#yes i know it’s very silly and stupid but i love it
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This Week in BL - Why so much on right now?
Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.
NOV 2024 Week 4
Ongoing Series - Thai
Your Sky (Sun iQIYI) ep 1 of 12 - Classic old school Thai BL. Of course I love it. Naïve sunshine freshman vs strict older protective boy (who already likes him but refuses to show it). Is he grumpy or just gay and tired of all of these women? We don’t know. We don’t care. We just want to see them fake a relationship. And that’s what we’re getting. I love it. I also love the friendship group, and that the younger brother is in it and he has some of the same magic BL-hottie superpowers as his older brother. It’s great.
Love Sick 2024 (Sun iQIYI) ep 10 of 15 - Phun actually turns into dangerous babygirl when he is flirting, who knew? (Dangerous Babygirl is a new archetype I have just invented by the way. Yes, I am pleased with myself.) Noh, who is a nice boy, doesn’t stand a chance. Neither does Jeed, since this new babygirl superpower gives Phun a damn near perfect “back off bitch” face.
The arm drape public claiming, it gets me every time. Has done since SOTUS. Nong Mick is hero-level in this version, hands-down my favorite character this time around (and a non-entity last time). I love him so much I can’t stand it. I haven’t updated my 1:1 comparison yet this week, didn’t have time to rewatch 2014, but I will later tonight. I'm chronicling my experience with 2024 as compared to 2014 here.
Kidnap (Fri Gaga) ep 12 end - What an absolutely excellent final episode. Smiley kisses!
Conclusion
A cute if patently absurd little show about a stuntman who is somehow convinced to kidnap a rich kid except they fall in love. It takes itself a little more seriously than it deserves for such a silly plot and some crappy stunts and contradictory content, but it was a pleasantly romantic experience all around, and I enjoyed myself. Extra credit for Q in that perfect blue color throughout. No complaints, a solid BL. 8/10
The Heart Killers (Weds Gaga) ep 1 of 12 - Jojo directs FirstKhao & JoongDunk in an action romcom about assassin brothers (Khao & Joong) who meet a tattoo artist (First) and a cocky mechanic (Dunk). I'm highly amused that Joong plays the older brother to Khao and that we have a take on the Taming of the ShrewBL. This has all GMMTV's best chemistry in one BL and some fresh concepts that I've only seen tackled in m/m romance novels (check out Amy Lane's Racing for the Sun, thank me later). My only quibble is Jojo, I like his style but his characters can get unreliably messy so…... this gonna be interesting.
Buckle up buttercups I got thoughts:
Frankly, I haven’t decided if this is good or so bad and so camp that it’s good? The latter I suspect. Either way, I’m enjoying it very much, but I had very little doubt that I would. This falls into so many of my wheelhouses. Not just the premise but the casting and the approach and the script. They pretty much knocked it out of the park with the first episode: one night stand + safe sex + linguistic negotiation = I’m in! During the opening sequence I spent the entire time worried about how many fingerprints Bison was leaving everywhere. And then I realized this show is going to require DEMAND we turn our brains entirely off.
We are in KinnPorshce / The Sign territory people. Take emergency precautions! Do not engage brain meats!
Kiss Me Kate only gay and hitmen? Frankly, it sells itself. The music is extremely stupid though. (Brain, stop it!) I gotta say that FirstKhao are good because…… FirstKhao. But JoongDunk are absolutely perfectly cast. Like: couldn’t be a better pair in these roles. Dunk, in particular, is slaying. I did not have Dunk as Petruchio down on my “best casting choice of all time” BL bingo card, but apparently there he is. Awesome.
Fourever You (Thurs YT) ep 8 of 16 - I’m warming up to the second couple a little bit. I actually don’t mind a bully romance the way some do. But this isn’t quite hitting the notes that I want from one. Still, I found this week more engaging than last week.
Secret Love (? YT?) 1-12 of 81 eps - They dropped 12 eps at once randomly on YT totaling about 20 min. So of course, I watched it. Because I have no self-control and STEPBROTHERS! Adopted into a rich family, boy falls in love with heir. But when he is made the heir instead, everything goes wrong. Now enemies the two boys reunite and sparks! I hate this format but dammit I love this utter dross. It’s very early Chinese BL feeling but from Thailand. I don’t care. It’s so stupidly great. This is my kind of BL.
Caged Again (Fri Gaga) ep 3 of 10 - There is something sweetly innocent and earnest about this show. It reminds me of Takara and Amagi or even Light On Me but less stiff - this one is quintessentially quirky and casually Thai about it. It’s interesting that this has an 18+ rating, which means it’s either gonna go very violent or sexy or both. Right now I can’t imagine that, it doesn’t suit. But I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes. Junior with his Mean Girl crop top moment is the goddess of the week though. Fierce queen penguin.
Perfect 10 Liners (Sun YT?) ep 4 of 24 - I love the side couple so damn much. How are they so adorable? Still not wild about the mains, and not likely to get there anytime soon. That said, I did like seeing the “sleeping in your boyfriend‘s class while he gives you his jacket” trope drop. We haven’t had that one for a really long time. My Engineer maybe?
Every You Every Me (Mon Gaga) ep 7 of 8 - I did find this installment kind of boring. I just don’t like actors as main characters. Much as I’m enjoying this show and I think the actors are doing a good job, I really do wish it was more like what we had been sold on: Connected reborn characters fated to be together over and over again. Not this weird little mishmash of whatever. I’m now annoyed by a format I was initially charmed by.
Jack & Joker (Mon IQIYI) ep 10-11 of 12 - still on hold until it ends or I can cope with the pain. I just can’t go into darkness right now.
Ongoing Series - Not Thai
Our Youth AKA Miseinen: Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu (Japan Tues Gaga) ep 3 of 11 - SNIFF TEST! But done by Japan so it’s that much better and more kinky. The way H looks at M pretty much defines naked lust. “I got extra beat up so you’d take pity on me and then I admitted it to you” is so damn warped I can’t even with this boy. This feral kid is gonna drive me feral. The power and the control and the execution of this show is just spectacular. I keep thinking about it after its done and telling people IRL about it. (I rarely talk BL IRL.) It’s classy. I do love it when Japan does classy BL for us.
See Your Love (Taiwan Weds Gaga) ep 6 of 13 - so completely and utterly adorable. The learning sign language thing! I loved it so much.
Love is Like a Poison AKA Doku Koi: Doku mo Sugireba Koi to Naru (Japan Tues Netflix?) 10 of 12 eps - Possibly one of the best confessions of the year I have to say. Also a wonderful character growth arc for our lawyer. Exactly as one might hope. The plot twist was slightly predictable but still adds a delicious note of tension to our final episodes.
Blue Canvas of Youthful Days (China Sun iQIYI) eps 7-8 of 12 - You don’t want me but you won’t let anybody else have me either. The song of the repressed seme. I did like the irrational jealousy moment and a few other bits, of course the crying kiss. You know I love a crying kiss. Even if it’s a somewhat censored one. But this is also leaning a little bit darker than I want at the moment. This being China, I anticipate the darkness and doom getting worse not better.
Teenager Judge (Vietnam Sat YT) ep 9 of ? - The incredible migrating lip injury continues. Could we please get on with the BL aspect of this show? I’m getting frustrated as well as slightly bored at this juncture. Pacing darlings. Pacing.
Love in the Air: Koi no Yokan (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 4 of 10 - Still not sure. I think I like this better than the original, but I’m confused. I did make disgusted scoff noises and say “oh dear” a couple of times. Which makes me sound like a World War II grandpa (only the housemate's cat noticed), but is also classic me when profoundly disappointed by a piece of media. That’s said, the sex scene was pretty good. In the end, I wasn’t as frustrated by this version of these characters, but they didn’t have as many highs or lows as the original. So first half probably works out about the same in my all-purpose rating system. The true proof in the pudding is going to be couple number 2 tho......
It's airing but......
Winter Is Not The Death of Summer (Weds YT) ?? eps - Criminals who meet in prison fall in love. I did find it on YouTube, but I did not find any English subs for it. The first episode seems to be only six minutes long. It is very pulp. But it is intriguing. So I hope it gets some sort of international or something at some point. for now I’ll put it to the wayside.
Bad Guy My Boss (Thai Sun Gaga) 10 eps - I DNF'd at ep 7, I couldn't make it. I am weak. Life is hard enough right now, this show is making it harder. It’s not what I want from my entertainment.
Bad to Bed (Taiwan Sat YT) 10 eps - This is a little too low production value even for me + just very very odd. DNF
In Case You Missed it
Love for Loves Sake got some kind of special on 11/9. Not sure what, why, or where. Only the rumor that it...... is. I'll believe it when I see it...... literally. Let me know if you found it.
The Bangkok Podcast covered Marriage Equality in Thailand: More Complex Than it Seems. They missed some of the point and all of the queer perspective. But it's a local lawyer talking about it and how it was implemented, which is quite interesting.
Dominant Yakuza and Wimpy Corporate Slave AKA Ore-sama Yakuza to Hetare Shachiku: Kuni wo Koeta Jingi Naki Dekiai, Japan YT. A 30 min slice of ridiculousness. This mini walked out the back of one of my 1999 yaoi (you know those little shorts they always had along with the main story?) and randomly got cut together by some helpful malcontent, tumbled into my YT feed like a Taiwanese prat fall, and I couldn't be happier.
This is the Cliff's notes of a story that could have been amazing, but I adored it anyway. Basically what it says on the tin: office cutie from Taiwan working in Japan runs across hot AF mafia hit man beating up lesser thugs. Falls instantly in love, turns out so does the yakuza. They end up together for...... reasons? (one is cute and the other is cool?) That's it. It's dumb and I loved it. 7/10 because it really isn't good, but it lives on in a very warped corner of my shriveled old heart.
Next Week Looks Like This:
Still to come:
11/28 Spare Me Your Mercy (Thai Thurs iQIYI) 8 eps on OneD (no word on inter) - Increased rates of deaths in terminal patients has a police captain investigating the palliative care doctor with whom he's fallen in love. Their relationship deepens but the mystery persists, driven by mistrust. Adapted from the novel "Euthanasia" by Sammon (Triage, Manner of Death) stars some old guard BL actors: Tor Thanapob from Hormones as the doctor and (fuck me YES) Jaylerr from Great Men Academy and goddamn Grean Fictions as the captain!
Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.
THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS
We stan a smitten seme who's too reserved for his own good. Sunshine is gonna have this boy wrapped around his little finger in no time. (Well in 12 eps, but we know what we like!) Your Sky
King behavior.
Dangerous Babygirl behavior.
Both Love Sick 2024.
(last week)
The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs
#this week in BL#BL updates#Your Sky#fourever you#Perfect 10 Liners#Caged Again#Teenager Judge#Kidnap the series review#Love Sick 2024#The Heart Killers#Secret Love#caged again#Love in the Air Koi no Yokan#Love in the Air Japan#Every You Every Me#Blue Canvas of Youthful Days#Love is Like a Poison#Doku Koi: Doku mo Sugireba Koi to Naru#Our Youth#Miseinen Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu#See Your Love#Ore-sama Yakuza to Hetare Shachiku: Kuni wo Koeta Jingi Naki Dekiai#upcoming BL#BL news#BL reviews#BL gossip
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SHIFTING ISN'T SPECIAL
please bare with me on this one bc it might be a bit longer than i expected (and excuse my very bad title-naming skills 😭)
in this essay i will try to put down in words exactly what i realised today as i started my first day into reprogramming my mind, something that i’m doing while following reya singh’s method. what is that?
shifting IS easy.
yes, i know everybody says it, but it’s the truth and i’m not telling you this as someone who shifts regularly to her drs, because i don’t (yet!). however, it did just click in my mind why people always say it and mean it. and i feel incredibly stupid for not understanding it waaay earlier than just now, 4 years into my journey.
now, let me walk you through the thought process behind this.
in reya’s 4-day method for reprogramming your mind, she instructs to write a list of your beliefs and non-beliefs. this may sound really silly and kinda useless at first - believe me, i woke up this morning thinking “what exactly am i supposed to do after that?” - but there’s a valid reason for it, which is to help you delete from your mind the idea that shifting is like a superpower that’s simply not for everyone and very hard to reach, when that is not the case at all!
in my own beliefs list, i’ve written “i am capable of shifting” right in between “i can speak english”, “i can write and read” and “i can eat --” (and some other things like “i can’t eat gluten”, bc i have celiac disease, “i can dream”, we all do! and “i can lucid dream”). you see where i’m going with this? i’m putting shifting in the same category as things we all normally do, that we sometimes don’t even think about doing since they’re such a natural activity. to this list i could add “i can breathe”, because we do it automatically, without even realising unless we focus on it. the same can be said for drinking or eating really, if you’re angry or thirsty you just go and get whatever pleases you the most and not dwell on it.
in the non-beliefs list, i’ve written obvious things like santa and the easter bunny (which isn’t common here in italy tbf but yeah) and sentences like “i can’t swim”, “i can’t draw”, “i can’t eat strawberries” and in between them also “i don’t fear shifting”. here, the point is that all these listed beliefs are stuff i know for a fact to be false: i can swim perfectly, i am an artist and i love strawberries + i’m not allergic to them or anything. by placing shifting there, i'm stating that just like i KNOW i can swim or whatever, i also KNOW i'm not scared of shifting.
you’re literally gaslighting your subconscious mind into believing what is real for a fact and what isn’t.
after writing down this list, which can be done on paper just like on your preferred device, i reread everything twice explaining to myself why i chose these things and why they are beliefs or not. that’s how i realised that shifting is easy. when people talk about it “clicking” they weren’t lying!
shifting isn’t special, this is what the list thing tries to prove you. it’s not special because, just like breathing and eating and reading, we do it subconsciously everyday. take your own first language: you speak it naturally without having to doubt it, and if you know a second language well enough like i know english for instance (my mother-tongue is italian) then you can even start talking to yourself and think in that language without having to search up translations.
what’s the difference with shifting then?
the difference is that shifting hasn’t been taught to us in the same way as a language has been, all throughout school. the same thing goes for reading and writing: we read and write naturally because we’ve been taught how to when we were young and it’s now engraved in our brains, just like with learning our first language, which is something we normally do thanks to our teachers, our families and the people around us, of course. this doesn’t happen with shifting in most cases, as we all know, which means it’s normal for it to take a bit to grasp as a concept and existing thing/activity. it’s natural, most of us human beings just don’t know about it, nor that we’re capable of doing it.
this is why i said it’s not special: just like breathing, everybody can do it (and so do you)!
going back to the non-beliefs list; i should also add that as a society we usually are taught what to believe in from a young age, and specifically what is believed to be a fantasy, a dream, or something real. as grown-ups, though, we have the right to believe in whatever we want, like shifting. as a realistic person, i understand that some people may have a hard time believing something as great as shifting could be true, because it genuinely doesn’t sound like it! so yes, this is also a factor that can and does make it harder for someone to trust their guts and expect to wake up somewhere that’s only fictional here.
shifting clicks for everybody at different times, but i hope this post will help some of you here understand it better and know that what more experienced shifters say always has a meaning, you just need the time to properly reflect on it to get it!
when it clicked for me a few hours ago i felt a huge rush of adrenaline and happiness bc yes, i can actually shift. i’m just overcomplicating it for no reason and so many of you are doing the same!
