#something something watching the site fucking destroy itself

[raeygina-george]

Tumblr is so mean to me

[anodymalion]

ok I am in fact using this as an excuse to make a long post about this thank you thank you asjksdjfaljdf

---

Interpreting Yuri as asexual is my very very favorite type of headcanon, which is one that 1. is compellingly coded in the source material (even if that wasn't the creator's intent), 2. is thematically relevant to what the piece of media is Trying To Do as a whole, and 3. just means a lot to me, personally, because I said so.

Coded in the source material

Yuri’s short program is “eros”, aka desire (you can interpret what “eros” means in various ways, but YOI itself explicitly refers to sexual love, at least in the English translations). Yuri struggles with this. Hard. He can’t come up with an answer when asked what eros means to him. His big revelatory moment about desire is that it’s how he feels about wanting to eat his favorite food (omg… boy). Even as the season goes on and the way he views the Eros program changes, the program doesn’t ever really embody the idea of eros as sexuality or romance (which was how the other characters expect him to interpret it) but rather as a desire to keep Victor in his life.

Like look. I’m obviously not going to say that the creator intended any kind of ace subtext to be there. I kind of doubt it was her intent. But goddamn is the subtext there.

2. Thematic relevance

The central theme throughout YOI is “love”, and especially loving people in a way that inspires you both to be your best selves: Yuri learning that the people in his life truly love and support him; Victor finding someone who makes him feel joy about skating again.

Like, Yuri’s whole skating theme for the Grand Prix is literally about him exploring what love looks like to him, even when it takes a form that other people don’t totally understand. Viewing all this through a lens of him being ace is really compelling. It adds depth to the idea of learning how to express the way you feel love even when it looks different than what other people expect. I think it’s a really delicious layer that adds even more nuance to what the show is getting at.

Besides, it’s an interesting way of viewing the criticism of the show that occurred for it not being 100% explicit about them being a couple (aka people getting mad because the kiss in ep 7 is blocked by Victor’s arm lmaooo). Like, ok, did you see the ending scene of ep 9? Did you see ep 10??? They definitely, definitely love each other, in whatever way that means for them. Their relationship takes a form that’s pretty different than the other way people in the show are going about romantic relationships, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real for them. That is very much in line with the main themes of the show.

3. Means a lot to me

In the final scene of the penultimate episode, Yuri tells Victor that they should end their coaching relationship after the Grand Prix ends. This is because he thinks he’s holding Victor back, that Victor would be happier being free to go back to skating on his own instead of being Yuri’s coach. When I watched this (and, I’ll be honest, this is completely me projecting here) I REALLY interpreted this as an ace thing. I think it’s pretty easy to internalize the idea when you’re asexual that you just won’t be… enough, for other people. In my case I ended up a strong impulse to self-sabotage relationships because I would rather be the one to end things than to let someone else tell me that who I am as a person is fundamentally lacking. Yuri destroying a connection he desperately wants because he thinks there’s something about him that is holding Victor back from a life he’d be truly happy with? Oh yeah. I can fucking relate to that.

Also: YOI came out in 2016, which was the absolute peak of hostility to ace people I was seeing on this site. It was bad here. At the same time Tumblr was going wild over this show. Everyone was watching it. Seeing a whole site of people absolutely adore a character I very deeply in my heart believed to be ace? Extremely vindicating.

---

In conclusion Yuri is asexual because it is fun and interesting that way, and also because of this:

[fordtato]

From a Palestinian - I know this is long but read it anyways:

If any leftists on this fucking site are using antisemitism to further the Free Palestine movement, you're not fucking helping. Not just because there are Jewish Palestinians. Not just because it furthers the idea that the movement is rooted in antisemitism. And not just because the people who are ultimately going to be impacted by this "activism" are Palestinian families (like my own), who will be on the receiving end of the brunt of government retaliation. It simply isn't helpful and isn't right.

Gaza is an open-air prison, cut off from food and water and medicine and fuel. Even before this recent chapter of the conflict, its people are penned in and brutalized and kidnapped and imprisoned and murdered, without any true relief, and very often without mainstream attention. This is being carried out by the government of Israel (with US government support) and its military, and it is aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, a people without any formal military or power. Palestinians in the country are being slaughtered, and Palestinians outside of the country are slowing losing their connection to their identity and homeland and need to watch as their brethren are unilaterally labeled as terrorists and "animals" and killed, raped and buried in rubble.

As a movement we need to acknowledge that Hamas is an antisemitic force. There is no justifying it or going around it. Internet leftists, you're so good at nitpicking at the past comments of online allies and finding the problematic thing someone said on twitter in 2018 and then never defending them again no matter what. But we can't do the same here with Hamas when leaders in the party are antisemitic and when people are dead? We need to defend Jewish people and that doesn't stop here. And nobody dare try to explain to me that this is what a revolution looks like. Those killed weren't all IDF soldiers. And don't explain to me that even colonization and occupation is violence (especially if you live in the US, a colonized nation stolen from indigenous people), because of course I understand that. Palestine has a right to defend itself against violence, but Hamas is explicitly antisemitic and we can't just stand against the ruthless killing of civilians only when it's Palestinian civilians.

Yes, it's complicated. YES this violence and the power vacuums that allow groups like Hamas to take power are very often the response to brutality, and a long-term symptom in the aftermath of European imperialism. We can acknowledge that and understand that and even be sympathetic to the historical context that allows this to unfold while still condemning the death of civilians. After all, being against the death of civilians is at the core of the Free Palestine movement.

Defending Jewish people does NOT mean dismissing the slaughter and literal genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Defending Jewish people does not mean defending the actions of the Israeli government. And standing with Palestine and freeing it from brutality does NOT mean ignoring that antisemitism is fraught in the world to this day. One part of why Israel is able to garner civilian support despite the atrocities of its government is because not many other countries are taking in refugees of antisemitism, and historically most countries have never protected Jewish people EVER. That is something we need to acknowledge. And acknowledging that does not mean we justify the actions of the government of Israel, and it does not mean we are turning a blind eye to the occupation or the slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians.

BTW, tone-policing Palestinians about how they talk about Israel while we are in mourning, and collectively witnessing the brutality our loved ones are facing, and literally watching our homeland get destroyed IS HORRIBLE. IT IS UNHELPFUL. IT IS INSENSITIVE AND TONE DEAF. Do not bring up Hamas in my fucking inbox, MY PEOPLE ARE BEING SLAUGHTERED AND LIKENED TO ANIMALS AND I AM FORCED TO WATCH.

The same applies to tone-policing Jewish people when they are getting death threats at synagogues and JCCs and/or are mourning loved ones in Israel. Yelling "but what about Palestine" whenever a Jewish person in America (who has literally nothing to do with the heinous acts of a foreign government entity) mentions they are grieving or afraid or getting death threats doesn't fucking do anything. This isn't activism.

We are all tired. We are all traumatized. We will feel this for generations.

[skoulsons]

Analyzing time?? This one’s really long and it is 5am, forgive me

he was doing the nervous hand rub thing before they started talking :/

“It was Marlene. She hired us to smuggle her to some Fireflies. It went bad. Tess got bit. She made me swear to take the kid.” voice cracks :/ though it’s for Tess. Mans cannot process grief and is still struggling. I want to hug him so bad. “It was her dying wish, what the hell was I supposed to do?”

“We made it as far as K.C., and then, y’now, she saved my life there from another kid. Five years ago I would’ve destroyed him. But that had to shoot him to save me. Fourteen years old.” Second voice crack. Because she’s 14. Because she shouldn’t have to do that, like he told her in that store. She’s just a kid. A, supposed to be innocent and happy, kid.

“Because I was too slow and too fucking deaf to hear him comin’. And I saw…I saw a man kill his own brother to save her life while I just watched.”

Something he couldn’t move. Something he wanted to stop. And when he did find his feet and felt like he was able to do more than watch, he was stopped. He was prevented from getting to her. To protecting her. To cleansing that fear that was eating away at every muscle in his body. To grab her and check her and make sure she wasn’t hurt. How he couldn’t stop her from seeing Henry do that. Or how he couldn’t have stopped Sam from turning.

“And today, I thought that dog was gonna tear her apart because it smelled somethin’ on her. And all I did was stand there. I couldn’t…move.” And his voice is so shaky. Because the fear is too much for him. It’s been too much for him mentally, and now it’s even too much for him physically. Showing itself outwardly and coming out in little nervous ticks of anxiety, as well as panic attacks.

“I couldn’t think of anything, is- I just…I was so afraid.”

Now, let’s hope I can write out the thoughts my brain likes to tease me with but ultimately keeps a secret. It’s not just “I was afraid” or “I was scared” or whatever. It’s “I was so afraid.” I was petrified. He is so wracked with a constant overwhelming, debilitating, and exhausting fear over her and her safety. The thought of a dog smelling any infection in her and tearing her to shreds. Of how they were surrounded and Joel wouldn’t be able to take all of them. How they’d shoot her on site and she’d fall behind him while panic, fear, and anger rise in him as he bends beside her dead body. How he has a panic attack, right here, because he’s staring at this man with his rifle pointed right at Ellie, waiting for that dog to bark so he can fire. How Joel’s hearing goes out. How it’s all muffled and and morphed. How he thinks ‘this could be it, again’. How he knows this dog could smell it and that there’s no way, just like all the people before, to prevent it. But what brings him out of those rampaging thoughts and that panic is her laughing. Her. Those thoughts are calmed and taken under control when that wonderful, wonderful sound hits his ears. That sound he’s fallen asleep to. The sound that calms him down. Down enough to bring him out of a panic attack and enough to lull him to sleep.

“You think I can still handle things, but…I’m not who i was. I’m weak.” Joel miller, stoic man, who wholeheartedly believes emotions are a weakness. It’s what he’s built up against the last twenty years. And when Ellie comes and tears that down and makes him feel again, it’s so much. He used to be strong, ruthless. Now he’s vulnerable and weak. For caring about his little girl.

“Lately, there are these moments where the fear comes up out of nowhere and…and my heart feels like it’s stopped.”

Oh to love someone so incredibly much that thinking about them and their safety and how you need to protect them sends you into a panic attack. As terrible as it is, that seems pretty profound to me.

“And I have dreams every night. (What kind of dreams?) I don’t know. I can’t remember. But I just know that, when I wake up, I’ve lost somethin’.

‘Somethin’ used to be Sarah, and now it’s Ellie, at least a few times. Maybe they take each others spots. Maybe Ellie dies the way Sarah does. Maybe Sarah gets torn apart by that dog. Maybe it’s their faces morphing back and forth in that grass as she cries and grips at him, costing his arm and neck in her blood. Maybe it’s Ellie calling him dad. Maybe it’s Sarah under that runners thrashing arms and teeth.

