#this DEFINITELY bout to get flagged

[moscnios]

hii, can I get some suggestive hcs with Katakuri, Zoro, & Sanji's reaction to getting their butt smacked/grabbed by their ( gender neutral ) s/o? 🍑👀 thx!

⟡    ֺ   𓂂  headcanons  ,  getting their ass smacked/groped by their s/o.

✸     characters! . . .  katakuri, zoro & sanji.

✸     cw(s)! . . .  light nsfw. groping. ass smacking. writing subji again oml. no pronouns used. not proofread. minors DNI.

✸     notes! . . .  you guys stop letting me write for sanji like this. it’s not good for my mental health.😪😪 thank you for requesting !!<3

there aren’t many opportunities where you can actually sneak up on katakuri, you know...being able to see the future and all. however, you actually managed to pull it off

coming up behind him to give him a hug as he was washing dishes. so lost in your warm touch, when you lightly smack his ass and disappear off to your shared bedroom, he just freezes

dish still in hand, blush spreading across his cheeks. he implodes on himself. you broke the poor guy

he tries to hide his blush from you, pretending it didn’t have an effect on him

he’s lying. it did.

he’s discovering more and more things about himself he never would have believed he’d be into

being pushed around and teased by you being another one of those

when you walk past him on the deck of the sunny and give him a quick smack to the ass, his eye widens. he’s caught completely off guard for a moment before smirking

you don’t make it any better by telling him “nice ass”

but oh this isn’t over. he’s already planning to get you back, you can already tell from the smirk on his face

the two of you make a fun little game. you’ve spent the entire day trying not to get too close to him. and it nearly works. he forfeits and lets you win, throwing his hands up in the air

but alas, he’s a good-for-nothing cheater, smacking your ass before pressing your front against the wall

“gotcha, brat”

the last thing sanji expected after bringing you the drink that you asked for was you pulling him into your lap by grabbing his ass

he’s trying to keep it together, but he’s definitely hollering on the inside

you know what you’re doing, HE knows what you’re doing

as you whisper into his ear “stay with me awhile, yeah?” as you wrap a loose arm around his slutty waist and just pretend like nothing is going on and continue with your conversation with brook and franky ??

he just melts. 

he’s hardly even listening, he’s too busy still thinking about how bold you are and concentrating on the placement of your hand just above his crouch

[reddpenn]

What makes a rock a rock and not a crystal?

Ok SO

A mineral is a naturally occurring non-organic solid with a defined chemical composition and an orderly molecular structure. This means the molecules throughout the entire structure will be exactly the same, and be arranged in a symmetrical, geometric, repeating pattern called a crystal lattice.

Quartz is a mineral. Its chemical formula is silicon dioxide, and its crystal lattice forms a repeating tetrahedron.

Ice is also a mineral. Its chemical formula is dihydrogen monoxide, and its crystal lattice forms a repeating hexagon.

Obsidian is not a mineral. It is a mineraloid, a mineral-like substance. Its chemical composition can vary wildly, and instead of a crystal lattice, its molecules are jumbled up in an amorphous solid, meaning there’s no nice repeating pattern to them.

A crystal is any solid material with a crystal lattice.

All minerals, by definition, have a crystal lattice. So all minerals are crystals! Some things that are NOT minerals are also crystals!

Sugar is a crystal. It has a crystal lattice made from molecules of sucrose. But it is not a mineral because it is organic.

Often, these repeating geometric patterns in the crystal lattice cause the substance to naturally form big geometric structures with distinct faces - such as the points formed by quartz. These larger structures are colloquially also called crystals, and their shape (called a crystal habit) is determined by the shape of the crystal lattice. The same crystal lattice can produce multiple different crystal habits, and it’s all very cool and complicated but I won’t go off on a tangent about it right now.

A substance does not have to form big structures like this to be scientifically considered a crystal. It just needs a crystal lattice!

A rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids. It can be made of a single mineral, or a bunch of different minerals. But when made from a single mineral, it will not be one solid block of that mineral with an unbroken crystal lattice. Because it is an aggregate, it will be a bunch of micro- to macroscopic grains of that mineral all compacted together, each with their own individual crystal lattices.

Granite is a rock. It is made of grains of minerals such as quartz and feldspar.

Limestone is a rock. It is mostly made of grains of calcite.

So rocks can be made of crystals, but rocks are not crystals - in the same way that a house can be made of bricks, but a house is not a brick!

And this is just a very quick overview of these terms, because the scientific definitions can get increasingly pedantic and there are tons of weird exceptions! It is all very fascinating.

But of course, the word rock also has a colloquial definition, which is just… a chunk of that hard stuff the planet is made of! A mineral, a crystal, a fossil or a bio-organic solid… whatever! This is a rock collection and these are my rocks!

[ellieslob]

★ obsessed

+tags: reader x ellie!, exes, reader is dina’s ex, jealous ellie for the wrong reasons, dom ellie, dom reader?, sub reader, kinda enemies to lovers, dina x ellie but in the wrong way, inspired in obsessed by olivia rodrigo but with a twist

+warnings: this is not a romantic ellie x dina !!!, cheater ellie, dina n ellie are a couple, smut, red flags, jealousy, ellie is a little insecure, you flirt with dina to make her mad

ways to help palestine!!!

REBLOG!

when dina’s ex came back from the city ellie went completely crazy.

the way dina looked at you when she saw you arrived? stunned, she had no words, was almost drooling, like come on, her drink literally fell out of her hand and she spit out the rest. like, yeah you were kinda attractive, like model attractive but like, you definitely didn't look like dina’s type.

dina practically ran directly to you and hugged you hard, you did nothing but correspond, holding her and responde with your stupid and perfect fucking smile. she could lift dina like that, actually she could do it better, you were kind of weak.

ok, she could be exaggerated and possessive you guys were just talking… talking while you touched her leg n looked at her with those dumb pretty eyes? ok, that was enough. “dina, who is she?”

her girlfriend was surprised with how fast ellie appeared and how tight her grip was on her hip “oh ellie, this is umm, i guess she’s my ex-

“girlfriend” you interrupted dina looking ellie directly in her eyes, giving her a cocky smile, leaning to her, almost looking down on her, up and down and then smiling again “and who are you, little one?”

“oh just her actual girlfriend” she tried to make it sound like a joke, but she put dina behind her, while getting closer to you, she could win in a fight, easy, you didn’t seem much athletic, your body was toned but not exactly muscular, shit, was that what dina actually liked? model type boddies? she was fucked, to be so fucking honest, sure, she could win if you two got in a messy fight but come on.

ellie knew sometimes she could look like a fucking mess, not that she cared a lot, like, it was shitty times, she tought everybody looked the same but damn, you were… you were straight up beautiful. she didn’t want to be side by side with you anymore, what if dina started comparing.

you were taller than her, your face was prettier and fucking shiny, you looked way more femenine, your hair was long and seemed like you had a routine for it and shit, god your body looked like the ones that appeard on those old magazines that she found with joel, but only fucking better and right in front of her.

dina kept talking to you but ellie wasn’t looking at her, and she could see that you weren’t really paying attention to her either. you were both looking at each other, defensive, dominant, neither of you wanting to even blink, scared you might lose the battle and appear weak in front of the oher, appear submissive.

you smiled again, and stroked dina’s leg a little, looking directly at ellie, giving her that innocent and provocative gaze, while caressing her girlfriend’s tight, you motherfucker, innocent her ass. she couldn’t wait to fuck you up and beat the shit out you.

“ellie?” but they were no longer at the bar, she was no longer in front of her girlfriend's sexy, pretty and perfect ex, she was in her bed, with dina.

“s-sorry i was thinking” she tried to refocus her total interest in dina, looking directly at her, her girlfriend, that was the only thing that mattered. she didn’t need to be thinking about some girl.

but maybe just a little bit more…

“so… about y-your ex” ellie sat on the bed, taking the strains of hair out of her face, trying to act cool, like she didn’t care, didn’t want to look too obsessed ‘bout the topic, but god she couldn’t plug you stupid grin out of her head.

“mm what about her?” so dina didn’t seem to care a lot, that was good, maybe.

“i don’t know, i- just, you know, you never talked about her”

“ellie i-i really don’t wanna talk about her, i got excited because she was my friend too, and i hadn’t seen her in a while, can we just go to sleep?”

bullshit.

“yeah, yeah, of course” dina finally got into bed, ellie hugged her when she got close to her, making dina the little spoon, did you hold her like this? fuck, she really couldn’t get you out of her head, ellie tried to change the position, uncomfortable with the image of you with her gilfriend in the same bed, she grabbed dina’s hips to help her move better, accidentally stimulating dina.

the little moan made ellie concentrate in the present, but it didn’t really last long, in minutes she was pounding into her gilfriend, grabbing her hair and pulling it, watching how her cunt clench around her hand, completely fucking wet, her loud moans told her she was liking it, were you this good in bed? were you better? worse?

“ellie! yes! just like that” did dina ever think about you when they were like this? did you fuck her like that? or..

did dina fucked you like this?

“ellie!” your voice replaced dina’s, with her eyes closed a glimpse of your body and facial expressions splashed in ellie’s mind, how would you look taking her fingers, crying like a bitch while your ego falls and breaks?

“god! ellie yesyes f-fuck!” dina was a fuckin’ mess, crying, her hips and whole body moving like crazy, would you react like this? if she fucked you like this, would you drool and scream her name over and over? that little cocky attitude, will it disappear? bet she’ll make it disappear.

pulling your hair while she fucked you with her strap, making you scream her name, so that everybody could her you two, so that they knew who was making you squirm and beg.

her movements got rougher, she wanted to fuck you dumb, to make you a fucking submissive wet and horny pile of mumbles and moans, repeating only her name while your pretty face gets all wet by the tears, the swear, the drool…

fuck, she could come just by that image in her head.

the screams under her got her back to reality, what the hell was she doing? she needed it to stop, that was so incredibly wrong, shit, that was so fuckep up, swiftly she tried to stop but dina didn’t let her, she was close, ellie was thinking about her ex, and she wasn’t going to stop her climax on top of that? the girl wasn’t a goddamn monster.

when dina came, she fell hard in the bed, exhausted, sweating and her face was so red, she had cried, cum, drool, everything. “w-what the fuck was that ellie?”

“i-im so sorry dina i-

“i came so hard, god, that was so… it was fucking good, i knew you were jealous but god i didn’t knew that it would make you this hot” ellie, was silent, still judging if she should speak about it or let it go “you know i never felt like this with her”

hours ago, that comment would’ve helped ellie a lot, would’ve solved all of her problems, but right now? she kept imagining you being in that same bed, taking dina’s place, and the worst part was that she knew.

she is stubborn.

possessive.

controlling.

you weren’t just a slipped thought on her head, this was just begging and she couldn’t help but to get completely lost in you.

when dina’s ex came back from the city ellie went completely crazy.

REBLOG!

[jackiepackiee]

How bout 16!stormbringer chuuya x reader where reader is one of the targets that veralines tryna kill and him and adam have to save them but their in school so adam and chuuya have to like follow them around all day and make sure nothing happens.

𝟣𝟨!𝒞𝒽𝓊𝓊𝓎𝒶 𝓍 𝐻𝓊𝓃𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇

𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈 - 𝒱𝑒𝓇𝓁𝒶𝒾𝓃𝑒, 𝒜𝓈𝓈𝒶𝓈𝓈𝒾𝓃𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃

𝒯𝓎𝓅𝑒 - 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝒹𝒸𝒶𝓃𝑜𝓃𝓈 / 𝒹𝒾𝒶𝓁𝑜𝑔𝓊𝑒

Will DIE so he doesn’t lose you

Wanted to state that first, I mean he’d go full corruption on the city and have his power overwhelm him if it means you’re safe

Especially now, since your death would be caused by him (not his fault, but would think it was)

Things also depend on if he’s already lost the flags or not

If he hasn’t?

