it makes Keigo feel like he’s in a normal relationship

-Call me boring for this one but cleaning up after dinner is a daily ritual for the two of you. He’ll fling soap bubbles at you and laugh as you chase him around and try to give him a soap beard.

-Listen, Keigo just wants to feel like a normal person. Doing normal household chores with you makes him so happy.

Hawks is a very loving husband who would die a thousand deaths for you. He’s not perfect but then again, no one is perfect.

He’s a filthy tease and a prankster but he’s one protective bastard that loves you to the moon and back.

10/10 would marry Hawks any day

[wanderingaroundwithmysoul]

That answer wasn't too surprising. Rain knew Umbrella didn't skimp out when it came to weaponry. "Chain guns are rad," she agreed. The fact that Matt was definitely using them unmounted also made her a little jealous. She was glad to hear that he was giving Umbrella hell. Whenever she got the opportunity, she liked to do that as well, but she was just one person and could only accomplish so much on her own. Breaking in with Matt to give them the proverbial (and perhaps literal) middle finger, stealing the primo shit they had stocked up... That was something Rain was interested in. "I'm down for that."

"Man, whatever. Piss off." In response to the continued ribbing, Rain socked Matt once more, this time in the gut. The things he was saying were what she was used to hearing from friends before the world fell apart. Her past self wouldn't have thought she'd get along at all with someone like Matt. She'd also probably take actual offense and be trying to whack him for real, regardless of the fact that he was well over six feet tall and mutated while she was five foot four and not. But right now, all this had her in a better mood than she had been in in forever. "Consider yourself lucky I can't put you into a headlock and give you a fuckin' noogie right now."

Rain felt like some sort of medical mystery. She was bitten four times, remained infected for quite a while, and felt like literal death for about half of that time... While she fought as hard as she could to keep going, she seriously doubted she'd make it back out the doors. Let alone as herself. She didn't get it. She shrugged, playing it off. "Yeah, guess I'm just too stubborn for any of that dying stuff."

"Hey, if you ask me if I can do somethin' and it involves guns, you can almost always assume the answer is yes," Rain replied with no small amount of cockiness. The question wasn't even related to her skill with them but she simply couldn't help herself. "Sure. I oughta have those parts." The firearms she was currently using were heavily customized. When survivors ransacked gun stores, many overlooked parts and simply took the actual weapons and ammunition, meaning they weren't incredibly hard to find and Rain had more than a few. While she didn't need a wide trigger guard and grip extender (because she was the exact opposite of Matt in terms of hand size), she did have them since she took them off her main pistol to swap out.

On top of that, "I've even got a gun I can spare you, Addison. Check it." Rain pulled a Desert Eagle Mark VII from her bag, which she was lucky enough to score prior to running into Matt. The barrel was ten inches, so it wouldn't look like a bulldog pistol in his grasp. "Real pretty, isn't she? I can alter it when I've got my toolbox. Then you can see how nice she fires for yourself."

At his empty, inside-out pockets, she tried to withhold a snort. "Wow," she deadpanned. "You expect me to drive your happy ass around for free? That's fucked up. Haven't you seen the price of gas nowadays?" She nodded toward a gas station that was visible from where they stood. Aside from a couple of random zeros, all the price numbers were missing from the sign. "Y'know what, though? You've caught me in a generous mood so I'm gonna let it slide."

Matt's guilt over his sister was palpable. Rain experienced a similar kind over J.D.'s death. Although he might've been a goner in the end either way, she would never truly know because she let his hand slip out of hers. It made her angry. At Umbrella, at the damn zombies that latched onto J.D., but mostly at herself. He was her best friend. Even as the years passed, she still kept the dog tags she pulled off him after being forced to shoot him.

"...It's not your fault," Rain told Matt firmly. His sister had to have been dead upon their arrival. Nothing could have been done. "Nobody saw that mess coming except for the fucking prick who purposefully let the virus escape. Nobody expected that fucking computer to think the best course of action was killing everybody, and they're the ones at fault. Not you. You had no way of knowing."

In a world ravaged by a virus that primarily creates monsters, nasty encounters are in no short supply. When Rain begins to hear heavy footfalls—when she feels them practically shaking the ground beneath her, she figures she's about to have another.

Cursing under her breath, she unholsters her gun.

The days were blending together in depressing ways now. Nemesis was shocked at how quickly things had gone to hell after the Hive and Raccoon City Incidents. It had taken him quite a while to regenerate after the city's "sanitation," but once he was on his feet again, he realized the gravity of what was happening to the world.

Alone and with nothing left to do in his current mutated state, Nemesis had taken to showing up at Umbrella facilities unannounced, and destroying as much of them as he could. The digital feed supplied by the retinal implant attached to his right eye and sewn up into his head gave him a lot of useful information, especially after his mind was liberated from Umbrella's control. May as well put it to good use, right?

He'd acquired more clothes and equipment this way, with the boots and leather trenchcoat-style getup being standard issues for a creature called a Tyrant, which he apparently now was. They seemed just about the only things that were going to fit his... unique body shape nowadays.

Learning about himself and destroying Umbrella assets were good pastimes, but Nemesis was extremely lonely. The few survivors he came across now and then either screamed and ran from him or shot at him. Bullet wounds were nothing more than annoying mosquito bites to him now, thanks to his thick hide, but even so... it was demoralizing. All he wanted to do was help. He was almost getting used to being alone all the time, by necessity rather than desire, until that unexpectedly changed. While exploring a city one day, he rounded a corner and-

"Raaaain!" Nemesis bellowed the moment he saw her, unable to contain his excitement upon seeing her. "Oh... ny god!" He couldn't believe his eyes. Well, eye. He still had two, but one was... indisposed. In a move that probably looked damn near ridiculous to the other, he lifted his hand... and waved to her. "I'n so glad... to see you! How... are you... alithe... right now?" he tried to ask, his massive chompers getting in the way, as usual.

Nemesis couldn't get his voice to be anything other than a monotone growl, and with monstrous teeth and a noticeable lack of lips, his speech was something of a garbled mess. It took him a while, but he'd learned to make certain sounds in other ways, using his throat and tongue. Essentially, he'd had to relearn how to speak. Some sounds and words, though, were lost forever. None of that did anything to curb his enthusiasm at seeing Rain alive, however. Was he finally losing his mind? Hallucinating, maybe? No, the target identification system is identifying her as Rain... Right now, Nemesis didn't care either way. Just the sight of her was one for sore eyes, since his last clear memory of her was being at death's door.

"I thought... the anti-thirus... didn't work...?" he said, his elation at seeing her alive completely overriding his common sense. Nemesis wasn't thinking about the fact that Rain wouldn't recognize him anymore, or about how negatively she would likely react to seeing the hulking beast before her. Not to mention his tentacles, rooted at the backs of his shoulders, which were excitedly coiling and undulating in their own right, reacting to his surprise and happiness. He batted one of them with his hand. "Cut it out...!" he admonished the obnoxious appendage. It recoiled temporarily before returning to its idle activities.

Then it dawned on him, especially with how she had her gun at the ready. Oh no... she has no idea who I am. "It's Natt," he said, laying his hand on his chest. "Natt... Ad-di-son." How pathetic is it that I can't even say my own name correctly anymore? he thought grimly.

[absolutepokemontrash]

MC’s Half Demon and They Look Awfully Familiar Lessons 18-20

Series Masterlist

T-the season finale… *sniffle* it’s been a wild ride y’all… I’ve never actually written and stuck through with something for so long, so this is a real achievement for me! I really hope you guys have enjoyed this completely weird fluffy/angsty/mildly crackhead adventure! Please enjoy the last part!

All is well, the family is back together, everyone’s fine, the school year is almost over-

Wait, the school year is almost over?

Upon realizing that, everyone settled into a state of mild panic.

MC couldn’t just leave, they were part of the family! An integral part! They were the only thing keeping everyone from murdering each other during family game night!

As for Lucifer’s personal feelings on the matter, things were… tough.

When the exchange program was announced, Lucifer expected it to end like most of Diavolo’s ideas: annoying to clean up, it certainly couldn’t have ended worse than when he and the Crown Prince ended up getting cursed to hold hands for 25 hours straight. What Lucifer didn’t expect was for a child he didn’t even know he had to end up as the human exchange student and for his entire life to be thrown out of whack. That child of his was busy finishing up their final paper of the year.

“Hey, father,” MC looked up from their paper with a cheeky smile. “Do you think that the next exchange student will be as fun as me?”

“I sincerely hope not.” Lucifer sighed, continuing to sift through his paperwork on his desk. “Your kind of ‘excitement’ has completely worn me out.”

“Aw,” MC giggled, then went back to work. “So you don’t want me to stay here then?”

Lucifer stiffened and looked up from his paperwork. “Don’t put words in my mouth, MC.”

“So you do want me to stay. Interesting~” MC said as they began to sweep the eraser shavings off their paper. “Well, if you want me to stay so badly, you could have just asked.”

“P-pardon?” Lucifer blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. “You want to stay?”

“Since you’d be so sad without me, I guess I just have to don’t I?” MC stood suddenly and slapped their finished essay on Lucifer’s desk. “The sacrifices I make for this family, I swear!”

We stand with you, MC, sacrifice your sanity for your weird-ass familia.

Anyway, Lucifer was thrilled that MC wanted to stay with him in the Devildom, the problem was… MC’s other parent may not have been too keen to just give up their baby.

You know, the demon child they raised all by themselves, with no help from Lucifer because he didn’t know MC existed…

Someone get MC’s ren on the phone! Stat!

“Alright dear little brothers of mine, listen closely because I’m not repeating this.” Lucifer looked over the living room couches at the other six rulers of hell. Belphie was sprawled out on one of the couches and was drooling all over Beel’s lap, Satan was making a point to look as disinterested as possible and kept sneaking glances at the book he was holding, and Mammon was wrestling Levi dangerously close to where Asmo was filing his nails.

Sighing in defeat, Lucifer continued. If any of his brothers misbehaved he couldn’t say he didn’t warn them. “MC‘s parent will be coming to visit.”

Everyone’s attention snapped to Lucifer. Wonderful.

“They’ll be staying for a few days and will decide if it’s in MC’s best interest to primarily stay in the Devildom from now on.”

Asmodeus slowly raised a hand. “Luciiiiiiferrrr!”

“Asmo, is your question overly personal in nature?”

The Avatar of lust brought a manicured nail to his cheek and daintily tapped it. “Mmm… I don’t think so.”

“Ask.”

“How long were you and MC’s parent dating for? Won’t it be awkward to be around your ex?”

Lucifer dragged a gloved hand down his face. “It was a one night thing.”

“Really?” Asmo knitted his eyebrows in confusion. “It wasn’t a long drawn out forbidden romance? You must have had some Olympic swimmers down there!”

“Okay!” Lucifer clapped his hands. “Add that to the list of things Asmo is not allowed to say.”

“We have to take something off the list then…” Beel said through handfuls of chips. “The list’s full.”

“Fine,” Lucifer grumbled. “He can say [CENSORED] again.”

“Yippee! [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]”

The group collectively groaned as Asmo continued to spout his profane nonsense.

“What did I just walk in on..?” MC stood in the doorway to the living room, still in their PJs.

“Oh, MC, your parent’s coming over to stay for a few days.” Lucifer quickly explained.

MC’s face morphed from confusion to horror. “What does that have to do with [CENSORED]?!”

This house is a FUCKING NIGHTMARE-

Anyway, after the initial confusion/horror, MC got really excited and rushed off to get ready. Meanwhile, the boys solemnly swore that they would be on their best behaviour!

Everyone needed to convince MC’s parent that everything in the Devildom was perfectly safe and that their little hellspawn was in good responsible hands.

Mammon tried to come up with a plan in case MC wasn’t allowed to stay with them, and let’s just say it involved kidnapping. But like- a chill kind of kidnapping where MC would be totally fine.

This idea was immediately shot down in favour of Beel’s plan B.

Beel would just… eat MC’s parent. No biggie, right?

Lucifer shot that one down the moment he heard it.

The only accepted plan for if MC wasn’t allowed to stay was just letting them go. They’d visit the Devildom. A lot. Many visits would be necessary.

So, the hour of MC’s ren’s arrival had come, and the student council assembled to greet them.

Greet the human. The completely non magical human. Greet them and then let them see the Devildom…

Was this exchange program really that good of an idea..?

MC frantically attempted to do some last minute fixes to their hair as they sat themselves down in their seat in the Assembly Hall. Ugh… stupid hair…

“Why are you so nervous?” Satan asked. “Is our visitor a neat freak basket case?”

“No!” MC huffed. “They’re not! I’m just making myself presentable so they don’t think I’ve gone completely feral down here.”

“Well, feral no, crazy, yes. Have you seen yourself lately?” Belphie snickered.

“SHUT UP BELPHIE.”

“Would you all be quiet?” Lucifer snapped. “You’re all acting like children.”

“I am a child.” MC snapped back. “What’s Belphie’s excuse?”