“I’m failin’ in my sleep.” WHAT THE HELL CRAIG. “It’s all I do. All I’ve ever done.”

It’s all he ever does. He’s a walking failure. He cannot be right, no matter how hard he tries. Even before the apocalypse, he forgot to buy pancake mix so that Sarah could make them birthday pancakes, and he forgot their cake. He never even got to get their cake. And he swore on his life he would. Another fail. Every person he’s ever murdered, especially the innocent. Every failed attempt at protecting someone. Tess, Henry, Sam, Tommy. All failures. It’s all he’s ever done.

“Is fail her. Again and again and again.”

‘Fail her’. Disappointment in his face at himself, almost. Because that’s who Joel Miller is. A failure and inevitably disappointed at himself for not being able to stop it. Stop Sarah, Tess, bill and Frank, or Henry and Sam. And now, stop Ellie. How, when the time comes, because it always does, he won’t be able to stop it. Because he’s cursed and all he can do, without a shadow of a doubt, is fail. And how her is turning into both of them. It’s a gray area. She’s a gray area. He’s having nightmares of both. He’s failing both. But we can barely tell the difference anymore. But it’s his kid. And a parent should never feel like they failed their child. And yet he does, a million times over

“I’m gonna get her killed, I know it. I know it. I have to leave her.”

‘Just like I killed Sarah’. And he can’t do it. He can’t stomach that. He can’t face that. He can’t look his other daughter in the eyes as she dies, too. Because he knows it’ll happen. He knows. He’s positive of her fate, and he has to leave.

“…You have to take her. You can’t tell anyone, not even Maria. Tommy, you’re the only one I trust. If anyone else sees those bites on her, what’s under her skin…they’ll shoot her. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. I swear.”

He cannot stop talking about how much he fears. Even once’s she’ll be gone and away from being his responsibility any longer, he still worries. That if anyone finds out before the Fireflies, they’ll shoot her. How even though Tommy would be the one with her, he still has to say it. Still has to make an effort to tell Tommy how fucking much she means to Joel. And no matter where he’d go, she’d still be with him. What happened to her would still follow him. If she was okay would still follow him. She’d follow him to the ends of the earth. Her jokes, her laughing, her attempts at whistling and her incessant questioning. It’d follow him everywhere.

“I’ll take her out at dawn.”

And he exhales like he’d held his breath their whole journey there. Tommy agrees, thank goodness. She’s not his responsibility. Mere hours from now he’ll be let go of that job. Of that kid. Of that little fly buzzing in his ear. He’ll be able to go wherever: back to Boston, a house in Jackson, maybe the little sheep farm he talked about. But she’ll be gone. That’s what matters.

But as relieved as that sigh sounds, it’s not complete relief. He doesn’t want to do this. “Do you give a shit about me or not?” “Of course I do.” How could she ask that? He doesn’t want to let her go. He wants to hold her into his side and let his heart feel what she’s so graciously opened up for him to feel. To have her and keep going together. To be a ‘we’. To have his second chance at fatherhood and to let it hit him with all the force of a tsunami. But it all ties back to failure. He will fail her. “I made this decision for your own good” because I’ll get you killed. Because I’ll fail. It’s what I’m good at. Because it’s all I know how to do. It’s the one thing I can do, perfectly. I’ll fail at protecting you. You’ll die, just like the rest of them. Just like her. And I cannot handle that. So I’m leaving you. Because I love you way too much to put you through that.

[miraphoenix]

Right off the bean, this is not a callout post. I'd talk to the person this is about 1-on-1, but a) he's had me blocked for 4 years, and b) it's mutual. This is me venting on my personal blog, something that he decided to vague about me doing back when I had my first blog.

With that out of the way. I'm really fucking tired of people stealing from Valenth/Revecroir, and from its creator.

Years and years ago, when they were a literal child, my bff/queer life partner--for the purpose of this post, their name is Leupai--made lizard-critters with hands on their tongues and called them leupaks. Eventually, they ended up splitting off from Subeta where they worked at the time, making an affiliated petsite called Valenth where the leupaks featured quite prominently as creatures in a fantasy-meets-steampunk world.

Unfortunately, their boss was a piece of work, and following a rather large kerfluffle involving another petsite lifting other elements of my partner's work (namely, a dragon concept and a companion concept), my partner was fired by the Subeta head boss. The leupaks were renamed into leupai, and Valenth expanded into Revecroir. This was in 2014, give or take a few months.

Through about half of the Valenth era and into the Revecroir era, Leupai was dating someone else, who went by Sixar at the time, later Kismeti, and the two had a long-distance open relationship. Kismeti also did a fair amount of site art for Valenth, and described himself as Leupai's biggest fan; when he'd met Leupai originally, his username referenced leupaks, he had a bunch of leupak characters, and a leupak sona. I met both of them in 2013-2014, right around the close of Valenth, and started chatting with them both. Leupai was more responsive, Kismeti was more reserved, but I did the best I could.

Over the years, I kept trying to reach out to Kismeti, but found that Leupai was honestly more willing to talk with me, so I did become better friends with them. Note that I was friends with Leupai, and trying to be friends with Kismeti. We chatted, we sent memes, we played World of Warcraft, I bought folks pizza across the Pacific Ocean, you know the drill.

Through this, I became really familiar with Leupai's world, at that point named Revecroir. I got to know their lore, their worldbuilding, their current projects, and the leupai creatures themselves.

The leupai were--and are!--still fat lizards with paws on their tongues, who can open portals between worlds with acid in their claws, who transfer their consciousnesses to other bodies if one is destroyed, and whose strength comes from the realm of dreams and creativity. In the early days, in lore that wasn't publicized, leupai were roaming around to find a world to live on after Valenth. This was a project that was supposed to be worked on with Kismeti, but nothing really ever came of it. Eventually, Leupai kind of moved on from that storyline to write more about Revecroir itself.

At the same time, I tried asking Kismeti about his worldbuilding, because he had characters and allegedly a world of his own, but didn't really get a lot in the way of answers. I saw a lot of Sonic fanart, I saw a lot of homestuck, I saw a lot of MLP:FiM, I saw a lot of Captain Planet. Eventually, I kind of... Gave up asking? And that's on me, but frankly, if you ask someone to share their stuff and they don't share their stuff, I figure that's the signal to stop asking.

As time went on, though, I was seeing some cracks forming in the 10-year relationship between the two, and I was helping Leupai through a lot. I watched as he yelled at my best friend for not responding to messages fast enough. I watched as he made plans with Leupai and then fucked off to do other things for hours, leaving Leupai in the lurch and worried about his physical safety. I watched as he gaslit Leupai about their ability to use a computer. On one memorable instance, when Leupai's internet was unstable while we were all playing WoW together, Leupai left the voice call to go reset the router, and Kismeti decided that it was a great time to shit-talk Leupai's intelligence to me. For a half hour straight. Until Leupai rejoined the call.

Eventually, I visited Leupai in person and watched as they were broken down to tears by Kismeti failing to respect their boundaries for literal hours, until Leupai caved to Kismeti's preferences. That was a rough night, and I remember wondering why the fuck my best friend's partner was treating them so badly.

About a month and a half after I visited Leupai, they decided to break up with Kismeti, because they'd had enough of him verbally berating them for not responding fast enough to memes sent over instant message, among so many other things. He, to put it mildly, lost his shit.

(For the record, I know what went down, because Leupai had me read the messages sent back and forth, to make sure they were grounded, and were reading things right. I've seen logs going back 10 years. His original vague accused me of not knowing what I was talking about, but boy howdy I was either there, or have read the raw logs.)

Anyway, he begged for Leupai back. Leupai gave him a chance that he fucked up within a day. Leupai said goodbye and blocked him. He then started messaging me about this on discord, clearly trying to use me as a go-between to get to Leupai.

At the time, I was going through some Complex Feelings about my own abuse by various people in my life, triggered by his behavior, so was reblogging a lot of support stuff on my original blog. I guess he decided this was vaguing about him, because he made a vaguepost accusing me of not knowing all the details (unbeknownst to him, I'd read everything) and finally blocked me.

I figured this chapter in my life was done at this point, and moved the fuck on. Made a new blog because I didn't feel like getting all his shit off my old one, moved across the country, got a new job, the whole shebang. Leupai and I entered our odd QPP/partners/bffs/???? phase, and I genuinely didn't think much about him, unless I was helping listen to Leupai talk about stuff they'd gone through with him.

Until this year. When I saw some comment of his break containment and end up on my dash, under the name "riftclaw". I had a bit of an inkling, so I broke my "don't look" rule and looked at the linked toyhouse to confirm it was really him.

Turns out, riftclaws are... Lizard creatures. Who open portals between worlds with acid in their claws. Who are looking for a new world to call their own. And who have some divine properties, that may involve body switching.

And all of Kismeti/riftclaw's old leupai characters are now riftclaws.

Oh, and he was planning to make them into a closed species. To make money off them.

Now, leupai were decently popular back in the day. I still have leupai characters, and make some periodically from time to time. There's a tag on tumblr and everything; if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you remember Vee yourself, as a fair number of my followers were there too. People still talk about Valenth from time to time. Leupai still has a folder of old fanart from back in the day with some 800 pieces of art in it. They were, by all accounts, successful until they weren't.

But the height of popularity was back when Vee was still around, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only new stuff in the tags is from an archive blog of old Vee assets.

Despite that, though. And I know this from messages between the pair, I know that Kismeti tore into Leupai repeatedly for "being more popular" and "having more eyes on their work". Even though "those eyes" didn't keep Leupai fed or housed, or really give them any income. Even though "those eyes" meant getting 50 notes on a tumblr post as opposed to 20. Even though "those eyes" just increased thievery and the constant pressure to be a Content Creator(tm), and were a major part of what drove Leupai off the internet entirely starting in 2018.

So imagine. Imagine for a moment. Being so hungry for clout and attention. That you steal your ex-partner's species concept that they've had since they were literally 8 years old, barely file off the serial numbers, and then make that your entire online persona four full years after your partner broke up with your ass twice for being an abusive piece of shit over a 10-year timeframe.

To borrow my own tags from this post, which got me thinking about all of this again?

#This is all to say; if you're jealous of someone else's success? Fine. Go have your emotion. But don't lift their shit.#Your emotions are valid; your actions aren't.

(Oh, and this is the smallest thing in the world, the least important piece of this? Riftclaws are already a thing from a game released in 2016 called Grim Dawn.)