Well he isn’t fully aware of the threat

He also isn’t aware of the pain

But if they’ve passed…

He knows how quickly the king of assassins will strike

And with the pain of losing his only friends all at once, he’s like a guard dog.

And if Verlaine is a bitch and sends his own spies or small assassins?

Chuuya will OBLITERATE them

He can’t very well kill Verlaine that quickly

But, he can fight him off

And keep him off your trail

Originally found out by a threat by Verlaine

Some cryptic letter in French left on your pillow

(He broke into your house, left a note, and left, all undetected. What’s scarier?)

You couldn’t read it, so you skipped on up to your favorite person, Chuuya, and asked him to translate it (even if you can read French, the letter made absolutely no sense. Riddles and mentions of names you don’t know)

His eyes stilled, no longer moving left to right as they had when he was engaged by the writing. Their usual light tone when he was with you had disappeared.

“Chuu? What’s wrong, you look…”

“Nothing, it’s nothing. You know what, I probably left this at your house last weekend… Don’t you have school? How about I walk you?”

He loved walking with you, a great start to his day. But today’s motives were different. He needed to make sure you were safe.

“Okay! Wait… who is that?!”

It’s… well it’s Adam. Maybe he could get some practice in on explaining confusing situations with you now?

“Hello, I’m Adam. I’m for Europole-“

“Shut up!.. Sorry bout him… let’s get you to school.”

Every time you questioned who the man with you was, Chuuya changed the topic

You knew Chuuya was a mafioso, but knowing Adam would make you ask too many questions

When you finally got to school, he was annoyed

He hadn’t planned this far and didn’t know what to do for your safety

Human version of “fuck it, we ball” and goes inside the school

“Yes, I’m a new student. Chuuya… And this is my dad, Adam.”

Gets let it?!? You don’t mind, of course

“What the fuck is trigonometry?”

“You ask like I know…”

“You’re the actual student.”

“You’re the one who chose to be here.”

Adam buts in. “Trigonometry is the study of-“

When you get to science class, it’s your lucky day that you have physics

He is amazed by gravity, seeing how his ability works in a scientific way

Definitely shows off, making the whiteboard marker fly across the room

“So that’s why I can lift heavy stuff? I wonder…”

Also definitely got yelled at cause the teacher thought he threw it

Chuuya definitely tells Adam to shut up at least every other minute

When you get to literature class, hope you aren’t reading a book on the human condition

Or anything with relationships of the family kind

Quickly gets reminded of Verlaine, and remembers why he is there

Holds you hand tight

“It’s not weird, I just… my hands are cold, that’s all” “Most teenagers who hold hands are involved in romantic-“ “Shut up Adam!”

It’s finally your last class and he’s nervous

On one side, he doesn’t have to worry about you surrounded by so many others

On the other side, it’s gonna be more difficult to protect you when he just has you and Adam without the cover of a whole student body

So, he takes you to his apartment

It’s… dull

He makes Adam watch the door, and you to his bedroom

Helps with your homework to try and ease any creeping ideas in your mind that this is all suspicious

Even if he isn’t any help, like at all

Sleepover!

Overall, you’re surviving

No fucking way that he’s losing you

Not you, never you

[ilikekidsshows]

Usually I like a character with a red flag, that's why my list of favorite characters is mostly villain or dark hero because there's something intriguing about that type of character. For some times I've been wondering why Marinette just turned me off despite having the personality trait that I usually like and reading your responses to your asks just make me realize why.

She just has no interesting background story to back her red flagness. ._.

It just like you said, Naofumi has a reason why he choose to abandoned his heart and compassion. And it's not just Naofumi. Most if not all the fallen hero or villain characters has something, a reason, why they become a villain or fallen hero. Marinette has none.

She's. Just. Being. Spoiled. Rotten.

Even as a hero she also has nothing that make her as interesting character, she's literally a normal girl with a normal life who happen to part time as a hero just because a magical jewel happened to appear on her room.

I've seen people said Adrien has no motivation to be a hero, but I'd say it's Marinette who has none. Because if she has motivation to be a hero then she won't be as passive as she is.

Also, lately I've seen news about some DEI companies hiring that happened overseas and of there's DEI hiring in miraculous, Marinette would definitely be it. Because there's nothing bout her that screamed a hero, she just doesn't has it in her. I mean this is a girl who would wither away in almost every little inconvenience possible, she doesn't have that conviction to be a hero or even protecting anyone. If your hero need external validation for every inconvenience then maybe they're not a hero and shouldn't be one.

---

Exactly. Also, just like a lot of people are saying, Marinette’s descent into villainy could be interesting if that was what the writers were intending to do. If the point was that Marinette’s past of being coddled, excused and validated at every turn has led her to consider others as nothing more than existing for her benefit, that could be interesting in how the story chooses to tackle and resolve that. But that’s very much not what is happening. We’re supposed to side with her or at least be ready to forgive her the instant her lip wobbles and she cries about what a terrible person she is again. We’re supposed to think she’s justified or just stressed out. All of our sympathy should go to her instead of her victims just because she is Marinette, the greatest Ladybug ever.

Shows with villain or fallen hero protagonists acknowledge that what their protagonist is doing is morally wrong, so they put effort into making that protagonist someone you want to root for in other ways. They make the villainy over the top and entertaining, they give the protagonist an understandable reason to act the way they do so that the viewer can get into their head, or they make the opposition of the protagonist even worse and therefore deserving of comeuppance. I very much enjoyed Death Note in my youth while fully realizing Light was a villain protagonist, because the story does all of these things at some point during the manga's run.

Episodes like ‘Derision’, ‘Adoration’ and ‘Confrontation’ make it seem like the writers were, on some level, aware of Marinette’s lack of rootability, but they couldn’t bring themselves to cause her enough hardships to bring her to the level of characters like Naofumi. Chloé traumatized Marinette a year before the show, but in a way that it doesn’t really affect her at all except to excuse the way she acts around Adrien. Chloé and Lila try to frame Marinette for theft but fail immediately. Chloé and Lila mess with everyone’s school forms and something that should be resolved with everyone in class complaining instead requires Marinette to break the law to “expose” Lila and Chloé, but even that was a single-episode plot.

Despite all these efforts, the problem of rootability still persists, however, in that, outside of these two very specific characters, everyone is constantly showering Marinette or Ladybug in adoration. She isn’t entitled to the things she claims she is, like Adrien, and she isn’t enough of an underdog to justify her stepping on others to get to what she wants. But she still does it. She only hangs out with her friends to order them around to help her accomplish her goals and she constantly requires emotional support from the people around her for her nonexistent or self-caused problems while offering none in return.

[elsweetheart]

More of coworker!Ellie please! I am a waitress and costumers can be so rude sometimes… that one you just posted literally made me cry, wishing I had an Ellie to defend me and cheer me up :(

If you don’t want to it’s fine tho, don’t worry <3

nooo don’t cry!!!!!!!! i used to be a waitress n i know the struggles trust me !!! (lovingly throws these coworker!ellie hcs your way)

• so you’re a waitress, and ellie is a host and occasionally a bartender. those are her paid jobs. however, she ends up somehow being a security guard every single time a rude customer shows up. okay, maybe just your own personal security guard.

• the other waitresses can handle their business, and of course you can too — but she can see how frightened and upset you get every time a customer raises their voice at you and she cannot just stand there. instantly, she’s sliding infront of your body with a glare, flagging down security with her free hand. “out. this isn’t the kinda place you can direspect the waitresses, so respectfully— uh, bye.” she nods to the exit.

• she wants to tell them to get the fuck out. wants to tell them that if they ever raise their voice at you again it’ll be the last time they ever speak. but, she likes her job. she likes being able to keep an eye on you and protect you.

• if it’s not clear, she’s like — in love with you.

• always getting distracted by how pretty you look flouncing around, smiling at your usuals. she even thinks you look adorable when the place gets busy and you get that little stressed pout on your face, running back and fourth to the kitchen with your little notepad.

• purposely takes her breaks at the same time as you so the two of you can hang out, gossiping about customers (and your other coworkers tbh cos working at a restaurant there’s always gonna be drama.)

• like i mentioned before, always bringing u to the back room when she sees u get upset because of a customer / your mean boss and calms u down. “hey, hey, hey. eyes on me, babe. you’re doing good out there, okay? i know it’s hard. you’re doing so good. don’t let ‘em see you cry, yeah? those assholes don’t deserve to know that they got to you.” whilst she’s holding your face keeping ur big teary eyes on hers :(

• she knows ur rota off by heart bc she schedules to work on all the days u do 🤭 and if u don’t show up to ur shift or take a sick day or something she’s instantly texting u like ‘Where are you????’ and she’s just like ughhhhh bc working shifts without u is soooo long and boring !!!!

• always dropping by u and making u laugh if she can see u getting a little stressed. you’d be wiping up a table and she’d just walk behind you and quietly go “hey. table 53 looks like mr incredible. bye.” and walk away leaving u giggling 😭

• if it’s busy, and hard to get around eachother around the restaurant floor, she’ll do that thing where she has to get past behind u and will put her hands on your hips / waist and basically press herself against u like “‘scuse me.” in her low drawl and she doesn’t know what she’s doing when she does it, she’s just used to doing it to make sure u don’t back into her but it always makes ur heart beat reaaal fast :))))

• loads of ur co workers already think you’re dating, or secretly dating, or whatever. they see right through the whole ‘just friends’ thing, constantly trying to encourage the other one to ask eachother out !!!!!

• doing a closing shift with her on a pretty empty night, her shift ended a few hours ago but she stays with u, sitting at a table as u chat to her, sweeping up around u and occasionally tending to the few random lone tables of people having a late night meal. she loves to just sit n watch u :(

• sometimes she even offers to drive u to work / pick u up. “ellie are you sure? that seems like a lot of effort…”

“nah, don’t even worry ‘bout it. it’s on the way, so i might aswell, ya know?”

• it’s definitely not on the way during her route, but she’ll take the extra ten minute detour anyday just to see you smiling n looking pretty in her passenger seat <333

[sonadowkismesis]

Shadow is aplatonic: an argument.

"Friends? I'm only temporarily working with you to achieve a goal. Don't get the wrong idea."

from Puyo Puyo Quest's 25th Anniversary event

@apl-swag-bracket

What is aplatonicism?

Here is a quick definition to catch you up.

The aplatonic spectrum, otherwise known as the aplatonic umbrella, is a group of platonic orientations that fall under the umbrella term of aplatonic. Those on the aplatonic spectrum may lack platonic attraction or feel it so little that they relate more to aplatonic experiences. The common link between those on the aplatonic spectrum is that they do not feel the "standard" amount of platonic attraction or they don't feel it in the "standard" way, that alloplatonic individuals do.

Here is some more reading you can do on the topic.

Resources about aplatonicism are scarce and anyway, this is meant to focus on character analysis first and foremost, so forgive me if I cut this section short. Anyway, I believe I have given enough context, so let's get into the meat of this post.

Is Shadow aplatonic?

As stated outright in the Sonic Ultimate Character Guide, Shadow is a loner who relies on himself first and foremost.

from Sonic Ultimate Character Guide (2016)

He is extremely individualistic and doesn't compromise for the sake of others. He prefers to act alone rather than as a team, believing the latter to be futile, and will even choose violence over cooperation to get his way.

from "Team Sonic Racing Racers!" Interview (2019), IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (issue #09), Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Sonic Rivals 2 (2007) respectively

If he teams up with others with cooperation in mind, it's always in the interest of a higher purpose. He'll actively ditch crowds and avoid gatherings once the action is over.

from IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (issue #11 and #31 respectively)

Most of his interactions with the rest of the cast follow this pattern, however there is some nuance to be considered when looking at his dynamic with a select few characters.