Belphie’s retort was cut off by the portal opening and a figure leisurely floating to the ground. They had an open parasol in their right hand that seemed to be aiding their gentle descent, and a large container full of what smelled like cookies tucked into their left side. The moment their toes touched the floor, the human gracefully closed their parasol and gave the assembled demons a sparkling smile and a polite bow.

“Thank you for allowing me the honour to visit,” the human’s voice was as soft and sweet as Cotton candy. “It’s a pleasure to officially meet the princes of hell themselves.”

:D yay!

After floating down from the sky like Mary Poppins, MC lost all sense of propriety and ran over to tackle their ren into a hug. It was that kind of thing where you really miss someone but you don’t realize exactly how much until you get to see them again.

Lucifer was, of course, the picture of elegance and “this isn’t awkward at all”-ness.

MC’s parent didn’t even seem to be all that concerned with the fact that their baby daddy was, y'know, LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR. THE MOST POMPOUS FUCKWAD IN THE DEVILDOM.

Please don’t tell him I said that, he’s still mad about the Go Fund Me…

MC was absolutely ecstatic to finally show their parent how much they’ve grown in terms of their demonic powers and all the friends they had made, but MC’s ren was more concerned with how much they had grown in terms of their height.

“You’re just so tall now,” MC’s ren giggled as they fixed their child’s hair. “You’ll get things off of shelves for me, won’t you?”

“Yeah yeah,” MC said, rolling their eyes good naturedly. “Like you can’t reach anything in your kitchen.”

“Okay,” Mammon, Satan, Levi, Belphie, and Beel were lagging behind Lucifer, MC, their parent, and Diavolo. “Change of plans, we ain’t eatin’ ‘em, we’re keepin’ ‘em.”

“We were never going to eat them in the first place, idiot.” Satan sneered. “And what’s with the change of tune? You were ready to wage war on the human world fifteen minutes ago.”

“…cookies happened.” Mammon mumbled. He had only gotten one of the human’s totally amazing offerings before Beel proceeded to eat everything. The cookie was perfect… so delicious…

“I say we keep the human.” Beel put a hand on his stomach. “I want more human world cookies.”

“They’re so cute too…” Asmo cooed. “A solid 10/10, and that’s such a rare ranking coming from the only 20/10 in existence!”

“Asmo, your vanity never ceases to make me want to roll over and-” Belphie’s insult was interrupted by him passing out and letting out a cartoonishly loud snore. It was a good thing Beel was able to quickly catch and throw Belphie over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

“Asmo has a point, they’re just so totally moe! Kawaii to the highest degree! That parasol, the homemade cookies, it’s just like something from a slice of life anime!” Levi squee-ed.

“So it’s settled, we treat ‘em nice, then we get ‘em to stay.” Mammon nodded to the rest of his brothers, who for the first time in the Demon King knows how long, his little brothers nodded back in full seriousness. They were actually doing a Mammon plan! Holy shit!

So, the brothers liked MC’s ren, what about Diavolo and Barbatos?

Well, MC’s ren had heard all about Barbatos’ amazing cooking from MC and Barb’s totally outstanding reputation, so the two got along swimmingly.

Dia. Loved. That. Human. They’re cute???? They’re sweet???? They brought COOKIES???! They don’t seem to be afraid of him at all????? Please be the exchange student next year :D

Oh yeah… he made a rule that said they couldn’t summon someone with kids… it would be cruel to rip a parent away from their child…

But apparently not a child away from their parent cough cough

Other than the uncle squad, MC’s ren got to meet the Purgatory Hall gang too!

MC was being just the most adorable tour guide, but that didn’t stop Lucifer from having a miniature heart attack any time a demon even looked at MC’s parent the wrong way. If MC’s ren got attacked or felt threatened in any way shape or form, he could say bye bye to his time with the one person in the HOL that didn’t live to make him pop a forehead vein. The human seemed outwardly unconcerned with any Devildom oddness and was amicably chatting with Diavolo while MC pulled them from place to place.

“And that’s Hell’s Kitchen, they have good sandwiches, and that’s Madame Scream’s, they have really good macarons.” MC helpfully pointed out the places as they passed them.

A much to familiar trio of voices called out from down the street. Father dammit, why were they here..?

“Hello Lucifer, what are you all up too?” Ugh… Simeon…

“From the sight of the rest of your brothers skulking about, it appears like they’re acting as bodyguards.” Solomon…

“MC? Who’s that?”

Oh good grief… that nasally little voice… the chihuahua was near… Now… Lucifer was a respectable demon… respectable demons don’t tease children in front of the parent of their child…

“Hello chihuahua.”

DAMN IT HE COULDN’T HELP HIMSELF!

“I’m not a chihuahua you demon!” Luke yapped.

MC’s parent daintily tilted their head and looked over at MC. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

“Right, Luke, this is my ren, ren, this is a chihuahua.” MC grinned cheekily as they gestured between the two. Lucifer suppressed a laugh which resulted in a very ugly snort. It was a good thing the sound was drowned out by Luke’s exclamations of betrayal.

The chorus of “how could you?!”s and “I thought you were over that awful nickname!”s was put to an abrupt halt when the visiting human elegantly offered a handshake to the fuming angel.

“MC spoke very highly of you,” they chirped. “It’s very nice to meet you, Luke.”

Luke blinked a few times, then quickly straightened his posture, adjusted his hat, then shook MC’s ren’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

“That’s Simeon.” MC jerked a thumb in Simeon’s direction. “And that’s Solomon.”

“Luke got a whole introduction and we get that? Come on MC, I thought we were friends.” Solomon fake pouted at MC after giving a polite nod to MC’s parent.

“We stopped being friends after one of the potions you had me test out turned me into a-” as quick as lighting, Mammon had shoved his hand into MC’s face.

“A-ah, MC’s rememberin’ stuff wrong, nothin’ potion related happened to ‘em. Right, Solomon???!”

Taking the hint from Mammon, Solomon smiled and nodded. “Nope, nothing related to turning MC into a frog for a few hours.”

“Hm, well I’m quite happy that absolutely nothing frog transformation related happened.” MC’s parent said.

“Yeah, must’ve hit their head on somethin- YEEEOW!” MC had bitten down on Mammon’s hand and slapped it away from them.

“I did not hit my head on anything!”

“Yeah,” Beel nodded. “Nothing’s hit them since the Fangol ball.”

“The what ball?” MC’s ren asked.

“The Fangol ball that hit MC a few months back and broke their glasses.” Five of the brothers slapped their hands to their foreheads.

“Oh my…”

“Eh,” MC patted their ren on the arm. “That’s nothing compared to the giant snake at the retreat.”

“Oh! Do you mind letting me tell that story, MC?”

Lucifer was frantically signalling for Diavolo to stop talking but the crown prince was already beginning his retelling of the events. Luke would chime in with an anecdote from an even worse misadventure the two had gone out on every once and a while. This… this wasn’t going well at all…

MC’s ren was… weirdly chill about the whole thing…

“Oh, it’s so nice that you’re having fun, sweetheart. That reminds me of when I was young and your aunt Clytemnestra and I would go out and have adventures.” “Really? You went on weird adventures too?” “…what kind of adventures could possibly compare to being chased by a giant snake in an underground labyrinth..?”

The side characters ended up needing to abscond for various reasons and all that was left was the brothers, MC, and MC’s parent.

They made it to the HOL without issue, which is when Lucifer remembered that he did not put all the cursed objects out of reach… shit.

“Asmo… Asmo!” “What is it?” “Take MC’s ren out of the house in half an hour, keep them occupied in the living room!” “What? Why?” “I need more time to human-proof the house! Distract them, but no funny business!” “Dear brother, for the first time in a very long time funny business is the second thing on my mind! Wait… no, it’s the third… what have I become..?”

Asmo and Satan, super graciously by the way, led MC and their ren to the living room to distract- I mean entertain them for a bit!

Lucifer and the rest of the gang got to work moving certain things around and closing certain doors- shit where was Cerberus?! Did Lucifer forget to walk him that morning?!

So much to dooooooo…

So maybe bringing a human into Majolish and letting them roam around unsupervised wasn’t the best idea Satan and Asmo had, but it sure as heck was an idea. MC looked through shelves of hairpins and bracelets while their ren disappeared around a corner to look at scarves.

“We’re doing such a great job babysitting!” Asmo clapped his hands. “If MC had just been a normal human I bet they’d last the entire year under our care.”

“Hm, you might be right.” Satan smiled and nodded. “Humans are surprisingly entertaining.”

“Yes… speaking of, where exactly is the human?”

The sudden sound of metal slamming against flesh and the delayed sound of something incredibly heavy hitting the floor jolted Asmo and Satan from their conversation.

“Honestly, some people have no fucking manners!”

It was such a different voice than what Satan and Asmo were used to that the only thing that tipped them off to it being MC’s ren was the fact that MC began to giggle. MC’s ren stepped back into view carrying a metal staff that quickly transformed back to their parasol.

Asmo and Satan rushed over to check if their defenceless little human guest was okay, only to find some lesser demon passed out on the floor with an incredibly nasty bump on the side of their head.

“I’ve heard that humans are apparently quite delicious to demons but I didn’t expect someone to actually try and eat me.”

“I-um…” Satan sputtered, looking from Asmo to MC’s parent. “We’re uh…”

“You alright, ren?” MC called from over by the bracelet shelves.

“Yes, I’m alright.” MC’s ren gave the fourth and fifth born a calming smile. “No harm done, well, except to that poor bastard. I do hope I haven’t killed him… that would be such a nasty thing for the poor sales associates to find.”

Okay so maybe the defenceless human wasn’t so defenceless. That was a good thing… right?

“So where exactly did you manage to get your hands on such a weapon..?” “Ah, I come from a family of witches. This was a college graduation present.”

…doit doit seems legit.

The four made it back home just in time, Lucifer and the others had finished human proofing the house.

Yay!

The house tour went by smoothly, everything was all well and good until Beel and Belphie asked MC’s ren to make more cookies.

Oh god dammit the human said they would.

“Oh Beel, you shouldn’t eat the cookie dough raw… the eggs and raw flour will make you sick!” “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Besides, it’s best not to interrupt Beel while he’s eating.” “Yeah it might end like the custard incident.” “Custard… incident?” “MC and Mammon ate my custard and I ended up breaking the wall that connected to MC’s room.” “Hunger tantrums, am I right?”

After that it was Mammon and Levi’s turn to babysit. It went about as well as you’d think.

Levi explained some anime plot in an attempt to make it seem like the Devildom was totally safe and that MC and their ren could stay forever no problem, while Mammon desperately suppressed the urge to swipe the cool parasol.

Finally, it was time for the verdict. Would MC be allowed to stay in the Devildom..? Or would they go back to the human world..?

“Lucifer?”

The demon in question looked up from his paperwork and tried to nod in the most casual way possible. MC’d ren was standing in the doorway, Lucifer must have missed their knock. “Yes? Do you need something?”

MC’s ren smiled and nodded. “It’s about MC’s living situation going forward.”

Lucifer stiffened and got up from his desk. “Y-yes… what about it?”

“MC has expressed that they want to stay here full time with frequent visits to the human world.” The softness that their voice had earlier in the day was completely absent as the human stepped forward into the study and closed the door behind them. “I want to know what you think about that.”

“Well,” Lucifer cleared his throat and tried to shake off the stupid sense of nervousness that had wrapped itself around him. A weak little human’s decision should not make him so anxious! “I would like for MC to stay here as well, I think it would be best for them.”

The human raised an eyebrow and twirled their parasol in their hand. “Really now? In your year with them you truly believe you know what’s best for them?”

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I do.”

MC’s ren went quiet for a few seconds before replying. “I see.”

“And that means..?”

“I knew this day would come, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon.” MC’s ren sighed, and for the first time all day, they actually let their exhaustion show. “I raised MC knowing that one day they’d end up in the Devildom. They’ve told me over and over again how much they like it down here…” the human took a deep breath and slowly shook their head. “If this is what they want… then I give my permission for them to stay with you.”

A wave of relief swept over Lucifer as he finally took a breath. “Thank you.”

“Mm… I’m going to have to use my favour though.”

The relief completely vanished as the Avatar of Pride’s blood ran cold. Memories flooded back from the one night the pair had spent together, the human had offered a cursed record to him that he had spent decades trying to find, in exchange, Lucifer let them have one favour. A favour from a demon was like a single pact order, Lucifer had to do literally anything this human wanted.

“Protect MC, even if it costs you your life.” The human’s words were careful and measured as Lucifer felt the order sink in. “You’ll do that for them, right Lucifer?”

Lucifer nodded as life flooded back into his limbs. “I would have done it without the order.”

So, the brother’s plan to make MC’s ren stay forever failed because they were going back to the human world with MC for summer vacation. Listen, it was needed, MC needed to see the sun lest they shrivel like a sad houseplant.

At least Lucifer technically had primary custody of his little heathen! Victory!

MC said their goodbyes to the friends they had made over the year as they prepared to leave for the next two months, it was filled with so many bone-crushing hugs that MC was surprised that their spine didn’t snap.

