#ya'll don't like player hate on the way this anon is worded

[toosicktoocare]

not a chance

Let’s mix my usual up, shall we?

Even with a lot of the Avengers assembled, they are still being overpowered by these “Disco Aliens,” the name Peter’s pegged on them when he first caught sight of their sleek, silver skin with round orbs growing from the top of their heads.

He had found them funny at first, but when the first one knocked Clint against a brick wall, things got serious fast. Yet, even with their best efforts, they are struggling, all of them. Whether it’s lingering exhaustion from their fight with some sort of man made dragon two days ago or just an overpowering strength from these aliens, they are not able to even put a dent into these things.

There’s been shouts of falling back, but they can’t, not with so many civilians taking shelter in surrounding buildings. None of the Avengers know the depth of intelligence these aliens hold, so they can’t fall back, not now. They have to keep fighting to protect the innocent people. That’s their job after all.

It’s Steve who finds the breakthrough after twenty fruitless minutes. He gets in a hit with his shield on one alien’s upper arm, and the alien dissolves into a silver puddle. It’s an Achilles Heel, Steve yells to the others, and they all start aiming for the upper arms.

They’ve each gotten in a few kills, all fairly absorbed within their own battles, when Peter notices a voice that’s worryingly absent over the comms that connects them all.

It’s not like Tony to keep quiet during battle; the older man is usually spitting out sharp one-liners without missing a beat. Peter slides a quick glance toward the older man, and his stomach plummets. There’s nine.... no, ten of those aliens surrounding Tony, but more concerning is that Tony’s down. The older man has dropped to one knee, and even despite the armor, he looks to be in pain.

Peter whips his head around for help, but everyone is preoccupied with their own fights; it doesn’t appear that anyone else has noticed that Tony’s down.

“Shit,” he breathes out, covering the alien in front of him with a mass of webs before racing toward the closest building. He climbs up half way before shooting webs toward surrounding buildings, swinging between each until he has a clear drop to Tony.

He lets go of the building and lands to the ground beside Tony with a flip. “This doesn’t seem to be a fair fight,” he tells the aliens, knowing they probably can’t understand him. He spares a glance toward Tony, and that’s when he sees it: a long, thin, silver blade sticking out of Tony’s side with a frightening pool of blood seeping our from the gaps around the the blade. 

“Shit!”

“Peter, what’s wrong?”

Peter drops to his knees beside Tony, who has yet to look up at him. “It’s Mr... Tony. It’s Tony. He’s got some blade sticking out of him.” Peter places one gloved hand to Tony’s armored back as he glances toward the aliens forming a closed circle around them. “And, we’re surrounded!”

“Headed your way!”

“Me too!”

“Hang tight, kid!”

Not an option, Peter thinks. Moving Tony doesn’t seem that good of an option either, but they can’t stay. He snakes an arm around Tony’s waist and glances up, plotting a route out. It will be risky, he thinks. But, he can get them to the roof above them. He has to.

“Get... out, kid.”

Peter shoots a sharp gaze toward Tony. “Not a chance,” he fires out, voice strong, unyielding. “We’re going up,” Peter adds, addressing the others into the comms before he helps Tony stand.

“Peter, what-”

“This will probably hurt,” Peter tells Tony, ignoring Steve’s shouting voice into the comms as he shoots a web up.

In just seconds, the two tumble onto the roof. Peter scrambles on his hands and knees toward Tony, who is groaning lowly on his side.

“Tony,” Peter says, voice shaking slightly. His hands hover over Tony’s armored body. “What can I do?” He asks, trembling eyes examining the blade. “How did this even pierce your armor? I thought your armor was strictly designed for this to not happen. Does it hurt really bad? Are you-”

“Please.... shut up,” Tony grumbles weakly, and Peter mutters out a quiet “sorry” before he clamps his mouth shut.

Peter listens to the familiar clinging sounds of battle underneath, but he keeps a fearful gaze locked on Tony, and every minute or so, he will ask Tony to talk just so he knows the older man is still conscious. The older man grumbles but complies all the same, and the two remain this way until a helicopter flashes in the near distance.

“What-” Peter starts, only to be interrupted by Steve over the comms.

“That’s the medic! Go with them, Peter! We are almost done here, so we will meet you back at the tower.”

Peter breathes out a breathy “okay” along a strong wave of relief, and he clamps a hand down onto Tony’s shoulder. “Did you hear that, Tony? Help is coming.”

“Yippee,” Tony replies, voice flat, strained, just as the helicopter gains on them.