[knowlessman]

"I'm sure it's hard for the white house to act with our own country in danger" oh shit they're bringin 'murica into this now, and maybe other players? …bnha s7e1-4

also tho "it's hard for america to decide to involve itself with another country" somebody doesn't know what the CIA actually does and what our threshold for meddling in other countries is

IT'S JANE CENA (hums john cena intro theme)

-- also could swear there's an existing marvel/dc miss america type hero called Star but in what world would that stop this writer

tfw you're a third-string minion and you're hiding alone in a cave with your evil master and he won't shut up and he's making less and less sense

okay who put pajama sam in a suit, I thought he stopped wearing shirts these days

"quirk: new order! when she tags something, she decides what its rules are!" okay maybe this guy does know anything about america at all

-- "is his name not tomura shigaraki?" hehehe she got L'd. not that not knowing a place's or people's real name ever stopped america from forcing whatever rules it wanted. guess she's not so close an analogy after all.

-- (star made herself a Stand out of air and caught him like a bug) yes, I'm sure hitting the big bad with, idk, extreme air pressure? and lasers, and very big missiles, will finish the job in the first couple episodes of the final season.

all for one was going on about "you're Spinner, you spin things together" does spinner have a quirk beyond being a lizard man or not

new OP and ending are okay, no notes

"this is a watershed moment for both of us. this is like… forcing each other to play shitty games!" I have to know what other translations for this line there are. …dammit, this site doesn't have an english dub version. (or I can't find it)

…huh. so he's admitting that that would've killed him. okay now THAT's interesting, he has a limit and it's a known one. …they just gotta do that again and not miss. with extra super-missiles that they probably don't have because they banked em all on this.

-- it is a game, tho, it's an actual game (that the villain is winnin cuz the show ain't over, but he's not winning it through invincibility or by playing cards he wasn't holding, and that's not nothing)

ayup. she's poisoned the vampire. I thought maybe she would just find a way to erase her own quirk before he could take it, but

-- "I don't have anyone to pass New Order onto!" … "my Reflect quirk! it's been destroyed!" well DAYUM, I was just thinking how this arc was actually pretty cool even tho it didn't seem to be adding anything that'd stick, but

-- …so, he found someone to shove new order onto, but Star's ghost had more words for him, so I'm not totally sure whether the transfer, like, worked. it sounded like he just didn't get to steal the rando's quirk, but idk

"we've captured gigantomachia and kept him asleep" uh-huh. yeah. sure. he's totally not gonna get back up the second mojo jojo decides he's got a use for him. he totally hasn't done that time and time and time again already. he's the juggernaut, he has to be considered "in play" at all times. …he's like Squee, he can be cast from exile

…laserguts?

-- ohhhhh. …wowwwwwwwww holy shit

-- I wasn't even looking out for a mole. 'XD it had well and completely left my brain. reminds me of when the finale for scooby-doo get a clue revealed that trebla was albert and I felt the stupidest a show has ever made me feel (tbf one is not exactly looking out for subterfuge while watching that show, it is an exceptionally stupid installment of the franchise)

-- "uhhh I heard from hagakure" DEKU YOU FUCKING SNITCH HOW EVEN… HOW IS THAT THE FIRST WORDS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH I'm fuckin dyin here 'XD what the fuck

-- ("my body refracts light" so blocking aoyama's laser makes hagakure's face partly visible for the first time) …huh. … "and because this writer is The Way He Is I'm also nekkid but somehow he's restraining himself from acknowledging that because this is just that important a scene"

uhhh yeah more double agents, that panned out so well the first - …okay actually I don't remember the full details of that well enough to say it didn't pan out at all so nvm

"hey, hey. a crime is a crime, you know" shut up mic nobody likes your fashy ass

-- "it's partly our fault for not catching him" you aren't making any more sense than mic right now iida but go off

("we gotta get our gear repaired") "they were a prototype from overseas" I've already forgotten whether it was melissa's actual canon gauntlets that he got tbph

ayup. stopping for now cuz I gotta leave for work in a few hours. will post these sometime today ig

[wraith-of-the-chibi-demons]

Alroght getting off purgatory and returning to my hellsite, but wanted to talk about it real quick. Elon replyied to another post makijg the same point saying to stop using hashtags anymore because they aren't needed and are ugly. And this is just... first may i note the fucking hilarity that almost every comment is people using the hashtag #stopusinghashtags Which is just... beautiful. But also i want to draw attention to how badly elon handles his companys... he has destroyed bassically every part of twitters power in the modern sphere... like yeah twitter was trashed on but fucking everyone used it... i specifically make an effort to avoid social media because its aweful, with tumblr being my one exception because tumblr is less a social media as monkeys on typewritters, (you couldnt start a movement on tumblr, and thats exactly how i want it) but even i am constantly surrounded by twitter, i know how twitter worked LONG before i ever went on the website, and thats insane.. people say 'knowledge is power' and while i fully agree its powerful ive always perfered the idea behind 'the pen is mightier than the sword' becuse knowledge itself isnt that powerful, but controlling it, or freeing it is. Whats powerful is communication, and elon bought one the most respected, trusted, and powerful forms of it. The first thing he did... remove the branding, one of the single most powerful aspects... he killed its name. EVERYONE knew twitter, everyone knew what it meant to tweet something, and he killed them... he killed the most valuable thing about the site he bought as one of his first acts... ill be honest it took my friends a litteral hour to convince me they werent joking when they told me... Next elon killed their reputation, he started by unbaning a yon of rasist sexist assholes and flooding the site with shit, and then when advertisers started pulling back and he needed money he did the worst possible move and killed the 3rd biggest icon of the site, the ever sought after blue check mark. This is what killed the site to me. Changing it to X, dumb, but not going to kill the site, this... devastating... what this did was ruin their reputation with hundreds of brands as the once presigious symbol showing you were important and that you were the real deal became 5$ as hundreds of versions of advertisers, companys and celebratys flooded the site with fake posts that people mistook for real due to this symbol that was formerly trusted(though it gave tumblr a great joke) finally elon now is going to destroy tge hashtag, one of the most recognizeable pieces of culture over the last 2 decades, which fully integrated itself into the vocabulary of a generation... elon has shown that he has NO FUCKING IDEA how to control a company, to tge point where even a 8 year old version of me could have told you that he was fucking up. I respected elon once.... he did some great yhings with space x, and tesla did massive work to move us towards electric vehicles, a major step in the battle against climate change... sure he was excenric but what amazing inventor isnt? He has cone to the point where I feel shame for what his companys name does for Nicola Tesla, one of the greatest minds in human history... I had already lost almost all respect for him when he bought twitter, but there was a small piece left... his handleing of it not only killed but mutilated its corpse, leaving only hatred for this aweful man who i once thought could have been a force of possitive change in the world... I think its fascinating that people can still believe in him after all of this, and i will fontinue to watch thise people, and him with curiosity, while knowing, he shall never regain what he once was, ir cpuld have been

[purity-of-balance]

Brilliance And Madness

Entrapta was not usually a person to get pissed. Very often, she would get irritated or offput by a situation, maybe sometimes even irrationally confounded to the point of madness, even when it wasn't something she should pry into.

She couldn't help it. Problems often came in the life of science and technology and her mind whirled with possibilities and solutions.

This particular instance was no different. Except it was.

"The cells are degrading."

Under the microscope, she could see the blood cells, usually red, stain the glass lightly blueish. This process was an anathema to her, what was the point of corroding the body like this if you wanted perfection.

Unless perfection wasn't the point.

"Subject was mixing mammalian blood cells with insectoid blood cells to create copies. Fluids used as nutrients for the combined cells would stabilize the fusion, but not completely."

She wanted to spit on the data. Her hair frizzed as it did whenever something she discovered made her confounded, but her calm, even tone conveyed a rage she had never known before.

If she weren't the scientist she was, she would have taken a saw to the subject's head, if just to hold it aloft and punt it. But she needed more data and she needed every bit she was going to get.

She watched as the cells started degrading under her eyes, breaking apart, spilling the life essence against the back light of her microscope.

More than 70 percent of the body was filled with insect blood, as during the process, the embryo was surgically injected at specific sites to replace the mammalian blood. At such an early stage of meiosis, one could even replace the cells forming for the ones being injected, which if she saw the process happening, was sure how the process itself worked, but doing so must have taken a lot of trial and error.

The intellect behind it was astounding. The savagery in which it was done made her stomach churn.

It was one thing if the experiment was simply that, experimentation. If the subject did not actually live to grow, the cells could be destroyed and kept from the horror of the degradation.

"Cells are degrading at a rapid pace. Process would take time, but would eventually capitulate the body, leading to loss of organ functions."

The separation of mammalian and insectoid blood was why the clones blushed red in the face, but skin was pale to the point of near white. The brain could function only with mammalian blood.

She needed more data. She would have to visit the Velvet Glove for more of the green nutrient solution to see what kept them connected, instead of eating each other within the body.

But she had come to know a lot more than she originally had. Maybe more than she had originally wanted to.

Once the last cell died, she moved back from the table and stood up. She walked over to the corpse of the once great conqueror, nothing more than a cadaver for her to utilize as an information hub of her current and most important project.

She looked at where the intravenous tubing connected to the thick arm of the body. The chest had been exposed so she could confirm the similarity of organs, only to find exact matches of Etherians. Except they were a crystal teal instead of ruby red, all except heart and the veins leading up to the brain. It pumped mammalian cells to that and those of the neck and face, but the connection to the lungs were reconfigured with an apparatus that she removed one of to find the chemical process of fusion happening, as well as chemically altering the insectoid blood to become mammalian and bring oxygen to the brain.

It was ingenuity at its finest. It's purpose made her want to retch.

She finally let her anger flow.

She spat on Prime's face.

"Some fucking God you are."

[therealaves-blog1]

I want the void to hear my takes on Star Trek: Coda

we jump to an alternate reality where Captain Riker is riding the Ent D to do the start of First Contact. He gets some cool torpedos he got from an alt Picard (presumably ours) and fires them turning the cube into dust. As the borg try to do the whole time travel thing ghost and snakes come out of the portal and tear it apart before attacking the Ent. They’re boarded and lots are killed. Riker fires the last of the torpedos hoping thats enough to close it. A young old wesley is sneaking around aboard and reflects that he cant save them as he thinks on what to do, he decides to go home and the D is destroyed as well as its reality from the weird portal.Our Riker wakes up and is like ‘fucked up dream.’ I like that they’re watching realities in their dreams, thats fun. hope they do more with it.

They examine Wes corpse and everyone is struggling, As you would be if your kid died on the beach as an old man. They’re looking at his crap in engineering when it starts beeping so they go down and it responds to Picard and Crusher by summoning Younger Old Wesley. He tells them the one whose dead might be his future or an alternate reality or something and gets the thing working. he calls it the Omnicron and its like a souped up tricorder. He shows Picard an Iconian planet thats had its spires retrofited by the enemy and they detect radiation that implies those aliens who went back in time to california where Data got decapitated are behind.