it’s okay though, we’ll all get there <3
(psa: if you saw any grammar mistakes or anything NO YOU DIDN'T and also please don't mind if this rant doesn't sound logical, i tried my best to explain myself like i wanted to 🥲)
#lola’s thoughts ✮#shiftblr#shifting blog#shifting realities#shifting community#shifting IS easy#shifting motivation#shifting antis dni#reality shifting#shifting methods#desired reality
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Also, I just saw you’re 23, I am too! It’s rough out here. Another idea: any characters, what’s it like being 23? Where are they at this point? I feel like hq shows that as being sooo grown up but like I’m just a big teenager right?? Idk just rambling
being 23 is so rough sometimes lmfao. i've got friends from high school getting married and friends from college having early life crises. i'm working full time and living alone but tbh mostly feel like i'm playing at house rn more than i am living on my own. whatever. it's fine. early 20s is just a silly time of life. anyways i don't have a fic for u but i Do have a headcanon list.
in no particular order, haikyuu characters as stupid things i've done in my early twenties:
atsumu: having a brother who is a chef does not prevent him from forgetting to take the cheese packet out of the mac and cheese box and dumping that into boiling water with the pasta.
udai: does not remember the last time he ate a vegetable.
oikawa: friends all went to a party without him and his coping method was getting so so so wasted on white rum and falling asleep on the living room carpet immediately after giving another friend a tarot card reading saying their breakup is imminent (to be fair, it was. but it was still kinda rude).
iwaizumi: after class, was led to a private stairwell by a friend, jokes "haha are you taking me to a hidden location to kill me." and then received a love confession. proceeded to say "uh. i'll think about it." then did finger guns. and said "im just gonna. go" and then fucking. ran. like not exaggerating, ran.
kageyama: went on a date. did Not At All Know it was a date, despite the very very obvious flirting. yes this was the same person as in the previous bullet point. don't look at me like that.
akaashi: took a 100 level class senior year and did not pay attention to a single lecture. instead wrote thousands of words of fanfiction in the classroom every day.
atsumu (again): another cooking one. i just think he'd be a terrible cook. sorry. anyways. "it's been 20 min, why isn't this scallion pancake im pan frying cooking yet?" (<- did not turn on the stove burner.)
yachi: hm the light in this room doesn't work. guess i'll just learn to see in the dark instead of inconveniencing anyone by asking to fix it.
akaashi (again): completely fell in love at first sight, but fast forward five months and it actually somehow worked out? however the five months were filled with the most insufferable pining possible, which could have been resolved so so so easily. also started talking about marriage, like, six months in.
bokuto: got sad. went out into a raging snowstorm in socks and no jacket. laid down in the snow for a long time. somehow, miraculously, didn't get a cold afterwards?
akaashi and/or yachi: changed majors and career paths because a pretty upperclassman asked them to. (i am very happy in my chosen path but jesus christ THAT was why i did it?)
hinata: flew from coast to coast of the country, then drove halfway back to the midwest in the span of three days. started a new job on the fourth day. didn't sign a lease on an apartment until the fifth day.
semi: skipped a day of work to drive four hours there and four hours back for a fall out boy concert. totally worth it but driving at 4am after a concert wasn’t the smartest thing ever to be done.
kuroo: started reading homestuck in the year of our lord 2024. this is an attempt to remain in contact with long distance friendships (by doing a bookclub) but jesus fucking christ dude.
ok this is getting too long and i needed to be ready for work, like 15 min ago lol. maybe i'll write more of these later, but i hope you enjoy these and my silly disasters are a little comforting :)
#ask#haikyuu#haikyuu!!#hq!!#im not tagging all those characters lmfao#but anyways. it's been an eventful three years.#i hope you enjoy and that your 20s are going okay<3
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costco x apple cider CHAPTER ONE!
TW: fighting, yelling, british, idk what else so i apologise if i forgot anything!!!
Authors Note: there’s like. a lot of grammar issues in here, those are because i was lazy. however any spelling mistakes are on purpose fuck the english language. (also i apologize to anyone who isn’t on mobile because i wrote this in my notes app so it’s formatted for mobile)
without further ado, here is our first chapter, enjoy <3
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APPLE
hi my name is apple marie cider and i have long light brown hair and brown eyes. i grew up on an apple orchard (which is how i got my name). i’ve lived in the same small town, on the same 50,739 acre apple orchard for my whole life. the only good thing about this town is the people. well, not ALL of the people. take my sworn enemy, Costco, for example. HIS FULL NAME IS LITERALLY COSTCO COSTCO COSTCO!!! him and his family have been my sworn enemy since generations back. you see, it’s a sort of family feud.. years ago, starting with costcos and my parents, (costcos family owns the town market) costcos mother WOULDNT let my parents sell their apple cider at the market and insulted us for being farmers.. the feud passed down generations, which is why Costco bullies me. in our little town, everyone who knows anyone knows that Costco is an Alpha. you can’t go anywhere without hearing about it. not even the library. i myself am more of an omega. i just don’t like the idea of being mean to people!!! anyway, aside from Costco (i roll my eyes just thinking about him), everyone here is pretty great!
i get up out of bed, put on my overalls and a black t shirt, then i head off to town. i was walking the dirt road from my barn to town, when i felt it. Costco was out there somewhere. wandering around. looking for a submissive and breedable type. “not today Costco.” i whispered under my breath. i would NEVER go out with him. i made my way through town, walking fast. a lot of faces passed, but thankfully none of them were Him. i stopped into a few stores, avoiding Costcos family market. then i picked up the dry cleaning, when all of a sudden…
“hey Apple!” a voice shouted at me. i looked up from my grocery list, and who should i see other than Costco.
“great…” i muttered under my breath. “what do you want, Costco?” i said rudely.
“oh, nothing, nothing…i just couldn’t help but notice that you went to every shop in town, but mine! odd, huh?” he said mockingly.
i rolled my eyes at him. “maybe if your parents weren’t douchebags-“
“HEY!” he barked. “don’t talk about my parents that way! EVER.” i began to shake. i don’t like when people raise their voices at me. i shivered and turned away from him, then began the long and treacherous journey back to my barn.
when i got home, momma stopped me at the door. “are ya’lright honey? have ‘nother run in with Costco?” she said empathetically.
i sighed. “it’s nothin’ momma.. i won’t let him get to me.”
she smiled her warm apple pie smile and said “good. he ain’t gonna rattle us now, is he? we got a iron clad foundation.” i smiled softly at her, then made my way into the house. i set our groceries on the counter and brought the laundry to my room. then i thought i oughta go talk to pa about what Costco said.
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COSTCO
i took the limo back to my mansion up on the hill, overlooking our vast empire that was the town supermarket.
“thanks Lionel.” i said, being sure not to scuff my new italian shoes as i stepped out of the limo.
“pip pip, cheerio!” he called as he drove to the family car park. i swiftly walked into the foyer, where i made sure there wasn’t so much as a spec of dirt on my clothing. i had been far too close to that farm girl during the conversation we had. i was worried she may have given me a disease, like herpes or the bubonic plague.
after i was sure there were no bacteria on my suit, i walked into the mansion. i walked through our pristine, pearly white halls until i reached my fathers study.
“hello, father. you will be happy to hear that i-”
“Costco, how many times have i told you? do not disturb me while i am working.” he sternly told me.
“my apologies father…” i said, backing out of the room. he never listens to me.. and i know not to disturb mother down at the market. if i am there it could scare away potential investors or customers, due to my intimidating nature.
instead, i walked through our large, clean, house, smiling at the large painting of the Costco market, no apple cider family products in sight. it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, knowing that they are banished to other markets. a feeling that is, for an alpha like me, unfamiliar. i shrug it off, deciding to go work out in my gym until dinner.
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APPLE
the next day i woke up in my bedroom. it was raining outside, which is good for our crops. i looked around my pastel pink room, thinking about how happy Costco must be. it’s cold and dreary outside, just like his soul. STOP!! WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT HIM??? i thought angrily. what i SHOULD be thinking about is breakfast. i have to go eat my oatmeal, and then i should put on my red poncho and go feed the horses and check the chicken coop for eggs. Costco has no place in any of that. he’s never worked a day in his life! i put my hair in a ponytail and i pulled on a clean pair of jeans, with holes in the knees from kneeling to wash the horse stalls. i put on a long sleeved navy blue henley and my poncho and rain boots.
after doing my morning chores, i went to find momma and pa, and say goodbye before i head off to school. then i put on my rainboots and began to walk to the bus stop. it was raining hard, so i had to put my backpack under my poncho. after 2.11 miles of walking, i made it to the bus stop. there were a few other kids there, but then came Costco. looking UGLY as ever in his stupid Vicuna suit and dumb Italian shoes. god, he needs to get therapy or something.
“hey Cider, where’d your hunchback come from?” he called out in his stupid stupid accent. OH NO. MY BACKPACK UNDER MY PONCHO LOOKS LIKE A HUNCHBACK?? i thought, feeling like an idiot. everyone at the bus stop began to laugh. hard. this caused me to shake, tears welling up in my eyes.
“aww what’s wrong? not alpha enough to handle some laughter?” something about the way he said it made me shiver.
“shut up…” i mumbled. i won’t let him get to me, even as the tears spill over my eyes. his expression seemed to almost.. soften as he realized how his words affected me. he put his hands in his pockets and looked at the wet ground. his hair began to dampen, he must have been too busy looking at himself in the mirror to put on a rain jacket. i couldn’t help but notice the way his icy blue orbs seemed to glow, even as his hair fell in front of them. i then realized i must look odd, i was staring at my sworn enemy as if i…liked him.. or something. now THAT would be funny!
the bus finally arrived, and we boarded back to front. i ended up somewhere in the middle, sitting alone. no one wants to sit next to me because im a stupid farm girl. suddenly i felt the air seem to grow thicker, the room darker, colder even. and who should sit next to me but the one and only Costco. in the moment i wished i had sat in the back, next to stinky John, because at least then i wouldn’t be stuck here, next to the most wretched, evil creature ever to walk the earth.
“look, i know im an alpha, and.. i don’t usually say stuff like this, ESPECIALLY not to YOU. but… im sorry for what i said at the bus stop. i saw how it affected you and i just… never mind its dumb anyway..” he said shyly. i’ve never heard Costco say something like that before.
“oh. um- i- i- i guess its uh- it’s fine. it’s no big deal- i guess…” i said, hoping he couldn’t tell i was nervous to be around him. i don’t even like him, yet he makes me stumble over every other word. it’s crazy!
we didn’t talk for the whole rest of the bus ride. we finally got to the schoolhouse 20 minutes later. we got off the bus and went our separate ways, thank god. i don’t want to talk to him again today. he kind of scared me, being so…nice…like that on the bus. he’s NEVER like that, especially not to me.
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COSTCO
i can’t believe i just apologized. to APPLE!! i never apologize! to anyone! i’m too alpha for that. god, that stupid little omega is going to ruin my reputation. i can’t have that. i walked through the hallway, almost hitting the ceiling with my 6’5 frame, making sure to keep my head up. this way everyone knows that im the best. omegas cower at my mere presence. “heh..” i chuckle to myself under my breath. especially that wretched omega farm girl. i thought in my head.
i sit down in finance 101, ready to learn, when all of a sudden..
“hey, Costco! is it true that you got RABIES from Apple Cider??” a girl asked me. i don’t know her, but she seems like a beta type. which means she should NOT be speaking to me.
“excuse me?” i said calmly.
“well..y’know, because you two are like..”
“like WHAT?” i asked, my temper slowly rising.
“well…i dunno. i don’t remember. sorry to bother you, mr.” and then she ran off.
if this stupid beta thinks that ME, COSTCO C. COSTCO, would EVER be associated with that farm girl, i might just murder someone. the whole town seems to think we LIKE each other. which is absurd, obviously. we very clearly despise each other. the mere idea of us being together makes me throw up in my mouth. because if i let the puke out it would get on my new suit. and i cannot let that happen, this is VICUNA for Christs sake!
anyway, that beta clearly knows nothing about me. the closest i’ve been to that lice infected farm girl was sitting beside her on the bus. and even THAT i didn’t want to do. i just hadn’t meant to make her cry. father says making people cry is apart of the job. i don’t want to be anything like him. i want more than this. i always have. i mean, seriously, who wants a trust fund and a job in finance?
my “friend” (aka the son of my fathers business partner) James walks over and takes a seat next to me.
“Hello, Costco!” he says cheerfully.
“hi, what are you so happy about?” his happiness disgusts me.
“Well, if you must know, my dad just signed a contract with a major company, meaning I get to intern there next fall!”
“oh, isn’t that just delightful.” i say sarcastically. who even wants to intern at a finance company?? before James can respond, our teacher begins class.
********************************************
APPLE
“OMGOSH YOU SAT NEXT TO COSTCO ON THE BUS??” my best friend Orange whisper-yelled at me.
“well i- i mean yeah, but like i said, it- its not that big of a deal. it was just.. weird.”
“weird like sexy or weird like odd?”
“ugh, Orange, gross!” i say, scrunching my nose at her.
“just askin!” she shrugs.
“okay, well as i was SAYING. he sat next to me, and then-“
“Ladies, what is so important that you absolutely must talk about it while i am telling you about your assignment?” Mrs. Jones, our biology teacher, said.
we both mumbled apologies, and turned away from each other. for the rest of class, i sat silently taking notes. we were learning about cells, and to be real honest, if we didn’t have a final for this class i wouldn’t be paying attention. cells are really boring. after class, we resumed our conversation.
“yeah! he straight up apologized for making me cry! what has gotten into him??”
“it’s so obvious, Apple!” she says excitedly.
“what?!”
“girl, Costco has a huge crush on you!! why else would an alpha like him express his feelings!! plus, HE literally sat next to YOU! guys don’t do stuff like that unless they like you.” she says, nodding her head like she just bestowed some vast knowledge upon me.
“Orange. you’re delusional. he only sat next to me because he had to! there were no other seats!!” she rolled her eyes and shrugged.
“whatever you say! anyway, im off to algebra. see you at lunch!” she called as she skipped off.
she’s so insane! Costco? having a crush on ME??? never in a million years! he doesn’t even LIKE ME! because we’re SWORN ENEMIES!! gosh, that’s such an absurd idea…
#cospple#costco x apple cider#CHAPTER ONE#please comment with your thoughts and opinions#yes i know it’s very silly and stupid but i love it
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Kraz, royal healer
Kraz (Razzy if they like you(but they like everyone)(except Jerry)) is a human (?) mage who voluntarily exiled themselves to the underground to follow monsterkind during the war. They are later appointed royal healer by the king and queen and has devoted themselves to the betterment of monster society ever since. They are the only human the royal scientist ever tolerated (although would you call sharing lab coats and beds tolerating or...something else?)
Information
-Species : mage (half monster, half human)
-Age : older than the barrier. As long as they will to live, it appears that a mage cannot age.
-Gender : apparently born a female, although it is unclear how sexual dimorphism develops in mages. Kraz does not specifically care.
-Soul : Green
-Height : 1.99m (6'5)
-Hair colour : Black (somehow iridescent ?)
-Eye colour : deep dark brown. Their sclera is grey as well.
-Build : sickly thin, actually skin and bones. They never eat much of anything, claiming that they do not need a lot of food. It worries people quite a lot, especially Toriel, but they have been like this for hundreds of years so... at least they're not dead ? Still, they scare the kids.
-Personnality : a sweet, calming presence. They exude an aura which makes anyone around them feel at peace. Although they are quite akward and generally anxious, they smile easily and brightly. Kraz is very friendly, caring, and kind to a fault. has quite an outdated manner of speech. A jokester. Always does their best to please people around them. Deeply devoted. Probably has some sort of attention deficit. Easily fascinated. Suffers from chronic bird behaviour (will bring you trinkets??).