Rouge and E123 Omega are two characters Shadow has often been partnered with. Although the word "allies" would be more appropriate to describe their relationship, they're easily the ones Shadow is closest to out of everyone else. In the case of Omega, Shadow even displays bouts of camaraderie, likely due to the fact they share a similar mindset.

from Sonic Heroes (2003)

from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008)

from "Team Sonic Racing Racers!" Interview (2019)

Another notable dynamic that stands out is that between Shadow and Sonic. Shadow's attitude towards him could be much the same as with everyone else if it weren't for their rivalry. Although Shadow is always focused on his goals above all else, Sonic's presence brings out a competitive side that distracts him and pushes him to act recklessly.

from "Team Sonic Racing Racers!" Interview (2019)

from Team Sonic Racing (2019)

Shadow doesn't see Sonic as his friend, but considers him an important part of his life despite himself.

and lastly,

from Sonic Channel's Shadow character bio

Conclusion

Shadow doesn't feel the need for companionship and doesn't seek to bond with others if he doesn't have an ulterior motive. He's a loner and a misanthropic, and would rather work alone to achieve his goals in the most efficient way. Because of his standoffish personality, the few close/intense relationships he has are with people who are "like" him in some way, given the impression of an unconventional connection in a very tangible and grounded manner, and not so much driven by feelings of affection or love. Hence why I think Shadow is aplatonic or is on the aplatonic spectrum... I rest my case.

(I would have liked to give more examples, but the 10 image limit makes this very difficult haha)

Here's where you can read the translated version of the TSR Interview (which I referenced a few times) in its entirety.

Here is Shadow's official character bio.

[mariacallous]

How do you solve a problem like the Houthis?

The U.S. Navy has certainly tried. It’s fired missiles at the militia’s facilities in Yemen. Together with the British Royal Navy, it has intercepted Houthi missiles being fired at ships in the Red Sea. All sorts of Western navies are conducting patrols in the troubled waters. But the Houthis are not relenting. On the contrary, they have asked the world’s most notorious arms dealer for more weapons. And the arrival of Russia’s Viktor Bout in the Red Sea is bad news for global shipping.

The Houthis are unlike any other adversary that Western militaries have faced in the past few decades. They’re not traditional armed forces. They’re not a Taliban-like insurgency outfit whose only objective is to seize territorial power. And they’re definitely not a mere criminal gang, like Somalia’s pirates.

Instead, the group is a powerful militia that has discovered that it can attack ships to get global attention, and it uses weapons ordinarily reserved for official armed forces.

Not even Hezbollah has such capabilities—or at least, it doesn’t use them, perhaps because Lebanon depends on shipping for its survival. Since the Houthis launched their campaign against Western-linked vessels, they’ve certainly been getting the attention they crave, and they’ve been demonstrating that they have access to highly sophisticated weaponry.

On Oct. 10, for example, the Yemeni outfit struck a Liberian-flagged ship with drones and missiles, and less than a month before that, they fired a missile that reached central Israel before being disabled by an Israeli interceptor.

The Houthis claimed the missile they directed at Israel was hypersonic, which has not been confirmed and is unlikely, but they like to brag. Their attacks seem designed to keep the global public in a state of fear over what might come next. And now, the Wall Street Journal reports, the group is in talks with Viktor Bout over the delivery of additional weapons.

Bout, you may remember, is the world’s most notorious arms dealer. The Russian merchant—who is known as the “merchant of death” and has also worked for Russia’s GRU intelligence service—spent nearly two decades selling weapons to armed groups around the world. Death and destruction followed wherever his weapons went.

But in 2008, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) managed to get him arrested in a sting operation in Thailand. He was subsequently extradited to the United States and sentenced to 25 years in prison on several counts, including conspiracy to kill Americans.

“He’s one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth,” Michael Braun—the DEA’s chief of operations until 2008—told CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2010.

But two years ago, the United States decided to trade Bout for an American citizen imprisoned in Russia, basketballer Brittney Griner. Former DEA officials were aghast. So were U.S. military personnel, who had seen the immense harm that Bout’s weapons were doing.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Braun strongly advised against the exchange, noting that Bout remained close to the Kremlin: “Even after formally leaving the GRU, Bout enjoyed the backing of—and at times took assignments from—his former employer.” But the Biden administration believed, or wanted to believe, that the Bout of 2022 was much less dangerous than the Bout of 2008.

And now the Houthis have turned to the wily arms dealer. Before his arrest one-and-a-half decades ago, he specialized AK-47s and grenade launchers, but he seems to be able to deliver whatever his clients need.

In 2008, he offered two FARC guerrillas who’d arranged to meet him in Thailand 30,000 AK-47s, “10 million rounds of ammunition, or more, five tons of C-4 plastic explosives, ultralight airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles, Dragunov sniper rifles with night vision, vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft cannons that could take down an airliner,” not to mention some 700 to 800 MANPADs (man-portable air-defense systems), as Politico subsequently reported. (Alas for Bout, the guerillas had been turned by the DEA, and Bout was arrested.)

That means that Western navies and shipping companies have to prepare for the potential arrival of new weaponry in the Red Sea. The first two deliveries facilitated by Bout, expected as early as this month, “will be mostly AK-74s, an upgraded version of the AK-47 assault rifle,” the Wall Street Journal reported in early October. Bout and the Houthis have also discussed Kornet anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.

The Houthis may well need automatic assault rifles in their armed conflict against Yemen’s official government, but it’s the larger weapons that Western countries should worry most about. If Bout’s relationship with the Houthis takes off, anti-ship weapons could well follow. Thanks to Iran, the Houthis already have access to drones and missiles, but Iran is weakened and may not be able to focus much on the Houthis. That’s where Bout could be useful.

And the arms dealer’s talks with the Houthis are hardly a freelance venture. Since his return from a U.S. prison, Bout—hailed as a hero by Russian state media—has entered the warm embrace of the Russian state, and in last year’s regional elections, he was elected a member of the Ulyanovsk state parliament. If he procures weapons for the Houthis, it will be with the knowledge or even assistance of the Kremlin.

The Kremlin has already shown a desire to help the Houthis. Iran is brokering talks between Russia and the militia that would see Russian P-800 Oniks anti-ship missiles delivered to the Houthis, Reuters reported in September.

The powerful missiles, which have a range of 300 kilometers (186 miles) and carry a 200-kilogram (440 pound) high-explosive warhead, would significantly increase the risk for merchant vessels in the Red Sea—and even for the Western naval vessels there to protect them. Indeed, the arrival of the nasty P-800 Oniks would trigger the departure of the remaining few shipping companies still sending their vessels through the Red Sea.

“The very notion of the high seas is now challenged, and once state and/or nonstate actors, especially proxies, discover a new approach that has strategic, operational, and tactical impact, it will only be mimicked by others,” retired Vice Adm. Duncan Potts, who commanded the European Union’s counter-piracy operation in the Indian Ocean at the height of the piracy resurgence there in the early 2010s, told Foreign Policy. “I fear this is a game-changer,” he added. “Defending against complex weapons needs complex weapons, and there are relatively few navies who have the capability, number of platforms, and will to do anything about it.”

It’s also about the dividing world. Ever since launching its campaign against shipping last November, the Yemeni militia has spared Russian and Chinese vessels. The two powers have shown their appreciation by not pressuring the Houthis to end their campaign and—unlike earlier operations against Red Sea pirates, where China participated—by not taking part in escort plans. (Western countries are conducting the escorts and fighting of Houthi attacks regardless of what flag ships fly and in which country they’re owned.)

The fact that Moscow appears so willing to fund an assault on Western vessels shows that global shipping is splitting in two—and a divided ocean will be a far riskier and more costly place.

[reveluving]

Ohhhhhh you got me going!!! I know you’ve written for reader to be married to Rick instead of Ben but how ‘bout the reverse??? Rick is jealous that she’s married to Ben and tries to pull rank but Ben is a Delta boy so he doesn’t give two shits about rank??!! 🤣

a/n: again, an ancient ask, tad shorter than usual too, but you know I could never say no to these two (love you, aria)!! 

warnings: petty Benny vs pettier(?) Rick

j.k. m.list (series under 'rick flag vs the triple frontier boys'), or check out my full m.list!

Let’s face it—whether you’re married to Rick or Benny, our beloved Miller is not going to give a damn about his and Rick’s rank differences. 

So, when hears Rick say it for the first time, and Benny’s like “??? My guy, who gives a shit, I'm just trying to get some veggies, what does your rank have to do anything with her?” 🤨

He will definitely not say that if you were with him at the time, mainly because he knows you’d want him and Rick to get along, so Benny did the best thing he could do, and that was giving Rick the most crooked, most unsure smile like that one ‘hide the pain Harold’ picture and say “cool, man. real cool.” 

Rick’s not exactly proud of his past, so when he’s comparing ranks, it isn’t necessarily him boasting, but more so having fun, considering he’s heard plenty of stories about your knucklehead of a husband. Plus, it may or may not be tactic to see if Benny would break over something petty—just so he’ll know that you’re in good hands.

And in a way, Rick at least has to give it to him for maintaining his composure. Admittedly, he had his doubts about Benny at first, the man sounded like a handful for an angel like you.

˚ · . f i n . · ˚

[mareastrorum]

personally I will never forgive Roux for putting the words "degenerate freak" into Molly's mouth. He Would Not Fucking Say That (derogatorily).

There was a blessed couple of months that I legitimately forgot she had added that to The Nine Eyes of Lucien, but then the Internet occurred and reminded me, and I seethed about it for a while all over again. Given that this might be a niche area of information for some, time for exposition!

Degenerate is not a very consistently defined term, but the connotation is consistent among all definitions: biological degradation. Every use of the term refers to the idea that some level of regression, failure, or corruption has occurred on a biological level.

Social degeneracy is a social theory that arose alongside social theories of evolution. In short, while some groups of humans evolved, others devolved. Meaning some humans became inferior at the same time that others grew in superiority. Degeneracy is an inherently racist theory because evolution as a biological theory doesn’t include regression or similar occurrences as inherently inferior or bad. It’s just not what evolution is bout. The imposition of a moral tint is what social degeneracy is about.

Art history and music history buffs know a lot about social degeneracy theory because it rose to prominence in the Nazi party and was brought into common discourse through targeted criticism of art and music. Ironically (or is it?), the outcry against degenerate art was initially popularized by a Zionist who included some particularly vitriolic criticism of Oscar Wilde, an infamous poet who was ostracized and imprisoned for homosexuality. However, anti-semites soon decided it was a good way to alienate Jews and any other undesirables. Honestly, there’s nothing inherently anti-Semitic about the degenerate art theory, it’s just particularly useful for fascists and xenophobes to be able to claim that something they dislike is a red flag for racial corruption. Nazis used it for modern art and new hybrid forms of music, especially those popular among Jews and Blacks, and it was done with complete understanding of the word and the social pressure it would exert.

“Degenerate” is a loaded term and should not be used lightly. It has always been tied to an idea of biological degradation, and there is no reason to use it outside of that context. To do so is either intentionally invoking those ideas or demonstrates profound ignorance and laziness.

In the context of Critical Role, it has been used exactly once. Ashly Burke used it in the context of her character catching what many believed to be a “degenerate’s disease.” That phrasing was meant to convey the idea that there was a powerful social stigma associated with the disease and that those who suffered from it also faced discrimination. This was a great use of the term because it succinctly communicated the type of bullshit people endured in that setting for simply getting sick.

In TNEOL, Madeleine Roux decided that Mollymauk Tealeaf, a CR fandom darling among non-cis queers for being the first genderfluid PC, would call Lucien a “degenerate freak.”

Why use that phrase here? What possible reason does Molly, who shares a soul and body with Lucien, have for invoking the idea of biological degradation here? There is no in-character explanation for it except ignorance, and let’s be real, Molly isn’t going to hear someone else call him a “degenerate freak” and then use it against someone else without the joy of learning what it means so that he can make sure it hurts. Especially given that Molly also experienced racist bullshit in the short time he was on screen. I’ll admit, I’m assuming that Molly has a minimum amount of brain cells to be used for the purpose of artful insults, but I feel comfortable in that assumption because it was one of the past times he enjoyed indulging on the stream.