Captain Dax goes to a fun space anomaly last seen in the first DTI BOOK (its a big ass tardis style corridor that connects the same place to itself every several 100K years, its neat. That does the whole nightmare collapse shit. But because the Aventine is a certified banger of a starship they managed to hold the time ghosts and snakes back and get out of range as everything around the time hole collapses. They detect a transmission for the planet picards heading to and hop along.

Wes is upset about his dead self and uncomfortable but hides it from his lil baby brother. Aww. A vulcan engineer named Taurik gets a brief aside as he looked at a future computer on a prior adventure and has knowledge, so the DTI are like ‘help Picard and try to make connections with you knowledge’ and hes like sick. They find something fucky going on down on the planet and beam down. Wes time shifts them enough to see a prototype version of the spire but the Devidians notice them and most of the away team is killed before they beam out. Enterprise gets hit, but they hold them off long enough to blow the site up with cool torpedos and Wes incapacitates one of the ghosts with his other selfs future gun. Rene gets hit by some time shockwave shit or whatever and is aged to 19 from 6. Ooph, thats some heavy shit there kid. Im sure they can beam him young again like they did with Picard that one time.

Some fun stuff in this section but the fact that Future Wes programmed his time computer to only give them information at the right moment or whatever is a lil convoluted. I get its time travel, but you’d think you’d blast ‘heres all the relevant shit I know’ first if you were dealing with reality killing Time Ghosts.

[ash-pile]

I totally forgot I made this thread. I’ve been taking notes as I go through each episode and wanted to share them.

Note for thing

19

Celia is 100% aware that she’s looking into other worlds and things.

I wonder if the ‘protocol’ in the statement is the same protocol as whatever destroyed the institute.

Sam definitely is catching on to what’s going on with the computers.

I wonder who Lena is going to see.

Hope Colin gets better. He’s having a terrible time.

I still think that Alice knows more than she’s letting on, but she’s saying things carefully and with enough sarcasm that the glitch can’t catch her.

20

Wait the security system is mercenary’s ?

Whoa how did Sam figure this out? Did he get that just from the statement? Did Freddy just straight up go: figure this shit out weather boy?

Yep Alice knew more than she said

So many good lines from Alice:

“The five of us and Colin! Who’s already lost it!”

“It’s called the British government!”

I wonder if Alice is purposefully making Sam feel alone in this

INK5OUL HOLY SHIT. I love them so much

“Lovely skin” eh close enough welcome back nikola orsinov. Wait they don’t know? How does inksoul not know what’s happening?

The pain of fame

Did she just compelinksoul? Needed to be ‘seen’- is that the eye? Maybe Spiral?

Ah unethical art! So much fun. Desolation now. More fire?

Are they able to make marks like the books? Just with a like canvas instead of the dead ones. Like how keay was able to make magic books to do stuff. like ex altiora. I wonder if Ink5soul is this world’s version of that.

Yep something about the designs is magic/fear based. They’re definitely an avatar

Oh that’s a great question. Are you destined to be an avatar or does it come to you? Is this the first mention of someone becoming an avatar thanks to a power? Also she called it a hunger

Yep. Gwen’s getting a tat! her scared whimper is so sad.

21

Prediction: buried/eye based

*Can* you quit?

COMPLICATED????? CELIA WHAT YOU MEAN COMPLICATED YOURE FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

Does Celia know how to go back but doesn’t want to?

MAGNUS ARCHIVES. The protocol is looking more and more like the cause of the archives distraction.

WAIT WAIT the statement is talking about a transmutation occurring on the turning of the millennium being significant. And tmp is set in 2024ish right? And the institute burned down (and I think brought Celia here) about 20 years ago. At the turning of the milenium. Yep the year 2000. Right in that time frame.

A locus? Is that supposed to be a site of a fear?

Gas works. The archives?

What.

Yeah I think the locus is a term for those spots like hilltop house

Alice is hiding the message. Talking to Freddy like he’s a person. “Who’s in there?” Oh god she’s getting pulled in too. Yep the several glitches from her lies.

Ah Lena is able to tell that she was interfering with ‘seeing’ them.

Lena is worried for Gwen. Cool

Ooo ink5oul can tell she’s got a family crest aka she’s rich/well known. I wonder if it’s just obvious or something to do with their powers.

They can just *change* tats on people?!?!

Compelled?????? What the fuck???

THE ENTITY. IT SPEAKS

haha the bitey

22

Prediction: More Colin?

“Watching figure” lol

I love that Gwen is still trying to take Lena’s job

Close enough, welcome back Us

Yeah that’s kind of what I imagine a brain thinking of itself to ask

Ooo Sam is smart enough to see through the lies. I wonder if Sam is able to tell she’s lying because he knows her or because of powers?

Oh he knows that a lie that can can’t take care of himself

Is the suggestion that they could rule together?

HOWMGNAISHANFISMFHWIJFB JMART

‘Who?’

Holy shit oh my god fucking WHAT

23

Prediction: stranger/flesh. Maybe more Colin?

Not inner peace? What does ‘peace’ come in the form of?

It’s coral?

Sample? Are you sewing eing the coral I to yourself? Turning yourself into coral? Yep, surgical tools and putting the coral into yourself..

‘Unzip’ that’s such a description

So weird. She’s made of coral and is you but different?

Love the fact that it’s Freddy/jon reading this one. Cause he goes through a similar process, finds his ‘peace’ through the recordings and gradually breaks through the old jon to become something else. Good parallel

NO NONONONO NOOOOO THEY CANT BE DEAD NO. anyway that said 20 yrs, so right at the same time that Celia probably came and the archives were destroyed. I think that this world was 20 behind tma so when they came thru those two died. Probably because their counterparts were there and dead too and the world couldn’t handle it

Celia knows that they were the correct people, I wonder why they were different though.

Basira!!!

Was that Alice dropping the mug? Or Gwen? I want these two to be gay for each other so badly. Gwen is pretty smart, just also super scared.

I swear if Alice makes a joke and hurts Gwen I’m gonna be so mad

Aw she knows she’s been arsy

WHAT TOO MANY EYES

I do still think that the entity is Jon and/or elias. The tape recorders.

Wait Alice knows about the tape recorder.

24

Prediction: Lena is confronted by Alice.

God I love the theme song

Wait was my prediction correct? Aw nope.

Alice and Gwen are working together? Carefully wording her statement so the camera does find the lie. Just like Alice has been doing.

The lie on thank you. Oh so good!

lol calling the eyes orbs

The more details she says make me think he’s not human. But also the description of her happiness is nice. Aw she’s sweet

Celia mention!

Sharp teeth

Girl are you letting a baby guilt trip you?

Nooo is the depression hitting her. Girl

Who is this health visitor?

Feed and eat? She uses those as different things. oh is he a vampire??

There’s the barking sound. Yeah he’s definitely not human

Definitely bad when Alice is saying so

Yeah it’s weird but I guess why not? Also yes Celia! Support Alice. Love Celia having to parent the two of them

Omg basira!

DUDE YOURE SO BLUNT

No lie there, basira is a totally different person here.

Celia is trying to connect basira to her tma world. They suck at investigating.

Starting a thread for myself of theories and ideas about tmp. Gonna update it as I listen to episodes.

I’ve listened to 11 as if this first post. Also I think it goes without saying but there will be spoilers here, I might not have a ton of info but I do have and reference stuff in the episodes

Jon/chester/computer bois:

I think that Jon is using the cameras and things to see and listen, which is why he’s able to give statements that are very close to what’s happening with the characters.

Also I think he is trapped, but idk if he’ll ever get out. Maybe if he and Martin get out then Jonah Magnus can too so they’ll have to choose.

I wonder if they’ll be the same if they escape?

Or if there is a jon and Martin in the world too?

The entities:

-I saw someone else say this (don’t remember who or where tho) but I think that when the web and Jon pulled the entities thru the crack in reality in tma, they got squished and melted together.

- It would explain why statements often multiple fears now.

- They are so squished/interwoven that they litterally can’t separate.

Can they still do rituals/summonings?

Alice

-Another thing I saw but makes so much sense. Alice used to hold Lena’s job/she’s secretly the boss-boss of OIAR

-would explain why she and Lena got the message that Sam was trying to access restricted files.

-I mean why would Alice of all people see that. Lena make sense but Alice would only see it if she had the same kind of access

-also It might not end up being canon but I want Alice, Sam and Gwen to end up together as a poly. The whole scene with the mocha and Alice being confused but not hostile to Gwen was sweet and I want more of that trio

Celia

-I think she and the others who weren’t in any fear domains were brought here, so Georgie and Melanie could be there too.

-Would also explain why she seems to know more about the archives that most, cause she would have heard about them from those two.

-Maybe she ends up in random places regularly hence the ‘not again’ because the world recognizes she isn’t supposed to be there

-or she’s like Micheal. Tma 198 did reveal that the cult was taken back to their domains, maybe Micheal/something like him got to her before the end?

So she’d be able to jump around with doors. Probably not on purpose tho.

-either theory explains why she’s looking into dimensions and space and physics things

Lena/OIAR

-I think that when Jon and Martin and Jonah and the fears came through, they came through at a different time but same space. The explosion from the gas destroying the building would have been brought over at the same time and thus destroyed the archives in this world

-and maybe if it was an important place for the eye/the eye is ‘staying’ there/leftover energy from the panopticon, maybe thats why redcanary was so affected and pulled out their eyes. They were forced to by some kind of eye powers

-so with that, I think OIAR formed to document what changes came about after the fears came through. And their database doesn’t work with the fears separately cause they aren’t separate any more

-I haven’t figured out what Lena’s deal is yet, I just think she’s aware of the fears in someway and uses them/avatars/whatever the monsters would be called now to control the amount of fear being spread

[power-chords]

In fairness, it’s not. Sometimes it’s a side effect of a disability, but most alopecia in and of itself is purely cosmetic, even if it’s autoimmune in nature (stupid fail body attacks hair follicles). Watching these conversations from the sidelines is wild. I don’t know why I expected the general public to have a solid, basic grasp of a medical condition that they are guaranteed to either encounter in other people or experience themselves.

The conversation they are circling around but not having, that I’m surprised so few people are having, is how women’s hair loss specifically is not normalized to the extent that it is for men, and how the experience of it is mediated by all these nasty, misogynistic, often racist expectations about feminine worth and desirability. Despite the fact that it is incredibly common, that most women will eventually develop some amount of it as they age, and that you can expect to see a much greater incidence of it in the wake of COVID.