-Likes : gardening, playing the piano, cooking, puzzles, collecting shiny trinkets, science, herbal medicine, cultivating bacteria, gift giving, late 1800's fashion, dark spaces, funny socks, Gaster.
-Dislikes : loud noises (especially clamoring crowds), being watched, sudden movements, bright reflective surfaces, small enclosed spaces, bitter foods.
Backstory
Kraz was born to a human mother and a monster father during the war, as mages often are. Abandoned by their mother, who could not endure the shame of their birth, they were taken under their father’s wing and raised amongst a small monster village. Early on, they manifested an extremely intense green soul and spectacular magical power, even for a mage. Although unequipped and unprepared to nurture such potential, the monsters in Kraz's community did their best to encourage the toddler's magical prowess, such as having them heal cuts and bruises, or speed up a few carrots' growth. But as war progressed, human armies swept through monster territory and eventually raided the child's village, pillaging and slaughtering everyone in their path. In these times mages were rare, being the product of monster-human relationships, but extremely sought after by humanity, who could only manifest minor magic potential. Stumbling upon the young Kraz and recognising in their physiology the traits of a "hybrid", human soldiers immediately identified them as a mage and took them away to be raised amongst humans. Their father, if he ever survived the attack, never stopped looking for his little bird until his dust settled on the ground. And so Kraz was raised in human war camps and settlements, amongst soldiers and other mages. Being so young, they only ever had vague memories of their time amongst monsters and soon put them to rest. As they grew, their healing powers grew with them, and it was soon clear to the commanders that Kraz may as well be the most spectacular healer that they had ever known, capable of rising men at death's door back on their feet and ready to fight in mere minutes. Suffice to say, as one of their greatest asset, they were sent from battlefield to battlefield, from division to division in order to rise the almost dead and reinforce the dwindling human forces. But they had a fault. Kraz, at their heart, was kind. Compassionate. Caring. And oh so, so young still, no more than fifteen. And the pain, the suffering inflicted by and to monsters broke their soul into pieces. See, despite all the propaganda, they could never quite bring themselves to hate monsters. Hate half of themselves. And so in the midst of the battle's confusion, in secret, they would slip a hand or a green bullet towards a bleeding frog here. A dusting lion there. They wished they could just run to them and pour their whole magic into the wounded, but the human soldiers watched them. Always. But eventually, as war was nearing its end, temptation was too great. They could take it no more. And so during a bloody battle, they slipped away from the soldiers surrounding them and ran to a fallen monster, who was already dusting away. A skeleton. The young mage fell to their knees, reaching for the monster's broken face with magic already at their fingertips and reassurances spilling from their lip, and poured everything they had left as the soldier tried to struggle and speak. He barely was able to call to them, in a language they didn't know, his bones just starting to reform, but fate is oh so cruel. Kraz could only slip their guard's attention for so long, and just as life started to flicker back in the man's face, they were torn off his bloodied body and promptly covered in his dust, their work undone by the fall of a sword. As the soldiers dragged the teen away, they could only claw down at the dusty floor to rack up the dust, and a nametag. Dingbats.
"Traitor", they were deemed. "An error of nature", "a freak", they were called. But a valuable freak nonetheless. Their magical abilities were still wholly unmatched through all of the land. They were needed. And so Kraz was beaten down, corrected, whipped back into shape. Into following orders. Royals spoke of banishment. Of a barrier. And they needed mages.
Finally, monsters were defeated. They were to be sealed underground. Kraz and the other mages assembled, staring down at a beaten monsterkind, a sea of eyes and bleeding hearts crying out at them as they chanted the words.
They couldn't do it. They couldn't.
They ran to them.
As the barrier rose up, this child fell to their knees in front of Asgore and Toriel and begged them to let them stay. To right this wrong. To help. They did.
And so Kraz poured their heart out. It wasn't easy, getting monsters to accept human help, even though they shared some physical traits. They slaved away for nothing in return, growing crops magically in dead ground and never taking even a grain of wheat for themselves. Endlessly imbuing water with their energy to create remedies for everyone. Only accepting the bare minimum of food to stay alive, even though they felt as if they were tearing this food away from the hands of the needy. They tried so, so hard to repair humanity's sins. Clear their name in the eyes of monsters.
And eventually, it somewhat worked. Instead of frowns, they were faced with smiles. Children stopped crying when they saw the healer's incomplete beak and started to spare them a smile. The elderly stopped refusing treatment from them. And even though they still had to face a seemingly unclimbable wall as they began further studies in medicine, biology and microbiology, chemistry, agricultural sciences, magical studies, anything to broaden their knowledge and help, they made it. (No thanks to the shy, awkward, standoffish and straight up rude engineering-chemistry-physics student which whom the king and queen pushed Kraz to hang out with. They said that it would "help the both of you, you kids would work beautifully together". Not that the mage minded, as a matter of fact they quite enjoyed his presence and always did their best to be agreeable and overall lovely company; but the skeleton never quite seemed to get over his absolute loathing of humans. Oh well, no matter. They'll keep trying anyways.). Eventually they did succeed and ascended to the position of "tolerable fellow student who I regularly hang out with" in the eyes of their adversary. When Kraz got their first doctorate, in medicine, WingDings even cracked a smile. And as the two completed their studies, the now mage-doctor was promoted to "acceptable collaborator". A win for the ages!
Kraz finally moved out of the derelict place they were practicing medicine in since the war to a more acceptable place (which was, well, their newly furnished house, courtesy of the royal family for their friendship and as a congratulatory gift for their doctorate) and kept working as always. But with an official title to strengthen their position, and what some may call a reluctant friend, things seemed lighter. Monsters were flocking to their office, business (which was still free but their patients insisted on leaving little somethings) was booming, their ties to their fellow "collaborator " deepening, and the doctor became sincerely appreciated in their community. Maybe not in all monsterdom yet, memories of the war never quite fading, but it was progress. Things were going well.
But it seemed that fate had other plans.
One day, plague broke out. The illness decimated monster populations, entire families perishing from an unknown condition.
And Kraz, oh Kraz, tried everything. Every spell, every potion, every cure they could think of. Nothing worked. They asked for help to the other healers, consulted with other scientists, even asked the engineers if they could think of something, anything. Nothing worked. They could only watch as the malady swept through monsters, powerless to watch them die, just like they did during the war.
No. No.
They would not stand for it, they would not STAND FOR THIS !! They will find a cure. At any cost.
They locked themselves in their laboratory.
One day. Two days.
Three days.
Six days.
Eight days.
Their colleagues had tried banging on the door, shouting at them to come out, to go home, they would not answer. They called for the doctor’s friends, to no avail. Eventually, it was WingDings Gaster, the royal scientist himself, to be at their door threatening them to “kick their feathery ass if it’s the last thing he does” in order to get them to open the damn door.
No answer.
But the royal scientist was a stubborn man. And when words failed, he proceeded to take the door’s security system apart and barge into the lab, only to be taken aback by the stench. He covered his non-existent nose with a sleeve and bit back the urge to let last night’s dinner see the light of day again, ushering the doctor’s worried coworkers away. It reeked of illness. It reeked of plague. The skeleton, being the only one without lungs and hence immune to all airborne diseases, made his way through the mess of papers, vials and…patches of blood and hair…to the form bent over his friend’s table. Kraz was staring straight at him with their big, beady dark eyes which seemed to be glazed over. They looked even paler than they usually do, which is to say whiter than snow, and seemed so frail that they could snap at any moment. Their face was also swimming in what seemed to be bloodied spit, over a mountain of papers scribbled with words that made no sense. Suffice to say, they looked like death itself. They looked dead.
It was as if Gaster’s bones were made of ice. Barely thinking, he grabbed his friend’s limp body, by Asgore were they TALL, and zapped away somewhere safe. Somewhere clean. His place, apparently.
He cleaned Kraz. Changed them. Laid them in bed. Listened to their delirious babbles, relieved that at least they were alive. In a moment of clarity, the doctor pleaded him to retrieve some instruments from their lab and conduct a series of tests on samples of their blood, which he was urged to collect daily.
“I need to help them Dings. Please. Please, I beg of you, do this for them. Or else I would have done this for nothing. Please.”
Eventually, the unthinkable happened. They got better, the little colour their cheeks normally had returned. As soon as the healer could walk again, they were out of their friend’s house and back in their lab (ignoring everyone’s admonishments). Barely a week later, there was a cure for the seemingly incurable plague.
Monsterkind was saved.
And everything was truly fine. Kraz was promoted to Royal Doctor (a fact they endlessly teased Gaster with, because Now you can’t boss me around anymore mister science man), was granted a whole department in the Hotland labs, and was now revered though the kingdom! Their promotion to head doctor was also accompanied by another, to the exclusive rank of “beloved special stupid idiot who gave themselves the plague” in the soul of a certain someone. They weren’t going to live that one down anytime soon. But well, when the royal scientist’s coworkers noticed that his lunch was packed daily in the common room fridge with “Do not forget nourishment today dear, I will see you tonight at our usual, -A stupid idiot “stuck to it, let’s say that the air in the Core labs was decidedly more pleasant. And Alphys, a young intern that the Doctor befriended during one of their numerous visits to their collaborator-friend-lover(?), could barely contain her gushing to anyone that might listen.
Yes. Times were good.
Until a human fell.
#undertale oc#character sheet#Kraz#YIPEE FINALLY DONE!!!#I am so so excited to get you guys know them better#I'm still trying to define their personnality precisely but I've been thinking about them FOREVER#their lore is a little insane but. They're weird too.#Literally a bird. Has bird behaviour SO BAD#I'll draw them doing stupid shit dont worry. Bringing Gaster beads and stuff. A lover's offering.#They look scary as hell but actually they're a big softie. Very silly and kind person.#The giganormous half beak giant height and skeleton apearance just don't help#I love them.#permission from/to my mutuals to draw razzy interracting with your guys ?#(if i ever have time to draw lmao)#they're dating the royal scientist because I need to kiss that goop man personally#their relationship is science x science (different flavours) they're the worst lmao#kraz is the only seemingly responsible one#they have this self care thing nailed (forces Gaster to eat and shower)#date night is either gaster building something and kraz doing the very meticulous bits or running tests on razzy's new bacteria farm#“Can you make a bacteria that tastes like tomato sauce” well a week and a half later apparently yes you can#these two i swear#Kraz wears funny socks and Gaster funny ties. The funny sciences.#my art#my oc
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yOu'Re gOiNg fOr a LiTeR? | "Habs react to Quebec Maple facts", 10.22.24
#guys this is not becoming a regular thing this is just the mental illinois breaking through but ALSO I SAW THIS AND SCREAMEDDDDD#they did this For Me. those are all my guys. like yes yes we know about xhekovský but that’s my adopted austrian son david reinbacher!!!#that’s my baby goalie carey price time travel cowboy son cayden primeau!!!! and i just LOVE that they were like#‘yeah so one of them is gonna be a bitch in both pairs. & yeah we’re gonna make them lose.’ & i am HERE for it. you know the media day vid#where they asked all of them who was brat on the team and like 75% said slaf which we all KNEW? yes. correct. even more evidence godddd#also empathize so much with him because i hate feeling stupid & he is notably like. a very smart guy w/good awareness of broader society#and sorry to get like this on a silly little post i’m about to fanfiction-ify before i have xhekovský hours but so much of this goes back#to the xenophobia in the nhl and how we treat players (not only that. people in north am/west tbh) whose first language is not english#and degrade/discredit them and their intelligence by virtue of their multilingualism and how we even think about multilingualism as a whole#e.g. the sense that certain languages are perceived as more ‘valuable’ capital/the support that SHOULD be there for language learning simpl#is not from what i can tell in the nhl so even if you wanted to foster an environment of intercultural competency they’re doing nothing to#support it. the stories!! of so many guys! reliant solely upon their teammates for basic necessities! WHERE is your language acquisition#programming. sorry the linguistics language and culture attempted to jump out there & i am not conveying what i want to say at ALL. anyway#juraj's slow descent into madness as u can SEE him visibly getting more & more over it & done is my roman empire. like he's having fun#at first he's laughing 'what is this whiskey?' & i AM thinking that toothy little grin at arber with the jerkoff hand motion about the mapl#syrup only taking a few minutes to come (out) was a dig. lord knows arber deserved it with his shorts pulled all the way up like GOD the me#you put here to wear slutty little 3" shorts live in cold CANADA and have to cover up their thigh tattoos. what a travesty. and the amount#of THIGH in this video i- biting. arber's hairy legs slaf's manspreading more as he gets frustrated & arber teases him i. and DAVID????#on a completely different note cayden with his face covered is giving me INTENSE brainworms i have the most unhinged storylines for him#AND THE BRYNDZOVE HALUSKYYYY everything past 2:00 is gold. david's tired sighs. slaf hating it here. arber having the time of his life#'taste' 'that's not an advantage' DAVID kill him. 'maple syrup specialist... normal guy 🤷' slaf you are the WORST loser and ily for it#arber defending his wife w/his life... juraj's the smartest guy in the room & arber's on his leash about it. it goes both ways (to be cont)#juraj slafkovský#arber xhekaj#david reinbacher#cayden primeau#montreal canadiens#i'm xhekovský posting leave me alone i'm also *****
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i have so so many thoughts about barracuda and my jsab headcanons bouncing around in my brain. please take these silly doodles
#jsab#just shapes and beats#jsab barracuda#barracuda#jsab boss#blixer#jsab blixer#jsab triangle#jsab square#jsab circle#jsab pentagon#jsab dance of the incognizant#tags fkr jsab posts are so hard.... aughh...#jsab boat#I CANT REVEAL THEM YET BC IM SAVING THEM FOR MY SILLY JSAB ASK BLOG.....#OUUUGG#anyways yes i know what incognizant means and yes this does mean that cogni has a terminal case of Stupid#they are also technically an oc and they are silly goofy to me#they are a character based of an existing level though as per usual#and also i love my interpretation of barracuda very much i am kissing then DIRECTLY on the forehead#self loathing snake man (gender neutral)
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my best friend just told me she's gonna show me her regular ass grocery order when she gets home and i seriously cheered as if she said she was coming over Right Now
#admittedly... i have such low social energy just ebing shown routine/boring things from ppls day to days makes me really happy#cause like!! i know random silly things!! and i can learn so much from that!! like food preferences or even shampoo smells yk???#like augh mundane things < 33333333#(also yes if u want to be my friend its definitely easier if u just take a show and tell approach. like kindergarten show & tell style wehr#u go “HERE'S MY THINGS” nd everyone claps and cheers then it just keeps cycling. i love show and tell. its my favorite way to make friends)#its funny - i literally ramble so much in the tags someone could probably search them and figure out Exactly how to love me w/o me having t#say much to them (Cause i am such an oversharer in tags + ik myself v well) b/c im frequently giving stupid little “cheats”#(ik its not cheats im just being silly with that wording)#i once had a exfriend send me a picture of her reciepts from being out for the day with others (and none of the things she had gotten atp)#and we arent even friends anymore and i STILL think very fondly about that conversation bc ahhhhh <3 i just like knowing random silly thing#im such a friendship bitch
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watching the alpines qualify dead last... my immediate thought was "oh it's going to be sympathy kisses+ for Pierre all season long in the your lips, my lips (apocalypse) universe" 💀
oh my gosh, HI 🤭😍 well this ask made me grin far too fondly down at my phone screen... it just means SO much that people are still thinking of this fic universe even though it hasn't been updated in forever. 🥺 i am really SO touched!
and i also agree COMPLETELY! sympathy kisses all night long, for sure... perhaps even a sympathy blowjob or two... or even (since charles has once again reminded us that he's not sensitive to bottoming) a sympathy fuck 😏 but whatever the case might be, you can bet your ass that they'll definitely be in each other's beds in the 2023 kisses fic 'verse <3333 😘
#asks & answers#🖥 emotionlessotherwiseobsessive#📝 WIPs tag#wip: 2023 kisses#aaaaahhhh this fic 🥺🙈🥰#every time someone says something lovely like this; i get inspired to try and pick it up again and finally finish it#because like#what WOULD they do in bahrain 2024?#where would they be? will they FINALLY have figured out their feelings and be living happy ever after?#or will they still be stupid?#see; *i* know the answer; because believe it or not that fic has 13 more chapters fully plotted out#yes. THIRTEEN. i'm insane i know#but the point is; there's an entire plotline and a VERY fun arc upcoming (if only i can remember how to write 🙈)#BUT THINGS LIKE THIS MAKE ME WANT TO THINK OF A SEQUEL#and it's like#wtf katherine you can't be thinking of a sequel when the original isn't even finished yet!!#AND YET#what if there *is* a little sequel... just a one-shot... about them in bahrain 2024...#being gossip girls all weekend long... and then that silly failed fist bump/hand grab thing... and THEN the post-quali kissies...#what if what if what if#aaaaahhhh xD#anyways. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK!! you have set my brain on fire a little bit (but in the best way 🥰❤️)
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opinions on helen of sparta being compared to prey animals? blink blink
*blink blinks back* Then immediately sits like this because of the question.