Alternatively, Madeleine Roux just wanted to call Lucien a degenerate freak and Molly was a convenient mouthpiece.

Up until that point in the novel, I was not sure how much input any of the CR cast had on the book. After reading that line, I felt safe in the conclusion that they had absolutely no input whatsoever. I cannot find it in myself to believe that Taliesin or Matt would have agreed that was something Molly would say. It is possible, but I simply cannot believe that it would actually be true.

I’m so grateful that I don’t listen to audio books, because that means I never had to listen to that phrase spoken with Molly’s voice. It doesn’t exist in my head because I can’t even imagine what it would sound like. Thank fuck for the written word.

Roux can go fuck herself.

[alex-rambles]

When you were writing, how did you manage to make the characters be like so in character? Especially Bill since he’s such a complex and chaotic character and yet you still managed to write him as in character as possible. I want to write one shots and fanfics and what not but I’m always afraid the characters I write about won’t be really them if that makes sense.

Oh damn you think Bill's in character? Thank you! I've never had other writers ask me for advice (that I can remember)

Well, the simple answer? Write. Immerse yourself in the character in question. It is far easier for me because I spent two years hyperfixated on him, and only spent around the last year publishing anything to do with him.

For things Bill-specific, some general things I keep in mind are the many, many analyses of Bill by @eldragon-x, as well as my own headcanons, and things displayed in the show. In general, Bill is most definitely a "not like other girls" type with an eccentric personality. He's a self-centered man child. He adores the odd, the unusual. And yet despite how much he claims to adore sheer chaos, he plans intricately, and gets mad when his chess pieces aren't where he wants them. Combined with his obvious sadistic streak, this results in him doing bizarre things to distress others ("how 'bout instead I shuffle the functions of every hole in your face?").

Bill wants all his boundaries respected, but everyone else's can just cease to exist for all he cares. "Rules for thee but not for me." He is a hypocrite.

I consider him to be am extremely empathetic individual- who simply prefers to either shove it down, or use his ability for his nefarious purposes. A "dark empath," if you will.

So, if Bill were to fall in love, by extension, although he's still a little freak who likes removing deer teeth, he uses his empathy in a better way- for you. He actually puts effort into working on himself- for you.

Falling in love would be one of the best things to happen to him, because it'd give Bill a real shot at redemption and allow him to become more self aware, and less of a man-child.

Of course yan Bill is completely different. Doesn't try to change. You'll love him in time. Doesn't work on himself, you'll learn to appreciate his red flags flaws. Becomes even worse of a man child, because you're not listening!

But really, find what works for you. As I've said, I went through a phase where I could endlessly consume Bill content, and watch Gravity Falls over and over. I know him like the back of my hand at this point because of how long I would spend researching him, and then writing him.

So write! Write, even if you don't publish it. Write! Go write! Do it!

Anyways, I hope this helps! I'm always open to writing tips, even if I'm not accepting headcanon requests! Always happy to help my fellow writers.

[travoltacustom-translates]

TOKYO GANG SURVIVAL

Want to read along, but don’t have the game? Here’s a link to the event recorded!:

Event Period: 15 of May - 29 of May 2023

FEATURED CHARACTERS

Featured cards: Keisuke Baji / Ken Ryuguji

Event box: Kazutora Hanemiya

Event pass: Chifuyu Matsuno

CLICK READ MORE TO VIEW THE EVENT STORY or

CLICK THIS LINK TO VIEW THE EVENT STORY on Google Docs.

STORY TRANSLATION

EVENT - PART 1

DRAKEN

これで全員揃ったか

We’re all here now.

BAJI

思ったより人数集まらなかったな

We didn’t get as many people as I thought we would.

KAZUTORA

場地とドラケンの人望が足りねぇんじゃね？

Maybe Baji and Draken aren’t popular enough?

CHIFUYU

オレ、今からもっと集めてきます！！

I’ll go get more people now!

BAJI

別にいーよ。4人でも出来ねぇことはないだろ

Don’t worry ‘bout it. We can still do somethin’ with the 4 we have now.

KAZUTORA

急だったよな～。いきなりサバゲ―するから集まれってさ。4人集まっただけでもすげーよ

It was pretty sudden though~. It’s amazing that we even got us 4 together.

CHIFUYU

なんでサバゲ―だったんすか？

Why’d you guys wanna do a survival game?

BAJI

あー。ドラケンがどうしてもやりたいって言うからよー

Ah. Cause Draken said he really wanted to play one.

DRAKEN

それはオマエだろーが

That was you who said that.

BAJI

まぁ、ただのノリだ！2チームに分かれて勝負すっからグッパーやんぞ

Well, it’s whatever. We’ll do rock, paper to decide the teams.

。。。

BAJI

決まったな

ドラケンと一虎のチームRED！

オレと千冬のチームBLUEだ！

Then it’s decided.

Draken and Kazutora will be Team RED. 

Then Chifuyu and I will be Team BLUE.

DRAKEN

今回は4人しかいねぇし。特殊ルールでいくぞ。

弾に当たっても1回は無効相手の陣地にある「フラッグ」を先に奪ったチームが勝だ

There are only four of us, so we should play by special rules.

The first team to take the flag that the opponents have set up wins, even if they get hit.

CHIFUYU

へー。面白そうっすね！

Hehh. Sounds cool!

KAZUTORA

なーなー。勝ったチームに優勝賞品とかあんの？

Hey, hey! Is there a prize for the winning team?

DRAKEN

賞品・・・特に考えてなかったな

Prize… Didn’t really think about that.

BAJI

じゃあ、こういうのはどうだ？勝ったチームは負けたチームへ１つなんでも命令できる

Then, how about this? The winning team can give an order to the losing team and make them do whatever they want.

KAZUTORA

いーじゃん！！！めっちゃやる気出てきた！！絶対勝つぜ、ドラケン！！

Sounds good!!! I’m totally pumped!! Let’s win this, Draken!!

DRAKEN

おぉ

Yeah.

CHIFUYU

いやいや。勝つのはオレらですよね、場地さん！！！

Nah, nah. We’re gonna be the winners, right Baji-san!!!

BAJI

あぁ、全力でいくぜ。ついてこい、千冬。

Yeah. We’re goin’ all out. Follow me, Chifuyu.

CHIFUYU

はい！！！

YES SIR!!!

_ _ _ _ _

AROUND MAP

KAZUTORA

ぜってーオレらREDが勝つぜ！

RED’s definitely gonna win!

_ _ _ _ _

BEFORE BATTLE

[ BAJI and CHIFUYU strategise via their comms ]

CHIFUYU

こちらスノー、ブラックキャット、応答せよ

This is Snow. Black Cat, come in.

BAJI (COMMS)

こちらブラックキャット、スノーどうぞ

This is Black Cat, go ahead, Snow.

CHIFUYU

敵アジト付近まで潜入完了周りにチームREDはいません

このままフラッグ前まで進行予定、どうぞ

I’ve infiltrated the enemy hideout, and Team RED isn’t on the perimeter.

Heading over to the flag. Over.

BAJI (COMMS)

OK. BLUEアジトの守りはオレに任せろ

ぜってぇ、REDのフラッグ持って帰って来いよスノー

OK. Watching over BLUE Hideout.

You better bring back RED’s flag, Snow!

CHIFUYU

はい！任せてくださいば・・・ブラックキャット！

RIGHT! Leave it to me, Ba-... Black Cat!

BAJI (COMMS)

検討を祈る

Good luck.

CHIFUYU

うっし！場所さんの期待に応えるためにもぜってぇフラッグを奪ってみせる！！

Right! I’m gonna get that flag and live up to Baji-san’s expectations!!

KAZUTORA

気合十分なのは分かったけど声、でかすぎじゃね？

I know you’re all hyped up, but ain’t you too loud?

CHIFUYU

っ！！！

Gh!!!

[ KAZUTORA fires at CHIFUYU ]

KAZUTORA

お、避けた！反射神経やべー

Woah, you dodged! Nice reflexes!

[ CHIFUYU fires back at KAZUTORA ]

KAZUTORA

うおっと！避けながら撃つ！？

Yikes! You’re shooting back while dodging!?

CHIFUYU

そっちも油断しすぎねぇほうがいいんじゃね？

Shouldn’t you be more careful, too?

KAZUTORA

ハハ！たしかに。じゃぁ、こっからは本気でいこうか

Haha! You’re right. Well then, I’m gonna get serious from now on.

CHIFUYU

望むところだ！

You better!

_ _ _ _ _

AFTER BATTLE

KAZUTORA

はぁ・・・はぁ・・・まじか・・・

Hah… Hah… Seriously?...

CHIFUYU

はぁ・・・はぁ・・・

Hah… Hah…

BAJI (COMMS)

こちらブラックキャット。スノー、応答せよ。

This is Black Cat. Snow, come in.

CHIFUYU

こちら、スノー。ブラックキャットどうぞ

This is… Snow. Black Cat, come in.

BAJI (COMMS)

どうした？何かあったのか？

What’s up? Did something happen?

CHIFUYU

チームREDの一虎くんと遭遇してやりあってました

I encountered and fought Team Red’s Kazutora-kun.

BAJI (COMMS)

一虎と！？やったのか？

Kazutora? Did you get him?

CHIFUYU

はい、2回ヒットさせて。戦闘不能にしました

Yeah, got two hits in. He’s downed.

BAJI (COMMS)

よくやった！！！これで2対１、かなり有利だぞ

Good job!!! A 2 to 1 advantage is great.

CHIFUYU

はぁ・・・っ・・・すみません！

Hah…gh… I’m sorry!

BAJI (COMMS)

どうした？

What’s up?

CHIFUYU

相打ちだったんです。オレも2回ヒットしました

It was a draw. I got hit as well.

BAJI (COMMS)

そうか・・・それでも一虎を止めたんだ。十分な活躍だ

オレがドラケンを仕留めればオレらの勝ちだ！

I see… You still stopped Kazutora. That’s good enough.

If I can finish off Draken, we win this thing.

[ Gunshots are heard over the comms ]

BAJI (COMMS)

っ！！！！

GH!!!!

CHIFUYU

場地さん！！！！大丈夫ですか！？！？

BAJI-SAN!!!! ARE YOU OKAY!?!?

BAJI (COMMS)

あぁ、でも話してる場合じゃねぇようだ。また後でな！

Yeah, but I guess this ain’t the place to talk. See you later!

CHIFUYU

ウッス！

Right!

KAZUTORA

ドラケンがアジトに到着したんかな？様子見に行こうぜ

Wonder if Draken’s gotten to your Hideout? Let’s check it out!

CHIFUYU

あぁ、もう何もできないけど、せめて遠くから応援だけでも・・・！

Yeah. I can’t do anything more from here, but at least I can cheer him on from afar…!

KAZUTORA

おぉ・・・そうだな

A-Ah… Right.

_ _ _ _ _

EVENT - PART 2

DRAKEN

守りは一虎に任せてきたが・・・やっぱり逆にすべきだったか？あいつぜってぇ守り向いてねぇよな

・・・今さらか、オレが秒で向こうのフラッグ奪えばすむ話だ

I’ve left the defense to Kazutora but… shouldn’t this be the other way around?

…But I’ll be taking their flag in a second.

KAZUTORA

なにブツブツ言ってんだよ

The hell you mumbling about?

DRAKEN

あ？なんでもねぇーよ。それよりちゃんとふらっぐ守ってんだろうな

オマエ！馬鹿か！フラッグから離れんなって言ってだろうが

Huh? It’s nothing. Hope you’re guarding the flag properly.

You! Are you stupid?! I told you to stay close to the flag.

KAZUTORA

でも、千冬発見したぜ？たぶんオレらのフラッグ奪いに来たんだ

ちょっとぶっ殺してくるわ！じゃあな！

But I spotted Chifuyu? Think he’s here to take our flag.

I’m gonna go kill him. See ya later!

DRAKEN

唐突に話しかけてきて唐突に終わりやがった

ま、アイツなら心配はねぇか

千冬があっちに行ってんならBLUEアジトに居るのは場地ってことか

・・・面白れぇ

He comes talkin’ outta nowhere, then he ends it outta nowhere.