*****

Peter’s curled into a chair beside Tony’s bed, legs pulled to his chest and head dropped to his knees, and he’s been this way for six hours, not wanting to move in case Tony wakes up. The others have tried to get him to go change or get some rest, but Peter is insistent. He’s not leaving Tony’s side because he knows the older man wouldn’t leave his.

He’s just drifting into a light sleep when a groan has him shooting forward with impressive speed. “Tony,” he says, voice shaking slightly as he watches the older man’s eyes slowly open.

“I.... don’t like this... ‘Tony’ thing.” Tony mutters, voice weak, breathy, and holding strong traces of pain.

“Sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter says quickly before planting a worried gaze to Tony’s eyes. “Are you okay? Should I get someone?”

Tony shakes his head, and Peter nods as the two fall silent for minutes until Tony breaks through the silence with a gruff voice.

“You aren’t leaving, are you?”

Peter sits back in his chair, resuming his previous position with a sigh.

“Not a chance.”

[ilchohand]

Ichidai San vs Seidou: Koshien Aftereffects

@ Anon-san, here's the essay haha!

I've officially watched the Ichidai San vs Seidou match for the fourth time last night. My adrenaline was so high, I couldn't sleep until 3am that I ended up wanting to unleash all these feelings for this show.

Daiya, Act II ep 13

And I kid you not. I'm writing 'bout everyone in Seidou.

Coach Kataoka & Ochiai

Let's start with Boss. I'd like to reiterate that he always had high hopes for Eijun.

Daiya, Act I ep 5

He placed Eijun in the first string even when the boy was still shit with his form, his control, and zero baseball knowledge. Even Osaka Kiryuu's coach implied that it's actually Eijun who is Kataoka's secret weapon.

I remember him even letting Eijun pitch against Raichi during the batter's next at-bat against Eijun. That was cleary a sign that he was starting to trust Eijun. But clearly Eijun wasn't still good enough back then. Kataoka knew of Eijun's potential, it's just that he didn't expect him to grow soooo fast. Eijun was bound to get there someday, but not this soon. However, seeing Furuya's pitching in Koshien, he too was blinded by it since he was desperate for a real ace with an impact. Of course you'd wanna parade your pitcher like that. This is where Ochiai enters the picture. (If you've ever felt personally victimized by Ochiai, please raise your hand! ✋) Kidding. Ochiai was shit during his introduction. It took a long time to warm up to him, but he was an essential addition to the coaching staff. Kataoka, although tough is more of a feeling kind of coach. While Ochiai takes information at face value. Clearly in the Ichidai game, Ochiai was the one who was practical even suggesting that Eijun's pitching is more effective (even though he likes Furuya as a pitcher more). Kataoka was blind, and it was glaring. Why? You see the other teams were watching. And every single coach of the teams Seidou played against with is wary of Sawamura- even Inashiro's Coach Kunitomo. Eijun is the kid who rallied Seidou to one out away into reaching Summer Koshien- during his first freaking year.

This is why I really like it when Ochiai said Kataoka is human afterall. I guess Kataoka also has some growing up to do.

I'd like to add that these two coaches were blinded by the Koshien performance that they didn't even notice that Furuya's form was crumbling. Quoting these reddit posts, the coaching staff was purely after results. If it's not broken, don't try to fix it. We all gotta say thank you to baseball jesus, Chris-senpai, for we won't be having this problem with Eijun.

Furuya

Contrary to people saying Furuya became selfish, I feel like he actually knew what his role is and the expectations from him. He never once lost the goal to win Nationals. It's just that, he didn't know how to actually do it. He was chasing his best performance. He didn't want to be Japan's #1 pitcher for the title you know. He wanted to be the top pitcher to bring his team to the top.

Let's accept it. Despite being a monster rookie, he shouldered the ace number prematurely. Of course the weight of it would one day catch up to him. This is why the phrase 'There are no shortcuts.' keeps being reiterated in the story. I felt bad for Furuya so much. This phase of his baseball life is pretty parallel to Eijun's yips arc.

Eijun

How do I even start with our ball of sunshine? He really puts relief in 'relief pitching'. Such a refreshing player. Woah, like Sanada Shunpei. Yes we know that an ace carries the whole team, we know that an ace saves the team during a pinch, and an ace uplifts the overall mood. Already sounds like Eijun right? We know the role of an ace and how an ace should perform towards the team. What the Ichidai San match highlighted is how a team, in response, acts towards the ace. Trust. It really slapped me in the face the same way it frustrated Eijun. The extreme difference in trust given to an ace versus a relief pitcher.