I can only speak for myself, but in terms of how it has affected my self-confidence and self-image, how I experience it personally as a white cis woman, it feels like a kind of dysmorphia or physically-oriented dysphoria. It destroys a part of your secure, gendered identity and renders it a site of constant, active, anxious restructuring. I am way more zen about it now, but when I first started losing my hair I felt like less of a woman. I felt disfigured. I have a fractious enough relationship with my Aesthetic Performance of Womanhood as it is. Having a long, wild, dense mane of hair was one of the few traditional signifiers I was comfortable with, that looked like “me.” Losing that was something I actually had to grieve. It sucked.

And I went through that with an incredibly supportive family who was willing to help me pay for PRP injections and my first human hair wigs, who never made me feel like my despair was unwarranted or superficial or indulgent. I am fortunate to be married to a man whose evaluation of my attractiveness borders on Wife Guy Delusion. He really and truly thinks I am the most beautiful woman alive, and was baffled by my tearful fretting that he’d find me ugly with half my head of hair. (“And you’ll look super hot with a buzz cut if you ever decide to go that route!”) I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been without that incredible social and financial safety net under me.

Jada Pinkett Smith has many of those resources available to her as well, but unlike me, she has to navigate the whole mortifying obstacle course in the public eye, as a Black woman. Jesus fucking Christ. Now factor that into the calculus. I would want to crawl under a rock and scream forever. The more I think about it, the more tastefully restrained I find her husband’s reaction.

[shurisneakers]

harmless (i)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader)

Warnings: cursing, nonsense writing

Word count: 1.5k 

A/N: listen i just needed something to keep my mind busy and a perry the platypus!bucky and dr. doofenshmirtz!reader was the only thing i could think of. dont have any high expectations from this series, you will be sorely disappointed.

If you have any ideas for this series, lemme know!! it’d be cute to write!!

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Series Masterlist

Bucky Barnes, for all intents and purposes, is edgy. 

His SHIELD salary is definitely enough to afford him a simple beanie, gloves even if he’s that eager. His long hair, though a spectacle in itself, isn’t as good at keeping away the cold as he claims it to be. 

It’s a personal choice, a fashion statement even, to be roaming the streets in a long flimsy t-shirt that does nothing to accentuate his broad shoulders, and tactical pants that look a little too comfortable. 

It’s cold. He says he likes it, to appease his blond haired best friend who insisted that he wear a cardigan at least. He won’t like it in a while, but he would never admit it.

The bike ride to the other side of town for a minor mission takes longer than he expected. The wind rushing by gets his adrenaline racing. 

Official missions are long and gruelling, and oftentimes not fun. But it gives him a purpose.

It’s easy, therefore, to find him brooding when he’s not on one. 

No one wants their room to be on the receiving end of Bucky’s stress-cleaning sessions. His baking is more appreciated.

So when there’s news of a small time villain creating havoc again, it made sense that he volunteered to go sort it out. No one else wanted the job. They’d all been at it before. 

SHIELD didn’t seem particularly bothered either. 

“It’s not that serious, Barnes.”

“I’m going.”

“Just stop her from doing whatever dumb plan she has today. She seems to have a new one every week.”

“Can I-”

“This is not an assassination mission.”

“Fine. Can I-”

“No.”

“Fine.”

He didn’t know what to expect. He had an idea of how they should be. Smaller villains tended to be more aggressive, vicious to prove their point. They were here to stay.

He wears his regular gear. Enough knives to make a butcher look away in shame, and guns including, but not limited to, his biceps.

He finally pulls the bike to a stop a few metres away, leaving it out of reach in case things got too out of hand. He didn’t want to have to walk back to the Tower, and his friends, as much as they loved him, would never go out of their way to pick him up. Little shits. 

The address is a dingy, plain concrete house near an old construction site. It was flat and felt more like an afterthought than an actual building. It looked more like an abandoned Walmart than an actual villain lair. 

The only entrance is the door in the front. He counts to three, lifting his leg to kick it down.

It falls down ungracefully, loud and creaky like it was bound to the doorframe by rust. 

The only light source inside is a green light. All the way at the other end on an elevated platform is a desk and a chair facing away from him. He can’t see much other than that.

Someone’s laughter comes back loud and booming. He raises his gun, feet apart in a defensive stance. 

“I’ve been expecti-” the voice pauses mid-sentence- “Did you just kick down my door?”

He looks behind him to where the wooden piece is on the floor. He certainly did.

He can finally see you as you stand up, green light illuminating your face. You reach over to the side, pressing a few switches. 

He squints when all the lights turn on, pulling the both of you from darkness. 

“Dude!” you cry out, face twisting into what only could be described as a mix of horror and disdain. “What’d you do that for?”

He doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t lower his gun either.

“You’re an Avenger, just fuckin’ pick the lock or something. This is expensive!” 

He only watches as you whine, looking beyond him at your now demolished entrance. You take a few steps closer, jumping down from the elevated platform.

“Insurance isn’t going to cover this.” You drag your palm across your fist before extending it towards him. “Pay up.”

He wasn’t sure if he heard you right.

“What?” he finally asked, voice gruff.

“All you superheroes go around, destroying walls and cars in the name of world peace like you own the damn thing. Not today, bitch boy. Pay up.”

He doesn’t have his wallet with him. He didn’t expect to need it.

“I’m supposed to be stopping you.” 

“You can do that once you pay for my door.” 

You sound resolute, unshaken. A little annoyed. There’s what appears to be a gun in your hand, although it’s unlike any weapon he’s seen before.

“What’s your plan?” Bucky looks at your hand. Your stare follows his. You lift the thing up and he tenses.

“I was going to freeze some jerk but now my plan is to get you cancelled on Twitter.” 

“Why?” his eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Local superhero destroys property of tax paying citizen for no good reason.”

“I mean-” he shakes his head, discarding what you’re saying, “-why were you going to freeze someone?”

“Because I wanted to. But you’ve ruined the mood now, so that won’t happen.”

He blinks, lowering his weapon when he realises you weren’t making any attempt to move. “What’s your ulterior motive?”

“Nothing! I just wanted to mildly inconvenience that stupid fuck for being such a prick.”

He doesn’t know what to say. 

“Is that the freeze ray?” Bucky asks instead, raising his gun when he realises there’s a very real chance he could end up like his best friend. 

“You got a problem with it?” You hold it up carelessly. 

“I can’t let you use that.”

“That’s all you’re going to do?” you huff, “Is this what you call an intervention? This is so boring.”

“Give me the freeze ray and no one has to get hurt.” 

“No one was going to get hurt in the first place, genius. All this does is slow him down for 5 minutes so he misses the subway.”

There’s nothing technically that evil about what you’re doing. He doesn’t even know how you ended up on SHIELD’s radar. He gets why no one was particularly driven to take this seriously.

“And for fuck’s sake put that gun away. You’re not scaring me.” 

He doesn’t oblige, even though something tugs at him, telling him that you’re speaking the truth. 

“Here, take the stupid thing.” You don’t bother waiting for his response, bending over and sliding the gun towards his feet. “I’ll find another way to get back at that dickhead.”

It hits his boot with a small thud. He looks down. Its design is ridiculously comical, like you ripped it straight out of a kid’s TV show. 

“Next time, bring some drama. Wear a cape or something.” You wave him off. “Now get out of my lair. I need to fix the door.”

“You don’t have another one of these lying around, do you?”

“Why, do your friends want one too?” The glare you give him is dangerous. He doesn’t react to it. “No, it’s limited edition. I don’t build the same thing twice.”

“You have others?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy?” A smile grows on your face, dropping as quickly as it arrives. “SHIELD will tell you if I do. Now leave.”

Bucky looks at the freeze ray in his hand. He supposes his job is done. He was told to stop you, but you didn’t seem to have any inclination to go on with your plan.

“You can ask them if you want, they know about me.” You roll your eyes. “Go ahead, call them.”

He doesn’t want to take a chance. As odd as the situation is, it’s still novel and he isn’t quite sure how to deal with it.

He tucks your weapon under his arm, pressing his phone to his ear.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?” Maria’s voice is crisp as ever.

“I confiscated a... freeze ray.” He feels ridiculous even saying it. “But I’m going to bring her in to SHIELD headquarter-”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“But we can’t trust-”

“We’ve been keeping tabs on her for a while. She’s more or less harmless. You can take the rest of the night off, Sergeant.”

He cuts the call, not entirely at ease with the smug, expectant look on your face. 

Still, he couldn’t disobey direct orders.

“I’m gonna... go.” He mentions towards the gaping hole in the wall.

“That would be ideal, yes.” You nod, crossing your arm over your chest.

“Okay.” He hesitates, but finally takes a step backwards. He peeks over his shoulder as he leaves, but finds you swivelled away from him again. 

He steps back outside. The cold greets him again like an old friend. The weight of his weapons feels stupidly embarrassing now. 

It’s a long drive back to the Tower. He keeps replaying the entire story in his mind. He’s unsure of whether he made the right call, but no one else really seemed to care. 

He had seen weirder things. It came with the gig.

He leaves it at that.

“How’d it go?” Steve asks him when he walks into the living room.

“T’was fine,” he answers, toying with the stupid device he took from you. Maybe he would test it on Clint. He had been getting annoying lately. Breathing too much in Bucky’s general direction.

A part of him feels guilty for his carelessness towards your building. The other part is just bewildered. 

That night he looks up the cost it takes to replace a door, making a mental note to draw some money from the ATM soon.

Next part

[ofspvrta]

A Darkened Dawn: One Shot | Corrupted!Verse

          Remnants of the Cult had clung to Greece hoping for some foothold to claw their way back up from the oblivion the Eagle Bearer had granted them. No matter where they lingered, what shadows they had shrouded themselves in, she found them. And in her new found immortality, she gladly faced them with even less hesitation than before. She could balance finding the artifacts and destroying the lingering threads of the Cult.

          The first rays of Helios had yet to breach the horizon, the misthios watching with golden brown eyes from the shade of a fir tree. A few guards, watching a sacred site that had once mattered to the Cult, did they hope it would be relevant again? It didn’t matter. She moved, clinging to the darkest parts, the dagger replacing her depowered spear was gripped tightly in her hand. The first guard didn’t know what hit him from behind as she pulled him into the darkness, her blade piercing through his throat and quickly removed as he collapsed in a cacophony of wet gurgles. The other guard, noticing that his partner was no longer where they stood moments ago, went to investigate, just as she had hoped. As he neared, her knife found quick purchase in his chest, a solid stab into his left pectoral, puncturing the armor and skin and right to the heart. He too collapsed to a heap at her feet. 

        How unfortunate that the second kill was seen by one other guard who was rounding the corner, unseen by herself and Ikaros’ earlier scouting. He shouted, voice booming, “The Eagle Bearer!” Malakes. Drawing her falcata, she moved from the shadows into the dim light of the moon that was quickly settling in the west. One, two, three more guards. She can take them, she thought to herself. Ikaros gave a shrill cry alerting her that they were nearing and she moved, muscular legs pushing her forward to certain danger.