Well, guess I don’t gotta worry about him.

If Chifuyu’s over there, then that means Baji’s at the BLUE hideout.

…This’ll be fun.

_ _ _ _ _

AROUND MAP

BAJI

千冬と一虎が相打ち残りはドラケンか・・・面白れぇ

Chifuyu and Kazutora are going head to head, which means I’m up against Draken… This’ll be fun.

_ _ _ _ _

BEFORE BATTLE

BAJI

・・・

DRAKEN

場地発見・・・千冬と話してんのか？

Baji spotted… is he talking to Chifuyu?

BAJI

オレがドラケンを仕留めればオレらの勝ちだ！

If I can finish off Draken, we win this thing!

DRAKEN

言ってくれんじゃねぇか

What are you talkin’ about?

[ DRAKEN fires at BAJI ]

BAJI

っ！！！！

Gh!!!!

DRAKEN

よぉー場地

戦場でくっちゃべってるなんて。えらく余裕じゃねぇーか

Yo, Baji.

Yappin’ away on the battlefield. You got a lotta time on your hands, don’t ya?

CHIFUYU (COMMS)

場地さん！！！！大丈夫ですか！？！？

BAJI-SAN!!!! ARE YOU OKAY!?!?

BAJI

あぁ、でも話してる場合じゃねぇようだ。また後でな！

Yeah, but I guess this ain’t the place to talk. See you later!

CHIFUYU (COMMS)

ウッス！

Right!

BAJI

・・・待たせたな、ドラケン

…Sorry to keep ya waiting, Draken.

DRAKEN

こうやってオマエとタイマンはるの久しぶりだよな

Been a long time since we’ve been in a fight like this.

BAJI

そうだったか？オレとやりあうのにビビってたのかよ？

That right? You scared to go up against me?

DRAKEN

バカ言え

こんなワクワクするタイマンそうそうねーよ

Quit playing.

There ain’t many exciting fights like this.

BAJI

だよな。ボッコボコにしてやるよ！！！

Right? I’m gonna beat the shit outta you!!!

DRAKEN

上等だコラ！！！！

BRING IT ON!!!!

_ _ _ _ _

AFTER BATTLE

[ GUN SHOTS FIRE ]

KAZUTORA

おぉーめっちゃ白熱してんな！

Woah! It’s getting heated!

CHIFUYU

場地さん！！！くそっ、コイツに負けてさえいなきゃ加勢できんのに！！！

Baji-san!!! Shit. If only I hadn’t lost to this guy, I could’ve supported him!

KAZUTORA

野暮なこと言ってんじゃねぇーよ。二人の顔見て見ろよ

Don’t say such things. Just take a look at their faces.

DRAKEN

そろそろきついんじゃねぇーか！？降参してもいいんだぜ！？

Shouldn’t you throw in the towel? Why don’t you give it up!?

BAJI

はっ！寝言は寝て言えよ！！！！

Hah! In your dreams!!!!

CHIFUYU

二人とも、すっげー楽しそうだ

Those two… they’re having a blast!

KAZUTORA

オレも戦いたくて体ウズウズするけど、ここは大人しく応援しとこうぜ！

ドラケンには勝ってもらわねぇとオマエらの命令に従うなんて死んでも嫌だからな！

I’m itching to get in there too, but let’s just pipe down and cheer ‘em on!

Draken’s gotta win this cause I’d rather die than follow one of your orders!

CHIFUYU

それはこっちのセリフだ！アンタ、ロクなこと言わねぇだろ

That’s my line! You don’t get to say that to me.

KAZUTORA

ニシシ。それはどうでしょう？

Nishishi. And what of it?

CHIFUYU

場地さん！！！！絶対勝ってください！！！

BAJI-SAN!!!! YOU’VE GOT THIS!!!

KAZUTORA

ドラケンなにやってんだよ！！さっさと終わらせろよー！！！

DRAKEN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!! JUST FINISH THIS ALREADY!!!

DRAKEN

うるせーな。いいから黙ってみてろや！！

SHUT IT! ZIP YOUR MOUTH AND JUST WATCH!!

BAJI

今すぐ終わらせてやるからよ！！！

I’M GONNA END THIS RIGHT NOW!!!

DRAKEN / BAJI

勝つのはオレだ！！

THIS IS MY WIN!!

BONUS LINES

1ST TIME

BAJI

まだまだこんなもんじゃねぇだろ？

This ain’t all you got, is it?

2ND TIME

BAJI

肩慣らしはこんなもんだろ。次からパワー上げていくぜ！

I’m just getting warmed up. I’m gonna put on some pressure!

3RD TIME

BAJI

そうこなくっちゃな！お互い本気でいこうぜ

This is how it should be! Let’s get serious with each other.

[ EVENT END ]

_ _ _ _ _

You can view all my translations for Tokyo Revengers: Puzzle Revengers & Hypnosis Mic: Alternative Rap Battle in my discord: HERE.

[timetravelingsherlockian]

A System (TM): The non-definitive guide for dealing with dysphoria regardless of medical choices

Someone asked how one deals with dysphoria. The comment was too long for the reply box.

Long comment incoming...I have some gender fluidity going on, so I get buffeted from both sides (likely I tend towards masc, so it doesn't hit too hard).

I...uh...perform a good bit of mental jujitsu on the thoughts. It's gotta get through multiple layers of pre-prepared lifestyle choices, cognitive-behavioral thinking, mindfulness, rationalization, cultivating patience, disassociation, and spite before it really hits me.

Lifestyle Choices:

I'm out everywhere. If someone calls me something else or treats me in another way, they're either misinformed or being dicks about it. If they're the former, I either correct or move on with my day. If the latter, not worth my time. Any hurt I instill in myself from their dickishness is me brandishing their weapon against myself. Moving on.

Keep your friends supportive and your family as supportive as possible. If they can't be supportive, they don't get to know your business.

Don't explain shit.

I don't wear anything that makes me uncomfortable, and I wear the things I wish I wore when I was younger. All the dresses are out of my closet. None of the pants are too tight, and I have a few cut in a masc style, when I feel like it. My clothes don't cling in ways I'm not happy with. I have the good ol' standby dysphoria sweatshirt.

I get any aids I need to for myself. I go to a barber shop for my hair, and I make sure to get it cut when it's long. I've got a binder if I need it, packers, mascara in my cabinet drawer for facial hair. Pronoun pins (that I never wear, but it's nice to have them in my pocket to touch). I carry a knife like a lot of guys where I'm from do.

I try to keep everything else in my life in-shape. Think about dysphoria like a bad knee. If you don't get enough sleep, or you're eating garbage, or you're overtaxing yourself -- that knee's gonna hurt first, before anything else, because it's sensitive. If I'm getting a really bad bout, I check in with everything else first.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy:

I check disturbing thoughts against questions like, "if a friend told me this, what would I say to them?" "is the thought reasonable?"

If I spot words like "always" or "never", I flag them & try to re-word them in a less-extreme way, and I bring up counter-examples. E.g. "You'll never pass." becomes "are you sure, never*? That seems a bit harsh.* [check the facts] Even cisgender people get mistaken for the other gender, so even random chance says it'll happen at least once." >> "I'll almost-never pass." >> "Are you sure? Because the guy at the coffee shop says 'hey man!' every time you walk in. He's either clocked you (thus, you're being encouraged & accepted) or he genuinely thinks there's a man in there, somewhere." >> etc.

I think back to other times I've had the thought/experience and survived it. E.g. "What if I'm not really trans?" >> "...dude. You've been asking yourself that for around 3 years. You asked yourself that, then some cashier called you 'sir' and you clung to that in your little heart for most of the morning like a starving man with bread. That is not very cisgender behavior. Don't you think it would've worn off by now?"

I seek out others' diverse experiences. E.g. I feel embarrassed sometimes about sewing, but I know a guy whose literal degree is in costuming. I ain't calling him less of a man for that. Why am I bringing that on myself?

How is this thought functioning in my head? E.g. If I call myself pathetic, do I really think I'm pathetic, or do I want to curl up and sleep and "pathetic" is the quickest way to demotivate me to my bed? Why not not call myself "pathetic", and just treat myself nice and rest instead?

Mindfulness:

"It's just a thought." "It's just a sensation." "This is a sensation [reflect back the sensation to the spot of the sensation, so it knows you heard it]." Know that a thought or sensation is independent of a gender. (Gender is like "the flame unbound.")

Watch the sensation, feel the way your body reacts to it, and don't feed the beast. Just watch. Imagine yourself in a zoo, with a nice big trench between you and the animals. The flesh and thoughts will do their own thing, but you're safely protected from them.

Reality is reality is reality. As Galileo said, when the church insisted their doctrine otherwise, "and yet, it moves." You can think whatever thoughts you have. Other people can say any words they can form their mouths around. Your body can shiver and throb and become nauseated and ache -- None of these change what your gender is. Your gender is the vessel (which sometimes may change itself), and the experiences flow through it.

Rationalization:

"This is dysphoria. This is just what happens when you're brain's expecting one thing and your body's expecting something else."

"It sucks, but you're going to have to deal with it for X long, so you might as well try not to suffer twice by feeding into it."

"Yeah, sometimes it's gonna hurt and/or feel humiliating. Oh well. That's not gonna change your gender; you have other things to worry about."

"My gender can take care of itself right now."

Cultivating Patience:

This is going to take X number of years, or I'm going to have to live with a certain thing for t long. That's just the way things work.

No body is stagnant and without change. No perception is stagnant and without change. Ergo, this feeling of dysphoria, as are all things, is temporary.

See how you feel in 10 minutes/30 minutes/the afternoon/tomorrow. And then you can use an additional coping skill. (My genderfluidity makes this one even more flexible, but thoughts and feelings are themselves mercurial.)

Disassociation:

Read a book.

Scroll through social media (generally not trans content, because that can feed it, but sometimes trans content).

Write.

Walk outside.

Do some laundry.

Vacuum (I hate the vacuum noise, but now I'm bitching about that instead).

Deal with the other aforementioned life tasks that have you stuck here.

Sleep.

Give yourself some time to laze around in bed and just drift.

Go find some friends or call your most-talkative friend with a bunch of petty problems (when you're around other people, you can focus on them and not your gender).

Spite:

I know that there are trans people who've lost years of their lives because of the pain their dysphoria has caused them. I've lost evenings/afternoons/experiences from it too. I have no idea what my middleschool and highschool life would've been if I'd just known, or not had to deal with it. That being said, I'll be damned if it keeps me in bed and losing my life.Sometimes that means showering with my eyes open and the lights on when I don't want to (sometimes, what I see isn't that bad, and it's my head that was worse). Sometimes that means forcing myself out of bed and stumbling around in my comfort hoodie and sweats with my head down -- but at least I'm getting groceries or something.

People who hate trans people getting healthcare generally want to see us go away/disappear/not exist -- some folks by any means necessary. Them holding up care is to make our lives harder and for us to go away. Fuck them. Fuck the state systems. I'm not spending 2+ years bemoaning not looking or sounding like I want to stay home and not do something, just because I'm going to have to wait.

This is a system I've built up over a number of years, listening to bunches of trans peoples' experiences, and going to school for actual psychology. But it works pretty well, and I started at a low-dysphoria place to begin with, so I've been able to tackle symptoms as they've arisen, largely.

(I just realized this is the meme where the ADHD person says they don't have trouble with losing things because they have A System, and the neurotypical person has no idea what A System is...and the A System is itself a signal the person has ADHD. So. I don't have dysphoria. I have A System.)

I will say the dysphoria I deal with now isn't from the same sources I've dealt with in the past, largely. A number of sources I didn't realize made me dysphoric until they went away (or I'd quietly phased them out of my life without realizing it). I also like what Abigail Thorn says about dysphoria: It doesn't exist. Not that the sensations or dissatisfaction isn't there, but that the gap between who one imagines themself to be and who one is is a gap all people have to deal with, not just trans people. Cis people feel the same sort of self-consciousness when a cis woman grows hair on her face as a trans woman. You are not alone, and the systems and circumstances of history have merely added different labels to the universal struggles.