MC and Luke had lagged behind the much larger group as they made their way to the assembly hall. MC’s ren was dazzling the miniature crowd with stories of just how adorable MC was as a little kid. The half demon rolled their eyes and silently mourned the loss of any cool points they had gained over the year. Their little companion was oddly quiet, MC lightly nudged him and smiled.

“Aren’t you happy to be going home? You’ve been griping about being stuck down here the entire year. Don’t tell me you’re getting sappy, Luke.”

Luke puffed his cheek out and crossed his arms. “Of course I’m happy to be leaving, the Celestial Realm is the best place ever, the Devildom is completely terrible in every way.”

MC smirked and rolled their eyes again. Just let the little guy go on his rant…

“But… I am going to miss you…” Luke mumbled, MC’s eyebrows shot upwards as they turned their head to look at him. “Th-thanks for being my friend down here… MC. You’re… you’re really nice.”

To their absolute horror, MC felt a lump form in their throat. Oh dear Grandfather… the chihuahua was what broke them?! They quickly looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, then quickly pulled Luke into a hug. The hug was over as fast as it began, but it seemed that Luke didn’t particularly care and was more shocked at the sudden bout of affection.

“If anyone, and I mean anyone asks, I didn’t hug you.” MC murmured, quickly swiping at their eyes.

Luke nodded, a small smile spread across his face. “Got it!”

So the side characters left… *sniffle* everything’s okay… the DDDs work in any of the realms… they could still talk.

Soon, it was time for the final sets of goodbyes…

“Come on, Bean, we’re going to the human world!” MC tried to take the cat from Satan, who didn’t move a muscle.

“If you think you’re taking the cat from here, you’re delusional.” Satan’s smile didn’t leave his face, but the force behind his words was almost enough to make MC back off. Almost…

“My caaaaaat!” MC whined, they ended up getting lightly pushed away by Satan.

“Remember, the summer’s a good time to catch up on anime!” Levi advised. “There’s 24 hours in a day, and an average anime episode is 22 minutes long, you have loads of time!”

“I’ll keep up with my anime only if you promise to listen to the Death Note musical, Levi.” MC giggled and patted Levi on the shoulder.

“Remember MC, take care of your cuticles and your skin.” Asmo took MC’s hand and checked their fingernails. “They were an absolute mess before you got here, so I expect you to keep up your routines this summer!”

“Yeeeeeeeeeeees siiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrr.”

“Bye MC,” Beel handed MC a half opened cup of custard. “I almost ate it, but I didn’t. Make sure you don’t skip any meals this summer.

MC jumped up and gave Beel a quick hug. “Thanks Beel! I’ll be sure to enjoy the custard!”

“Bye, MC. See you next year.” Belphie stood awkwardly stiff, not exactly sure what to do. MC pursed their lips, then quickly wrapped him up in a hug.

“Bye Belphie, I hope all your pillow forts are structurally unsound.”

The avatar of sloth snickered and rested his head on MC’s. “I hope you get really comfortable and are fully ready to go to sleep, then realize you have to pee.”

MC gasped in fake offence and swatted Belphie on the arm.

Mammon put both his hands on MC’s shoulders, his face unusually serious. “Do ya remember what the great Mammon took painstakin’ effort to teach ya?”

“Payday loans are scams, witches are scary, bowline knots are the easiest to undo, don’t wear reflective sunglasses to a poker game aaaaaaaand…” MC grinned mischievously. “Any plan thought up by the Great Mammon should be subject to intense revision.”

“That’s ri- hey!” Mammon laughed and shoved MC towards Lucifer.

MC looked up at Lucifer, the pride demon looked down at them fondly. He reached out and gently ruffled their hair. “I’ll see you next year, MC.”

“Y-yeah…”

Lucifer crouched down slightly to get to their level and gave MC a smile. “I’m very proud of you, you’ve been an immense help this year. Thank you for everything.”

“Thanks for not being a stereotypical supervillain dad, father.” MC smiled softly and fixed their glasses. “Loveyoubye!”

MC turned and rushed to their ren’s side as Lucifer let out a soft chuckle.

“I love you too, MC.”

As Barbatos readied the portal to send the pair to the human world, MC couldn’t wipe the grin off their face. Geez, if this year was a metric mess of fun and insanity… what was the next year going to be like? The half demon’s grin morphed into a bit of a smirk. No way in hell their next year in the Devildom was going to be as insane as their first year.

MC almost giggled as they gave their family one last wave. That wasn’t the time to think about the future, besides, MC knew that it would take two insane chaotic humans to be summoned into the Devildom to even come close to the chaos MC managed to create, both on purpose and by accident.

And what were the odds of that happening?

——————

Authors Note: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ITS DONE SEASON ONE IS DONE!

I wasn’t able to fit the Anti Lucifer League stuff into this one, I’ll put it in a separate fic later!

I NOW NEED TO WORK ON GETTING THROUGH SEASON 2 IN THE ACTUAL GAME. To get mildly serious for a second, thanks to everyone who has stuck around to listen to me spout my fic-y nonsense, you all are nerds (affectionate) and I love you.

[koiblossom5]

tr characters at a sleepover

takemichi: probably the most normal one, which is not a good sign. he’s the type to chomp down aggressively on popcorn during scary movies bc that’s how scared he is. he’s also the first one to pass out, making him the ideal target for pranks (courtesy of mikey, smiley, and kazutora)

mikey: oh god oh fuck. this very violent gremlin will hog all of the snacks, and by all, I mean ALL of them (he’s willing to lend takemichi the popcorn though). nobody can get any sleep bc this little shit snores louder than a vacuum cleaner, much to everyone’s annoyance. oh and the nasty ass creature that’s stealing all of the food in your fridge at night? that’s not your sleep paralysis demon. that’s just mikey with his stupid 3 am snacking.

draken: takes on the role as mikey’s impulse control, but only because no one else will do it. everyone cuddles up toward him during the scary movie because he’s strong and has a very reassuring presence. by the end of the movie, he can’t feel either of his arms or legs. he’ll be willing to buy extra snacks from the local dollar store just so he can get away from mikey.

baji: honestly? just as annoying as mikey. he’s ready to get wild, and constantly squabbles over the snacks with mikey (but he’s willing to share with chifuyu). he lets emma play with his hair while he gets his nails done by chifuyu. before sleeping, everyone has to roll baji up into a blanket burrito because this mf will NOT stop kicking in his sleep. have you ever been strangled in your sleep? oh don’t worry that’s probably just baji dreaming of choking kisaki to death

chifuyu: sneaks peke j in because he can’t sleep without his cat. thankfully, he’s one of the calmer people, probably second to takemichi. he also brings over his nail polish and offers to do everyone’s nails! oh uh, ignore the barfing noises in the background: that’s just chifuyu after he’s eaten one pop tart too many. given up on sleep yet?

mitsuya: he’s willing to be more chill. he loves his sisters, but it’s practically a gift from heaven having one night to himself. he brings all of the snacks, much to mikey’s delight. he’s also probably surprisingly calm during the scary movie, but only because he had a weird but short phase sometime during middle school where he would watch nothing but horror movies. it explains a lot about luna and mana’s upbringing, actually. he’ll try to get inui to model in some clothes for him, much to hakkai’s jealously.

hakkai: slightly bummed because mikey has a super tight grip on the snacks and won’t seem to share (it’s fine, draken is going to get some more). also, mitsuya is asking someone ELSE to model for him, which he seriously can’t stand. luckily, he has someone to rant to (ahem, angry) while he gets his nails done by chifuyu. he’s terrified out of his mind during the movie, screaming really loudly during the jump scares. it’s an odd sight: hakkai’s six foot ass cowering behind mitsuya, who’s calmly munching on some popcorn with takemichi without batting an eye.

pah chin: don’t tell koko, but he somehow managed to sneak his dog, pochi into the fucking house. chifuyu’s not the only one who can’t sleep without his pet. peh-yan is the only one who knows pochi is there. they hide pochi in a closet, occasionally feeding pochi some leftover snacks that mikey hasn’t claimed yet. it’s literally the worst kept secret because these two share a collective brain cell, but somehow no one has noticed yet because there’s too much chaos going on. unfortunately, the closet they hide pochi in just happens to be where koko’s shoes and fancy clothes are stored. don’t worry! koko doesn’t find out until the very next morning, or the morning after THAT, because he’s so exhausted he literally passes out for two days. that’s how much of a headache these dumbasses are

peh yan: nervously helps pah-chin smuggle pochi inside koko’s house. he nearly spills the secret like three times to five different people, but everyone thinks he’s joking. he works off the stress by playing (several) rounds of mario kart with smiley, who is unsurprisingly good at it. after the end of his rage-quit, the TV’s shattered and broken, the consoles are split into two, and koko’s headache turns into a migraine.

smiley (nahoya): whatever you do, do NOT turn your back on this fucking demon. he’s all ready to party and get wild, and by party, he means pranking the shit out of everyone at least once. he’s already got to takemichi literally after he just stepped into the house with the classic bucket prank. takemichi seems to be his favorite target by far, partially because he’s so easy to prank. he reluctantly stops filling the water balloons with boiling hot water only because mitsuya catches him in the act. did I mention that his son of a bitch craves violence?

angry (souya): kind of becomes everyone’s therapist for tonight. he sympathetically listens to his friends’ ranting, purely because he just wants all the tea (keeping a secret? forget it. he’s gonna spill to smiley like ten seconds later anyways). during the water balloon fight, he grabs a giant nerf gun instead, which automatically makes him the winner because everyone’s desperately trying to escape his carnage. after all, he was closest to winning smiley’s paintball party last year. 

koko: man I feel so sorry for this guy. everyone chooses his fancy-ass mansion for the location of their sleepover (without permission because permission is for weak ass nerds ofc ). his blood stress and headache is higher than usual, which is saying something. you know that feeling when you’ve had a busy day at school, and your backpack is so fucking heavy it’s practically killing your spine, neck and shoulders? that’s what he’s feeling right now, but worse. don’t worry, everyone trashed his house, but paying for the property damage will barely scratch his bank account.

inui: it’s a little awkward for him because he’s rarely slept over at someone else’s house (other than koko’s), and he isn’t quite close to the others yet. he pointedly avoids other people (mitsuya, who he literally whacked over the head with a baseball bat, hakkai, because he used to be taiju’s subordinate, mikey. because mikey made it very clear that he doesn’t like inui very much, and koko, because fuck you, read the manga). he sticks close to draken’s side and kind of just follows him everywhere until draken tells him to get to know the others better. that leads to him chatting quietly with takemichi, who seems to welcome him. chifuyu’s very eager to paint his nails (red, because it’s the colour of mitsuya’s blood after he got whammied in the head!). mitsuya is determined to make inui his new model project (again, much to hakkai’s envy and distress), and tries to talk to him, which makes inui avoid him because he’s worried that mitsuya’s going to confront him. luckily, it turns out that mitsuya just wants him to try on some clothes, much to inui’s relief. he ends up making some new friends!

kazutora: you thought mikey and baji was bad, huh? well kazutora is (arguably) worse. he’ll keep it civil for the first hour, only making like, 20 snide comments toward chifuyu while chifuyu is doing his nails (the only thing that’s keeping chifuyu from dumping acrylic nail polish all over on kazutora’s stupid egirl banana hair is that the nail polish was expensive as hell ). kazutora’s favorite prank victim also happens to be poor takemichi, which leads to a competition between smiley and kazutora to see who can prank takemichi the most. suffice to say, takemichi had a truly awesome horrible night.

kisaki: i’d like to make one thing clear. this bastard was NOT invited at all. he’d be a mood killer to have around anyways. even if he was, chifuyu would have killed him before he could even take a single step inside the house.

hanma: in a hypothetical turn of events, let’s just say that if hanma WAS at the sleepover (hypothetically, of course), he would be just as chaotic as smiley, except his idea of “fun” is setting something on fire with those stupid cigarettes of his (don’t smoke kids!! protect your lungs). stealing baji’s forte? not cool hanma. :/

[ur-favorite-queer-queen]

Internet Friends

For Maribat March day 4 theme internet friends

Master List

It was peaceful for once in the manor. Dick, Tim, Damian, Steph, Cass, and Babs were all in the living room doing their own thing. However peace cannot last forever and the silent atmosphere was interrupted by one Timothy Drake-Wayne. 

“Guys come check this out!” He exclaimed, his phone facing the others in the room. They all gathered around the phone, some more annoyed than others. On screen was a video and Tim hit play. 

It showed a girl with dark hair, blue eyes, and pale skin motioning for someone off screen to come over. There was music going on in the background and the girl was obviously getting impatient. The figure came on screen and they were all shocked to see it was Jason. Then at the top of the screen the words ‘Doing this trend with my overprotective best friend’ appeared and now they were very confused. Jason had never mentioned this girl before.

The music stopped and the girl repeated the lyrics “Look at my ass, look at my thighs” as she turned around. But before she could turn around Jason picked her up and carried her off screen before the video ended. 

“What was that?” Dick asked after a few seconds of silence. 