It's a good question that I'm happy to answer! It just makes me mad.... I sincerely hate the wording of "prey" being used to describe her.
SHE IS A VICTIM! THAT DOES NOT MEAN SHE IS "PREY"!
I can...see how people in ancient times may have used that word and still meant it in how she is a victim... but modern-day English-speaking people calling her that??? (considering how in different languages the word "prey" could have different meanings.) I'll just say that as someone who has been "prey" herself at one point, I REALLY hate that word as a descriptor. Just say victim or survivor. 👍
Honestly to call ANY victim "prey" is so fucked up. "Prey" to me, feels like "it's meant to happen." "Prey" are part of the food chain and so that's what happens. And to compare that to abduction and SA? Almost as if "that's our place"? It also kind of implies something being "eaten" or killed... Helen SURVIVES. She's traumatized and definitely needs healing and support but it's not like she can't find joy or peace ever again. Prey just feels so fucking gross.
Also, if someone calls victims "prey", I hope they know that Moose, Elk, Boars, Bovine, ZEBRAS, etc. are technically "prey". And these are VERY aggressive animals while still being "prey" for some other animals. And also that doesn't mean that "Oh, they're powerful! Clearly they should've been able to stop it." That's victim blaming :P
She is a clever, determined, caring woman who was ripped from her home for YEARS because Paris was a dipshit who decided he needed the prettiest woman in the world despite already having a wife. He didn't care about the fact that Helen didn't want to be there and was already married. He is so selfish that he will not let her go back even when THOUSANDS have died in the war! EVEN HIS BROTHER HECTOR AND PRIAM DO NOT BLAME HER! Granted, we do not know if Aphrodite would have let him undo their deal of "I want the prettiest woman" if he DID end up feeling bad for Helen and he wished to let her go home (I doubt it based on his personality though).
"Oh, if she is so independent/strong, then why didn't she just kill Paris and leave?"
AGAIN! Victim blaming!!! First thing, people who ask that have media literacy that is piss on the poor. You also have no idea about the political implications that would have happened if she DID kill Paris. She literally cries about staying there and argues with Aphrodite about seeing Paris, only to get strongarmed by Aphrodite as, guess what? A GODDESS WILL ALWAYS OVERPOWER A DEMIGOD. (This isn't Percy Jackson where he "killed" Ares as a 12 year old (Percy, you were my childhood, but that's bullshit.))
Even confined in Troy, she ARGUED with APHRODITE about going to see Paris! She is not some meek woman who just does as she's told with no pushback! She argued with a GODDESSS! Very few survive doing that!!!
She's not "Prey to fate", she's a "VICTIM of Fate".
#Thank you for the ask anon!!! :D It's a very fun question! I just really don't like the word of 'prey' being used to describe her.#...#Yes. there's poetic shit with writing. but if I heard someone say 'Helen is prey to Paris' I would be miffed and think that person's stupid#Prey just feels like 'one and done. You'll be a victim from now on and nothing else. You have no life after this.'#I mean you can probably say that if you simply mean that Paris is an abuser I guess. but...idk homies. I just really hate Helen being calle#that you know?#as if she could never be anything but prey in a way. as if she herself has never been the one pulling the strings or the trickster#Helen isn't a rabbit in an eagle's talons about to be eaten. She was a PRISONER. Who still lives and thrives afterward.#idk I'm probably looking too far into the word 'prey' and what it means to ME as an animal lover and survivor but it just feels#really bad to me. like wrinkling my nose and thinking 'out of all the words out there. that's the one you use?'#*sighs*#probably got quite fired up about this :P#ask#anon#yes I plan to write Helen as a big buff cheeto puff but again. she could never fight a goddess no matter how strong!! she's Mortal!#end of story!! I just want to write her that way as A.) it's fun. B.) Sparta upbringing.#(I got SUPER into ancient athletes stuff. (look up Pankration. it's so cool) and since I really love writing women. I just...like it :D#And no. everybody is strong in their own way even if they don't physically fight. I have plenty of women who are not fighters#but still have their own strengths and personalities and silliness#Leda actually doesn't like the 'exercising lifestyle of Sparta'. Ctimine loves running but that's it. Anticlea is the one who taught#Odysseus how to carve wood and is a 'trickster' but she's not really into athletic stuff. (she actually has a heart condition later on)#there's more too it but...tags are already long as hell#Mad rambles#shot by odysseus#my headcanons#kind of#If Helen is prey then she is “prey” like those clever mother birds who pretend to be injured to get predators away from their nest.#*shrieks into a pillow* I'm fine now :D#essay
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I'm being productive!
okay I'm actually just packing my Rainbow High dolls. but it needs to be done! and I'm doing it! so that's good 😬
now I just need to decide which ones will get to stay with me for the next two months. I've narrowed it down to... seven. so I've still got to pack four of them 😬 this is too hard 🙃
#yes this is a very silly problem to have I know#but I love these stupid dolls#they're pretty and colourful and I like brushing their hair so.#but I feel so bad putting them in a box 😔 especially my favourites#it feels very mean. I hope I've wrapped them up enough that they won't get hurt. uh. damaged I mean.#yes yes I'm 32 whatever I love the things I own alright. it's fine#personal
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bau shenanigans
Now on ao3
Penelope hummed to herself as she stepped out of her lair in her midnight blue dress and matching shoes to see her family, stopping next to a quiet Aaron, who was leaning against a wall in a charcoal grey suit and staring at a laughing Derek Morgan holding a file where newbie Ashley Seaver couldn't reach it, a look of confusion on her boss' usually stern face.
"Hey, Boss Man." She said happily before turning to watch the scene that seemed to be taking all of Aaron's attention.
"Hi, Garcia." Aaron greeted calmly and crossed his arms, tilting his head.
Penelope frowned, watching Ashley jump like an uncoordinated frog to reach the file as Spencer watched and popped walnuts into his mouth in silence. "Does she really think jumping like that is gonna get her the file back?" She asked incredulously.
"I think she does." Aaron answered softly, glancing at the technical analyst.
"Oh, that poor sweet girl." Penelope sighed and shook her head. "You know, sometimes the people that get hired here embarrass me." She turned to her boss, placing her hands on her hips. "Let a professional show you how it's done."
Aaron blinked and turned his head toward her again, watching her suspiciously. "Garcia."
She turned her attention back to her Hot Chocolate and took a deep breath before putting on a pitifully sad face and walking toward him. "Derek..." She reached up to grab his toned bicep, sticking her lip out in a pout.
Derek chuckled and turned his head when he heard Penelope's quiet voice, his grin dropping instantly. "Baby Girl?" Alarmed, he turned his body toward her, tilting his head.
"I need a hug." Penelope almost begged, batting her big eyes at Derek and holding her arms out.
"What's wrong?" Derek asked as he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, the fun of teasing Ashley for their height difference forgotten.
"Wha-" Ashley frowned, watching Spencer hop off the desk he was sitting on to run toward Penelope.
Aaron watched her with a small fond smile, raising his eyebrows as the two men surrounded Penelope in a tight hug, scratching his chin.
"I'm just really, really sad." Penelope almost sobbed, burying her face in Derek's neck.
David stalked up behind Aaron, taking a sip of coffee as he took in the sight in front of them. "Garcia's not actually sad." He commented simply.
"Nope." Aaron popped the "p" sound, biting the side of his finger to keep from laughing as Derek dropped the file he was holding on the floor, all of his attention now on his very sad best friend.
"That's what I thought." David nodded his head once, his eyes soft as he watched the group.
Almost as soon as Derek dropped the file, Ashley ran to grab it and sit at a desk, sighing in relief.
"What's wrong, Garcia?" Spencer asked, his voice gentle as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
"It's gonna be ok, Sweetheart." Derek whispered in her ear, rubbing circles in her back with a gentle hand.
Aaron snorted quietly as Penelope slowly recovered from her fake sadness, pressing kisses to Derek's cheek and Spencer's forehead. "I love you guys." She said before walking toward him and David.
"And that, my good sir, is how you get something from one Derek Morgan." Penelope smirked cutely and Aaron smirked back as she looked at David, perking up. "Oh, hi!"
"Hi, Penelope." David grinned fondly, his smile widening as Aaron chuckled softly.
"That was very good acting, Garcia." Aaron praised, giving her a round of applause.
"Thank you, sir." Penelope nodded with a silly little curtsy, her eyes sparkling with the little bit of pride she felt at fooling a couple of profilers into believing her sadness.
"Wonderful show, kitten." David agreed, patting her shoulder.
"Oh, I try." She laughed, flipping her perfectly curled hair behind her shoulder before going to grab another cup of coffee.
Aaron shook his head and looked at David. "Why are the kids like this?"
"Aaron, my friend, I have no idea."
#criminal minds#criminal minds fanfiction#penelope garcia#aaron hotchner#derek morgan#spencer reid#david rossi#and a very minor appearance from#ashley seaver#this is SO STUPID i'm sorry#i just couldn't get this out of my head#i don't know why this is so funny to me#i just love silly funny bau family time#also yes Hotch is very fond of Garcia tyvm
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it is EMBARRASSING how much i lose my mind when people notice things about me
#'lose my mind' is maybe an exaggeration bc i am very good @ keeping contained with it lmfao#but i should not still be thinking about literally months ago when i was having a conversation with someone about how he was#able to make eye contact more than usual and i said something like you've probably noticed that i also don't like making eye contact#and he said that he had noticed and that i should know that most things that were observable he's probably observed about me#and i said that i knew because i observe him observing#THAT'S RIDICULOUS THAT'S A RIDICULOUS EXCHANGE IT'S STUPID AND IT WAS SILLY AND BIZARRE#and it wasn't personal because we both observe everyone equally i think like it's not a him observing me specifically thing#and if it was it'd be weird and creepy but like . there's still something about that isn't there there's something#about the fact that someone somewhere notices that you don't make eye contact but also notices you in general#it's about existing in the world as a person who is seen by other people and knowing you exist to someone at least#while you're in front of them both you and they are real and it's significant because you're both bringing it up#that night as a whole should not take up so much of my brainspace#yes it was a lovely night yes i'm glad it happened but idk that it should be such a big thing for me............#to be fair it's a much smaller thing to me than it was after it happened so it will just fade away as time passes and i have#more interactions with other people and also this guy but idk it is something that was/is significant to some extent#idk the thing is it was very personal but it also wasn't That personal i think like we truly just happened to be the last#ones left and people who enjoy conversation like that was it#anyway it's bizarre knowing that there's someone who you see more days of the week than you don't that does notice things
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heyoo.. :3 do you still pick flowers to give your mother ?
#just me hi#poll#i'm a yes ; gave her some i found at the bottom of our driveway the other day and they're still alive lol ??#i like finding really tiny ones n giving those to her.. they die really fast but they're so cute hbfsh :>#//anywho good ~+~+~+~morninggg~+~+~+~ [it's nearly afternoon]#i've actually been figuring out my normal sleeping habits so that's cool !!#i Have been screwing that up a bit though. peace and love hghkfshj#the plan today? well [whips out a comically long pointer stick]#i've gotta eat today. at some point :) i'm having plain duro rn cuz i'm not on breakfast this morning and there are Logistical Issues lmvsh#ouh i wanted to find some good western movies too.. idk if i'm brave enough to power through some books yet lol..#i mean. i have a very very high tolerance to bad books (got 100$ from my mom for doing that one time lmaoooo (still unsure if it was worth#it 🤙)) but do i want to be physically hurt like that? i would like a prepper first hgfvsh#/also had my first zoom call today :(#'how is it only your first' we don't gotta talk abt that. all you gotta know is it was full of old people and i Could Not Leave lmfksahj#thank God i forgot to turn my camera on cuz i could at least die in silence hbghfs#i like my pfp at least :D it's a shark in space ehe :D#/also i Am dodging the pi.e brain like crazy lkhfjs#'why' well for some reason i get a stupidly guilty when i'm interested in only one thing for a very long time. it is very silly-stupid so#i'll prolly just be ignoring it later loll :)#the pink abt pi.e is that it does and is So Much at once that it like. paralyzes my working brain lmfvshj#so i just sit there like 'ouh......... ewwaough........' and can't do anything abt it lmao#//OUH i'm headin out!! a surprise for meee hbfhsv#ciao ciao toodles :33
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everytime someone dismisses mother 1 on gameplay alone despite not having played it an angel loses its wings
#😭#I GET IT GUYS IT IS NOT VERY WELL DESIGNED. I AGREE WITH YOU. BUT CMON#i know im a rare kind of freak who enjoys janky bad rpg and exp grinding and stuff but still. its silly goofy game how can u not love it#i think people geneuinly put way too many expectations on this game even earthbound sometimes.#theyvre very good games literaly life changing imo but also. the way some people talk about them. makes me just think theyre expecting#way too much idk? or just like stuff that isnt very reaomsable to expect out of jrpg from the time imo#yes there is grinding yes theres a ‘difficulty curve’ and theres limited inventory and the story isnt ‘focused on’#thats part of the expierence. idk#sorry i dont know how to really formulate my thoughts here i have like more to specificyfy but im#so tired its stupid late#i should just turn this into a post for that blog me n my friend are making i still havent done anything for it#sigh#inquisitivewaltz.txt#so many textposts tonight what is my problem
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to weave my love ⭒ n. riki
⭒ SYNOPSIS -› Riki is good at many things- dancing, making fun of his friends, playing it cool (debatable.), Hell- he’s even good at saving people from falling buildings without getting whiplash. But the things he’s bad at? Well, it’s asking you out to prom, and trying to balance the shared assignment he has with you…while being Spider-man.
⭒ PAIR -› spiderman!nishimura riki x fem-pres!reader
⭒ GENRE -› fluff, banter, action ⭒ TROPES -› classmates to lovers, idiots to lovers ⭒ WC -› 17k (i’m sorry idk why either.)