This was the turning point for Eijun. Probably why I love rewatching it despite the angst. (For a more painful experience, try rewatching the episode before the Ichidai San match 🤭🔪🦝) Anyway, during that scene where Kataoka was dumbstruck with Eijun's top tier pitching I kept remembering that one quote from HQ by the U19 coach--

"We don't look for them, but that doesn't matter. They come to us with solid, undeniable strength and they make us choose them."

Literally screams SAWAMURA EIJUN!!!

Miyuki Kazuya

Where should I stab him? (Ya'll stop taking me seriously when I say stab okay?) I've been saying this all the time but our personality is the same. It's nasty. I love him and hate him at the same time okay?

Anyway, I hope we're all aware and agree that Miyuki also saw Eijun's potential from day 1. Sakuhin shit right there. Miyuki likes interesting people or happenings. This guy played catch with noob Eijun during his day-off! Offered, in fact. (Act 1, ep 5 during that intra squad game of 2nd/3rd yrs vs 1st yrs).

May I also add! Chris didn't like Eijun in the beginning. It was Miyuki who ended up covincing Chris to look at Eijun clearly and say "to a catcher, he's the most interesting kind of pitcher". However, this boy has his first string duties so it was understandable that he focused on Furuya for a while. But what's unacceptable is, during Ichidai's game, he was guilty of prioritizing Furuya over the game. This is 99% on Kataoka but 1% on Miyuki. Bitch you were losing and you couldn't even send distress signals to the coach. He trusted Furuya because of the Koshien performance and the ace number when a whole ass Sawamura Eijun exists. That's why he was quite guilty when Eijun dropped the 'trust' word on him during the switch.

And while I like that Eijun's performance during the Ichidai San match was eye opening to the catcher, I still haven't forgiven Miyuki for the day before the game when he 'ditched' or put Ei on the back burner. No, no. I'm not simply being a bitch about it because we know Miyuki's POV at that point. He needed to figure out what's wrong with Furuya and a match was looming. He didn't throw Eijun away, he just put him off a few hours. What I'm angry about is the way he put it to Eijun.

We all know Eijun is dying for some Miyuki acknowledgement. I'm pretty sure Miyuki is so unaware of this fact. Which brings me to the point. Miyuki is unaware of how his words come across to Eijun. How it impacts the little pitcher. That a simple jab to Eijun like "ace-sama wants to pitch" is a big sore spot. We see this later at night when Eijun keeps repeating, "Since I'm already put at the back burner!". Miyuki was being sarcastic about the ace-sama thing. But you see, Eijun is a big idiot. He takes everything at face value. Miyuki even brushes it off as they practice catch, "You're still angry about that?" he jokes.

And whooosh, everything's okay! Or is it?

You may say I'm being dramatic about it. But no. Here's why. During the Ichidai match, Eijun flashes back to two things. One, while on the bullpen frustrated that Furuya's messing up, he recalls the day before when Miyuki chose to catch for Furuya even though he promised to Eijun. (The other one, at his at-bat, he remembers when Kataoka didn't let him pitch the last inning.) So what seems to be a simple nasty joke to Miyuki is a sore spot to Eijun. I have observed this time and time again, but Eijun is quick to under value himself, and these jokes Miyuki pulls aren't helping. Recall that crippled Sawamura self deprecating joke he did, and him saying he was put in the back burner.

(Well anyway, Miyuki was praising Eijun in his mind the night before so I'm appeased. This is one of those TJ inconsistencies I hate, but okay, that's another post. ☹️)

Everything got better after the Ichidai game. Because as Eijun made Kataoka look at him properly. He also did the same to Miyuki. Eijun's performance just screamed, "I'm here. I'm ready!" It lit a fire to everyone in Seidou.

Fielders/Batters

I want to end my long ass post with a good one. I wanna highlight the team's performance during the Ichidai game.

While Furuya was pitching, I could go as far as say the fielder's were baby-ing him. They were so soft and encouraging because they knew Furuya when he is at his best and that it was off day during that time. The fielders were playing primarily to relieve Furuya's pressure.

In contrast, when Eijun was playing on the mound do you guys know how the batters felt? Kanemaru? Kuramochi? Utter frustration and hopelessness. And I was giddy as fuck when that happened. Because Eijun was performing his best, but they couldn't get any runs in response to his amazing pitching. It mothafuckin felt so good watching them feel powerless.

Don't you love this whole match? Obviously I do haha! If you guys ended up reading everything, then thank you! I really wrote this for myself because I was overwhelmed while rewatching it. 😅