“It’s a trend on tik tok that girls usually do with their boyfriends, but in this case Jason and this girl are just best friends.” Steph answered. 

“How does Jason even know this girl?” Dick pointed out, asking the question that was on all of their minds. Unfortunately, no one, not even Tim, knew the answer. 

Cass then spoke up, “Watch more.” She grabbed Tim’s phone and played another video, however this time it was Jason holding the camera. He came over to the strange girl who looked to be baking something. She looked up at him weirdly, asking something that couldn’t be heard because of the audio playing, luckily they could read lips. 

‘What are you doing?’ She asked

Jason responded with ‘Just listen.’ 

She turned her attention to the camera as the lyrics “That’s my best friend, that’s my best friend” played. Jason was moving to the beat and that seemed to convince the girl to also move to the beat. The song continued with more lyrics playing “She’s not my girlfriend, she’s my best friend”. Then suddenly the lyrics “I just fuck her her from time to time” played and the girl whipped out her spoon and started whacking him on the head with it. She was screaming ‘LIES’ just before the video cut out. 

This led to them going on a spree of watching their tik toks. Apparently this was their shared account and both of them had separate accounts they planned to look at later. An hour had passed of them just watching their tik toks before they stumbled upon an intriguing one. The caption was ‘You guys asked for it, so I’ll explain. This is going to be my side of the story.’

It showed Margot, as they had found out her name was, sitting on her bed recording herself painting her nails a blood red as she talked. 

“Ok so you guys have been asking for this for a while so here it is. How I met Jason part one. And Jason will also be doing his side of the story, just so you’re aware, watch that after this. But this also takes place after the whole ‘Hawkmoth and Lila Incident’ so if you haven’t watched that storytime on my personal account, you should probably go do that.” 

One look at each other and they knew they were gonna look at the story afterwards. It was getting too good to leave now.

“So a long time ago I had a venting account on Instagram. Now I had many venting accounts, all with different usernames, including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, all that good stuff but Instagram is where I met Jason. I posted something about how death could never stop me because I had died by the hands of an akuma before but ladybug’s cure brought me back to life. But then later on in the post I said something about how if this one boy, you all know who he is, couldn’t take a hint then I would rather let death take me than bother living in this mortal realm. Jason ended up seeing the post since we were following each other at the time and DMed me. Now he said and I quote ‘Yo, my username at the time, if you need me to come and beat this guys ass I would be more than happy too. I would gladly let death claim me as well without your shit posts to relate to.’” 

She had tried to make her voice sound deeper and had stopped painting her nails so she could do air quotes. “Looking back on it now, that is such a Jason thing to say, but at the time I was pretty confused and mildly concerned. And time’s up, part two will be posted right now.” 

“Wait, what the heck is an akuma and ladybug’s cure and why did she die from it!?!?!” Dick shouted once the video ended. 

“Dick you don’t know what she’s talking about?” Babs asked in disbelief. 

“Tt, Grayson, and I thought you were one of the smart ones in this family.” Damian scoffed. 

“Does everyone here, but me, know what she's talking about?” Dick questioned, getting yes and nods from everyone in the room.

“Okay Dick,” Tim began, “This is gonna be pretty unbelievable and complicated so I’ll try to explain it as best I can in a short amount of time so we can finish her side of the story before dinner. So while I’m explaining don’t interrupt me.” 

He waited for Dick to nod his head before continuing. “There are jewelry called miraculous that house mini gods that grant powers to whoever has the jewelry. Each miraculous houses a different god thus a different power. Miraculous themselves, including the gods bound to them, are neutral so they can be used for good or evil depending on who wields them. 

Hawkmoth and Mayura used the butterfly and peacock miraculouses for evil purposes and were basically emotional terrorists to the people of Paris. Hawkmoth was able to send out a butterfly with magic to a person feeling negative emotions and manipulate them to do his bidding. These butterflies and villains created by the butterflies were called akumas. If you were or became an akuma you were akumatized. Mayura was able to send out a feather with magic that also used negative emotions to create a monster that aided the akuma. The feathers were called amuks and the monsters were called sentimonsters. 

That was when the heroes Ladybug and Chat Noir also came along and fought Hawkmoth. Ladybug had the ladybug miraculous which granted her the power of lucky charm and miraculous ladybug. Lucky charm gave her an item needed to defeat the akuma and miraculous ladybug reversed all the damage a fight caused. She also had the task of purifying the akuma, turning it back into a butterfly. Chat Noir had the black cat miraculous which granted the power of cataclysm, which made it so he could destroy anything he touched. The 2 worked as a team for around a year before they brought in other temporary heroes who are not that important. Eventually all their temp heroes’ identities were outed and they could no longer use them so they were back to square one. 

However many people noticed that Chat Noir was not taking his job as seriously, he began sitting out battles, flirting with ladybug while there was an akuma, and even getting civilians killed, relying too heavily on ladybug’s cure. We’re not exactly sure what happened, we assumed she snapped because one akuma attack Chat Noir was not there. Instead, there was a whole new team of miraculous wielders including Murder Hornet wielder of the bee miraculous who had the power venom which let her temporarily paralize her opponent, Red Illusion wielder of the fox miraculous who had the power mirage which let him create illusions, Peridot Protector wielder of the turtle miraculous who had the power shelter which allowed him to create indestructible shields, Medusa wielder of the snake miraculous who had the power second chance which allowed her to reset the time line as many times as needed to win the battle, Mustang wielder of the horse miraculous who had the power voyage which let him create portals, and a new black cat holder, Midnight. 

The team took 6 months to defeat Hawkmoth and Mayura, who turned out to be Gabriel Agreste and Natalie Sancour. The Justice League tried to recruit them but they all wanted to live normal lives. Ladybug still checks in every 3-6 months to reassure everyone she still has all the miraculous. I don’t blame them, especially Ladybug, for wanting a normal life. This whole thing started when they were around 13 and ended when they were around 17.”

Tim then clicked on part two of her story, not even waiting for Dick to recover from the huge information dump. 

It was the exact same place she was at in part one, and she was still painting her nails the same shade of blood red. “Okay guys part two of how Jason and I met. If you didn’t watch part one go watch then return to this one. So picking up where we left off I Dmed him back and we ended up having a very long conversation about murder, people not understanding the word no, and spineless cowards. This went on for quite a while of us just messaging each other and eventually we gave each other our emails and then phone numbers. I gave him my phone number just before I moved out of Paris. After like 6 months of texting we planned to meet up at some park in New York that was near the apartment I lived at at the time. Now in hindsight that was a very dumb move on my part so to all the kids watching don’t go meeting up with strangers you meet on the internet. Do as I say not as I did. I almost regretted my decision to meet up with him because he is intimidating as hell! He’s like over 6 foot tall, with muscles the size of my head! I honestly thought that I had put myself in a very bad situation but thankfully he was just as nice in real life like he was over text. We ended up hanging out a lot more and long story short we’re best friends!” 

It was at this point that she looked directly into the camera with a glare that could rival Batman’s, stating, “Literally just best friends to all the people who think shipping us is okay!” And just like that, it was gone, “Anyways see you guys next video, bye!” 

And with that the video ended and the Wayne children, minus Jason obviously, were left wondering how they missed the fact Jason had a female best friend. One where they declared their friendship on the internet nonetheless!

“Well that was certainly something.” Steph commented. 

“Yeah, who knew Jason could have a non hero friend that we didn’t know about.” Tim joked. 

“So are we gonna watch Jason’s part?” Dick asked. 

“I don’t think we have time for that, but we can watch it after dinner.” Tim suggested, “Alfred is probably on his way to get us right now.”

“Tt, what do we do now?” Damian questioned. 

It was then that Cass stole Tim’s phone and started to play a new tik tok. And it showed Margot trying to teach Jason how to do the WAP dance. They were never letting him hear the end of this.

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

I am literally so sorry for that huge information dump with the miraculous. I did not expect to get that carried away while writing and by the time I realized it, it was too late and I had to post. Honestly because of how much I wrote I will probably use the miraculous holders names in a future fic, cause I’m lazy. :P Also if you wanna guess their identities feel free to! Anyways tomorrows prompt fic thing will be like a prequel for this one, it’s basically why Marinette now goes by Margot and why she lived/lives in New York. The prompt “Betrayal" will be connected to this as well. :)  Also sorry this was posted so late, I had things to do, that I still need to do...I hate procrastination

@maribatmarch-2k21

[motherjoel]

last cup of coffee (spencer reid x reader)

summary: you and spencer are the famous frenemies of the BAU, but one day he goes too far in a fight and the team decides to force you both into the same car to make up. little did you know, the check engine light isn’t just a suggestion.

a/n: this is on my ao3 but i wanted to post it on here too! let me know what you think :)

wc: 2.6k

tw: brief mention of suicide

-

“Triple A says it’ll be a few hours before they’ll get here,” Spencer sighed, shutting off his phone and shoving it in his pocket. The car engine had stopped working about 10 minutes ago and you cursed yourself for your terrible navigation skills. It may have been your fault that you had no idea where you were, but you'd never admit to it- like many other things you’d never admit to. Your extreme sense of pride led you to blame Spencer for not doing anything about the check engine light. It was this same sense of pride that hid your real feelings for this man- feelings you would never admit to even yourself. Instead, you shielded yourself from these emotions in the form of daily bickering matches with Mr. Genius.

The two of you had ended up in the same car on the way back to the hotel, which was insisted on by the team. You could feel the tension in the air- the tension that had been there since you stormed out of the break room earlier. You both normally never went for blood in these arguments- nothing behind either of your words were to be taken seriously, even the team knew this. Everyone knew that you and Spencer had a bit of a love hate relationship- today, however, was focused on hate. Ever since he went a little too far during one of your bickering matches, you had been icy with him. The team couldn’t take the tension, so they figured a long car ride would solve the issue, except, what was meant to be only an hour of awkward silence was now an indefinite amount of time.

“Well that's just great,” you huffed, going to check your phone to see that it was dead. You dropped it into your lap with a sigh and leaned your head on the window to gaze outside. The cold glass felt nice on your forehead- a contrast to the flushed hotness you had been feeling whenever your mind drifted to your fight with Spencer. The pent up anxiety from this case had really weighed on you- the unsub was killing teen girls and was framing the deaths to look like a suicides. This struck a chord with you, but you tried your hardest to not let it show. You thought back to your argument earlier, where your icy exterior had faltered slightly.

Most of the team was in the break room of the police station you were working the case at, fueling up on the coffee you all so desperately needed. You were the last one to fill your cup, or so you assumed, so you decided to fill your mug to the top with what was left in the coffee pot. Spencer was the last to walk in, and when he saw you holding the empty pot he immediately started in on you.

“Wow, I'm not surprised Y/N took the last of the coffee. Predictable,” he said with a huff, slamming his travel mug on the counter. You winced at the noise, your stress headache was back and you didn’t feel like dealing with his temper.

“You know what Reid? Maybe if you weren’t shitting around with that pretty receptionist over there, you would’ve gotten here on time. Not my fault men think with their dicks,” you said the last sentence under your breath, but he definitely heard it from his flustered reaction.

“I was asking her to bring me some files!” he yelled, seemingly defending himself to the room of your teammates who had stopped in their tracks to watch their daily entertainment. “You know what, Y/N, you’re just insufferable,” he said, turning to the coffee machine to fill it up. Your eyes widened, but you tried your best to mask your expression or to come with a response- when both failed, you stormed out of the room and went to the bathroom to ground yourself, not hearing Morgan whack him on the back of the head once you were out of sight.

-

You had both been silent for about 20 minutes when you decided to look back at him for the first time. He was shifting in his seat, trying to get comfortable for a nap. You couldn’t stand to sit here in silence for what could possibly be hours, so you tried to break the ice.

“Tired?” you asked him. Simple, but enough to get the two of you talking. Or so you thought.

“Yeah, someone took the last cup of coffee,” he said sarcastically, not daring eye contact.

Groaning, you opened the car door, stepped out and slammed it, deciding to walk down the street you had stopped on until you reached the dead end. It had begun to snow as you walked, and you cursed yourself for forgetting your jacket. At this point, it didn’t matter- the icy coldness of the outdoors was better than the coldness coming from Spencer's attitude.

 After walking for a few minutes, you had come across a cliff with a view overlooking the city below. The sight was enough to make you forget about your dead phone and the genius, who had, unbeknownst to you, quietly followed you to this spot. You spotted a green wooden bench overlooking the city and took a seat. It wasn’t long before your tears began to flow. They were wet hot tears of embarrassment, of anger, and of sadness. For years working in the BAU, you had tried to keep up your barrier, being the badass in the black boots (Garica’s loving nickname for you). Your past weighed on you, however, and you kept everyone at an arm's length. All of these people you so desperately wanted to be closer to, and one person in particular who uncharacteristically gave you butterflies. Letting these people in, however, meant vulnerability. Getting close to someone just meant that losing them would inflict great pain on you, and you didn’t think you could survive any more loss in your life.