        What did she care? She could no longer die. The same couldn’t be said for them. The first soldier raised his spear, driving it towards her thigh, a move she parried easily with her blade. A swift kick to his sternum pushed him back and gave her space to move toward the soldier who had drawn his sword as well. Metal clashed against metal, the two warriors repelling each other’s blows like it was a performance. But she paused, something tugging at her mind, unknown and unseen. The hesitation was all the Cultist needed to slash at her arm, cutting deep through flesh and sinew. The dagger she held dropped to the ground, the metal vibrating almost too loud through her head as she grasped her bleeding arm. Screaming obscenities, she lashed out, slashing her blade, slicing the Cultist right across the throat. Hot blood flowed out, deep and thick as the soldier fell and Kassandra had to keep focus for a moment. It was the pain, wasn’t it? That was why she couldn’t focus?

          No, she got hit because she couldn’t focus. No, no. There are two left. She squared her stance, grabbing her dagger once more and staring down the other swordsman. They charged at the same time, his blade coming down for an overhead strike that she easily blocked, but he kept the pressure on her pushing the blade down further and further. No, no, she shouldn’t have been losing like this, she was stronger than them, even with the injury. A cry of determination tore from her and she pushed his blade away, stabbing forward with her dagger, one, two, three times in his side until he too dropped, bleeding out with a quickness.

         “Fuck.” She spat, a stagger in her step as she swayed to face the final Cultist. How much was she bleeding? Shouldn’t the staff have healed this by now? Her vision blurred, hand reaching for her head. Was the blade poisoned? The Cult was known for using such tactics, but that still didn’t explain the      “Fuck!” A grazing blow to her side, her head swam and she turned to face the spearman. Spearmen? Were there two? It was that tugging again, that unknown feeling in her mind, a darkness obscuring itself from her. The Cultist was taunting her, she knew that much but the words couldn’t be made out from the fog that was forming in her mind. I’ve been poisoned, that has to be it.

         It didn’t matter. They’d die, she wouldn’t. It was the nature of things now. But the fog kept her focused on the wrong thing, so when the spear stabbed deep into her abdomen, something in her head cleared things up quickly and suddenly. End this. End him. A snarl on her lips, she began to pull him closer to her, by the very spear that he had run her through with. The fog was gone, but there was something else there, something she wasn’t quite sure was her. Maybe if she saw what the Cultist was seeing she would know to fear herself in that instant the way he did.

         He should have let go of the spear instead of trying to tug back on it against what others saw as a demigod among men. He should have done a lot of things, but it was too late as he was in front of her. She said nothing, just curled those lips back in a growl, and in that moment she seemed like a different kind of myth. One arm reached behind her, pulling the spear out the rest of the way while the other grabbed the plume of the Cultist’s helmet and yanked his head back. This unnamable thing, this feeling, it had crept up on her for several weeks now, but here, now? It wanted something.

           She knew what that was now.

                          And she ducked her head down, driving sharp teeth into soft flesh.

           Seconds felt like minutes as hot blood flowed into her mouth. This was only fair, all the pain the Cult had inflicted on her she was returning unto their fractured remnants ten fold. She could feel the life draining from the soldier, his struggles growing weaker and weaker, her wounds healing, her body growing stronger again. 

            And that feeling, that unnameable thing suddenly felt tangible, thick and coating her mouth. The grip she had on him released, the body dropping unceremoniously to the ground. The pounding of her own heart rang so loudly in her ears as she staggered back, horror dawning on her as Helios began his rise across the Eastern horizon. “Wh- what... no. No, no, no.” Her hand formed a fist, the Staff materializing from her body. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Aletheia!” Tossing the staff, it’s sharp tip embedded into the ground as the Keeper staggered back from it. “ALETHEIA!” The sheer terror and panic in her voice did not match the calm of the Isu of the staff as Aletheia materialized into view. “Something’s wrong! With me, something’s wrong with me...” Kassandra nearly choked on her own words, red eyes desperately searching Aletheia’s emotionless eyes for an answer, anything.

          “I am sorry, Keeper.” The Isu spoke, voice deceptively soothing and yet offering little comfort.

           “Sorry?” The way the misthios’ heart felt like it was pounding in her own throat, “Sorry why? Aletheia?”

                        “I am sorry that I have chosen poorly. Perhaps you were not the one I had sought after all.”

          Kassandra wiped desperately at the blood still clinging to her chin. “What do you mean?” Panic burned in her chest.

        “The Staff has corrupted you. I cannot help you further.” Aletheia paused, her visage starting to fade. “Goodbye, Keeper.”

          “Aletheia?” The visage was gone though, the Staff silent, the dawn too. Ikaros perched nearby, quietly watching, his head canting in concern. “No, no, no, no, no. Aletheia, come back! I need... I need help.” Crawling back to the staff, bloodied hands gripped the artifact, eyes red from the tears she hadn’t realize had begun to stain her face. 

            “You can’t leave me like this.” Even with the sun washing the gruesome scene around her, she felt no warmth, darkness gripped her like a vice. Like all things would, even the Isu had left her. Wretched thing. 

            It seemed the Cult had made two monsters after all... 

[younggayanddoingokay]

Yeah, I get this.

Like, I don’t think they’re all evil monsters. I think it was a shitty, smarmy, greedy move that is going to exclude a lot of the fans who most loved and supported their business when they really needed that support. I think it was insensitively handled. Personally, besides Puppet history and the occasional mystery files Ep, I never actually watched most of the watcher content. I didn’t like it as much as I liked BFU, but that was a personal preference. I know others still like enjoyed the content.

I think this was a terrible business decision. From what people who know the world of YouTube financials, the ballpark estimate of what they were making on YouTube and with sponsors is way more than they’re likely to make off of this site. The site itself is poorly designed, as people who DID buy a sub have mentioned.

I also think it shows a remarkable lack of awareness of their target demographic- teens, broke young adults, international people who can’t afford the subscription since they didn’t adjust it for other areas of the world, or people who might be *able* to afford it, but understandably don’t want another streaming service, don’t think it’s worth their hard-earned money, or were just so put off by how the announcement went that they’re choosing not to on principle. All of these were, from a business sense, pretty massive fuck ups.

Do I think this makes them all terrible people? Not at all. Life is more complicated than that. But I don’t really know them beyond their capacity as content creators, nor does anyone else who watches their content. So while I don’t think they’re awful people, I do think it was a shitty thing to do to fans, almost certainly a shitty business move, and I will probably feel a little bit smug about the company crashing and burning when it eventually does because of this, because I’m a petty bitch and, like many people, I love watching Internet drama that doesn’t actually directly affect my personal life.

So yeah, I hope they learn from this. I hope nobody else subs to their dumb “streaming service”. And I kind of hope their shitty decision is met with shitty consequences. But I am not gonna come at them with a pitchfork and say they deserve to have their lives completely destroyed over this because I don’t think they’re bad people. I think they’re doing a pretty shitty thing and I’m angry about that.

But that said, the vitriol of some of these people on tumblr is definitely concerning. Like I don’t inherently think para social relationships are automatically terrible. But they DO need boundaries and limits. I think it’s definitely over blown and at an unhealthy level if your favorite celebrity doing something shitty causes you the same level of anger as a deep personal betrayal by a loved one.

the watcher discourse has completely gone out of the window on all sides and I have no idea what to believe anymore

like idk it feels like an absolutely terrible business decision that will massively impact viewership and subscribers but immediately calling these people evil feels like some people completely jumped the shark

why have I only seen this hate now? it all feels very parasocial

I'm sure they thought this was a great idea, and it absolutely wasn't. it's a huge disappointment. I don't know their wealth, I don't know what to regard them as. it's all completely out of hand and I don't know what the right information is so much that it actually hurts. I don't want to be soft or hard on them for this. I'm angry at the world in general and the cost of living crises happening and the ability to enjoy things without seeing these deluge of subscriptions everywhere

I'm in the middle and I just want to fucking scream

[thran-duils]

And Those I Can’t Charm, I Can Kill (P.4)

Title: And Those I Can’t Charm, I Can Kill (Part Four) Summary: Fem!Reader x Mafia!Tony Stark. Too many fringe gangs were making ties and your father noticed. He reached out to the Stark mob for an alliance, offering up a piece of his territory at first. When Stark told him he had enough land, your father offered up the next best thing: you. He knew Stark needed a wife and what better way to solidify a relationship between the two mafia families? You were not naïve, you knew the life and you were trained with guns and negotiations. Your father had made sure of that. The two of you had seen each other on multiple occasions at mafia get togethers and knew of each other. Stark accepted the transaction but little did he know he was going to get a little hellion handed over to him that would not kiss the ground he walked on. He would grow to love it too. Words: 3,561 Warnings (more WILL be added, I am sure): Eventual smut, power dynamics, sexism, smut, public sex, fingering, dom/sub powerplay, kidnapping, violence, death, knife kink, gun kink, angst with a happy ending

Part Three || Part Five || Masterpost mobile || Fanfic masterpost

You and Tony had stared at each other – you down at him and him up at you. It had felt good, fucking him. You had surpassed the real intimacy of a relationship – something the two of you had never had – straight to physical. It was how you normally did things, but it had just taken longer this time than a one-night stand.

But this was different. This was your husband.

You had a deeper connection now. You were startled out of your desire for this to be continuous.

And suddenly by your own doing, the two of you were apart, you standing yourself and him sitting, and you brushed at your hair, uncomfortable before turning for your clothes just to try to escape this unfamiliar territory. Normally, you would say something witty, grab your clothes, and leave. But there was no leaving him. You slept in the same bed. Even if that bed itself had not been christened by the two of you yet.

Tony was off the couch and came up to grasp your arms, stopping you and you looked up at him.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

The words fell around you. And your breath was short, working yourself up again. Tony saw it too and his thumbs caressed your arms, peering in closer. It was not threatening the way he was acting – comforting more than anything.

“I’m here… I’m here to be with you,” he started slowly, stumbling though. He was a man after all in the mafia, raised with the toxic masculinity that came with it. He was trying to navigate his feelings and be soft with you as well. “I want you to feel safe with me. In all aspects.”

It was intimate. And it was reassuring to know that he was making the effort to move even deeper with it. It was exciting. But you still wanted to be guarded.

“I’m not afraid of you,” you answered. Your eyes shot down and then you said, thinking on your feet, “We are both just naked in this room… standing in front of each other. I want my clothes. In case someone walks in.”

Tony’s eyes shot down and he gave a strangled laugh. “Right.” He let you go.