And then I like to pay attention to what does make me happy.

[inairbinad]

Heaven, Indiana (2/3)

7k | T | also on ao3 | Part One | Part Three

A re-imagining of season 3, where Eddie and Robin are already looped in on the Upside Down madness, and Eddie joins Scoops Troop. Part of my Barb Lives AU from the Petals Verse, where everyone lives and the timeline gets wonky as a result. @steddie-week day 5 prompts: Together / Hold the Line cw: typical trapped in the bunker blood and stuff

Eddie regretted ever agreeing to anything Dustin Henderson suggested. 

“I’m never going along with another one of your harebrained schemes again, Henderson!” Eddie screeched as they found themselves rapidly descending in a secret elevator towards the bunker from hell. He wished he’d learned his lesson the last time.

He hated everything about this. He hated Robin for being genius enough to crack that goddamn code, he hated Dustin for hearing it in the first place, he hated himself for not listening to his intuition several red flags ago, and pulling the plug on this idiotic vendetta the minute Erica crawled into a fucking air vent.

The only thing he didn’t hate, in the end, was how Steve latched on to his hand in a vice grip as they plummeted towards their inevitable death. 

Even though the elevator didn’t end up killing them, being trapped in it probably would. Following Erica’s suggestion to drink the green stuff almost definitely would. And if all else failed, Dustin repeatedly suggesting that Steve ask Robin out would certainly do Eddie in.

“How about we let the man make his own romantic choices, hm?” Eddie grumbled, already weirded out by the triple-piss break the three of them were embarking upon together on top of the elevator. 

“Ohhhhhh,” Dustin exclaimed like he was doing his best Velma impression and solving a mystery. “Do you like Robin, Eddie?” 

Steve let out a hysterical shriek of a laugh, and Eddie sent daggers flinging in his direction by way of his glare alone. 

“Sorry,” Steve coughed. Dustin looked between the two of them like he realized he was out of the loop on something, now.

Despite feeling completely unspooled in that instant, Eddie was damn sure about one thing; this would not be how he came out to Dustin, if he ever got the chance at all. 

“What did I miss while I was at camp?” Dustin asked.

Eddie never thought he’d be so happy to be interrupted by Soviet henchmen.

———

By the time Robin was trying to use stilted Russian to confuse some communications officer into not shooting them, and Eddie and Steve had to take turns trying to knock him out until Steve proved he would use anything as a weapon (a phone, this time), Eddie was ready to go home. He was desperately wishing for another sexually confusing bout of wrestling on the floor with one of his best friends, whom he also happened to be in love with, a joint, about sixteen beers, and as many bags of Wayne’s chips as he could stomach. 

Instead, Robin had to wander off and find the big fucking super gun that was actively working on opening up a portal to hell.

“The gate,” Steve and Dustin said in unison, immediately recognizing it for what it was. Eddie had flashbacks to slimy, tooth-riddled monsters getting tossed around by El in her bitchin’ outfit, and was instantly ready to nope right the fuck out of there. 

“Jesus tap-dancing Christ,” Eddie breathed, peeking over Steve’s shoulder at the monstrous contraption hidden underneath a mall, of all places. He thought there was a metaphor for the seedy underbelly of American consumerism in there, somewhere, but he was too wired to examine it. He had to clench his fists just to stay present, to not find himself back in the tunnels with the slippery skin of a thousand monsters rushing past him. He sucked in a breath and asked, “Why would you want to reopen that shit?” 

“Call it the new space race,” Robin said, her face white as a sheet as she also looked on in terror. 

Steve leaned back into Eddie’s chest, ever so slightly, and Eddie was happy to give him the added support. He wasn’t sure how long his own legs would hold either one of them up, though.

Erica was just staring at the lot of them like they were insane. “You all know what that is?”

“I’ll explain later,” Dustin offered, then started shooing everyone back down the stairs to the comms room. 

“Uh, Steve?” Erica asked in a skeptical tone that Eddie thought she should probably have patented, at this point. “Where’s your Russian friend?”

Apparently knocking someone out with a phone didn’t have the best staying power. The officer was gone.

Alarms started blaring all around them, and before Eddie had a chance to blink, Steve was grabbing his hand and pulling, dragging him and the rest of their ragtag group along for a chase through a goddamn secret Soviet bunker. Eddie didn’t know how long they ran for, only that he clung to Steve with one hand and Dustin with the other, a train of slick palms grappling onto each other as they dodged and weaved through the corridors for any way to escape.

“I’ve fucking failed Phys. Ed before, Harrington!” Eddie shouted at the back of Steve’s head as he trailed behind him, his legs already feeling like jello from his poorly treated lungs failing to properly oxygenate the rest of his body.

Somehow that was the revelation that made Steve laugh, a contradictory and beautiful sound in that it was both gleeful and utterly dripping with stress. Before Eddie knew it Steve was flinging the kids, Eddie, and Robin behind a door, and leaning up against it with the strength of ten men. Eddie thrust his shoulder into it, too, doing his best to plant his feet and stave off the brigade of soldiers with guns pounding on the other side.

Dustin and Erica quickly found an escape hatch of sorts, and were urging the older three to follow. Eddie took in the distance between them and the kids, then the storm of hostiles ready to pounce the second he and Steve let go, and already knew there was no way they could make it. Not without getting caught. 

Robin could, though. She stood there, obviously torn and on the verge of tears, staring Steve and Eddie down like she couldn’t bear to leave them.

“Go,” Steve urged her. “Get them out of here and find help.”

“Steve,” Robin’s voice creaked with strain, her eyes never leaving Steve’s face as the door jostled behind him and Eddie. Robin’s feet, at least, seemed to know better than her heart. They were already carrying her back towards where Dustin was waiting for her, despite the obvious hesitation on her face.

“Go, Birdie,” Eddie assured her, heart wrenching in his chest as Robin’s eyes cut to his next. “I’ve got him.” 

Robin bit her lip, and something solidified in her gaze before she turned tail and ran. 

It didn’t take long after that for the door to give.

———

They left Eddie alone in a locked room and made him listen over an intercom as they tried to beat the truth out of Steve. 

It was unknowably excruciating, the love and rage and desperation to fix this that were all warring in Eddie’s chest, and he was helpless to do anything about it. Listening to Steve whimper in pain, begging them to stop, hurt more than any beating they could have given Eddie. He’d been punched and kicked and elbowed plenty in his relatively short life, but this was the worst torture he’d ever been made to endure.

They hadn’t left Eddie completely unscathed, of course. As the soldiers wrestled him into submission, he’d taken a hell of a backhand across the cheek that left him seeing spots—one even his dear old dad would have been proud of. Then when they’d tossed him in this hellish entrapment of a room, he’d landed on his left elbow, and still couldn’t quite feel the bottom half of his arm beyond the stinging of pins and needles, and the throbbing that came if he moved it too much.

But that was nothing compared to what they were doing to Steve. 

Over and over, they screamed, “Who do you work for?” 

Over and over, Steve would tell the truth and get punished for it.

With each blow he heard land, and every subsequent cry out of Steve, Eddie’s very skin prickled with the desire to crawl outside of himself, to scale the walls, to burn the world to make it stop. He wanted to beg them to beat him instead, knock him senseless until he forgot who he was. 

If only they’d let Steve go. 

But he knew that’s what these assholes were gunning for. They apparently had calculated that Eddie was the one more likely to cave, if they forced him to listen to his friend get battered half to hell. They thought if they left him in here long enough, stewing in the abject terror of his powerlessness, Eddie would offer up whatever intel he and Steve were supposed to have.

As if they weren’t just a couple of teenagers who worked in a mall. 

They think you’re the soft one, Eddie’s father’s voice rang through his ears, completely unwelcome. It’s no wonder, in that thing you call a uniform.

“Shut up,” Eddie groaned a loud, desperate to think up a miracle solution out of this. He hoped Robin and the kids had gotten out, were already on their way back with help, but Eddie knew that was unlikely. They’d walked through that goddamn tunnel for miles just to get here. It would take hours for anyone to find them again. 

He needed to come up with something on his own, he knew. He needed to make them leave Steve alone. 

Desperately wracking his brain for a solution that would get them out of this—from wrestling a gun off of somebody, to pledging himself to the Soviet Union in perpetuity, to managing to make a run for it and jumping through that goddamn gate and into the Upside Down itself—Eddie wasn’t coming up with anything concrete.

He had pulled his hair half to hell, though, by the time he heard the unmistakable sound of laughter coming from the room next door. 

Eddie wasn’t sure if Steve was delirious from taking so many blows to the head, or if he actually thought that bribing Russian spies with ice cream would work, but Eddie heard that hilarity for what it was—dangerous.

“No, no, no, no, no, no—” Steve cried next, and Eddie’s whole body flinched as he heard the sickening crunch of another punch landing. 

Eddie didn’t have a plan, exactly, but he couldn’t sit there any longer.

Eddie pounded on the door until his fists ached, and his left arm went completely numb. 

He’d make up a story if he had to.

———

Eddie wasn’t sure if he’d been begging for their captors’ attention for a hour or a minute, when the door finally opened and they tossed Steve’s limp, unconscious body on the floor. 

At least Eddie hoped he was only unconscious. 

He dropped to his knees in an instant, his desperate and shaking hands fumbling for Steve’s neck, looking for a pulse. For years, after, Eddie wouldn’t be able to properly express the relief that coursed through him in that moment, when he felt the steady thud of Steve’s heart against his fingertips. 

He didn’t get to relish it for long, though, before the goons (who Eddie thought might deserve to be the lunch of a demogorgon) grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him up into a steel chair. Eddie managed to get a good kick in on one of their kneecaps, but it didn’t do much to deter anybody. Then they did the same to Steve, and roughly tied them together, back to back. 

Eddie felt Steve’s head loll backwards onto his shoulder and turn ever so slightly, until he could feel each little puff of breath that Steve expelled against the back of his neck. 

It was strange, finding anything to feel grateful for in this predicament. But Eddie was thankful for every confirmation that Steve was still breathing. 

It meant there was still something to fight for. 

So caught up in the fact that Steve was back within his reach, even if from an awkward angle, Eddie almost forgot about the fact that a few soldiers were still in the room. That was until they started to leave, at least.

“Hey, where the fuck are you going?” Eddie demanded, as if he was in any position of power. The soldiers ignored him completely, slamming the door shut behind them. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

“Eds?” Steve’s voice was so tiny and weak that Eddie didn’t think he would have heard it if he hadn’t literally felt it tickle his neck.

“Stevie?” Eddie responded, instantly snapped out of his mini-meltdown. He twisted as much as he could, until the ropes around him burned from how tightly they were lashed together. “You okay back there?”

“Been--” Steve paused, wheezed and coughed a little, then whimpered again before finishing, “—better.”

“Don’t talk,” Eddie said in a middling imitation of a soothing voice, since nothing about him felt soothed in the least. “Sounds like you might have a broken rib or two.”

“I’d be surprised if any weren’t broken,” Steve said, somehow managing to laugh. Eddie heard Steve’s sharp intake of breath follow quickly, though, and fondly shook his head at Steve’s inability to listen. 

“Can you reach my hand?” Eddie asked as he flailed his right hand around, trapped halfway behind him. He hoped Steve’s left was close. Sure enough, Eddie felt Steve’s fingers wrap around his own. Eddie gave them a little wriggle, then smiled, hoping Steve would be able to hear it in his voice. “We’re gonna get out of here. Promise.”

“I know,” Steve said, and Eddie wished he felt as confident as Steve sounded. “Are you hurt?”

“Not much,” Eddie replied, and felt a little huff of relief from Steve against his neck. “Nothing like you, my guy.”