After crying for a few minutes and wiping your tears on your sleeves, you felt a sweater being draped around your shoulders. The sweater smelled like him. He made his way around the bench and sat next to you. You hastily wiped the last of your tears and scooted to the edge of the bench to stay as far away from Spencer as possible.

“So, why'd you follow me? I thought I was ‘insufferable’” you quoted him from earlier, the sentiment that struck a chord. You hugged the sweater tighter to your body, ignoring that it belonged to him because the chill of the night catching up with you.

“Listen, Y/N, I'm sorry about that. You know how I get when I'm having difficulty with a case, and it's not like we have a great track record with each other,” he defended himself, and he was right. Neither of you really expressed outward kindness for each other, but you never knew why. “But… I didn’t think today was any different,” he finally looked up at you. 

“You’re right, Reid. Today isn’t any different,” you sighed, avoiding actually telling him what was wrong- although your splotchy red post-cry face was telling enough. He flinched at your use of Reid- although you two were “frenemies,” you always called him Spencer, sometimes even Spence. The team teased you for it but you shrugged it off- “Spence” was just easier to say, or so you told yourself.

“Then… why did you storm off?” he asked softly, looking back down at his hands on his lap, fidgeting with them slightly. You avoided his gaze, knowing that you were about to tell him something that only Garcia knows- she did a bit of research on you because she wanted to know why you were so cold, and when she found out that your parents had died at a young age, she was nothing but kind to you. She also kept everything to herself, which you were grateful for.

“When I was in high school, I was in a really bad place,” you started, fighting back the tears. Spencer scooted closer to you, urging you to continue. “I wasn't very well liked. When I was 15, my parents both died in a car crash and I transferred schools to live with my aunt,” you confessed. Spencer's expression saddened greatly, and he rested his hand on your arm as a form of comfort. You gave him a look that said “oh, and that's not even the half of my trauma” before you continued.

“At this new school, I was bullied a lot. Like, a lot a lot. People told me I was a waste of space, I was… insufferable,” you said, ignoring his pitying expression. “I started to believe these things. Spence… I tried to take my own life,” you said, finally breaking down in tears. Before you could continue, he wrapped his arms around you and you buried your face in his chest, letting your messy tears stain his shirt without thinking twice. His hands stroked your back, soothing you. You had melted into him, finally feeling vulnerable for the first time in years. For some reason, you were no longer embarrassed of your vulnerable side. You bore your heart and soul to this man and were greeted with nothing but kindness. Pulling away for a moment, you continued telling your story.

“I’m doing a lot better now,” you said, wiping your tears with your sleeve as he maintained eye contact, showing his full support. “I don’t have those thoughts anymore, and if I do I know to get help. It’s just difficult to get close to people because I'm afraid… that if I lose them, I’ll be right back where I was when I was 18,” you finished, realizing his hands were grabbing yours.

“Y/N, I am so sorry. This case probably affected you differently and I was such an ass earlier, god I'm terrible,” he criticized himself, putting his head in his hands. You reached over and took his hands in yours again, resting your entwined fingers between you. This was the most physical contact you had ever had with him, but for some reason it felt more right than anything- you never knew what you were missing until now.

“Spence, there's no way that you would have known,” you soothed, looking into his eyes and rubbing his hand with your thumb. He looked down at your hands and sighed, before returning his gaze to you, but there was something different about his expression. Rather than his usual contempt, or even the pity from a few minutes ago, he now looked almost amazed. Like you were some celebrity or a superhero who had just saved the world. Before you even knew what you were doing, you started to lean in, Spencer mirroring you. Soon enough, you were inches away from his fluttering lashes, you could feel his breath on your lips. You pulled away suddenly, apologizing profusely for your out of character actions.

“Oh my god Spence, I'm so sorry, I think I'm just emotional right now, and you're being so nice to me, I didn’t mean to make things weird,” you avoided eye contact, face flushed with embarrassment.

“Y/N, it's okay! I leaned in too…” he blushed. You looked back up at him to see his eyes were already on you. Simultaneously, you both leaned in and crushed your lips together, his arms snaking around your waist and yours resting on the sides of his face. Your lips moved in perfect harmony with passion as you leaned your back against the bench armrest, him leaning forward to keep your lips connected. There was a hunger between you two- like these years of bickering and sexual tension (that apparently everyone but you two had noticed) had built up so much, it finally spilled and manifested itself as a makeout session with your once enemy.

You didn’t know how long you stayed like this, entwined with each other, before you both came up for air. He pulled away from you, still leaning over you but his face was now a couple inches away, and smiled. You both sat up and started to laugh uncontrollably. It was ridiculous, really- the two of you having an intense makeout sesh only seconds after you bore your soul to him. But he was Spencer, and you were you. 

“That was…” you started.

“Amazing,” Spencer finished for you. You both sat in silence for a minute, his hand touching his lips, before you scooted closer to him and rested your head on his shoulder, curling your legs under you. He wrapped his arm around you and your hands met, resting between the two of your warm bodies.

 “What are you thinking about?” he asks you. You sigh in contentment, the cold air biting your nose in the right way.

“I'm thinking that this is one of those moments that are so... perfect. It’s just so wonderful, you almost feel sad because... nothing will ever be this good again,” you confessed. He took his arm back from around your shoulder and faced you, looking in your eyes.

“If you’ll be my girlfriend, I can promise you that we can have endless moments like this,” he told you, taking you by surprise. You looked at him, smiling widely as his face broke into insecurity.

“Your… girlfriend?” you asked, still in shock. He started to fidget a bit in his seat.

“Obviously, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, I know this is really sudden but I don't know… I'm sorry, I know we're supposed to hate each other or whatever, but I’ve just… I’ve liked you for a while now,” he blurted. You laughed at his shyness, it was really adorable to see him flustered like this around you.

 “Spencer, I really like you. I’ve liked you ever since you spilled your coffee on me on my first day,” you recalled fondly, he smiled. “I even liked you when you tried to clean it up but accidentally felt up my boob,” you laughed at that memory, he blushed profusely. “I think these little arguments that we get into were just fueled by my ‘keep everyone at arm's length’ rule- it was you that I was afraid to get close to, because Spencer Reid, you are dangerous. You have the capability of shattering my heart into pieces because I just like you so damn much,” you confessed to him, his face was in awe. You studied his expression, lips parted slightly, eyebrows raised. His eyes held pools of adoration, and rather than be scared and shy away from it, you finally wanted to dive in and soak in it. His expression softened as he leaned in, tilting your head up by putting his hand on your chin.

“Y/N,” he whispered. “I swear to never shatter your heart into pieces if it's the last thing I do,” he said softly before closing his eyes and pressing his lips to yours. This kiss held less intensity, but more soft passion and caring. You felt safe in his embrace, safe for the first time in years, and you knew this is where you were meant to be.

[cardiophileanonymous]

Short Thorquill Drabble: Clear!

AU where the guardians take one Electro, someone with electric powers similar to Thor. He is an alien race considered gods like asgardians. I know he’s a goofy Spider-Man villain but I couldn’t find many other electric villains in the marvel universe lol so just roll with it.

...

“Ha,” Electro quietly laughed. “A GOD of thunder? You’re barely even a child, let alone a deity!”

Thor was backed up to a corner, well, more of a cliff. Quill looked up, frantically waving his arms to get the attention of the men above him.

“Thor!” His shouts fell on deaf ears as the blonde man was too busy focusing on his opponent to notice. He glanced at a broken statue before him. “Rocket, what are these statues made of?”

Rocket shrugged.

“I dunno, silver maybe? But that doesn’t matter right now!”

Without explaining himself, Quill grabbed a long stick like piece that had broken off.

“Hey asshole!” The villain looked down. “Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you! If you really have such amazing lightning powers, why’ve I never seen you use em?!” He lifted up the long rod as if it was a sword.

Rocket’s jaw dropped in fear. He was pretty sure he had a good idea of what he was planning, and Peter had done far more stupid things in the past. He still whispered to him, determined to say his piece and not let his friend at least know what a suicide mission this was.

“Quill, are you crazy?! Silver is the most conductive metal in existence!”

Instead of backing down, the man stood up straighter.

“At least Thor shows his ‘pathetic’ powers! You haven’t! That’s cuz’ you’re not nearly as good as him!”

Thor shook his head.

“Quill-”

The villain finished his sentence.

“I have no need to prove myself to you or any other mortal!”

Quill shrugged and began to speak in a condescending, taunting manner.

“Then, go ahead! Strike me down, Zeus!” The villain turned his attention back to Thor, but he still looked down in the corner of his eye. The human smiled, a nervous smile from fear. He had to get his attention back quick, else Thor would be toast. “YOU DON’T HAVE THE BALL-”

With that, the villain turned, throwing a full speed lightning bolt at Quill. He jumped up from the electrocution immediately.

“QUILL!��

The call came from both Rocket and Thor. Rocket was almost frozen with fear. Meanwhile, Thor has the opposite reaction, taking his large battle axe and swiping along Electro’s feet with the long handle, causing him to fall on his side.

...

Rocket wasn’t sure what he should be doing, but dammit, he was gonna do his best. He had been trying chest compressions for the past few minutes, but with his smaller size he wasn’t sure if he was getting it done properly. Thor ran up to them.

“Rabbit! Is Quill-”

“I am Groot!”

Rocket lifted his head.

“I’m tryin, alright?! Listen, there’s still a pulse!”

Thor perked up.

“There is?!”

“Yeah but it’s way too slow and irregular! I’m trying to get it back to normal, but…”

Thor suddenly got an idea. He nudged Groot out of the way and kneeled down next to Rocket, in front of Quill.

“I have an idea. I saw something back on Earth. I think I can help.”

He shooed him away and opened up Peter’s jacket before ripping off his shirt. He put his hands on his chest. Rocket couldn’t help but keep butting in through the whole thing.

“Wait, what what? What are you doing?”

Thor gave a clear warning.

“Stand back, Rabbit.”

He didn’t know how much was too much. Or too little for that matter. He focused, putting a small electric surge through Peter’s body. His chest convulsed up involuntarily before lying still again. Rocket jumped up, yapping uncontrollably.

“What are you doing, trying to kill him faster?!”

“What is his pulse now?”

Rocket brought his paw up to Quill’s neck to check. He gave Thor an odd look.

“...better than before.” He quickly started chest compressions again. “But still not good enough. His heart’s all outta whack.”

Thor looked to the side. After a few more moments of chest compressions, he brought his hands back down again.

“Stand back, Rabbit.”

He did a similar shock this time. He tried to amp it up a little bit more, just enough so he wouldn’t hurt him and return his heart to his normal rhythm. The body jumped up before falling again. Rocket monitored Peter’s pulse again before returning to chest compressions.

“Better, but it’s still, irregular, dammit!”

Thor put a hand to Peter’s wrist while Rocket continued on with his attempt at cpr. He wasn’t kidding when he said it was irregular. The odd thumping sent a chill up his spine. Still, it seemed to get slightly better with Rocket continuing to do what he was doing.

“Stand back, Rabbit.”

Thor sent another surge of electricity, raising the power up again this time. But this would be the most powerful he was willing to do. Any more, and he was positive he’d be hurting him far more than helping.

Rocket continued with chest compressions. His heart rate was better, but not by much. Thor was beginning to get worried.

“Stand back, Rabbit.”

Another surge. Quill’s whole body convulsed. Rocket shook his head, frantically pushing his chest at a consistent rate.

“A big lightning bolt did this, why can’t a big lightning bolt put it back?!”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

“I know it doesn’t work like that! But…” Rocket began to get tired. He looked down, scared that Quill would never come to. “...but I wish it did.” He slowed down, and slowly came to a stop, before kneeling down. He looked like he was genuinely going to cry. Thor sighed, recalling all the previous friends he’d seen die in battle. He didn’t want this to be another one of those memories.

“Stand back, Rabbit. I’m going to try this one more time.”

He sent one more surge of electricity, hopeful that this time, Quill would open his eyes. After his body stiffened then returned to a relaxed state, Thor took a keen look at his face. He didn’t move an inch. The god finally looked down in defeat. His eyes turned to Rocket and Groot, who were already partially mourning. They would no doubt carry him back to the ship, and subsequently to a hospital, but the ship wouldn’t be there for another fifteen minutes. By then it’d likely be far too late.

Suddenly, Peter stirred. He groaned a little before sitting up. He looked at everyone.

“What… happened…?”

Rocket started laughing hysterically, something he was doing to stop himself from crying. It was a very sad laugh as a result.

“YOU GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, YOU IDIOT!”

Suddenly, Quill’s memories started coming back to him. That’s right! He had pissed Electro off enough into zapping him. But that was strange, because the shock he got from him seemed like it happened ages ago. And he could’ve sworn he came to a couple times from a different kind of electricity.

“But… I thought I just felt zapping.” He looked down and noticed his clothes. “And what happened to my shirt? Was this all from the electric shock?”

Thor lifted his head up in pride.

“I just used my powers to send a large electric current through your heart!”

Quill looked at him with a confused smile before frowning with an open mouth.

“You WHAT?”