⭒ INCLUDES -› SPOILERS FOR GREAT GATSBY, cursing, non-graphic injuries (reader discretion advised), yes i made the patching up with first aid kit trope SUE ME!! takes place in a busy city similar to new york never specified, reader is rich, jake and heeseung are seniors and riki’s a junior, is riki stupid? yes… jake reveals stuff because he is also a little silly, reader wears a red dress!
⭒ GREAT GATSBY -› basically jay gatsby has this weird amt of money but no one rlly knows how he got it (nefarious reasons) and hes been in love with this girl daisy for five years but then she got married to tom buchanan but he gets rich so he can get the house across from her and wistfully watch her and he pines after her like CRAZY but he dies at the end
⭒ REN SAYS...special huge fat kiss to thena @sensitively-taken you will be in the will when im a millionaire THANK YOU for helping me with so much of this I WUV U AND I WLL BE WAITING FOR UR HUENING FIC!!! | LIBRARY
NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE FROM PRE-ADULTHOOD STRESS, IF THAT’S EVEN A THING.
What exactly does Riki have to worry about as a seventeen-year-old junior in high school? Right now, his most daunting responsibility is catching up on the chapters of The Great Gatsby because the only thing Riki’s actually read from the novel is that the main character shares a name with his best friend and senior, Park Jay. His second most daunting responsibility is handling the fact that with the new seating chart in his Literature class, it means he’s sitting next to the object of his very subtle affections, you.
See, the problem with having a crush on you is that Nishimura Riki’s committed to thinking that you’re way out of his league, and unfortunately, the boy believes that almost too well. Not only are you minted beyond his wildest dreams (having seen your posts on social media), but you’re hardworking, helpful, and dedicated to your role as student body treasurer. He’s already understood that you’d never go for a guy like him. Maybe someone more like Park Sunghoon, whose parents’ salary matches yours. If Riki lived in a rural estate with generational wealth, handling the whole ‘Spider-Man’ thing might be a bit easier for him, considering he wouldn’t have to try so hard in school. It might even change the fact that Riki dealt with some alleyway criminals last night and is currently catching up on lost sleep, as your English Literature teacher goes on and on about a project on the book you’re reading.
In class, and even sometimes outside of the classroom, your small tendency to not pay attention to your surroundings has landed you in some awkward situations—like now.
“I don’t really tell anyone this, but I hate Daisy.” And instead of getting a response, you glance over to see Nishimura Riki slumped on the desk. Without trying to make preconceptions about what could land him in a situation like this, you poke his arm, stifling a smile at how his eyes widen when you’ve caught him rubbing the very obvious sleep from his eye.
“Sorry,” he whispers, still fighting the post-nap grogginess, “Did I miss anything?”
(Nope.)
Shaking your head, you return your attention to your teacher as he continues to answer questions. The second Mr. Yoo assigned a report, you wanted to die even more considering the work you had to do on top of the impending due dates. But for it to be partnered? And for you to get seated and paired with the one boy who's known for not caring about school? Maybe things are a little stacked against you, but there has to be a reason why Riki’s somehow still passing all his classes…right?
Considering it’s the last assignment about the book, you’re glad that you already read it so many times to know what you want to put into words. And in retrospect, answering a few open-ended questions about it can’t be that hard—the hardest part would be getting your partner to stay awake in class.
A small tap at your side makes you turn to face Riki, who you see has frantically written a page full of notes about the project in the past three minutes and how he can succeed. “Can you go over the first part? Sorry…I was…y’know.”
“It’s a partner project. And we’re partners.” You wince at the awkward wording.
Great! Riki was caught sleeping and that was your first impression of him for your paired assignment? Riki feels so stupid in front of you right now—in front of your meticulous notes with annotations and proper highlighting. He wants to curl up into a ball when he sees you glance over at his haphazard attempt to look like he was paying attention when, in truth, he was trying to remember the dream he had just ten minutes prior. When you offer him a small smile and nod, leaning over with your notebook in hand, he sighs in relief, thanking whoever it was that let him get away with his naps without the consequence of irritating you afterwards.
The bell rings when Mr. Yoo stops talking, and you pause, startled by the sound. Instead of leaving, however, you pack your bag and shuffle to his side of his desk, continuing to parrot details about your report in hopes that it all makes sense. You need to make sure he knows what he’s doing.
“I think one of the questions he mentioned was like ‘Is Gatsby a good person?’ and do you remember how in Chapter Eight…” The rest gets zoned out and forgotten in the boy’s head, because he in fact does not know what happened in Chapter Eight. He doesn’t know what happened…in any part of the book. But he agrees anyway, pretending like he understands what scene you’re trying to explain. What he notices is how thorough and dedicated you are towards ensuring he comprehends what you’re explaining, and although it could be because you don’t want him to fail you both, he chooses to believe you’re doing it because you tolerate him.
You’re so engrossed in covering all the little details and telling him random tidbits regarding the book that you don’t realize your feet have made it all the way to the cafeteria. “But here, let me get your number. I’ll totally explain more over text.”
Riki is definitely not freaking out when he silently grabs his phone and hands it to you with the contact page, staring a little longer than necessary at the cute smiley face you added to your name. “Thanks,” he mumbles, forcibly tearing his eyes away from the ten digits of your number, “For helping me with this, too.”
“Of course! The Great Gatsby is a fun read for me. A little hard to read sometimes because of some of the characters, but still easy to understand.” And Nishimura RIki realizes that he has to do well. He’ll read the book five times over if it means gaining your approval.
Jake notices something a little different about the tuft of black and blonde hair when his friend walks in. The first thing is that he’s actually here, and that you’re next to him, smiling. The boy rubs his eye to make sure he’s not dreaming somehow, but when he looks up again, you’re waving goodbye and joining your friends across the room.
“Did you get hit with something while fighting a villain that makes you more bold? I feel like I just saw you and ____ talking,” Jake starts when Riki finally joins him with his lunch.
Riki laughs, shoving Jake’s head out of embarrassment and opening his chips. “It’s just school. Got some project in English and she says we’re partnered.” He looks over at his friend chuckling, rolling his eyes at how Jake pokes at his side and wiggles his eyebrows.
“I better hear you two are dating by next week.”
“Who’s dating by next week?” Heeseung places his bag of food in front of them and takes a seat, opening the fast food he got last period and stuffing a fry in his mouth.
“Riki and ____. Let me have one,” Jake answers, reaching inside the bag.
Heeseung looks over at his junior curiously. “You asked her out?” And the two older students hear a groan from the boy in question.
“Me and ____ aren’t anything, for your information.” He prods at the vegetables on his tray and takes a bite before a look of displeasure washes over his face. “You’re both way too excited for two guys who do not have girlfriends.”
“Hey! You know the girl I’m always fighting with is the reason why I’m single. I have to focus on studying to do well in school to do better than her.” Heeseung’s whining falls on deaf ears as Riki smiles victoriously, seeing how defensive the former got.
Jake offers him a shrug of defeat. “I got nothing.”
The three of them fall into normal conversation and Riki finally explains everything that happened during English. “So you’re telling me your plan to ask ____ out went down from 18 months to 6?” And with a nod from the younger, they both groan once more. Heeseung exclaims, “We’re both going to graduate, dumbass. Make the plan go down to like…two months? Please?”
Jake cuts in before Riki has a chance to respond. “Make it one and a half, so we can see you with a prom date before leaving forever.”
“You act as if you’re going to die after graduation. It’s like you’re begging to be a super senior.”
And they’re silenced immediately.
“Do you think the guy I was with earlier hates me?” you ask on the other side of the room. Minjeong stares at you blankly, waiting for your explanation. “I don’t know if you saw when I walked in but I was talking to this really tall guy with blonde hair and black tips. He seemed really out of it, like he kept staring at me and nodding. I think I scared him off by talking about the book too much.”
Sunghoon, who is also listening in, opens his neatly packed lunchbox and begins mixing his noodles. “I think you did scare him off, ____.”
“Not helping,” Minjeong interjects, “Just talk to him more and maybe he’ll warm up to you. You two sit together in class anyways, so hopefully he’ll talk more?”
“I know him,” Sunghoon comments, “Well, sort of. I’m friends with Jake who’s friends with Riki, and it seems like all that boy does is sleep.”
“Maybe he’s really good at subconscious in-class comprehension?” you try, taking a bite of your sandwich. “I just hope it doesn’t interfere too much with treasurer stuff.”
NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE IF HE SWINGS INTO ANOTHER WALL AT 100MPH LIKE HOW HE ALMOST DID TONIGHT.
All he’s had on his mind since school ended till now is how he should probably text you, if he really discarded the slimy acid monster from last week properly, and when the prom theme is going to be released, but there’s something amiss that confuses his spidey-senses and makes Riki much more alert.
He snaps out of whatever train of thought he had before, focusing on the situation at hand and looking around to follow his instinct. Riki cautiously plants himself on the side of a random apartment building to get a sense of what's going on. A tingle of some sort of in the air permeates the material of his suit and leaves him shivering from the cold.
He doesn't like it one bit.
Moving to the side of the building to the top, the boy finally catches a glimpse of something when he gets a decent view of the city and highway systems. Riki knows something’s wrong with the bridge the closer he gets. He zips from one side of the tall, metal tower to the other, crawling down on all fours making sure he isn’t caught. He feels the electric feeling once more, only amplified. It runs up his spine and he wants to slap it, almost like a frantic, summertime bug. The air around him is charged with something he has never recognized before. With a puzzled expression under his mask, Riki continues to investigate the surrounding area.
Riki finds a lone figure with some sort of attachment to his left arm, like a long glove made out of metal. The bulkiness of it seems to have no impact on his body as the man fiddles with the contraption, and the boy watches with bated breath as the machine fizzes and spurts with electricity. It begins to glow as power concentrates on his plated palm and the superhero sees it for the first time. It’s like a fizz, like a match striking at fire only to produce a quick burst of friction, but it almost feels liquid when he watches the person play with the flickering blue ball of electricity. It dances in the dark in a hauntingly beautiful way, with bolts jutting out from the metal as it spurts and buzzes with a life-like manner.
A spark.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” The sound of Riki’s voice from the end of the bridge causes the stranger to look up with wide eyes. Although Riki fully expects it to simply enhance strength or block damage, the immediate strike of blue that flies straight towards him is anything but defensive. With a yelp, he jumps away, this time refusing to show himself.
What the hell was that?
He knows he should go back down there to change things and get the person and the metal pieces away before it escalates, but when he goes back down to watch, it's ten times worse. The bright blue illuminates the scarred face of the villain as he’s picked up the metal arm–but this time, it’s no longer clunky and sparking, but fused into his arm.
Riki’s face pales at the sudden change before his body acts on its own and he shoots out a web to stop the man.
The villain is shocked by the intrusion, but quickly yanks free from the webbing and flicks another bolt of electricity, one that flies much faster now that the metal flows into the arm instead of simply resting on the skin. It’s unlike something Riki has ever seen, something that is so controlled in motion and yet so erratic in nature, and it instills a deathly fear when it grazes his arm he hisses in pain. The sharp feeling springs Riki into action as he jumps away. He’s lucky another bolt isn’t sent his way, seeing how the villain’s too busy marveling at the power of his new gadget.
“You know that fucking hurts, right?” He yells out, cupping his wound. “Maybe leave the gadgets to the kids!”
The man scoffs. “It better have hurt. I sacrificed half my body for this to work.”
“But why?” All Riki wants is answers. Some sort of explanation.
The man charges up yet another bolt, almost like a laser gun is built into the machine. “Less talking, more running, Spiderman.”
That scared the shit out of him.
The boy doesn’t have time to think as he jumps out from the dark tunnel to the bridge and up the metal towers—he hates having to fight with people right below. The villain follows in pursuit, almost crumbling the metal with his engineered arm as he hoists himself quickly. Riki continues to jump between the structure to avoid the flashes, trying to get out and apprehend the man as quickly as possible. When he reaches the top, however, he feels death is near as he glances down at the villain below who’s quickly gaining on him. He shoots out webs to slow him temporarily, letting himself fall and swing from the side of the tower to escape.
What he doesn’t see on the way across the bridge is the flash that misses his cheek and hits his thigh instead. It burns, and mid-air, Riki gives the wound a quick assessment before he lands on the metal, immediately forcing his body to climb. While dealing with his wound, he fails to notice the villain swinging from the bridge support lines to meet him.
He needs to end this fast before he becomes burnt toast.
Riki doesn’t often rely on instinct to carry him, but he can tell that the villain he’s facing isn’t just a criminal.
“Land another hit, would you?” he tries to say, his voice strained from the pain in his arm and leg. It doesn’t do much to deter the man in front of him as the arm continues to destroy and bend the metal on the way up. “What are you going to do now, Sparky?”
The man says nothing, charging energy into his metal glove again before aiming and focusing on the target: him.
Riki jumps off, not able to properly land his web in the right spot as he goes from one section of the bridge to the other. The man behind him looks enraged at the boy’s attempt to escape—so much so that he reaches out with his normal hand to try to grasp the suit when Spider-Man swings past him. Instead of the feeling of fabric, the villain feels sticky spider fluid on his fingers. Riki shoots out a web, one that curls around the villain’s wrist and drags him off the tower. Instead of being able to launch him into the surrounding waters, the man slips from the poorly shot-out webs and falls from mid air into the sea of frantic cars, including one semi truck that collides directly with his arm. In the air, the boy winces when he hears honks and shouts from the impact, hoping it’s the last time he’ll have to witness it.
With his gaze trained on the falling figure, the weakly attached web breaks, and Riki all of a sudden starts falling down as well. He curls up defensively before bracing for impact, curling into himself when he feels the metal dent and the truck driver scream from outside of the parked vehicle, the body of the villain right in front of it.
Riki staggers, holding onto his arm and thigh the best he can before getting up. With wobbly steps and a small jump, he lands near the unconscious man, whose metal arm is cracked and fizzling—something that Riki knows is bound to leave more scars.
“Call the police. I’ll get rid of the pieces.” Although Riki wants to figure out who the criminal is and make sure he’s properly apprehended, the gashes in the boy's limbs leave him winded and exhausted. With hot metal scraps bound together by webbing in his hands, Riki swings out and dumps it somewhere rural, trying his best to cover the pieces with the pounding headache that
Riki revisits the secluded spot under the bridge, looking for clues to the man’s identity, and his expression falls when he notices a lanyard dangling near a trash can.
His name, his position, and the company. FLiGHT Corp. The company name caught the boy’s eye, and he pockets the item before leaving.
It seemed like he was a normal research scientist, but Riki’s recollection of the scars and tattered skin leaves him retracting his last thought. He heard something about the failure of a time travel machine at FLiGHT, and if the mass of the incident was anything to go by, he was in the center of it.
No matter how many times Riki tries to get it out of his head, on the way home, all he can think about is the inexperience he displayed and the lack of response he gave Riki during the whole time. But Riki can’t bring himself to really take away someone’s life—and maybe for that, he’s a horrible superhero.
He knows he should stop the man before it's too late, and especially with how many self-proclaimed villains there have been, it's not easy to see so many innocent people ruin their lives chasing a power that inevitably consumes them. He knows it’ll only get worse if he lets them run free.
And while the superhero has never been fully honest with himself, there are many times where Riki hates his role as Spider-Man, and wishes that he was just some teenage boy who didn't have the lives of others in his palm. He wishes he didn't have to sacrifice so much to stay behind a mask—and he wonders deep down if there’s anyone else who felt the same.