“Good—” Steve started to say, but he was interrupted by the return of two hulking soldiers and some other important looking asshole. Eddie assumed he was in charge here, because he had a little hat and some extra insignia to complete his outfit. 

“Gentleman,” the man said with an eerie smile. He had a stereotypically villainous accent that Eddie thought was unfair to all of the Russians in the world who weren’t trying to kill him in that moment. “Are we ready to talk?”

Eddie still hadn’t really come up with a story he thought would get them out of this mess, but he did have an idea about something that might buy them some time. It might have been a shot in the dark, and a long one at that, but it was a shot. 

“You seem convinced we’re spies of some kind, yeah? Undercover in our funny little sailor outfits?” Eddie asked the interrogator man with his special hat. He only tilted his head at Eddie in response. “So what makes you think we’ll talk just because you beat the shit out of us? You think we’re not trained for this? That we don’t have backup on its way to us right now because we haven’t checked in as expected? Is that how you run things around here?”

A flicker of annoyance crossed the man’s face, and Eddie knew he’d hit a nerve. So he dug in.

“I didn’t think you’d be such amateurs, comrade.”

Eddie wished he could say the next blow to his face was surprising, but he’d been expecting that reaction, if not searching for it. He just hoped the assertion that maybe they were backed up by some authority, other than that of Scoops Ahoy, was enough to put some fear in these dipshits. It seemed only fair.

And if not that, maybe they’d at least see Eddie as a better punching bag moving forward. 

The expense was getting thwacked in the mouth to the point where Eddie felt his lip split in an instant. Then, again, when the force of the next blow sliced the inside of his cheek against his tooth, and his mouth filled with blood. 

The pain was a stark relief, Eddie realized, just from knowing he was the one who had to take that blow instead of Steve. He tasted the iron in his teeth as he smiled up at his interrogator. 

Of course Steve had to go and ruin it, though. 

“Woah, woah, woah,” he interrupted, thrashing and half-screaming, before anyone else could move. “Don’t listen to him. He’s—new, and just trying to prove himself, and is full of shit, okay? I’ll talk.”

“Steve—” Eddie jerked in the chair, trying to squeeze his fingers in a silent plea to shut up. But he felt Steve stubbornly shake his head against the back of his own. A cold dread pooled in Eddie’s stomach as the interrogator slowly crept around their chairs to look Steve in the face. Maybe Steve had his own ideas of how to talk them out of this, but Eddie was desperate for him to stay quiet and not get any more attention from Russian fists.

“Brenner sent us,” Steve said over Eddie’s protests. Eddie froze in place, trying to gauge the way the guy in charge was reacting to that information with his neck craned halfway around like a goddamn owl. His face seemed impassive, and Steve kept talking. “Okay? They got some weird readings on their science-y shit that I don’t understand, so don’t ask me to explain it, and sent us looking for a gate. Long story short, you find two dudes in dumb outfits wandering around, pretending to be teenagers from the mall who got lost.”

Eddie thought it was pretty shitty, as far as lies went, but he hadn’t been able to come up with anything better. And at least Steve had a real name to drop, even if Brenner was dead. Eddie actually thought that much was pretty clever, considering it saved them from having to use the name of a living person for leverage.

Except for when Eddie realized it wasn’t clever at all. 

His whole body froze in fear as the interrogator unholstered his gun. He knew they were done for, and that he was about to watch the only boy he’d ever loved—the only one he had a chance to—die, with Eddie unable to do anything to stop it. Steve’s fingers twitched in Eddie’s grasp, just the tiniest expression of fear, and Eddie felt it viscerally.

He’d never bought into that whole ‘life-flashing-before-your-eyes’ business, but time did seem to slow in that instant. But instead of his whole life, Eddie’s mind was flooded with images of Steve. Steve with Dustin, showing him how to style his hair; Steve’s soft smile sent in Eddie’s direction when he pretended to be a pirate with spoons for hands; Steve hovering over Eddie on the floor of the trailer and licking his lips. Every moment that Eddie had looked at Steve Harrington and known, without a doubt, that he was in love with his best friend ran rampant in Eddie’s mind. 

And he’d never said it. Eddie felt so incredibly stupid for never saying it.

I love you, Stevie, hovered on Eddie’s tongue like a prayer. He could hardly think of any better last words.

But he wasn’t quick enough.

Eddie couldn’t see it straight on, but he heard the crack of the butt of the pistol as it met the side of Steve’s face. The blow came down so hard that reverberated through Steve and Eddie both, sending Steve’s head knocking into Eddie’s. Steve barely made a sound, just a low, garbled grunt around what sounded like more blood in his mouth. Then Eddie felt the absence of Steve’s head resting against his own, twisting around again to see that Steve had lolled forward from the force of it.

“Dr. Brenner is dead,” the interrogator said without an ounce of emotion in his voice. “Try again.”

Eddie began to jerk within the restraints in earnest then, his growing rage burning through his veins like wildfire. No one even paid him any mind, though, as another man entered the room, dressed up in a lab coat and apron like some kind of mad scientist. The look of him sent a bone-deep chill through Eddie. 

Their interrogator went over to talk to the new guy in hushed tones, but it wouldn’t have mattered if they were screaming. They were speaking Russian, and Eddie wasn’t a good enough fake spy to know what the hell they were saying. 

He could only guess it was nothing good.

“Hey, fuckface,” Eddie shouted, drawing the attention back to himself. He was entirely giving in to impulse now, but at least it stopped the two of them plotting whatever was coming next, even if only for a moment. Slowly, the interrogator came back to hover over him, then leaned down into Eddie’s space like he owned it.

“You’ll tell me the truth,” he smiled thinly, pressing his nose entirely too close to Eddie’s. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Eddie waited for another punch to the face, for them to threaten him with ripping out his fingernails or his teeth, whatever his next punishment might be. He didn’t care anymore. The anger was seething through him to the point where he wanted to burn this place right there in the ground it was tunneled into. Eddie wanted to watch each and every one of them suffer, and he wished his hands were free enough to let him act on the desire. 

So the damage he could cause with his mouth would have to do.

“If you say so,” Eddie said, before spitting blood in the face of the asshole who had just dared to pistol-whip Steve Harrington in Eddie’s presence. Eddie grinned wildly back up at him, leaning into the satisfaction of watching his blood and spit creep down the man’s cheek.

He scoffed in distaste before moving to wipe his face with his sleeve. There was a contempt in his eyes, but his voice was nothing but calm when he simply answered, “I do.”

Then he nodded at the creep in the mad scientist getup in the corner, who came forward with two needles that rivaled the one in Seattle in size. Eddie felt himself inadvertently squeeze Steve’s hand as he tensed again. 

“What—” Steve slurred, but before he could finish his question he must have seen what Eddie had been reacting to. “Fuck’s that?”

“Something to help loosen your tongues,” the interrogator answered. He turned on his heel and left just as Eddie felt the pinch of a needle sliding in his neck.

———

At first Eddie didn’t feel any different, and he wondered if maybe he’d built up enough of a tolerance to whatever the Russians had drugged them with by frequently getting high off his own supply. He also considered that maybe the heightened adrenaline that was carrying him through this otherworldly situation might have been staving off the effect for now. 

Either way, his focus was less on however he’d been poisoned, and more on keeping Steve talking. He’d been slurring his words and complaining about the room spinning ever since he’d taken that last blow to the head, and even if that was partly the drugs talking, Eddie was also pretty certain he had a concussion. Again.

Even though the two of them had managed to fend off Billy pretty well, last fall, Steve had still come away with a pretty impressive head injury to show for it. 

“Come on Stevie,” Eddie kept saying every time Steve lulled off into silence. “Keep talking to me. Stay awake.”

“Whaddya wanna talk about?” Steve asked, then started laughing to himself. “Your crush on Birdie?”

“Oh, god,” Eddie groaned, unwilling to rehash Dustin’s wildly inaccurate hypotheses about his love life at the moment. “Please, no.”

“But you lurve her,” Steve crooned, sounding very high indeed. “And apparently so do I, and we’re gonna have to fight over her if we want to stay manly men.”

“I think we all know Chris is gonna beat us both there,” Eddie said, trying to keep Chrissy’s name vague enough so that no one would go looking for her, if they were listening in now. 

Eddie also didn’t bother to pretend he couldn’t parse Steve’s ramblings. Even high and concussed, he made perfect sense to Eddie.

Eddie wasn’t sure what that said, really.

Steve laughed, surprisingly full of joy considering the situation. He didn’t stop, either. Eddie felt Steve lean forward with it, tumbling into more giggles as he probably imagined Chrissy Cunningham slaying them both like dragons for Robin’s hand. Or, at least, that’s what Eddie was picturing.  

No sooner than he’d had that thought, a wave of hilarity hit him. He wasn’t sure if it was just the contagion of Steve’s laughter, or the drugs finally kicking in, or both, but pretty soon they were both giggling ferociously at the thought of either one of them being in love with Robin Buckley.

Eddie wasn’t quite prepared for the wave of sadness that hit him when he wondered if he’d ever get to see her again. 

“Fuck,” Eddie winced, all of a sudden on the verge of tears. This was not a good high at all. It was too much of a rollercoaster, heightening every emotion well past the point of discomfort. “I miss her.”

“Me, too,” Steve said, sounding forlorn now as well. 

“Maybe we should talk about how we’re gonna get out of here, instead,” Eddie suggested. 

“Oh,” Steve sighed, dropping his head back to Eddie’s shoulder again. Eddie could just barely make out the top of Steve’s head in his peripheral. It looked swollen and lumpy already. “I don’t have a plan for that, actually. D’you?”

“Maybe,” Eddie hedged, glancing over to the table of instruments the mad scientist had left in the corner. He’d been staring at it for what felt like hours, now, even though it had probably only been minutes. “It’s a little harebrained, though. Like, Dustin would be proud.”

“Lay it on me, Munson.”

Eddie, by some ungodly willpower, managed to avoid making a dirty joke. He did snort, though, and heard Steve scoff in response.

“They left scissors in here,” Eddie powered through, nodding his head over in the direction of the table. “We could try to, I don’t know, scooch our chairs over towards them?”

Steve was already flopping around before Eddie finished talking, scraping the legs of his chair against the concrete floor as he did. 

“Woah, slow down, Stevie,” Eddie cut in. “We’ve gotta move together. Alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” Steve agreed, then waited for Eddie to count to three before they both moved in sync towards the table. They’d only managed to move a few inches, but it was enough to give Eddie a surge of hope. They tried again, and again, until they moved slightly off kilter and both went tumbling down to the floor in a heap.

Eddie landed on the same bad elbow again and, through the haze of pain shooting up and down his arm, rather nonsensically wondered if this might fuck up his ability to keep playing guitar. As if he’d ever hold a guitar again, now that his best plan had gone splat on the floor. Much like his elbow.

“Fuuuuck,” Steve groaned, and Eddie snapped back to what was important in an instant.

“Did you hit your head?” he asked, worried he’d just made things worse than just being trapped and tied up, but now also on the floor. 

“No,” Steve answered. “That still felt shitty, though.”

“Here, here,” Eddie agreed, and then they both burst into laughter again. 

They laid there snickering for a while, and Eddie wondered if these drugs were designed not to be doing anything for the pain in his arm. Probably, knowing these sadistic bastards. 

He got distracted from ruminating on how the drugs were supposed to work when Steve started humming to himself.

“Are you singing Toto?” Eddie asked, baffled.

“Mhmm,” Steve answered without really stopping his little tune. “It’s been stuck in my head for a while now.”

“Why?” Eddie urged.

“Because when we were holding the door shut, we were holding the line,” Steve said like that much should have been obvious. The sad thing was, that made perfect sense to Eddie.

It was also kind of hilarious.

“Jesus,” Eddie breathed, still feeling some giggles bubbling up out of his throat an unable to stop them. He really couldn’t believe this was actually happening. From the torture to the Toto. “Is this how you thought us working together would go?” 

“No,” Steve snorted, still laughing too. “I thought us working together would just be us flirting and annoying Robin all day.”