“It’s like a technology they have on Earth. A ‘defibrillator’. It puts your heart back to a ‘normal rhythm’.”

Rocket shrugged.

“I mean, it did do that. Your heart rate was waaay worse before Thor started zappin’ ya.”

Quill was speechless. Of course, the first thing going through his mind was holy shit this idiot could’ve just fried me a million times over right now and I could’ve been long dead, did he even know what he was doing?! But then he looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. He wasn’t dead. Yeah, he was more than worse for wear, but that’s to be expected of someone who just got struck by powerful electricity. In fact, if Thor hadn’t gotten the idea to use his own hands to revive him, was it possible he could’ve died?

…

Later that night, Thor hung by the bar, laughing and joking with Drax and Rocket, as he usually did. This time, Peter joined them, and waited patiently for when Rocket and Drax decided to leave. He decided that after the other two were gone would finally be the time he’d swallow his pride. He knew he needed to say some sort of thank you. Not because of another crew mate telling him to or because his hand was forced. But out of genuine appreciation.

After Drax had left, Peter made a couple facial expressions at Rocket. The two had known each other well enough at this point that they were capable of having conversations without a single word. He indicated that he wanted to be alone with Thor and Rocket respectfully nodded and left the room. Once it was just the two of them sitting at the bar table, Peter finally cleared his throat.

“Thor.”

The god nodded.

“I guess… I just wanted to say… thank you.”

Thor seemed confused.

“Thank you?”

“Yes. For the whole shocking me, back to life, or whatever.”

“What? I should be thanking you!”

Peter turned his head to the side.

“Huh?”

“Yeah! If it weren’t for you distracting him, I’d have been finished!”

Quill’s confusion quickly turned into pride.

“Yeah…! You’re right!” He laughed, but his pride was shaky, and didn’t stay for long. After being face to face with death, again, now didn’t feel like the time to soak in praise unnecessarily. “...seriously though. Look, I know we don’t really get along, so the fact you saved me is just…” He couldn’t really convey the words, so he just reiterated his original point. “Thank you.”

Thor shrugged.

“Why shouldn’t I have? I feel I have been at your ire for no reason yet you risked your life for me in the first place.”

Quill felt like all his mental functions stopped for a moment as he registered what he was just told.

“Did I?”

“Well, what was that whole display?” Thor chuckled as he raised his bottle in the air, quoting Quill right before he got struck by lightning. “Come on, strike me down, Zeus!” He laughed at the previous sentence. “That line is actually pretty funny, since you turned out alive from this whole ordeal.”

Quill unconsciously started nodding.

“Yeah. I guess that is a funny line.”

He started to ponder, why did he do it? In his eyes, Thor was an annoying, rambunctious barbarian. He was always waiting for the day Thor would get off the ship, a day that never really came. Perhaps it was because he didn’t make a good first impression, maybe it was because he saw him as a rival for leadership. But despite all of that, there was no way in hell he deserved to die, so his heroism probably kicked in before any sort of jealousy or bitterness. Sure, literally asking to get struck by lightning was a less than eloquent way of going about saving him. But it was the best he could come up with in the heat of the moment. He snapped back to reality when Thor handed him a beer.

“How is your heart feeling?”

Peter grabbed the beer and looked him in the eyes, confused.

“Um, normal?”

“Well, what’s your heart rate?”

“Normal, I guess…? Like I don’t feel any different, so-”

Thor rolled his eyes, putting a hand on his wrist without question. After a few seconds, he nodded and smiled.

“It’s normal.”

Peter did his best not to move his hand back out of instinct. Was just randomly grabbing people’s wrists to check on their pulses a common thing among asgardians, or was this man just incredibly weird? Instead of saying anything, he tried his best to laugh it off.

“Well, that’s good.”

He swore he could still feel Thor’s fingers on his pulse long after he finally retracted his hand. It was a strange phantom touch that remained. It annoyed him a little bit, but at the same time, it was oddly… comforting? He took a few sips of his beer as Thor went to bed and he pondered when he ought to do the same.

[cherryonigiri]

Moment I: Crash Landing (NOT) On You

Son of Zeus!Bokuto x Child of Demeter!Reader || PJO x Haikyuu AU

Summary: Bokuto swears it’s all Akaashi’s turtledove’s fault. If it didn’t decide to fly over Cabin Four, he wouldn’t be in this mess, fearing death (or at least serious injury) by celestial bronze gardening tool. (Featuring Kuroo, Son of Hermes, still the provocation master).

wc: 2.1k || genre(s): humor, fluff || masterlist: turtledoves & daisies

A/N: this is the first fic I’ve written in a while, so I’d appreciate any feedback/comments. Also can i just say that I’m absolutely infatuated with Son of Zeus!Bokuto 🥺

“Bokuto-san, be carefu!l” Akaashi worriedly watches as his white-haired friend streaks through the sky. Bokuto has his hands outstretched, golden eyes wholeheartedly focused on the turtledove fluttering in the air in front of him. Zipping closer, he swipes at it again, trying in vain to capture the bird as it darts away from his grasp.

His fingertips brush the feathers, only for it once again dodge his hand. “Dammit.” Bokuto scowls as he continues to loop around the dove. As much as he loves flying, the sun is starting to hurt his eyes as he struggles to capture Akaashi’s turtledove. He knows Akaashi loves the bird, but by the gods, did it have a “free spirit” and then some. To be fair, Akaashi had befriended it during a quest, so it’s probably all magicked up or something. Which would explain why it was impossible for him to catch the stupid thing despite being a literal son of the skies.

Apparently the turtledove just wants to make his day harder because suddenly it dives downwards towards Camp Half-Blood, darting past the lava-belching climbing wall as it makes it’s way towards the fields. Bokuto gives chase, plunging after the damn bird, pouring on the speed as he tries to catch up to the (he’s now 95% sure it’s) magic avian. He can see his outstretched hand getting closer and closer towards the bird and he is finally able to just get his arms around it when suddenly he hears someone shouting his name.

“Bokuto-san!” Akaashi cries out from a distance, watching in horror as his friend continues to speed towards the ground

“LOOK OUT!” a foreign voice shouts as several other campers scream. Twisting midair, Bokuto does his best to shield the bird from the impact as he plows through the soil, uprooting the rows of wheat, and—

Oh shit. He can see the golden stalks slowly floating down from the air. Please, please, please tell me I didn’t land where I think I landed. There’s a giant divot in the soil where he must have skidded to a stop. His head is aching, and he’s definitely scraped up, but otherwise he’s fine. Bokuto has never gotten seriously hurt from a fall before (courtesy of being a son of Zeus, he guesses). He’s a little banged up, and he’ll definitely be sporting a few bruises, but nothing a bit of ambrosia can’t fix. Groaning, he sits up, and gets a better look around him. There are several campers staring at him in shock, and an increasing number are beginning to look pretty pissed. In the distance, he can see emerald vines agitatedly waving in the air. There’s only one place within the entire camp where you could find moving plants, and oh my gods he is so screwed— Yup, he definitely landed smack dab in the middle of Cabin Four’s fields.

Gods he is in so much trouble- Demeter’s children are fiercely protective of the magical plants in their gardens, fields of wheat included. Grown from mysterious seeds gifted to them by their mother, the crops behind their cabin always seem to yield fruit regardless of the season and can regrow harvests overnight. (Bokuto can confirm this because he once spent an entire evening staring at a watermelon as it developed from bud to full fruit before the sun rose.) Cold dread settles in his stomach once he remembers that the plants only retain their regenerative abilities so long as they remain rooted in the soil of Camp Half-Blood. And he can tell with a glance that the piles of wheat surrounding him are most definitely not rooted in anything. Ah, that’s probably why more than half of Cabin Four looks like they wouldn’t mind tying him up and throwing him into the sacrificial flame before dinner.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he gulps as he stands, turning around to face a pissed off Cabin Four camper. “What the hell did you do to my plants Bokuto?” you scream at him. Bokuto is well known—his shockingly bright hair is recognizable anywhere, and he’s also a son of one of the Big Three, so it’s no surprise you know his name. Tilting his head, he tries to match your face to a name. Maybe you’re a new camper? A glance at the cord around your neck, filled with more than a few beads, assures him you’ve been at camp for a while. Damn, it seems like you’re one of the few campers he’d never crossed paths with up until now. Akaashi appears behind you, chest heaving from sprinting towards Bokuto. He makes concerned eye contact with Bokuto, and the owl-haired man nods reassuringly before revealing the turtledove safely tucked behind his arms.

“Um...I was trying to get this back to ‘Kaashi,” he blurts out, shoving the turtledove in your face. You raise an eyebrow before turning towards the bird. You coo at it, whistling and nodding as the bird chirps back at you. They’re one of the campers Konoha’s mentioned before - the ones who can talk to animals he recalls, watching in awe as you converse with the turtledove. You seem to nod before gesturing for Bokuto to release the dove, which he does hesitantly. Surprisingly, it calmly hops from his hand to your arm, chirruping and nuzzling your cheek with its head as you turn around.

Walking towards another section of the garden, you finally stop in front of a cluster of vines. Moving the dove to your shoulder, squat down, coaxing the vines to slowly grow outwards and around your hands. Your gaze becomes focused, and the spring breeze seems to dance around you as the vines intertwine, spiraling to form a beautiful cage. With a snap of your fingers it’s complete, vines retreating from your hands and moving back towards the soil, leaving you with a sphere of intertwining branches that somehow still look alive despite not being attached to a living plant.

With a small shrug, you nudge the bird towards the entrance of the cage, smiling when it happily chirps it’s satisfaction. Turning around, you hand the spherical container to Akaashi. “She didn’t like the metal cage, but as long as you leave the door open she promises to come back by sunset and not cause any trouble, right?” you pause to look at the turtledove out of the corner of your eye, but she quickly coos at you, assuring you that you shouldn’t be seeing any stray turtledoves for the time being. Akaashi quietly nods and thanks you, clutching the cage firmly to his chest.

For a moment, Bokuto breathes a sigh of relief - it seems like his days of turtledove chasing are over. That quickly changes as you whip around and stomp back towards him, seemingly with the wrath of Hades in your eyes. With one flick of your wrist he finds himself quite literally rooted in place with the surviving wheat stalks and surrounding grass tightening around his limbs. You pull something out of your pocket and oh gods is that a celestial bronze shovel?!

“You!” You’re glaring at him, pointing your shovel at his chest. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to get those magical wheat seedlings growing right?”

Bokuto swallows nervously before shaking his head. Your scowl deepens, and now the shovel is definitely pressing into his collarbone and he’s just the slightest bit worried that he might actually meet an untimely demise (via. a highly enhanced gardening tool).

“You’re so lucky we just harvested this field yesterday, otherwise I would have personally gone to Chiron and requested that you be banned from participating in all combat-related activities for a couple of weeks!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Isn’t that a little much? It’s not like I destroyed the whole field or anything,” Bokuto protests. Sue him for being a little competitive, but he enjoys the chance to butt heads with other campers (all in good fun of course).

“It’s not like I destroyed the whole field or anything,” you parrot back at him in a sing-songy voice. “Yeah, and thank the gods for that, otherwise I’d actually whack you with this shovel right now.” On second thought maybe he shouldn’t talk back. Wounds caused by celestial bronze- even tiny scrapes and bruises - sting like a bitch and aren’t as responsive to ambrosia and nectar. He’d rather not deal with a stinging injury for the next couple of days on top of recovering from his untimely crash-landing into your field.

“Woah, woah, woah, y/n.” Bokuto sighs in relief when he hears Kuroo’s voice. The dark haired son of Hermes approaches you, waving his hands placatingly in front of his chest. “I’m sure we all realize that Bokuto probably shouldn’t have dive bombed your field—”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault bro!” Bokuto hisses at Kuroo.

“Shut up Bo, I’m trying to save your ass right now,” Kuroo whispers back, before going back to smiling sheepishly at you.

“--but I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t knock my best friend out with a celestial bronze object.”

Chuckling, you tuck the shovel back into your pocket. “I wasn’t gonna even touch him,” you retorted, “just wanted to scare him a bit since this is gonna be a pain in the ass to fix-up.” You sigh, looking at the carnage around you. Any plant grown from your mother’s magical seeds was temperamental at first— the first time you’d tried to grow this field of wheat the plants had almost overtaken all the land surrounding the cabins. It took a careful combination of soil preparation, plant magic, plus many hours of watering, shoveling and weeding, to coax them to grow without overrunning the rest of Camp Half-Blood.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, and now that Akaashi’s bird isn’t trying to Shawshank Redemption its way out of a cage every ten minutes, I’m sure you won’t be getting any sudden sons of Zeus falling from the sky anytime soon,” Kuroo jokes.

“Doesn’t mean it’s going to be a walk in the park to get this back together,” you complain. Your eyebrows are pinched together, lips sticking out in a small pout, and for some reason, despite the fact you’re probably still pissed at him, Bokuto can’t help but find your expression slightly endearing.