You gave a half smile before you ducked down and grabbed your bra, doing it up. Tony followed suit, beginning to dress himself back up. And then you grabbed your dress. You pulled it over your head and turned around promptly, “Zip me?”

The complete opposite of what you had asked merely ten minutes ago.

Tony cleared his throat, “Yeah.”

He zipped it up and his hands rested around the base of your neck. You were only suspended for a few moments before you turned around to face him again, your faces close. His slacks were back on, belt done, but his dress shirt half buttoned up, that drew your eyes for a split second.

“This is awkward,” he acknowledged sheepishly.

“Yeah,” you agreed and then cleared your own throat. “Um, let’s exit separately. That would seem normal to everyone else. Don’t want to shock them and all.”

He was amused, giving a little laugh, “Right. Don’t forget your thong though.”

“And there you go being the ass that I know,” you retorted, going to grab it and shimmying into it as he gave another laugh.

<><><>

You saw Bucky and Rhodey watching you come back out, curiosity painted on their faces. They had seen how angry Tony had been taking you back into the room and now that you were coming out alone, that was sure to draw their attention. Shit. Tony should have walked out first. You looked away quickly walking past their table and going back to where your friends were sitting before they could stop you.

Moving through the center of the group, you sat back down, adjusting your dress but did not miss the white-hot stares you were receiving from your circle of friends. You met their gazes and leveled them before giving an expectant shrug.

“Where did you go?” one of them asked.

“Nowhere,” you answered simply. You picked up one of your bottles on the table and began pouring shots. “Let’s drink.”

Another friend answered with a giggle, “She went somewhere with her husband.”

You glowered, stalling in pouring the shots, and asked, “So?”

“Did you finally give it up then? Because you’re being defensive. Oh, look, here he comes.”

Following their gaze, you saw Tony walking out now. He was being as normal as you, no sign of a smirk on his face. But then he did give it away. His gaze did flick over to you and the two of you locked eyes for a moment before he looked away again.

“You totally did,” your same friend crowed.

“If you don’t shut the hell up, I’m going to kick you out of the VIP section!” you threatened her.

“Touchy, touchy! Fine, I’ll drop it. It’s done. And so is your honeymoon officially!”

“Ass,” you snapped as you passed the shots out.

<><><>

Tony sat down at the booth and straightened out his suit jacket. “Where are the shots?”

“Well, we took them without you because you were gone for so long,” Natasha said with a twinkle in her eye.

“There’s plenty of alcohol in this bar. I should know. Where’s our bar—”

Someone showed up at the table, dress in the staff uniform and asked, “What’ll it be, Mr. Stark?”

“A round for the table. Bourbon.”

Natasha and Bucky protested. “No, vodka, please.”

“Fine, bourbon and vodka. Just bring two bottles, everyone has their glasses already. Blanton’s and Grey Goose.”

The server nodded, “Of course, Mr. Stark.”

As soon as they walked off, Tony looked around the table again. And they all averted their eyes. Sighing annoyed, he asked – even though he had a good idea already what was going on – , “What is it?”

Clint took the dive for everyone else and tried to say as nonchalantly as possible, “You look… not pissed off.”

“And?” he asked with a sharp edge to his voice. “Do I always look pissed off?”

“Yes,” came the chorus around the table and he frowned, displeased.

Unable to help himself, Bucky chortled, “You fucked,” as Rhodey cracked a wide smile at his statement.

“Be respectful,” Tony snapped at them.

Bucky closed his mouth, biting his cheeks as Tony took a long swig of his drink.

“Respectful? You’re the one that’s been complaining she sleeps turned away from you!” Rhodey said, still laughing lightly. “I was frankly getting tired of hearing about it. This is good news for everyone.”

“You’re welcome then,” Tony muttered to everyone’s continued amusement as the server came back with their bottles. He thanked them and took the bottles, beginning to pour everyone their own respective shots.

“To the King and Queen then,” Natasha proposed, holding up her shot glass.

<><><>

A few weeks later, there was commotion at the front door, and you put your book down before sliding out of the recliner you were in. You could hear Tony; he was angry, ranting. You came into the entrance hall cautiously and found him storming up the stairs. He stopped and was shouting still back at Steve, something about making sure that the car was destroyed and far from the city.

He noticed you were standing there suddenly and that is when you got a full view of his face. He was scraped up.

“Christ, what happened?” you asked him worriedly, coming closer to the bottom of the stairs between him and Steve. Steve took the hint and told Tony he would make sure it happened and turned on his heel to leave.

To you, Tony said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” He began to turn to go up the stairs further.

You followed quickly, “You don’t look fine. Here, let me help.” He started to protest but you were already there, going past him. You stole another glance and saw there were scraps by his eyebrow and upper cheek, bleeding still. “There’s a kit in the guest bathroom. That’s closest. Come on.”

Tony followed you and you told him to sit on the toilet. He did as you said, looking hesitant. You dipped to grab underneath the sink and pulled out the first aid kit. Working quickly, you got the hydrogen peroxide as well and used the cotton balls to wipe at his face. He hissed and you apologized gently, dabbing with care.

“What happened?” you asked again as you wiped at the cuts.

“It doesn’t—”

“Tony.”

He ground his teeth for a few seconds before saying, “I almost got run over.”

You stilled and pulled away to meet his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“One of Weston’s guys.” You knew Weston. He ran an outfit outside the city, smaller but it was influential for keeping the borders secure.

“Weston?” you asked in disbelief. As far as you knew, he did not have any issue with Tony.

“I don’t know. We were working at a site and all of a sudden I heard someone coming in quick and Thor shoved me out of the way.” Your heart clenched and he saw. “He’ll be fine. He got nicked and it sent him spiraling. If it had been one of us, we would have had broken bones. He’s shaken up and bloodied, but he’s gonna be fine.”

“That’s good,” you said dropping the cotton balls into the trash and moving towards the bandaids and antibiotic ointment. “But, did Weston send him?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said honestly. “I don’t think so. The guy is someone who had an issue with me personally. Seems his brother got killed or something in a recent raid. Wanda and Rhodey were interrogating the guy after Steve forced me to come back here in case there were other people gunning for me.”

“That was smart of him,” you said tapping the ointment onto the cuts. “I’m glad he brought you back.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tony asked with a small smirk, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yes, I would like you to always come back alive if you could manage that for me,” you retorted, opening up a bandaid. You bandaged up the worst of it and added for good measure, “And if you could be more cognizant of your surroundings that would be a good place to start to make sure that happens….”

Turning away from him, you heard him give a light chuckle at your quip. You felt the air shift behind you, and you closed the kit, pushing it back further on the counter.

You made to ignore how close he was and walked towards the door, but he was quicker, grabbing your arm and stilling your movement. His other hand grasped the door, and he threw it closed before turning you around and holding you against it. Staring up at him, you stayed still, waiting for him to make his move.

“I’ll take that into consideration, just for you. I’ll keep my head on a swivel. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like a good plan.”

Tony’s lips curled into a smile before he leaned in and you followed his movement, coming in to kiss him softly. He hummed in approval, his hands ghosting up your sides. His thumbs brushed over your nipples, and you wrapped your arms tight to paw at his ass through his pants. He liked that by the noise he released, and you sucked in at his bottom lip. Pinning your wrists above your head, his lips dragging roughly over yours. You bit at him now in a mock threat, and he chuckled before capturing you in a passionate kiss. Your pelvis ground towards him and your tongue slipped into his mouth, swirling. The two of you were locked in a passionate dance.

Tony groaned, pulling away as you brushed his length through his slacks with your thigh. He turned you around in a fluid motion, keeping your wrists pinned and pressed himself against your back. Your neck was sucked and peppered with eager kisses, him dry humping you. You dragged your teeth across your bottom lip, a wanton whine escaping.

He let go of your wrists and made quick work of pulling your sun dress up and freeing himself from his pants. Working with him, you spread your legs and arched your back, anticipation crawling over your skin. Pulling your underwear aside, he drove up into you, holding tight at your hips.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you gasped as he picked up speed.

Anyone walking by outside the room would be greeted with loud, pleasured moans and the sound of skin slapping skin with how hard Tony was driving into you. You hardly cared; it was your damn house after all.

The two of you found a slow rhythm to relieve the intensity, a needed break. You rolled your hips, riding him with precision. His hands flexed, one coming up to cup your breast, kneading at it through your dress. He leaned forward enough to suck at your earlobe, whispering filth into your ear before he gave a rough nip.

You pushed back roughly and hissed, “I’m so close. Please.”

Tony’s hand fell from your tit and found its way between your panties and wet pussy. His fingers worked at your clit, and you groaned loudly, begging for him to not stop and he promised you he was going to fuck you good. He was working fast again, his breath coming quick and hot.

“I…I…” you stuttered moments before you clenched, your heat enveloping him tighter.

“Oh, god, that’s it, baby,” Tony praised in a low groan, his fingers faltering on your clit. But he thrusted quicker for a few seconds before he was pulsating. His hand fell to your thigh, fingers digging in as he stilled, emptying completely.

His head rested on your shoulder, the two of you breathing heavy. He found his breath again and laid a soft kiss at your neck.

“Well, that helped my stress,” he breathed.

Leaning back, you turned your head to be able to see him well enough to give him a kiss. Against his lips, you smiled, “Glad I could be of some assistance.”

<><><>

Erick was walking beside you, checking his phone. He suddenly stopped, holding out his arm to stop you as well. “We should go to another store.”

You furrowed your brow and said, “What? Why? I’m done. And they said they would be at the café now for lunch.”

“They’re going to be late.”

Shooting a look across the street, you spotted Bucky inside and slid your eyes back to Erick, looking completely unimpressed. “Nice try. Bucky is already inside.”

Erick swore underneath his breath and you frowned, sensing you were being kept out of the loop about something. You had been surprised when Bucky and Natasha had asked to ride along with you and Erick when they learned where you were going to be going shopping but had told them to come along. They had made it clear they were going somewhere else but would meet back for lunch.

You began walking again and Erick said more firmly, “Y/N, we should find another store to go into.”

Pressing the crosswalk button, you crossed your own arms, your bags bumping up against your middle. You always insisted on carrying some of the bags. Erick was your bodyguard, not your servant.

“Y/N.”

“I heard you. And I’m choosing to ignore you.”

Erick sighed loudly as the light came on to cross and you did so, hearing him follow you despite his protesting. Bucky spotted you through the window and his eyes shot back to Erick, giving him a disappointed glare. It only served to encourage you to move a bit quicker. Upon entering the café, you saw Bucky staring directly at you and Natasha looking at you over her shoulder.

“You’re supposed to be shopping,” Bucky said as you approached the table.