Eddie wasn’t sure why that struck him like an admission, of sorts. It wasn’t like he didn’t know they were flirting, literally all the time. The only real question Eddie ever had about it was if it was serious flirting, or the type you did to pass the time with one of your best friends while you were bored and didn’t have anything better to do.

At this point Eddie didn’t even really remember what flirting without feelings felt like, but that didn’t mean Steve was in the same boat. Eddie snorted at the nautical pun in his own inner monologue, and Steve jostled behind him. 

“What’s funny?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Eddie deflected. “I can’t believe you tried to convince them we’re real spies.”

“You started it!” Steve protested, sounding affronted but amused.

“I was just trying to buy time to make them chase their tails and stop hitting you!” Eddie said.

“So they hit you instead,” Steve pointed out in a deeply unimpressed tone. 

“I’m not the one who’s probably double concussed.”

“I’m fine,” Steve muttered, then went quiet. He did sound more alert than he had before, so Eddie opted to let the silence linger for a while.

He started contemplating if they were going to die like this, tied together and hanging on to each other for dear life. 

This really isn’t how I ever imagined tying you up, Stevie, Eddie thought with a wry smile. Or you tying me up. 

“Think about that a lot, do you?” Steve asked, and Eddie was pretty sure the whole world stopped turning. He stayed silent for a beat, but being tied to the object of his desire, he couldn’t exactly run away and dodge the question.

“Did I say that out loud?” he finally asked, dreading the answer. 

“Yes,” Steve laughed, and Eddie winced until he felt the split in his lip open back up. “I don’t mind being tied to you. But it’d be more fun if at least one of us had our hands free, though.”

“Damn it, Stevie,” Eddie grumbled, finding his encouragement entirely unhelpful. “We can’t flirt now. We’ve got bigger problems.”

“Eh,” Steve said, and Eddie felt a stilted attempt at a shrug behind him. “If we’re gonna die we might as well flirt.”

Eddie thought if they really were going to die, maybe he should tell Steve about  his feelings beyond how he wanted to tie Steve up. Or vice versa.

“I think maybe if we’re gonna die, I’ve got more important things to say.” He knew it was partly the drugs talking, but he also could create an itemized and detailed list of all the times he’d wanted to tell Steve while he was completely sober, too. 

Steve didn’t say anything for a beat, so Eddie started to panic that he’d passed out again. 

“Stevie?” Eddie asked. “Stay with me, okay?”

“I’m not going anywhere, Eds,” Steve said softly. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“I have stuff to say, too. But you first, ‘cause I’m a gentleman.”

“Could’ve fooled me—”

“Eddie,” Steve cut him off.

“Right, sorry.” Eddie sighed, wishing he could rub his eyes and clear some of the fog from his head. “I guess…I just want to say that you’re one of the most important people in my life, Stevie. My best friend, even—don’t tell Jeff I said that—and even if I’m not yours. And even though this whole thing is unbelievably shitty, I’m glad we’re together. If I had to pick someone to get stuck in a secret Russian bunker with, it’d be you ten times outta ten, Stevie. Except I’d avoid the you getting tortured part, because I’ve never been more scared or desperate to make something stop in my life.”

“Really?” Steve asked, somehow sounding like he could hardly believe his ears.

“Stevie, I can’t bear to see you hurt.” Eddie said with the utmost sincerity. “You have to know that.”

“I guess I do now,” Steve murmured.

“I’d do just about anything to fix it,” Eddie said. “I swear to god, Steve.”

“You could always kiss it better,” Steve said, a teasing lilt to his tone. But Eddie was too far down the rabbit hole of being earnest with feelings.

“Done,” he said without hesitating. Steve didn’t respond other than to let out a surprised sounding little laugh, so Eddie kept talking. “I never thought we’d even talk to each other, let alone be friends, you know’? But I’m so glad I accidentally stumbled on you and Dustin looking for Dart last year. Because you made my second go-around at being a senior fun, and you even make working a shitty mall job bearable. So even if we die down here, I just want you to know that I’ve been so glad to know you, Steve Harrington. The real you. Because you’re beautiful, to me.”

Steve stayed quiet for a long while, probably trying to let his truth-serum addled and re-traumatized brain absorb everything Eddie had just said. But it was so deathly silent in that room—so far underground and reinforced with enough heavy metal to make even Eddie shy away—that he thought maybe his own heart had finally caved in and stopped under the sheer weight of what he felt for Steve. 

“I feel the same, Eds,” Steve finally replied, gently but surefire.

“Yeah?” Eddie heard the wobble in his voice.

“Of course,” Steve insisted. “You’re my best friend, too, though.”

“Um,” Eddie huffed out a laugh, realizing Steve might be too high to function. “What about Robin?”

“That’s different,” Steve said immediately, but didn’t elaborate as to why. “Plus, you can have more than one, dumbass.”

“You’re calling me a dumbass?” Eddie scoffed, incredulous. “That’s your response to my heartfelt confession?”

“You didn’t confess anything!” Steve argued back. “You just basically said you’re surprised you don’t hate me!”

“I did not!” Eddie tried to defend himself, but in all honestly he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said already. He thought it was a lot deeper than that, though. “I said—”

Eddie’s attempt to explain himself was interrupted by the sound of Dustin Henderson barging into the room, waving around one of those long ass shocky-stick-things that the Russians carried around, and bellowing out his best war cry. Eddie was both astonished and impressed.

Once Dustin realized there was no one to electrocute, or even at his eye level, he glanced down to find Eddie and Steve on the floor. 

“How’d you two end up down there?” he asked. 

“Russian soldiers are kinky,” Steve answered, and Eddie couldn’t help the hysterical cascade of laughter that billowed out of him. He could barely believe whatever conversation he and Steve had just been having, let alone the fact that Henderson was here, already going for the aforementioned scissors and trying to set them free.

Dustin still scrunched up his beautiful little face in confusion at the way Eddie and Steve were giggling like a couple of sailors on drugs.

“What the hell happened to you?” He asked as the ropes around Eddie’s arms finally loosened. Eddie felt the blood flow return to his uninjured arm much quicker than the other, but that didn’t stop him from helping Dustin undo the ropes around their feet. 

“Long story, Dust,” Eddie said, giving the top of his head an affectionate pat before twisting around to help Steve up. 

When Eddie finally got another look at Steve’s face, he was horrified to see what they’d done to him. His left eye was a mottled mess of bruises, and almost swollen shut. The other eye was turning black, too, but not nearly as badly. His nose was bloody and swollen, but by some miracle it didn’t actually look broken. He had a deep cut on his chin that Eddie thought would probably scar, but that was nothing compared to the laceration left behind by the pistol. It was still bleeding, leaving a trail of dried and sticky blood alike down the side of Steve’s face and down his neck. 

Somehow, Steve was still the most beautiful thing Eddie’d ever seen. 

Steve smiled at him dopily, looking about as high as Eddie felt, but Eddie didn’t have the time to bask in it before more alarms started blaring.

“That’s our cue,” Dustin said, before grabbing at Steve and Eddie both and shoving them ahead of him towards the door. Eddie wrapped one of Steve’s arms around his neck, ready to haul him out if need be, and let Dustin’s momentum push them towards the doorway.

Until the shooting started, at least. 

It all happened too fast for Eddie to even blink. He’d just poked his head through the door and into the corridor outside when the pop of a pistol sounded. In such close quarters, it loudly echoed through the halls of the bunker until Eddie’s ears were practically screaming. Distantly he saw the same officer Steve had clocked with the phone standing twenty feet or so down the hall, but the sight of him didn’t have time to register before Steve was shoving himself in front of Eddie, until Eddie went tumbling out of the line of fire and back into the interrogation room. 

As he tumbled backwards into Dustin, all Eddie knew for sure was that Steve cried out in pain again. Then there was a big crash outside, accompanied a loud squeaking sound, like sneakers on a basketball court.

Eddie didn’t care how many times he’d get shot, as soon as he had his bearings again he scrambled back to Steve’s side. He frantically checked Steve over for whatever had hurt him, until he landed on a new patch of blood seeping through the ripped fabric of Steve’s sleeve. 

“Fuck,” Steve hissed, looking down at where the bullet had grazed his bicep. 

Eddie was speechless, unable to do anything more than take Steve’s arm as gently as he could into his hands and stare at the wound, looking for any sign of more damage. 

Steve had just thrown himself in front of a fucking bullet for Eddie, literally. He wasn’t nearly sober enough or high enough to properly process that information.

“Hey, dipshits, let’s go!” Robin shouted from down the hall, and Eddie had the wherewithal to look up for the first time. She was sitting at the wheel of one of the bright red carts the soldiers used to drive around down here, with Erica in the front seat and an unconscious Russian soldier splayed out in front of it. His gun had been knocked out of his hand, and skidded halfway down the hall when Robin had apparently run him over.

Between a phone to the face and a cart to the whole damn body, this guy was having a bad day of getting knocked around by the dynamic duo of Steve and Robin. 

Eddie thought that made Steve sound like Batman, a little, but he managed to suppress the thought into a snicker and move towards getting the fuck out of there.

Eddie tugged Steve along with him, despite his whines of protest, with Dustin quick on their heels. Then Dustin put two insistent little hands on Eddie and Steve’s backs and shoved them into the back of the cart, then crawled in behind them. 

“Aren’t you glad you still haven’t taught me to drive?” Robin shouted over her shoulder, presumably at Steve, as she maneuvered the cart around the the once more unconscious soldier. Then they took off speeding down the hall. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked Dustin first, though he was pretty certain of the answer. Dustin nodded frantically, though he did look a little pale now, and Eddie gave him a hopefully reassuring pat on the head before he turned back to Steve’s bleeding bicep. Not knowing what else to do, Eddie tugged the dumbass little ascot free of his own uniform, then used it as a bandage to tie around Steve’s arm. Steve hissed again at the contact, but Eddie merely shushed him. 

Eddie still couldn’t actually fathom that Steve had just taken a bullet for him, so he decided to voice his disbelief. “What’d you do that for? The fuck is wrong with you?”

“Well I’ve been shot, for one!” Steve answered, incredulous. 

“What?!” Robin cried, twisting around in her seat while she was still pushing the cart to the maximum speed it was capable of. Everyone, but no one louder than Erica, screeched at her to put her eyes back on the corridor in front of them as the cart jerked to the right. Robin faced forward again, but she called back over her shoulder in a shaky voice, “Are you okay, Steve?”

“It’s just a graze,” Eddie replied as his trembling, still half-numb hands finally managed to tie the makeshift bandage into a knot. Then he looked Steve in the eye, or at least the one that wasn’t nearly swollen shut, and felt all the fight drain out of his body. He gave Steve as grateful a smile as he could manage and said, “You’re gonna be fine.”

“I know,” Steve murmured, then tentatively touched two fingers to the cut on Eddie’s bottom lip. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m gonna be fine, too,” Eddie promised. He felt Dustin’s eyes on them, but couldn’t be bothered not to take Steve’s hand in his own as they sped back towards the elevator.

[PART THREE]

[askthesawyers]

Carter huffed in frustration, though there was nothing he could do but check if femur was okay, so that's exactly what he did. He definitely wasn't going to try and break the twins up because that was definitely not a good idea with how they were fighting.. Plus Choptop deserved a whooping after carelessly throwing an animal like that.

He got up shakily, mostly due to having a dead leg with how he'd been knelt down and moved away from the fighting, hoping to not get caught in the crossfire.

- 🐥

*Nubbins, lucky him, got the upper hand during the fight- pinning Choptop down and smirking* "That'll g-goD damn teach y-ya!!" "OKAY OKAY I GIVE I GIVE!! WHITE FLAG!" *Nubbins got off of Choptop. His twin now stood and groaned* "ya can't keep that guy around! better pray Drayton don't find out bout em!" *Choptop bitterly stomped off. Nubbins huffed and crossed his arms.* "uuhhhh... s-sorry? bout that- hehe! are.. are you alriiight..?"