Noticing the small pink spots that appear on Bokuto’s cheeks, Kuroo follows his friend's gaze. His smirk deepens when he realizes what’s caught the silver-haired man’s attention. Golden eyes glimmering at the opportunity to provoke you just the tiniest bit, Kuroo replies “Would you mind untying Bo? I mean I know you’re into some kinky stuff y/n but I didn’t realize that—”

“Oh my gods, shut up Kuroo!” you growl, cheeks burning with embarrassment. A rushed wave of your hand causes the vines to drop Bokuto unceremoniously onto the ground. Within a second you’re less than an arms’ length away from Kuroo, celestial bronze shovel pinned against his throat. “I will not hesitate to hit you with this if another word about that so much as leaves your mouth Kuroo,” you hiss.

Kuroo gingerly eases the deadly gardening implement away from his neck, backing away with Bokuto in tow. “Don’t worry about it y/n, after all, we did agree it was only a one-time thing,” he responds, laughing when he sees your back stiffen.

“I hope you go rot in Hades, Kuroo Tetsurou!” you huff, as you roll your eyes. “Go drown in the Acheron or something!” you add before stomping back towards your cabin.

“I’ll let you know when Nico or someone else from Cabin Thirteen has an opening in their calendar to take me down for a visit!” Kuroo barks out a laugh when he catches you flipping him off as you walk towards the cabins.

Stretching your hands above your head, the tension seeps out of your shoulders as the sun sets. You can see the lights of the mess hall glowing in the distance, but you’re too exhausted to bother with a big dinner or company from the other cabins tonight. Instead, you stroll back to your bunk in Cabin Four for a well deserved nap. (If you get hungry, you can always raid the cabin pantry later.)

In the distance, a pair of golden, owl-like eyes keep drifting towards your retreating figure, wondering, why, of all things, you have a celestial bronze gardening shovel.

Bonus Facts:

Y/n owns an entire set of garden tools made with celestial bronze. Bokuto discovers this later and is genuinely scared + concerned™

“That” refers to a secret game of truth and dare that happened one night when all the counselors got bored during their weekly meeting. Both Kuroo and y/n have sworn on the River Styx to never reveal any specific details from said truth and dare. To this day y/n wonders how Kuroo has gotten away with using it to tease them despite their oath.

Bokuto has actually met y/n before, but just in passing. They were responsible for setting plant traps before a particular game of capture the flag that allowed y/n’s team to waltz over the flag and win the game within a half hour, all while Bokuto’s team could do nothing but dangle from where they were tangled in plant stems and watch.

[taechaos]

I was totally not stalking your blog :D, and caem across this drabble of the notebook were Oc is insecure about her body ans how jk would react, and it was so ummm good?, amazing?, fantastic? and now im kinda wondering how that same situation would go but with Tae from the idea series, only if it is okay

oh thank you so much :DD ALSO I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED BC THIS IS RLY EXCITING 😫😫 love me a stalker tho

ps not proofread cuz its 5 am lOLLoL

Nights are dreadful. You've been having trouble sleeping for some time now, each day going to sleep a little later than the day before, and normally you'd be worried about your sleep schedule for when you eventually go off to college, but you're not. You dread the night because not only do you toss and turn until the sun rises, but because of the overthinking that comes with.

Your hormones are toying with you, from the self-deprecating thoughts to breaking out. If the blemishes and the scars aren't enough, you feel heavier. Normally, you wouldn't care so much for these factors because it's the cycle of life and mother nature, and usually there's no one around to judge you; but Taehyung is in your bed every night, and he sees you every day.

Now, you didn't use to care so much about Taehyung's thoughts about your appearance because he's your step-brother. That was until you began harboring some feelings for him due to a few turn of events, and well, now you're insecure and care about what he thinks. And he's around you all the time, so he's destined to judge you at some point.

These thoughts, along with the fact that you don't like yourself so much right now, are not helping. They're haunting, if anything, and you turn on your side in the dead of the night with Taehyung sleeping on the other end of the bed.

At least you thought he was until he smacked your hip over the blanket with a grumble. "Stop fucking moving, damn." He doesn't sound like he just woke up, instead his tone is alert and slightly irritated. Nights with you have been disastrous because he can't cuddle you from how many times you switch positions and the way you refuse affection. He's stopped himself from slapping you multiple times for whacking his hand away or your witty remarks. Such a bitch.

"Go to your own room then," you huff in a hushed voice and roll your eyes. Your back no longer faces him when he pulls on your shoulder, prompting you to look up at him with crossed arms. He's not impressed with his empty gaze; clearly tired after a busy day and still up at 4 AM. He props his elbow to lean his cheek on his fist.

"Are you afraid I'm going to fuck you in your sleep or something? That was a one time thing– okay, maybe more than once," he rolls his eyes when you look at him sarcastically with high brows and low lids, "but it's not like I'll do it again! I respect women and consent and all that good stuff now, so with this reassurance, let's fucking sleep already." He taps your cheek before throwing his arm over your chest and snuggling his face into your shoulder, his figure practically covering half of you. You don't move as he blows out a deep breath through his nose, clearly relaxed while you still have your eyes open.

A moment of silence passes, and Taehyung whose sense of time is greatly flawed, peeks an eye open to see if you're asleep after twenty seconds of waiting. "Are you awake?"

"No, Tae, I sleep with my eyes open," you spit and he immediately flicks your forehead with his finger. You whine at the sting. The sibling energy irks you when you think about his impact on your sleep schedule, and so on...

"No wonder you always look like a zombie nowadays," he sighs with a shake of his head before joking, "Ugly."

The only sensible reason as to why tears well up in your eyes instantly is that your period is approaching. That must be it, you convince yourself and purse your lips to stop the gradual trembling. It simply isn't the best time to joke about your appearance, because lately your heart intends to take everything so seriously. You hate your current sensitivity, but you can't exactly lower it on a scale.

So you just hold it in.

Taehyung waits for a response for a whole minute before squinting at your side profile. He can see another layer building up on your eye, and he holds himself up by his palm to get a closer look. "Are you good?"

When someone tries really hard to hold back tears, it's so easy for them to break down just by hearing the question: "Are you okay?" Taehyung isn't so empathetic in his approach, but the result is the same when you blink. It's 4 AM for God's sake, people play truth or dare after midnight for a reason. It feels just so intimate at this time, and you can't help the one sob that slips past your lips.

Your step-brother stares wide-eyed at you before bursting out in laughter. "Oh my God, don't tell me you're crying because I called you ugly?"

"Shut up," you demand with a wavering voice. Not the best time to be mocked either.

"Princess, I was kidding," he straddles you by sitting on your thighs to lean down, hands palming your flushed cheeks as he chuckles. "You cry so easily."

Taehyung is arguably either the worst or the best consolation by how he makes your sadness feel so out of place; stupid and worthless.

"I know I look like shit, okay?" you hiccup and slap his hands away to wipe your tears. "You don't have to be around me all the time if you find me so ugly. You know I'm insecure. Wh-why would you say that?"

He clicks his tongue and brushes away the hair strands sticking to your face. "Because I didn't know you'd be so offended by it. Princess, take a joke; I was just commenting on your eyebags. You look like a fucking raccoon."

Your cries get a little more heartwretching when you struggle to breathe over your hiccups and sobs. "You're so mean!" you cover the top of your face in shame. "Do you enjoy watching me cr-cry?"

"Kind of," he scratches the back of his head with a sheepish grin. Your sudden temporary silence makes him sweatdrop and avoid eye contact. "Okay, listen, no, I just don't feel bad about it. I mean I would be mad if someone else made you cry, but you're crying over a joke–"

"Just leave," you cut in with a sniffle. You stare at the ceiling as your lips fall into a hard line. Though you know you'll change your mind later, right now he's more toxic than you can bear. Every word he says cuts deep. "You're making it all worse."

"Okay, wait," he holds up his hand with a sigh. "Tell me what you're insecure about. Your body? I'm the only one who'll ever see it, so who gives a–"

"You called me ugly."

"You are gorgeous, okay?" he emphasizes each word and closes in on your face. "There is nothing I don't love about you. Ugh," he shivers, "didn't mean to sound romantic."

You're growing sleepy as the aftermaths of your breakdown, and you can only muster a chuckle at his genuine distress.

"Well, I already started, so I'll go full simp mode, your body is a temple, queen. Scratch that, you're my fucking goddess. I want to worship you, but someone's been too busy crying and staying up to notice my sexual frustration for the past week."

A laugh escapes you at his antics that you only get a glimpse of every now and then. You know he doesn't know how to comfort you or take care of you when you cry, but his humor works in his favor.

"By the way, I can't believe you didn't let me touch you," he scoffs. "I was going to start doing it in your sleep again, but you wouldn't even do that! Then you go around, bitching and whining about being ugly like a stupid girl."

"Stupid? I–"

He cuts you off by pressing his index finger on your lips. "Don't talk. You're pretty and sexy, especially when you cry. Let me do the thinking for you, stupid girl. Do one thing right and go to sleep, I'll take care of the rest."

[theladyofdeath]

A Little Prank {ACOTAR}

31 Days of Halloween: Day 28.

All installments co-written with @snelbz​

Based on the prompt sent in by anon: “If you say let’s split up, I swear to god.”

Warning: language.

Autumn/Halloween 2020 {Collection}

Cassian’s back was pressed against the door, slamming it shut as Feyre threw the lock on the deadbolt and Azriel and Rhys grabbed the small sofa from the middle of the room and jammed it up against it.

“Go make sure the back door is locked!” Cass said, looking at Nesta. She nodded and hurried into the kitchen, dragging Elain with her, thanks to the death grip she had on her older sister. She managed to loosen Elain’s grip long enough to jam a wooden chair from the kitchen table under the door leading down to the lake. They were back in the living room less than a minute later, but it didn’t stop Azriel from wrapping Elain in his arms and pressing a reassuring kiss to her forehead the second she was back within his reach.

There was little comfort Elain - or any of them for that matter - could take in the gesture though.

“What the fuck is going on?” Cassian asked. “Are we seriously being chased by some whack job in a mask with a knife right now?”

“And on Halloween?” Feyre added. “This can’t be real life.”

“It definitely is,” Nesta said, beginning to pace, beginning to think. “Someone is trying to kill us, our only vehicle is dead and how many of our phones are dead?”

They all glanced at their phones.

All dead. 

“What are we going to-.”

Cassian’s words were cut off when slow, heavy footsteps began up the wooden front porch.

One.

Two. 

Three.

Four.

With every step, they flinched, their entire group staring at the front door in horror. 

“He’s here,” Elain breathed, her brown eyes wide.

“What makes you think it’s a he?” Cassian hissed. “That’s such a stereotype.”

Nesta rolled her eyes but before she could say anything else, one loud knock came to the front door.

“Should we open it?” Feyre breathed, jumping behind Rhys.

“Of course not,” Nesta said. “We need to-.”

Cassian interrupted and said, “If you say let’s split up, I swear to God-.”

“We need to hide!” She whispered forcefully.

Cassian looked inclined to argue, but a harder knock, closer to a bang! came from the door and Elide screamed quietly.

Azriel urged her towards the stairs. “Let’s go, come on!”

Whether everyone planned to or not, they all ended up running in different directions. Azriel and Elain were up the stairs, hurrying into the master bedroom. Rhys had grabbed Feyre’s hand and hurried toward the kitchen. That left Nesta running towards the basement, Cassian on her heels.

“Why are you following me?” She snapped in a whisper as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Cassian looked around. It was dark and creepy and he hated it. “Because there’s a psycho following us and for whatever reason you decided to come down into the creepy basement and I don’t want you to get killed.”

“Exactly, it’s creepy,” she replied, whisper-yelling. “They won’t want to come down here either.”

“It’s a fucking murderer Nesta, they don’t give a shit about creepy!”

The front door caved in from above them and Nesta and Cassian both shut up and quickly found a small corner behind a shelf to hide in.

They both remained perfectly still, listening to slow footsteps on the floor above. Whoever this person was, they were moving slowly, taking their time. 

The slowness made it all even worse.

If Cassian was going to die, he preferred it to be over quickly. What sort of sick human being took their sweet ass time killing a handful of people?

“Hush,” Nesta whispered. “You’re breathing too loud.”

“You hush,” Cassian snapped back. “You’re going to get us killed.”

“Shhh!” She said with one final whisper.

The footsteps turned and went up the stairs and Cassian breathed a sigh of relief. Nesta went rigid and then was trying to shimmy past him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, holding her in place.

“What do you mean?” She said, squirming to get away. “Elain is up there!”

“And so is Azriel,” he said, attempting to be the voice of reason and clarity. “Azriel will be able to keep her safe and you know that.”

“Not if he’s already dead,” she hissed, biting his arm where he had a hold on her.

“Fuck!” he cried, letting her go. “Damn it, Nesta!”

She was already up the stairs though, and Cassian’s eyes were wide as he heard her footsteps over his head.

And then she screamed.

He was knocking everything in his path over as he rushed over to the stairs and rushed up them.

Nesta was nowhere to be found.

It was quiet for a second and then he heard Elain ask, “Was that Nesta?”