His swings lead him across the city above hundreds of lives he has to protect, and he tries to find some semblance of peace. He thinks about how he has his homework due despite having just risked his life, he thinks about how your project is going—and about you.
In the night under the stars, Nishimura Riki wishes for something just a bit normal. He wishes a good night for himself, but also for you, wherever you could be.
NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE FROM TRYING TO READ THIS BOOK IN ONE NIGHT.
The Great Gatsby is exactly like how you described it; a little hard to get through but fun with the plot’s eccentric characters. He’s pretty sure he could’ve just used a detailed SparkNotes explanation for the book, but having a crush can make someone do weird things. And in Nishimura Riki’s case, his infatuation has got him reading a novel about morally-skewed characters and rich society to impress you.
When you come into class barely on time, Riki gives you a confused look when you sit down, but doesn’t comment on it any further. Instead, he takes out his book and tries to act like his eyes weren’t closing shut from exhaustion by the time Daisy was finally confessing how she loved Gatsby.
The moment Mr. Yoo stops talking, however, Riki isn’t asleep—much to your surprise. He has his book out, pages filled with sticky notes and a whole section of his notebook dedicated to characters (written in bright red to keep him awake) and their traits.
“I got it.” It’s the first thing he says when you two are left to do in-class work. It’s ominous, and maybe a little too enthusiastic in a high school literature class for a boy who doesn’t even care that much for school, but you’ll accept it with open arms if it means you get a helping hand on your project.
“Continue,” you tell him slowly, leaning back in your chair to listen to him. And you don’t know why, but a small part of you thinks that the boy who sleeps every period the book was discussed wouldn’t have much to say or contribute to such an open-ended prompt, but life is full of surprises.
What you fail to notice is how Riki is nervous and his stomach does at least twenty flips before he swallows dryly and starts rambling in hopes to impress you and redeem himself from his embarrassing slumber a few days ago.
“So you know how our prompt is based on one character and basically all their actions?” he asks, and you nod, absentmindedly thumbing a sheet in your journal. “I’m thinking we should talk about Jay Gatsby because so much is revealed to us about him that we might as well use it to our advantage. Y’know, talking about how the theme of exploitation and secrets is veiled under Gatsby’s desire for Daisy.”
“You don’t think Gatsby’s a good character?” Riki wants to tell you that Gatsby is more relatable than good or bad, but he shakes his head.
“I mean, not really.” He feels like with those four words, he’s completely changed the trajectory of his relationship with you from a positive slope to completely downhill—and a wave of panic washes over him. “Should I? I mean, I could see him as more redeemable if you gave me examp-“
You wave your hand to quell his worries. “To be honest, I don’t like him either. But he’s an interesting main character to write about, so I think we should go with your idea.”
To win your approval feels like he’s won at least three fights against a villain in a row without getting any bad injuries—it feels good. And for the rest of the period, you are able to finish a detailed outline of your work for the next few weeks, mapping out sections for each other, and he even gets to see a part of prom planning on a word document you had open. He considers your shared productivity a win when he packs up and bids you goodbye before leaving for lunch.
One wave doesn’t catch Riki’s attention from across the room. Not even two, or three calls of his name could get Nishimura Riki out of his thoughts, and Jake frowns before moving up in the lunch line.
“Something’s caught your eye again.” Jake feigns innocence and sighs dramatically as he places the food down next to Riki’s plate. “Could it possibly be our school treasurer?” Jake laughs, leaning over to catch a glimpse of what’s got his friend so entranced and non-responsive.
Riki scrunches his nose, annoyed, but never breaking his gaze from where you’re sitting. “We talked in class–like, a lot,” is all he says, paying his friend no mind. “She’s genuinely so understanding.”
“God, I don’t think you can be any more down bad for her than you are right now.” Jake picks at his food, and despite his concentration directed towards the olives on his pizza, he’s able to dodge the flying loaded nacho that goes his way, even if he wasn’t the one with superpowers.
“Can you shut up?” Riki grumbles, laying his head on his arms as he notices you smile and point to something. “I just got pummeled into a semi truck last week. Let me have this before I die tomorrow.”
“Very grim,” his friend notes, ruffling the younger’s hair, “I think this is exactly what all of those mental health assemblies that we get are for.” And Riki basically tunes him out, too tired to fight and too used to the teasing remarks to come up with anything useful in response.
Riki sits up a bit, letting his head rest on his propped elbow as he looks at the school food and touches another nacho gingerly. “Y’know, I read the book for English so she wouldn’t think I’m an idiot.”
His friend snickers, successfully pulling out yet another sliced olive from the cheese, much to the disgust of Riki. “She probably already thinks you’re an idiot.”
The superhero debates throwing another cheesy nacho in Jake's face, before deciding to eat it instead. “Don’t say that asshole! You make it seem like I have no chance with her.”
Jake shoots him an exasperated look that makes Riki break eye contact. “That’s because you don’t.”
“I’ll prove to her that I’m worth her time.” Riki says somewhat wistfully, still stealing glances from a few tables away. “Maybe I’ll ask her out to prom, show up in my suit. Do that cheesy upside down kiss shit people say Spiderman does.” When his friend raises an eyebrow at him, Riki shrugs. “I will! Well-maybe not the Spider-Man thing, but prom definitely.”
Jake continues to look at him unconvinced as he takes a bite out of a slice of pizza with mangled cheese. “You barely talk to her in class and you think you can ask her out to prom as Nishimura Riki?” And the younger grins, eyes still stuck on how your eyes crinkle and how your shoulders shake with laughter.
“Yup.” And his fate is sealed, just like that.
“What’s your project about, anyways? Didn’t you tell me last night that she gave you her number? Must be pretty serious if she wants to text you.” Riki furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head.
“It’s just tying the theme of the book to one character and writing about how they show it. So we did the theme of money and Gatsby, because it’s easy and mentioned so many times.”
Jake gawks. “You must really like her,”
“I was planning to read it regardless of who I was partnered with.”
“Okay- that’s debatable.” There goes another one of Riki’s nachos.
“Gross.”
He thinks things are going pretty well for you two. The report is being written and your quotes are basically finding themselves, so Riki should give himself a pat on the back for pitching the initial idea for how to go about your assignment. Maybe reading the whole book offered him a few useful pointers, and he goes to sleep that night satisfied with your progress. Maybe Heeseung and Jake were right—maybe he could finally ask you out by prom.
NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE TRYING TO SAVE THE CITY FROM YET ANOTHER MONSTER TERRORIZING THE STREETS.
He wakes up the next morning, not expecting his alarm to alert his senses to danger. It rings in his head and makes him feel delirious, trying to shake sleep off as he looks out the window for any visible sign of what's wrong. If he could hear the danger in his head then that meant someone could be hurt, and he could go to school without a few hours of sleep if he worked fast enough, right?
Riki slips into his suit without much thought and goes to crack his window open, only to look back at his clock and read the horrific time of 6:23AM.
Who the hell picks a fight with a teenager at this ungodly time?
Then, he shoots from his wrists, once, twice, and suddenly, he's off, covering more ground through the air in just three seconds than he ever could while walking or running for minutes on end.
The source of his tingling spidey-sense is some large metal centipede creature that was setting off car alarms in a neighborhood near the market. Thankfully, no one was really awake to be caught in the crossfire, but he has to figure out how the hell he's going to catch that thing in...he checks his watch…twenty minutes?
Hopefully, his instinct will help him win this time—again.
The web he shoots out does nothing to stop the monster, and considering how it connected them both, the threads only drag the superhero to the edge of the building he was initially watching from. With some yelling and pulling, he finally detaches, and realizes that the odd sizzling feeling in his bonds must be from the same source as a few days ago; Spark.
He had this gut feeling that a villain as strong as him wouldn’t have been destroyed so easily, but his wounds were so deep and the blood loss so bad from a few nights ago that he couldn’t have truly dumped him in the ocean without fainting or suffering something permanent, and although Riki hoped things in the universe would work itself out, the presence of the giant fifty foot insect alone is proof that things were not in his favor.
He jumps off the building onto another, working quickly as he strings up a few webs between the houses as a wall for the monster, watching it slide and knock over cars in its wild pursuit. The monster spends a few seconds breaking down the wall of webbing and climbing over it, the many legs easily breaking through. As the superhero jumps across buildings and keeps track of the centipede’s movement, he has no idea why it isn’t going for him, and that makes his job much harder without the attention of the monster. One glance at the direction the centipede is headed in sets off another ding in Riki’s head—but this time, it finally clicks why the centipede is headed away from the boy.
It’s attracted to the power plant.
Riki immediately jumps and swings off of a lamp post, using the momentum of gravity and the force of his swing to propel him faster than the slithering creature. Squinting, he holds out his fist and points his pointer and pinky out, following the movement of the centipede as he aims.
Bam.
He sends clusters of silky white threads down precisely at the first pair of legs to pin it down. The webs stop the creature momentarily, and Riki doesn’t have time to watch how the body shrinks up and fizzes out with blue shocks as it tries to wiggle loose and malfunctions. This fight would be over soon, and the boy smiles when he jumps down to shoot more webs to apprehend the centipede. It wiggles and sends electricity out through parts of its body, trying to pry itself out. He expects it to simply be a robot of sorts following a mission considering its avoidant behavior, but as he approaches the tail, the monster suddenly swings at Riki, and its mass and speed is incomparable to the boy’s reaction speed.
Riki lands into a tree and someone’s garage, feeling the crumbling wall falling all over him and the sudden pain blooming in his lower back.
This fight will, in fact, not be over soon.
With his superhuman abilities, Riki grabs onto the metal of the car beside him to hoist himself up, coughing from the dust, and jumping over the rubble to see how quickly the centipede creature can get out, without regard for his current state. The sound and rumble of the giant monster is all he needs to know that the traps are effective, but not at the previous capacity.
The plan is simple: apprehend the legs and crush the head, where Riki assumes the decision-making and programming is taking place. But the monster’s angry and erratic actions throw a wrench in his plan. Its legs move faster, digging into the cement and leaving ruin in its wake as it continues down the road. While both the villain and superhero are fast, the distance between the power plant is finite—and only grows smaller and smaller.
Although Riki can feel the bruises coming, he runs and swings, hearing the wind in his ears as he catches up to the centipede in no time. He tries the same tactics again–aim, shoot, stick, all the while keeping his distance. Although the monster’s body spans incredibly long, and should carry an immense amount of weight, the way it snaps at Riki’s flying body and sends shockwaves through his core leaves him shivering as his body slams into the ground, coughing. It hurts all over, and it feels like there’s weight on his eyes when he tries to open them and get up. His head is spinning as he staggers onto his knees, clutching his chest as he watches the centipede shrivel and crackle.
It seems like the voltage produced is a double-ended sword, one that burns up the centipede body as much as it deals damage, and with the way the mutant creeps towards the electricity of the plant, Riki gets the feeling there’s a magnetic pull that forces the mutant to continue to crawl even against its instinct to stop.
Despite his waning strength, however, Riki knows better than to half finish the job like last time. He creates a net from experience, weaving together the thickest and most durable threads to trap the entirety of the slowly approaching creature. It seems to crawl slowly up the makeshift barrier, knocking its head against the white and spreading the bright blue waves of its energy throughout. The boy watches as the thin white mass absorbs all of it and clings to the creature. It works, finally, after his attempts to nullify its movements, and he knows that despite the ache in his every step, the almost mummified centipede that hangs between several roofs for all the neighbors to gawk at is his sure sign of victory.
All he remembers is hearing a familiar call of his hero name before his legs give out and his head hits Jake’s chest.
Holy fucking shit is the first thing Riki thinks when he wakes up.
He’s not out of his tattered suit and he feels grimy all over, but his body has done wonders in reducing the otherwise fatal injuries he got. No human body should be able to withstand two energy-filled blasts, but his suit and superhuman healing are of greater help than ever in alleviating the damage from his wounds.
He knows why he’s in his bed with bandages thrown over his open wounds. He knows that every time something like this happens, it’s Jake who shoos away the concerned civilians, telling them he’s a medic. Jake is not a medic—rather, he’s a seventeen year-old boy who knows about his friend’s double life and with all the times he’s saved Riki, someone might as well dub him the greatest medic of all time.
The clock on his bedside table has only served as a bearer of bad news. He looks over to see how it’s practically midday, and he’s missed yet another day of school from fighting crime. He’s in no condition to get up or get his bag, seeing how his hair is frizzy and his cheek has a cut that would warrant questioning. It seems only fair that he stays absent, and before he falls back asleep, he only prays you aren’t too mad at him for leaving the seat next to you empty.
But you aren’t mad, just worried. The soreness in his muscles doesn’t go away though, and he groans when he sits up in his bed, with bandages around his arms and an ice pack discarded next to him.
He’s most definitely not coming to school like this.
While you bore holes into the clock hanging off the wall, that doesn’t speed up the time. Two minutes pass, then another minute. As your classmates find their partners and begin discussing, you notice how the room gets louder with the due date looming near. It’s the first time you’re alone without the familiar boy beside you, and something hangs low in your chest when you put in a pair of earphones and open your laptop.
Riki’s absence should have no effect on you. After all, you’re both just high school students who’ve talked once or twice, and yet you still look over at the empty chair. Staring doesn’t make Riki appear, though, and you return to your edits. It feels empty without his insight, or without him asking you to help him with a passage. Riki was your solution to all things boring. If he wasn’t doing his work, then you two were laughing at something on his phone. And if you agreed to both do something other than the report, then you could ask for an extra opinion when deciding prom details. There was something freeing about working with him that attracted you. Riki knew how to lighten the mood on days that weren’t so good for you, but he also worked hard and let loose at the same time. There was a perfect balance in Riki’s life that you aspired to have; it was a good mix of playful, dedicated, and fun all in the same vein.
The words blend together on your screen. Jay Gatsby this, Tom Buchanan that, it all looks monotonous the more you keep trying to read and comprehend what exactly you’re talking about.
Before class is dismissed, Mr. Yoo steps to the front of the classroom to gather everyone’s attention. He introduces your new novel for the next month, explaining yet another large assignment associated with the text.
Truth be told, you don’t pay attention to any of it.
The only thing you remember to do is to grab extra copies of the printed graphic organizers, as you get out of your seat and rush out when class ends in pursuit of one specific boy.
“Sim Jaeyun!” The call of his name diverts Jake’s attention from his phone to your waving arm as you weave through the students and finally reach him.
“You can just call me Jake,” he explains, “what’s up?”
You begin to reach into your backpack, trying to feel for your folder, and pull out a few sheets. “These are for Riki.”
Jake cheers internally for his friend who’s busy recovering at home. “What, you got a crush on him or something?”
He tries to play it cool by teasing you, but the smile you bite back leaves the boy questioning if there really is anything going on. Jake knows better than to tell you anything about Riki’s feelings, and opts to instead grab the papers and to thank you for looking out for his friend.
“Is Riki okay?” You have to know, just to make sure he’ll be here tomorrow to cure your boredom.
What Jake says is much different than the nonchalant wave and half grin he gives you. “He’s just bedridden.”
“That’s pretty serious! Did he come down with anything?” He seemed fine yesterday, so what’s the catch?
He blurts, “He just got badly hurt.”
Immediately, Jake knows he’s fucked up.
Your confusion and silence answers him far more than words ever could–he basically hears the gears turning slowly in your head.