“I’m done. I thought we were having lunch,” you told him, sitting down beside him, placing your bags on the ground. “What’s the hold up?” Natasha was tight lipped as was Bucky as Erick sat down next to Natasha. You exhaled deeply and said in a quieter voice, even though you were alone in the corner, “You can trust me. You know you can. You’re doing a drop off, aren’t you?” Bucky cocked his head and you picked up his coffee and took a sip. “I know Salazar likes to do business in that building. You must need some new toys.”

Natasha and Bucky exchanged a look and for once, you noticed Erick actually looked amused at the fact you had forced yourself into the situation. He knew you were not stupid and he was probably feeling a little sense of pride that they were noticing that as well.

Adjusting in his seat, Bucky admitted in low tones, “Yes. And someone who isn’t gonna be happy about it has people set up inside watching to see who goes in and out.”

“I can do it.”

“It’s dangerous, Y/N,” Erick told you immediately before the other two could respond. His amusement was gone.

Seriously, you asked, “For me? They’re not even to think twice about me walking in. Sure, I’m married to Tony and my dad is a boss. But people really don’t pay attention to me except thinking about getting me on my back.”

Natasha ground her teeth at that, uncomfortable.

“Well, it’s the truth,” you said, shrugging. “They’ll think I’m just going in to look at the back jewelry room. All I care about is shopping anyways, right?” Natasha cocked an eyebrow and you said with a smirk, “Yes. I do know about that too, and I’ve been inside. Problem is I’ll have to actually go up to the room and that guy — Tucker — is a sleazebag.”

“You think I’m gonna let you go alone?” Erick asked.

You patted his arm, “Look at you being chivalrous.”

“Tony would have my balls if I let you around Tucker without me.”

“Wait, we did not even agree to this,” Natasha cut in, holding up her hand.

“Give it to me,” you told her, holding out your hand. “I can carry it in my purse. Go upstairs, get something small from Tucker or act like I was not impressed with the selection, and then come back down a back way to drop it into the chute before circling back and coming back out the front entrance.”

You flexed your fingers after they did not react quick enough. “I have concealed carry if anything goes wrong. And you know Erick is a great protector.”

“I have to ask Tony—” Bucky started to say.

“Bullshit,” you told Bucky. “This needs to get done. I’m assuming it’s time sensitive. And you had an unexpected snag and you have the solution sitting right beside you. Not acting on it is going to make you miss your goddamn window. I have gotten my hands dirty before and involved with this type of shit. It’s nothing new.”

Natasha nodded at Bucky stiffly and he sighed, reaching into his jacket, pulling out a thick bag and handing it to you. You felt it was money and put it into your purse swiftly. It was concealed by the fact it was hidden in a grocery store bag, not see through. Picking the menu up, you quickly scanned it.

“Erick and I both like breakfast sandwiches, his with ham and mine with bacon,” you told them putting the menu back down on the table. “I want an orange juice too. You?”

“Water,” Erick answered before following your movement to stand up.

“I’ll be back before you know it. Hopefully before the food gets here. Mind my bags, please,” you told the pair before striding off and not waiting for their answer.

Tucker was a sweet talker as always, commenting on how nice your jumpsuit looked. His hands trailed along your own and you pulled away naturally, not forcing it. When you politely brushed off his advances, he congratulated you on your recent marriage since he had not seen you since it happened. You bantered back and forth with him about how he was always able to find out the latest gossip. He told you that it was big news that Tony had gotten married; if you did not know it, you were not keeping your ear to the ground at all.

To your surprise, he had something in stock you really wanted. And it was for Tony. A nice new ring and you took it happily. Hopefully if Tony caught wind of this – which he certainly would, you doubted Bucky or Natasha would lie to him – this would soften the blow.

On the way down, you did exactly what you said were you going to do and you dropped the bag off in the chute and came back around. Walking right past the people that you knew were watching for whoever it was that Natasha and Bucky were worried about. They only glanced at you and looked away when they saw the small signature bag of Tucker’s business.

Sliding back into your chair, you placed the bag on the table and said, “It’s done. Also, do you think Tony will like that?”

~~~

Marvel tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld @holl2712 @agustdowney  @biiskuitx @buttercupfangirl @namjoonwatcheshentai @kaylamcd2000 @damntonystarkandhissmile @aditimukul

Fic tags: @patheticallysentimental @suchababie @downeyreads @teenageregression​

[alovesongshewrote]

Beauty, Beast, Bullets - Your Resume

Plot:   yeah, yeah, Romania is full of vampires, werewolves, and metal-men, but the reader is not phased.  In fact, they’re rather experienced.  Heisenberg, specifically, is intrigued. [Karl Heisenberg x GenderNeutral!Reader]

Word Count: 1,191

Warnings:  so, y’know the outlast games?  trigger warning for basically everything that was in those games.  

A/N:  surprise, this is technically a crossover with Outlast and The Magnus Archives, but not really!  you don’t need to know anything about either of those things to read this, it’ll just be really fucked up instead of, “Oh hey, I know what they’re talking about!”

Anyway, this fic is like, rated M for mature, so please read with caution 

taglist: @mxcheese @blixeon @valentimmy @prismarts @chrysanthykios

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The village wasn’t your first brush with the weird and wacky horrors this world has to offer.  Technically, it didn’t start with the asylum and Murkoff, either.  Nah, your complicated relationship with the supernatural started when you got lost in a never-ending corridor at the age of twelve.  That was a trip and a half, but really, it wasn’t.  You’d never done drugs, and you weren’t asleep.  Back then, you even had a normal sleep schedule.  It was just a weird experience, though you got the sense that your therapist would doubt that.  Especially since that fun trip wouldn’t be your last encounter with some pretty fucked up shit.

After the hallways, you’d been chased by creatures made of shadow, beings without faces, and honest to god, actual fucking werewolves.  It wasn’t great.  Your teenage years were spent cowering in fear, running from every threat that came at you, and trying not to die.

“Wasn’t great” is an understatement.  Your teenage years fucking sucked.  

Eventually, you got tired of being scared.  You were sick of the fear.  You hated it, and that led you right to the BSAA.  You learned, there, how to fight the things that frightened you.

Fighting didn’t stop them.  You spent your days seeing things out of the corners of your eyes and readying yourself to run at any moment.  You felt eyes on your back, watching you, always.  You felt hunted.  You felt like you were losing your mind.

And then, one day, it all stopped.  Not because you destroyed the source or anything, it just ended.  You remember it was as if all of the monsters that lived to torment you had been removed from the universe in a millisecond.  

Your fear was gone.

But the BSAA was not.

You had been working for the BSAA for about two years when the first Murkoff thing went down.  Some guy with too much money and too much time had been conducting human experiments under the facade of an asylum, shit happened, the experiments escaped, and somehow, a couple of journalists got to the scene before you.  Poor bastards. 

The “Mount Massive” incident was a bit of a big deal, but, of course, it wasn’t big enough for the BSAA to send anyone important, so, they sent you.  You had never been more afraid for your life than you were within those walls.  

Your monsters were gone, and some cruel god had decided to replace them with innocent and guilty people alike tortured beyond recognition.  You got the more docile of the survivors out of that hell and into actual healthcare.  The more violent survivors had to be dealt with differently.

Once the site was cleared of survivors, you were then instructed to clean the asylum, just to make sure any biohazards ended up in the right hands.  Really, you should’ve just burned the building.  The asylum itself was a biohazard, soaked in blood, shit, and semen.  The stench of piss and vomit permeated every space you entered.  Every room was filled with more corpses than a damn graveyard.  It was awful.  And then, you found the tapes.

Hours upon hours of someone’s last moments, though you couldn’t tell his name, you could tell that he was really, really dedicated to his job.  You never found his body.

You found others, though.  Cadavers and corpses piled on top of each other, burned, and broken, and mutilated in ways you didn’t want to think about, much less describe.  Then there were the documents, piles of paper detailing exactly what the fuck had been done to the patients over the asylum’s operating years.  You had to read each and every one of them.  At least half were stained with blood.  For the first time in a long time, you were afraid again.  You hated it.

You did not have a good time.

But you did a good job.

Good enough that the next time the Murkoff corporation fucked up, you were sent in once again. 

Joy.

The second time, the mess was in Arizona.  It was some cult that got fucked over by its proximity to another experiment.  The people living there lost their minds entirely.  The few you found alive were riddled with disease and bloodlust.  There was one survivor, that time, and he wasn’t even a member of the cult.  He was another fucking journalist, ironically enough.  When you found him he was a muttering, shambling mess, tripping over corpses and calling out for someone named Jess.

You had him evacuated as quickly as possible.

He couldn’t get out of there soon enough.

That left you to investigate the wreckage.  Once again, the entire location was covered with blood and shit, though it had the slim advantage of being mostly outdoors.  

The bodies were worse, the second time around.  It wasn’t that you weren’t used to seeing corpses at that point, you were more than used to seeing corpses.  It was just that there were kids that time.  Dead kids, and skinned adults.  Perfect.

Of course, that wasn’t all of them.  Most of the bodies had evidence of poison in their systems, which, admittedly, made clean up easier.  For the most part.

Just before the Arizona cult had come onto the BSAA’s radar, there had been an explosion in the mountains.  That was actually why your bosses knew about the damn thing in the first place.  The ruble was a joy to clean up, honestly.

In the months that followed, you tried to wash the blood off of your hands.  It wouldn’t leave.  It was a small mercy that you weren’t afraid of the cult’s remnants, but something worse hung on your shoulders.  Guilt.  Despair.

You’d spent the majority of your Spring cleaning up corpses, it was valid to feel that way.  You deserved time to grieve.  The BSAA did not care.  You were on the field again before the end of the year.

At least your third case wasn’t a Murkoff thing.  Nope, you’d been deemed important enough to serve under Chris fucking Redfield, which was apparently a big deal, but by then you didn’t really care.

There were fewer corpses that time.  It was mostly just black goop.  Sometimes, you had to shoot the black goop.  It wasn’t much you hadn’t done before, all things considered.  It was just another rotten place, further along than most, but decomposing nonetheless.  You weren’t scared.  You didn’t feel guilty or sad, either.  Just disgusted.

There were more survivors, though.  That was nice.  They weren’t even journalists, which was a bonus.  You were actually enjoying the slight change of pace.

Then Chris Redfield pulled you aside and told you to quit your job.

That was a little bit too much change.

You did it anyway.

The BSAA should’ve given you more time off.

For a while after that, you just floated in space, waiting for something to happen.  Life became mundane.  Boring.  It almost made you long for another endless corridor to run down, or a faceless crowd or shadow creature to chase you.  

You didn’t get any of those things.

But you did get werewolves because Chris “boulder-punching asshole” Redfield sent you to buttfuck nowhere Romania.  It was plagued with werewolves.   You were warned of this.

You went anyway.