She and Azriel were looking down over the railing on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Cassian felt like he was going to puke. His heart was beating a thousand miles per hour, and everything inside of him was roaring.

He was about ready to have a panic attack.

“Nesta,” he breathed. Then, louder, “Nesta?”

A loud bang from the back porch had Cassian jumping and Elain shrieking from the top of the stairs. Azriel’s arms were quickly around her, but Cassian was moving, despite Azriel’s orders for him to stop.

This person had Nesta.

Just as Cassian was flying for the door, the lights went out and he froze, listening for something, anything. There was another yell, from farther back in the house and the lights came back on, blinding and disorienting them all.

“Rhys, where are you?!”

Cassian looked to the open door leading to the back porch, leading to where he thought Nesta was.

Feyre’s frantic voice called again. “Rhys?!”

But if Rhys was gone…

“Rhys?!”

Cassian slammed the door shut, locking it again. “Feyre, where are you?” He called. “Az, Elain, get down here.”

Feyre hurried from the back bedroom, shaking. “He was right there,” she cried. “He was right there, and the lights went out and we heard a creaking noise and then he yelled and he was gone.”

They met Azriel and Elain in the living room and the two sisters immediately reached for each other.

“Nesta?” Feyre asked.

Elain was shaking her head. “I don’t know, we were upstairs. We heard her scream and then Cassian came tearing up the stairs. And she was gone.”

“I think there’s two of them,” Cassian announced.

“What?” The girls spoke at once.

Az nodded. “I was thinking that too.”

Tears sprung in Fere’s eyes. “I….I don’t know what to do, I don’t know-.”

“It’s okay,” Elain whispered, although her hands were shaking as she wrapped Feyre in a hug. “We’re going to be fine.”

No one believed her. Even Elain didn’t believe herself. 

“What do we do now?” Cassian asked, looking to Azriel.

Azriel hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

A yell from outside, through the busted front door distracted them all.

“Feyre!”

She gasped. “Rhys!”

She was running out the door before any of them could stop her. Cassian cried, “Feyre, stop!” But it was too late, she’d darted into the tree line just outside the posh cabin Rhysand’s family owned.

She disappeared in the darkness, screaming Rhysand’s name, which abruptly ended.

Azriel’s chest began to heave. “What the fuck is going on?!” 

Elain had begun to cry, and Cassian was storming out the back door, where Feyre had just disappeared.

“Cassian!”

“Quiet,” he hissed, but just as he stepped out onto the porch, the lights inside went out. Elain screamed, and Azriel called her name, but their voices were soon fading into the darkness.

When the lights flickered back on, Cassian was alone, standing one foot out onto the back deck.

“What the fuck,” he breathed, hurrying out to his truck, knowing it was futile. They’d tried to start his truck at the beginning of this entire shit show, to absolutely no avail. It wasn’t like they could all fit anyways, but who gave a fuck about seatbelt rules when you were being chased by a homicidal maniac?

It was unlocked and he hopped in, turning the key.

A sad clicking. It wouldn’t turn over.

“FUCK!” He yelled, hitting the steering wheel.

When he looked in the rear view mirror behind him, he found what looked to be a child standing behind his truck.

“What the actual fuck?” He whispered, terrified to take his eyes off the dark silhouette. He wasn’t sure if he trusted his eyes, wasn’t sure if she’d still be there when he hopped out of the truck and turned.

So he stared and remained perfectly still.

Then she started to walk toward him, slowly.

Nausea brewed in the pit of his stomach. A million thoughts rushed through his mind, none of which made sense. 

That little female figure came closer and closer and closer in slow, silent steps. He couldn’t see anything, nothing but her tiny frame and the hair that hung loosely around her shoulders.

He felt ridiculous.

Being scared of a child.

But he was terrified.

He made the split second decision and threw open his door right as she reached the truck. The tail lights lit up as the door opened, washing everything around him in watery light, both yellow and red, including...

“Amren?”

The sadistic smile on her face only grew as she walked closer and closer, and that was when he noticed the large, bloody knife in her hand.

“Amren, where did you get that?”

She didn’t answer.

“Why are you here?”

No answer.

“Amren, the fuck is going on?”

He began to back up, out of options and it would soon come down to fight or flight. In this case, it seemed both. His back pressed against the cold metal of the garage door.

Every thought left his mind. 

His heart was racing.

He felt like he was going to puke.

Or piss his pants.

“Amren,” he breathed, as she continued to walk toward him.

She raised the knife. 

An incandescent drop of dark crimson fell from the sharp tip. 

“You…” Amren began, her eyes crazed. “Should really see the look on your face right now.” 

Cassian froze.

Then blinked.

“What?”

The door behind him was lifted up, and Cassian nearly fell backwards into the bright light of the garage.

Where everyone else was waiting.

“Gotcha!” Rhys called and everyone, even Nesta, was grinning.

“What the fuck is going on?” He asked, looking around frantically. “None of you are dead. You were chasing us?” He asked, turning from everyone and looking at Amren.

“Looks like you don’t have the best prank anymore,” she smirked.

Cassian blew out a deep breath and leaned over, resting his hands on his knees. “Fuck all of you.”

“We didn’t know what was going on until Amren grabbed us all one by one,” Azriel admitted.

“But we couldn’t pass this opportunity up,” Feyre grinned.

“I repeat,” Cassian said. “Fuck all of you.”

They all laughed, even Cass cracked a smile.

“So who was the big dude with the knife?” Elain asked, as Azriel wrapped her up in his arms.

“Big dude?” Amren asked, her silver eyes confused. “It’s just me and this fake, rubber knife.” She held it up so they could see it bend when she applied some pressure. “I wondered why all of you were scared so shitless when I got here, but I figured you found my notes.”

“Notes?” Nesta asked, her face going pale.

“Yeah, that I left around the house,” she said, gesturing towards the main house.

“Amren,” Rhys said carefully. “We didn’t find any notes…”

Amren’s lips snapped shut, and the genuine look of confusion on her face had them all beginning to look around, yet again.

“This isn’t funny anymore, Amren, you had your fun, now cut the shit,” Rhysand said, pulling Feyre closer to him.

But Amren’s face had gone pale.

Her prank was over.

“I’m not….It’s not….” she began, shaking her head.

“You...didn’t kick the front door in?” Cassian asked and even he felt stupid as he said the words.

“Do you think I can kick the front door in, Cassian?” Amren asked, real fear evident on her face now.

Elain asked, voice shaking, “Then who-?”

A distant door slammed from inside of the house.

The friends were running for Amren’s car parked half a mile away as fast as they could.

[ectonurites]

Okay, so I kinda wanna know your thoughts about how weird the fandom portrays the bat characters. Canon is ... not my favorite, but it actually offers a lot of nuance to the characters that I think makes them all interesting. Unlikable, but interesting. I noticed fanon tends to boil the batkids all into these superflat caricatures. Like, cereal obsessed manchild Dick Grayson or bad boy who's literal crimes are only because of the lazarus pit Jason Todd. Its not really a major problem, just weird

Oh I have a LOT of thoughts about this. I try so hard not to shit on how other people interact with content because like, it’s comic books! We’re all just here trying to make the best out of a mess of stuff and have fun, but admittedly a lot of fanon stuff drives me fuckin’ nuts as someone who reads a ton of comics.

Like, I like memes, obviously, I draw tons of memes with the batfam (+ yj) characters and make lighthearted jokes etc etc, and honestly if it’s just for jokes then I don’t mind people having whack interpretations of the characters quite as much. The thing that drives me up a wall though is like... when serious works and analysis and discussion are very clearly based on just the fanon interpretations without any bearing on canon aside from what you could skim from a wiki page, and it’s spoken like it’s fact! There’s ‘having fun with jokes that aren’t taking things that seriously’ and then there’s ‘blatantly mischaracterizing based on misinformation’. Way too often I see things fall into that second category.

Now, a lot of people in the batfam fandom don’t... actually read comics (or at least not frequently) and that’s not even a bad thing necessarily, like you’re 100% allowed to enjoy content however you want to! (I don’t wanna be gatekeepey, especially since comics are confusing to get into)

But the problem is that when a lot of people aren’t reading the comics, then the people who do’s opinions have a lot more influence if they’re loud enough. All it takes is one person who read something and interpreted it a specific way that might not even be correct, and then it can echo chamber and suddenly half the fandom thinks it’s 100% canon that way because ‘oh so and so said that and they actually read it’.

I also think that’s a problem with the popularity of out of context panels/blogs, while they are super funny sometimes, when people make assumptions about characters based on just a few things without context... it can lead to problems. If enough people say something enough times people just... start to think it’s true, even if it exists entirely devoid of context which changes the meaning.

Like, for example, according to canon there’s no actual confirmation Tim stalked Batman on foot for an extended period of time! We know from Lonely Place of Dying that he followed him once to get a picture to convince DIck that he still needed a Robin. Otherwise his ‘stalking’ & how he figured out Batman’s identity was more through media appearances (like newspapers and tv). This is wildly different from the common fanon idea that little Timmy was sneaking out regularly to follow Batman & Robin around with his camera.

I primarily blame Geoff Johns for this misconception because of these panels in in tt 2003 (from issue 29)

But like, think about it for a second, literally how would Jason know that? This is one of the first times he’s ever interacting with Tim, and he was dead/catatonic when that would have been happening! He is either making a wild assumption or perhaps Talia told him this when she told him about Tim, whichever of those it was it’s secondhand information not something he witnessed. Taking his word as fact here makes no sense, he was just trying to get under Tim’s skin while fighting him. But seeing those panels out of context if you haven’t actually read Lonely Place of Dying/only read a vague summary of it, and don’t necessarily know the details of the Jason situation, it could absolutely lead you to believe otherwise!

Dick as a cereal manchild is a weird one because like... okay yeah sure he likes cereal, I can think of like two panels I’m too lazy to find right now off the top of my head of him having it, but... that’s not something we see all the time! Its not like Ollie & his chili (which IS a running joke- seriously I have not read that many Green Arrow comics but the amount of times I’ve seen that man bring up chili in just in the few things I have read is wild. there’s even an official recipe. his chili has it’s own dc wiki page). Then, because Dick isn’t quite as emotionally closed off in the same way the rest of the batfam tends to be, people project literally all the pent up feelings onto him, making him this hug-crazy crybaby manchild... again it’s just very clear people who perpetuate those ideas (outside of like, maybe as jokes) haven’t actually fully read that many comics with him. I’d also even blame the Young Justice cartoon version of Dick for some other traits fanon Dick has, bc that version of him is def a bit of a Hot Mess™️ once he’s Nightwing 

Jason I understand misconceptions about probably the most because of how wildly inconsistent his writing was before the new 52 and how consistently Not Great it was once Lobdell took over. Jason’s one of the few characters I have read like, 90% of appearances for so I’m speakin’ from experience here. But still... acting like Jason as Red Hood is just a ‘bad boy rebel’ that could have a relatively happy connection with the whole Batfam is fun but unrealistic. You can not blame everything on the lazarus pit... he still has killed people! Lots of people! Willingly! Yes he has reasons and when he’s being written well it’s clear that he’s not just ‘random murder happy’ but rather ‘I kill when I feel they deserve it and that it’s necessary’ which is what keeps him an anti-hero rather than a full fledged villain most of the time, but that still keeps him so at odds with the rest of the Batfamily! Writers in more current continuity have had him compromise by only using rubber bullets in Gotham so they can have him interact with the family, but he’s still killed and will do it when he deems it necessary.

Also like... at the time of Under The Red Hood in the comics... theoretically... he hadn’t even been in the lazarus pit for well over a year. Go read Lost Days (it’s short! And except for the thing with him & Talia towards the end of the last issue it’s pretty good!), he spends a lot of time traveling the world and learning things/training before the events of UtRH. Yes you could interpret there still being some Lazarus influence going on there but I think the movie version of UtRH especially leads people to believe there’s a lot less time between his dunk in the pit and his first actions as Red Hood.

Fanon also has a lot of ideas about pit madness that vary wildly from what we have seen in canon, like yeah it’s been said to be a thing to some extent, but there’s not really the Danny Phantom Glowing Green Eyes™️ or anything like that... it’s fun to explore cool new ideas for sure but I just think it’s important to recognize the distinction between things that are actually canon and things that are popular fanon. (Also there are things that fall somewhere in between, there’s definitely stuff that isn’t 100% confirmed canon but could still be plausible/has been hinted at by some writers/is only canon in some settings)

Other things that drive me nuts are ‘quiet does-no-wrong angel Cass’ and ‘the Normal One™️ Duke’ because those just make literally no sense if you’ve read any comics with either of them... but fan content either does those versions or just completely ignores their existence a lot of the time! So! That’s a whole bigger problem!

In general though, this is fandom it’s not like this... matters that much on the grand scheme of things in life, we’re just people on social media talkin’ about comics. And this kind of misconception/flattening of characters does happen in literally every fandom ever. But it still does suck to see characters that have a lot of nuance and interesting history to play around with get reduced to a few traits that aren’t even actually that relevant to who they are.