Jake weakly defends, “His parents had a fight with him because he hit his head or something. He’ll be fine by tomorrow. Just bedridden from sadness, y’know?”
The look you give him is unconvinced, but when Heeseung pats him on the shoulder and waves to you, the boy realizes that maybe staying quiet would’ve been the better decision.
“I’ll see you later, ____.” And he’s off, waving half-heartedly and dragging a very confused Heeseung out of the cafeteria.
NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE TRYING TO WAKE YOU UP AS GENTLY AS HE CAN.
Ever since March started and flowers began to bloom, your energy seemed to do the opposite, dwindling until Riki catches you mirroring his frequent in-class action: sleeping. And it worries him beyond belief, because you’re not the type to fall asleep like… ever. However, Riki does not have the heart to wake you up, even if it’s with a little nudge that you probably barely feel with how light he taps. It breaks his heart to have to ask you to review what he has done, because the bell is about to ring and the teacher might just send you to detention if he catches you off-task.
The allergies always make Mr. Yoo irritable, and Riki knows not to get on his nerves.
Your eyes flutter open to the pokes and prodding from none other than Nishimura Riki, who gazes at you softly when you adjust to the bright classroom setting once more.
Panic settles in. “Wait- how long was I sleeping for?”
He shrugs and scrunches his nose, not giving you an answer as he finishes scribbling something in his notebook.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Your hand squeezes into a fist at the frustration that you’ve let your partner down.
And yet, Riki seems to be unfazed, frowning when he sees you stressing out. “Don’t ever sweat the little things, yeah? If there’s anything you ever need to talk about–trust me, I know what it’s like to have a lot of pressure on your shoulders.”
Smiling at him, you respond with, “Thank you, really.”
Being treasurer is daunting in the spring. It’s full of requests, forms, and small tasks that leave you spent by the end of the day. “But,” you glance at the clock to see just how much time is left, “how’d you know?”
He motions to your open computer with a now dark screen. “I saw your document pulled up. ____’s tasks or else she will be kicked out of student government,” he taunts, snickering when your eyes grow wide with embarrassment and you lightly nudge his shin with your foot in warning.
“It’s not polite to snoop,” and although you say that, you catch something in your peripheral vision. It’s a few drawings of a figure and gadget drawn, shaded from rigid shapes with small descriptions pointing to different places. You weren’t sure what was more surprising; how good the drawings were, or the subject of his imagination.
Weird. Inherently, there was nothing wrong with Riki drawing a villain, and you chalked it up to him being creative. Nothing more, nothing less.
He puts his hands up in surrender at your last comment, his grin showing anything but. Just one look at the boy makes you realize that everything you’ve just thought about is foolish.
There’s no way he’d have time to be a villain and a student. With one final thought, you let your raging thoughts rest and focus on the present; him. You’ve seen his hair messy, especially after his naps, but when Riki tries to style it like how he did today, you pay more attention to the streaks of blonde and how he often hides behind his bangs and scrunches his nose. It’s cute. He’s cute.
The truth is, you enjoy being around him like this, joking around and never worrying too much about your responsibilities and expectations. It’s refreshing. Being around Riki gives you the feeling that things will be okay in the end.
You snap out of your thoughts to see that his desk is empty, while your’s hasn’t changed one bit.
“You’re going to sell prom tickets now, right?” He makes small talk before leaving for lunch, closing the notebook you were suspiciously eying before slipping it into his bag.
“Yup,” you answer, popping the ‘p,’ “I’ll see you later,” and you two part ways.
All the long lines and constant distribution of change doesn’t allow much wiggle room for you to daydream. As time goes on, the ticket-selling line grows smaller and smaller, but the only thing you truly care about is eating the lunch your parents packed you. Your sandwich is probably sad and soggy now that there are only a few minutes of lunch left. When you finally sign off one last time after triple checking the forms are all correct, you let out a sigh, leaning back and finally getting a break.
Then, it hits you that you’re not even sure if the boy you’re fawning over is attending the biggest event of the year, and you feel stupid for forgetting to ask.
-
Yesterday was a rookie’s mistake–today, you’d make sure you get an answer from him.
“Are you going to prom, Riki?” is the first thing you ask when he sits down, grabbing his book and laptop with a little too much enthusiasm.
“I’m thinking about it.” Yeah, whatever confidence he had when convincing himself he’d ask you out isn’t serving him well at this moment. Quite frankly, Riki feels lame as ever trying to be nonchalant around you. “You?”
“I’d have to set up, so I would be there, yes. But whether or not I have a date is another story.” You smile to lighten the mood, but Riki watches you and nods, focusing back on signing into his laptop and getting his notes for the new book you’re reading.
“Well, you’re not the only single one here.” And he wants to reprimand himself for saying something without thinking. “If someone asked, would you say yes?”
You think about it carefully, really because you don’t have anyone in mind when it comes to prom if Riki’s not planning on going. “It’d have to be someone I know—someone I talk to somewhat regularly. I’d be nice to be with someone who doesn’t make it awkward.”
Nishimura Riki might die from over-thinking if he keeps on wondering whether or not he fits that description to a tee.
RIKI'S TO-DO LIST BEFORE PROM
☐ talk to ____ regularly
☐ don't make it awkward
☐ be..cute?
The boy decides that his superhuman responsibilities might be easier to complete than any of those three things.
He switches the subject to stop his head from hurting too much. “Did you finish the report?”
You still, and Riki’s question reminds you of the report looming over your head. In your defense, you two hadn’t brought it up much in the past week, and he didn’t seem to worry over how much of your time was spent emailing teachers or making spreadsheets. Although caught off guard, you’re quick to respond with, “What did we have to finish? I thought we were done since last week, but if there’s anything else-”
“Sorry,” he rushes out, biting his lip, “I meant, if you finished reading it.” And the answer is no, you haven’t read it since your last edit on it three days ago.
Within a few clicks, you find the document and scroll to the bottom, seeing the small note that Riki left that said ‘let me know how it looks.’ It’s sweet to know he thought about your input as much as you did his.
“While some can agree that Gatsby’s rise into high society was sketchy, Gatsby still retains the same reserved character from years ago, and doesn’t manipulate others into success or use his money for nefarious purposes. It’s not like he changed after his wealth, and it could be argued Gatsby loved Daisy until his last breath and was willing to die as long as she was happy, emphasizing the theme of sacrifice.
So, is Jay Gatsby a good person? The question targets the morality of a character who many can empathize with. Those who are charmed by his overwhelming love for Daisy would say that he’s committed textbook crimes, but focus more on the intent behind it. To pine after someone from a distance isn’t easy, but to pursue her after years of separation is even harder. It’s universally agreed, however, that love as a driving force doesn’t nullify what he’s done to others and the dirty schemes he’s enacted to gain the power he has. Therefore, Gatsby makes for an interesting main character, and highlights just how twisted a system around money can be.”
The last page is–for the most part–his writing, and your admiration for him grows when you finish reading and scroll to hit your Works Cited page.
“It’s good,” you tell him wholeheartedly, “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Riki cracks a smile at your light teasing, soaking up your praise.
“Now you know.” He shrugs. And he can only hope that you like him as much as you like his literary skills.
NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE WHEN HE COMES TO THE REALIZATION THAT HE IS EXACTLY LIKE JAY GATSBY,JUST WITHOUT THE MONEY—DESPERATE FOR THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS, DYING YOUNG, AND A FRAUD HIDING BEHIND SECRETS.
Nevermind the last one, he has to hide when he has an identity to protect as the city’s only superhero, but Riki feels his heart sink to his heels when he read a few weeks ago how much Gatsby simply adores Daisy. When Gatsby died, he scoffed, closing the book with a sudden disinterest. If he were the male lead, he wouldn’t have been laying in a pool for target practice. Maybe being a superhero teaches you how to avoid being easy bait for all your enemies, or maybe Gatsby was too carried away with love to think straight.
Fighting crime gives you insurmountable experience with sneaking around, but it wasn’t something he could just teach to anyone. When he gets this horrible gut feeling that something’s happened to you, he just knew something was wrong. He might not be easy to catch, but for anyone else? Definitely.
For everyone else, prom was a month away, but for you, it was three weeks of talking to your advisor and president, arguing with your other board members, and sitting behind that damn money box for another five days to sell tickets. For you, it was realizing that you were supposed to buy streamers and balloons yesterday on your way home from school. It was the thinly veiled disappointment in your board member’s texts when they told you they were at a loss for words. ‘I’m sorry, and I know you’re busy, but how could you forget? Prom is so important for all of us. What if they don’t have what you need anymore?’ It all repeated in your head as you bit your lip in frustration and slipped on the first pair of shoes you could find. Although it was dark and dangerous, you could care less if it meant avoiding the passive aggressive comments you’d get tomorrow during your meeting.
There it is again: that little tendency to not pay attention to your surroundings.
You yelp when you feel someone grabbing your wrist and pulling you in, muffling your screams as he pulls you along. To see him on the news was worrying, but to see Spark in person with your life on the line is even worse.
Tears spring to your eyes as you struggle against the metal to no avail, and you curse every previous moment you spent worrying about balloons rather than your safety.
Spark suddenly stops, shoving you against the wall before his hand grabs a brick with his metal arm, beginning to climb. “Don’t let go.” And you don’t think twice before holding on.
The city view would be beautiful if you weren’t hearing your heartbeat in your ears or if you weren’t dangling from the railing of some company building, trying to wiggle yourself free of the rope around your wrists.
Spark speaks up, drumming his fingers on the railing next to you. “You wouldn’t happen to know where your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is, would you?” And you furrow your eyebrows, genuinely questioning for a moment if he really knew how the superhero operated.
A voice from across the street puts a temporary hold on your thoughts, and you glance up to see a flash of blue and red soaring through the air, followed by a groan and a beam of light next to you. Seeing Spark’s powers right in front of you spurs you into action, yanking at the rope and trying to take tiny steps away from where they were fighting.
“From what I’m seeing, you wanted to hold someone hostage because you’re not feeling too good, huh?” Spider-Man shouts as he shoots out webs and blocks hits. You shake your head in partial disbelief of how unserious he is, but also how unbelievable all of this seems. “You tried to take a potion or something? I’m going to tell you this now, but these usually don’t work.”
Riki’s assumption is right, and considering how Spark now has a leg and arm from metal instead of just the arm, the procedure for the additional limb couldn’t have been easy. The superhero still proceeds with caution, making sure to pay attention to anything new as he dodges and fights back.
The villain immediately gets back up, stumbling for a moment before he regains his stance and runs towards the boy. You hear the clanging of fist hitting metal from their fight, and considering the difference in height and build, you’d expect Spider-Man to be easily flung to the side, but he holds his weight in battle.
Riki aims for around the left shoulder, where an abundance of stitches cover the skin and fuse the metal into muscle. He lands a hit, and almost another one, before a punch to the side knocks him from his momentum. The boy wheezes when his back makes instant contact with the ground, rolling and getting up before Spark has time to shoot.
He notices how quickly the gadget generates electricity now. Before, the beams took longer, and were easily predictable, but now, it glows bright for a moment before it fires directly in Riki’s path. The boy dodges the first, but the second one almost hits the top of his head before he ducks and creates distance.
From the roof-top, Riki scans his surroundings before making the split-second decision to jump.
He swings to the other side of the building, keeping you in his peripheral vision as he works on apprehending the villain in front of him. They spring into yet another fist fight, with Riki’s agility easily letting him avoid punches and land precise hits to make the previous injuries even worse.
You think Spider-Man has the upper hand in this, seeing as how none of Spark’s punches seem to slow down the superhero, but you hear something loud before you can register it.
You figure out what happened after Riki stumbles and suffers a blow to the stomach, sending him tumbling to the edge of the building. Spark knew that Spider-Man was avoiding his left arm—he knew that one wrong move paired with the tungsten material would have a lasting effect on the superhero’s fist.
Riki coughs from the impact before his spidey-sense rings, pulling him back into battle as he runs as fast as his body can take him.
You. He still needs to save you.
With renewed vigor, he continues to avoid the flying sparks as he ducks between structures and uses the terrain to his advantage. He can tell, though, that the villain is slowing down. The shots are less accurate–a telltale sign that the enhancer Spark tried is working against him.
Between all of the chaos, Riki finally lands a proper web, yanking as hard as he can to pull Spark to the ground. He stumbles, grasping at thin silk before Riki lets go on his side. The villain’s balance is off, giving the boy an advantage as he closes the distance, hopping over a thrown slab of metal and landing a solid kick into Spark’s ribcage. As he stays down, Riki continues to aim for muscle and flesh, his head spinning as he packs punch after punch to keep the villain apprehended.
Spark’s body–curled into itself to absorb the hits the best that he can– hides the growing blue flash that he’s slowly charging up with his remaining power. The moment it escapes from under his abdomen, Riki directs his efforts towards avoiding the electric glimmer. The villain rolls over, his body tattered from the consistent injuries, and he fires what seems like an intense bullet of energy. It zips by the boy’s cheek, cutting the mask and leaving blood to run down in its wake. Time slows down as the superhero tries to process the unlocked speed of the burst, and Spark loses focus marveling at his new abilities. Never before had either of them seen power so concentrated, and it inflicts both fear and excitement.
He lifts his arm, the other holding it up for support, and Spider-Man notices the fizzle of bright blue. Riki’s about to jump out of the way, preparing for yet another high-speed bullet, but before Spark fires, something clicks. The arm doesn’t directly point to Riki–but it skews off to the right.
Except, he’s no longer aiming for Riki in the split second that the boy blinks. He’s suddenly aiming at you, where your hands are tied to the railing and your feet are dangling from the bent metal that holds you precariously over the edge, leaving a fifty foot drop in its wake. When you see the blue energy in the villain’s palm growing slowly bigger, you pull at the rope desperately with zero regard to the tender rawness of your wrists.
In your attempt to somehow break the rope, your cry of fear snaps Spider-Man into action.
Riki pushes his sore body to jump as quick as he can, leaping across the rooftop to the building over. He easily avoids the metal railing, grabbing onto your arm as he yanks hard on the rope, the force of it separating a piece of metal from the railing. He immediately jumps, sending out a web to swing him back up. It all happens in a flash–first, you were bound to the edge about to fall to your death, and all of a sudden, you’re tightly pressed against Spider-Man’s chest with your bound wrists still attached to the metal. Shutting your eyes, you trust Spider-Man entirely, closing your eyes to avoid seeing just how far up you were. Wind rushes in your ears and leaves your stomach fluttering with butterflies until the superhero sets you down on a secluded rooftop.
“Please,” he begs, “don’t leave. I’ll be right back.”
You’d be a fool to do anything but wait.
Riki checks on you one last time before diving down, springing himself back up with another web. The damage from the blasts is recognizable even from far away, and yet, he notices the reflective shine of a metal arm on the edge of the building before Spark lets go.
To Riki, Spark is dead after dropping from a fall having taken that much damage, but he hears no impact. Making haste, the boy fails to find any figure no matter how hard he looks, but Spark’s laboratory has to be here somewhere. The badge from a week ago was stuck on Riki’s mind, and he could only imagine the reasons why he pursued this life. Was he recreating something? If he needs to power some sort of machine, then the heart of the city is a perfect place to harness the electricity for any large scale project. As much as he wants to dedicate the rest of the night to searching the city for some sort of clue, the fact that you’re still stranded on that rooftop after having just experienced a life-changing event blares like an alarm in his mind.
He quickly leaves, returning to where you’re seated.
Without the fear of falling to your death from earlier, you were able to focus on undoing the knots from the rope. Red scratch marks and irritation bloom on your wrist, and the reality of it all happening still hasn’t settled in. Despite not being harmed once, the fear and incessant pounding of your heart overwhelms your senses, and it leaves you heaving with confusion.
A pair of footsteps only become apparent as Riki walks closer, taking a seat beside you and letting out a large sigh. He stares at the stars silently as if he doesn’t have a cut on his cheek and bruises waiting to paint his skin purple–as if he isn’t hiding his true self under a facade.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” You shake your head, grateful that Spider-Man was the reason you got away without a real injury.
“Thank you, really, for saving me. I don’t know how you manage to do it.”
Riki chuckles under the mask. “Eh, you get used to it,” you hear Spider-Man say. “You fight a couple bad guys, get over a fear of heights and eventually you get the hang of things.”
Scoffing, you gently rub at your wrists to ease the redness. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t been taught a crash course on how to avoid being supervillain bait just yet.”
“Maybe you should learn it sometime,” Riki responds absentmindedly, “someone like you shouldn’t have been out so late doing whatever it could’ve been.”
Sighing, your mind drifts off to think about the balloons and streamers that are not in your hand. “I had stuff for my upcoming events.”
He knew about all of it when you’d explain your cryptic reminders and notes on your computer, but he still feigns curiosity. “What upcoming events?”
“Just prom,” and he hears just how strained it makes you.
Riki tilts his head in faux confusion. “What do you have to do for prom?”
He notices how you immediately slump, as if the mere mention of prom deflates your happiness. “It’s only a few weeks away, and I was supposed to get decorations for our venue yesterday. I just wanted to slip out before my parents noticed.”
Despite the fabric over his eyes, Riki’s expression shifts from surprise to pity when he understands your stakes. “You still need to be careful. Is your student council strict?”
“Not strict necessarily, but judgemental–I ran for the position because I thought I could help my school raise funds and find more opportunities, but it just feels like no one truly wants to try anything new.” You wave it off as if it’s not that important, as if it isn’t the reason why you find yourself stressed so often. “I just don’t want to disappoint or give people something to talk about.”
Despite not being involved with school the same way you are, the boy next to you resonates with the fear you currently face. The fear of letting people down was a large part of why Riki continued to put on that mask and step into the most dangerous situation of his life; he never wanted to sit down to hear the news that Spider-Man quit.
So he keeps doing his job, even if some days are harder and some fights aren’t worth winning–just like what you do.
“Yeah, I get that,” he tries to console, “You must be doing a lot for everyone around you, and I’m sure a lot of people appreciate what you’ve done. Don’t beat yourself up too much, yeah? You’ll always have me.” He smiles, but he knows you don’t see it. You’re looking at the stars, trying to calm your mind and return to your life before everything happened.
You glance over at Spider-Man, wondering if he’ll truly be around for you when you need it. “If I need to talk to you, should I step out of my house past 8PM again?”
Riki chuckles, watching clouds slowly dim the moon’s glow in their path. “If I’m not fighting crime, I’ll show up at a moment’s notice.”
There’s no way he means it, but you grin, feeling a lot of the pressure and stress of earlier slowly wash away. After all, nothing happened to you–Spider-Man made sure of it. Maybe things really were going to be okay.
“Let’s get you home, yeah? Don’t you have stuff to do anyways?”
You shrug, nothing really coming to mind. As you get up, you remember having to run a plagiarism check on your work, and how Riki told you to text him when you got home after your student government meeting.
Riki. Spark. Spider-Man.
“Wait,” you tell Spider-Man, sitting back down on the cement, “I need to talk to you about something else, too.”
“It’s not like my dinner’s getting cold,” the superhero mumbles quiet enough that you can’t hear.
“There’s this guy,” you start, paying no mind to how dirty your clothes are getting when you cross your legs.
Spider-Man scoffs, looking off into the distance, and it makes you believe he has to be your age or older. “You have a crush on him, or something?” And a whole tidal wave of deja vu hits you in the chest.
‘He must be badly hurt’ isn’t just something people say. People don’t just draw insanely detailed drawings of Spark’s arm and machines without notes to follow unless they knew. People wouldn't just randomly miss school without any impending signs. You’re sure of it–the tired naps in class, the random drawings of superheroes and superhumans alike, or how awkward he could act–it all makes sense.
Your classmate, aka Nishimura Riki, aka the guy who you’ve questioned if you had a crush on for the past few days, might be a villain.
The swirling feeling of trepidation in your stomach leaves three words running around your head.
What. The. Fuck.
Although you tried so hard to stop thinking about it, Jake’s comment from before rubbed you the wrong way. It was sometime last week where you couldn't get your mind off of the implications of his words, but that feeling was brushed underneath your responsibilities.
Until now.
“Yeah, there’s this guy,” you breathe, feeling your chest constrict, “Nishimura Riki. I think he’s Spark.”
His blood runs cold.
“You think this…why?”
You take a deep breath, trying to organize all your thoughts. “Well, first, it was his friend, Jake. He said that Riki was badly hurt, and I was really confused at first, but tried to let it go.”
Riki was going to strangle his best friend.
“And then, I was looking at him in class, right? And keep in mind, he’s pretty cute, and we sit next to each other, so I just noticed how good his hair looked that day, but his notebook was out, and I saw all these drawings of Spark. Like, the arms, the metal things, even the projectiles! Who would know the ins and outs of that thing if it wasn’t Spark himself?”
He didn’t know what to think about first; the fact that you gushed about him for the first time, or if he should even tell you that Spider-Man would know those things, too.
“And sometimes, I notice he’s a little awkward around me. I can’t explain it. It’s like he’s paying attention to me. That must’ve been why he captured me.” He wants to laugh at how damn close you are to figuring it out, but in reality, nothing is funny about the situation.
Nishimura Riki is actually listening to this, right now, as Spider-Man–not Spark. The awkwardness, though? It was his crush on you, and was not superhuman related in the slightest.
“I don’t know,” he attempts to divert, pretending to focus, “I saw a badge for FLiGHT. You know the company that’s been making time traveling machines? I saw a glimpse of his name and face. It’s not that guy you mentioned.”
You raise an eyebrow. “And you haven’t gotten him caught?”
“Villains aren’t easy to find, y’know. It’s not like playground hide and seek,” Riki defends, crossing his arms.
You shrink in your spot, feeling sheepish for questioning a superhero so bluntly.
“Plus,” he continues, “Spark has never had a hostage. Wouldn’t it be pretty mean of that friend of yours to kidnap a girl from his class?”
“Yeah—that makes sense. Thank god,” you breathe, closing your eyes momentarily. “Then what do you suspect all that evidence leads to? Maybe he’s a secret agent?”
“I think,” Riki continues to keep up his clueless facade, “Your friend might just be clumsy. Or creative. I mean, maybe he went through a break-up?” Nice one, Riki.
You shake your head. “No, there’s no way he has a girlfriend. You’d think I like guys who are taken?” Scoffing lightly, you then remembered that Spider-Man really would have no idea who any of you are.
He shrugs and stands up stretching before motioning for you to follow him. “I have no idea what you high school kids do. Come on, let’s get you home.”
As you hug him tight, the cold air whips around your body and leaves goosebumps in their wake. You barely open your eyes from the fear of seeing yourself inches from hitting a building or up in the air. Spider-Man only yells his confirmation after asking how to get you home, finally placing you on the ground outside of your large gate.
“Thank you for saving me tonight.”
“Anytime. Figure things out with that friend of yours, and don’t go out late, okay?” You nod and take his words to heart.
“Goodnight, Spiderman.”
—-
Nishimura might die. One, because he has this horrible guilty feeling in his stomach, and two, because of a villain.
Yesterday, he ignored the salmon and rice bowl that waited for him back at home, choosing to follow the coordinates he saved on his phone after he took you home. It led him to a seemingly harmless auto-shop, with an arrow on his GPS pointing to a garage that was shut down completely with nails and blocked with boxes. The exterior pointed to it being abandoned, but Riki suddenly saw some light coming from a makeshift above.
The boy scaled the wall as quietly as possible, glancing into the source of the whirring. He caught small glimpses of something–metal, glowing, blue.
Or at least, for a few seconds it was on until the power went out.
The voice that complained from inside the room sounded identical to the man Riki fought. Spark grumbled, turning on a flashlight and quickly waving it around. Riki ducked from the window and held his breath, waiting for the man to suspect something.
Nothing.
One lightbulb slowly flickered back on, and then the other dingy light followed. The space was cramped with the metal equipment in the middle, resembling what Riki had seen in the news.
He was right–it was the same time travel portal that was ruined from a few months ago.
Spider-Man continued to observe the man as he worked and drilled, plugging certain wires or pausing momentarily to read from a journal. To anyone, it’d seem peaceful, like some sort of renovation project. But in reality, it was so much more than that.
Riki searched for any sort of information about the machine, trying to see what exactly was left to do until his gaze landed on something.
There was some sort of date on a bright pink sticky-note, and Riki’s eyes widened when he finally comprehends it.
The machine was scheduled to be completed tomorrow.
-
A street lamp next to Riki dies out—which was a clear sign that something was powering up. From the dark, he hears the metal from the same place as last night moving again, and he knows that Spark has left. His presence sends anyone down the street and immediately running, leaving the area for only them two.
Riki finally sees the completed metal build. Half of his body is wrapped in or replaced with metal parts as he sets down the metal portal, beginning to push it in the direction of the power plant.
A truck or car would make things much easier, but whatever.
Riki wants to cry from fear and run away. He wants to leave and pretend he never saw anything from last night.
He’s going to die fighting Spark and he will quite literally a) never finish highschool and get that stupid diploma, b) finish explaining how Gatsby is not a good person and is naturally selfish, and c) he’s never going to tell you how he’s had a small crush on you ever since he saw your cute campaign video as to why you should vote y/n l/n for student body treasurer last spring.
“You sure that thing works?” Riki asks, jumping into action as he sends webs to immobilize the machine.
“You’re annoying, you know that?” Spark sends a projectile in the superhero’s direction, hitting the wall behind him instead as Riki jumps out of the way.
With another duck mid-air and the roof of a flying car dangerously close to his nose, Riki thanks the dance practice he does for his flexibility as he shoots another web and swings away.
Spark is uncontrollable by now, sucking the light from street lamps and fizzing wires in his wake. He has no idea how he’s supposed to get in contact with the villain like before. The body of his suit fizzes with bright electricity that sizzles and pops. It illuminates Spark’s figure, making him easy to spot, but not so easy to defeat. It’s an overload of power, causing the voltage to escape between the joints and gaps of the metal pieces in his suit. And Riki can feel it; the air is heightened and so are the stakes of this fight—and with how the man that stands in front of him looks upgraded and menacing, he knows only one person can make it out of this fight alive.
“You injected the city’s ‘Gas and Electric’ into your system or what?” Riki calls out, making light of the situation. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s scared out of his wits seeing the six foot figure with blue and white shooting from every crack, looking like a nightmare to touch.
Riki avoids a few more angrily thrown objects, using the momentum of his jump from the side of the building to zip from the top of a yellow fire hydrant to go from one side of the street to the other. “You’re slow!” He taunts, tucking in his legs to avoid a shot of electricity directed at him.
The screech of metal from the nearby hydrant can be heard as the top flings off, making Riki lose his anchor/ Before he can process it, instead of smoothly landing on the building, he crashes into it faster than expected, groaning when his back makes contact with the glass and he tumbles into the living room of someone’s apartment.
“Fuck,” he curses, fighting his aching limbs to get up once more.
And the solution hits him. Literally.
When he steps out and quickly attaches a web to the top of the building, he’s met on the way up with a splash of water from the hydrant to his face, and Riki splutters as he wipes his mask, regaining focus as he lands on the concrete and hides behind the ledge.
Water. If he can get it in contact with Spark and pour enough water on the right spot, the excess of electricity blazing from his mechanical body should work against him.
“Too scared? You should know better than to run away.” The superhero rolls his eyes, crawling away silently to avoid being seen by Spark. Riki does his best to look around for something, and finds a black flower pot in the corner, using a web to grab it before he scales the side of the building and runs away while Spark is distracted as the villain also climbs the wall to face him there. But when Spark climbs the ledge and scans the premise, Riki is nowhere to be seen.
Instead, Riki swings across the street and fills the pot with water, heaving the extra weight as he shouts out from the sudden pain in his side. He stumbles on the pavement, crying out from the injury as the pot falls with his whole plan.
Maybe this is where Spider-Man dies.
He sucks in a deep breath before rolling from his back onto his knees, ignoring the wound to pick up the flower pot. The hydrant still shoots out water, and the superhero rushes towards it, causing Spark to follow. He narrowly avoids another shot from behind him, reaching the yellow hydrant before dropping the pot on the ground. Spark is th
While Spark has always been intelligent, Riki could tell that the man didn’t fear the water, believing he’d be invincible to the elements now that his suit was perfected. There was something off, Riki could tell, and he would make sure to use it to his advantage. Spark was uncontrolled, and his powers drastically decreased the more he used them. There’s no way his body isn’t in overdrive with how recklessly he’s been letting himself get hurt.
Riki uses a web to get himself on higher ground instead of fighting, waiting for the supervillain to follow. If he could get Spark off the edge and fall into the growing puddle of water, it should slow him down.
Spark scoffs. “Run away, then. Like you always have.” Riki hears the wall crumbling under the villain as he climbs within seconds, immediately preparing to fight when he makes it onto the rooftop. But Spider-Man was also prepared, jumping from his crouched hiding position and attempting to catch Spark off guard.
All he can focus on now is pushing him off. There’s no way it’d be easy, considering he had to focus on his touching any of the electricity off of his suit. Riki delivers a kick to Spark in the ribcage near his heart, where he’s fused metal into flesh. The villain coughs before taking a step back, his metal arm reaching for Riki’s outstretched leg. He grabs it, twisting with anger before the boy meets the ground in a violent throw. Not only is the slam greater because of the enhanced strength, but the power seeps into Riki’s skin, leaving it hot from the energy radiating off of his palm.
The boy groans, flipping to his side to avoid a fatal hit to the chest. He reaches for Spark’s normal arm, swinging the villain’s body away with as force as he could to create distance between them.
Riki has been in enough fights to simply know when to run, even if he doesn’t know what’s coming. He could feel the tingle of the charge as it powered up, and with its energy so unrestrained and its user so unstable, the large attempt to hit Riki sends the villain stumbling back from the force. The more Spark uses his powers, the more likely he’s going to end up dead.
“Your skin can handle that anymore!” he shouts, getting ready to swing himself closer as a plan manifests itself in his head. “You’ll die like this!”
Spark seems to know that too as he wipes his mouth and recovers from Riki’s attacks.
“You think I care?” He shouts, desperately pressing his wounds to stop the bleeding. “You think I have anything else for myself?” The vulnerability of his character shines through as he clutches his bleeding wound without regenerative powers to help. “You think I didn’t know that when I did it to myself--what they did to me?”
Riki doesn’t respond, grimacing as he continues hand-to-hand combat. Although he takes a solid punch to his jaw that’s forming a deep purple bruise, he manages to trip Spark onto the ground.
The man stumbles back from the head injury, the pounding from earlier not letting him to think straight. Riki doesn’t try to injure him anymore, but he instead blocks an incoming punch and tries to force Spark towards the edge.
The villain barely notices how much space there is left, and the boy lunges with full force. They tackle each other into the ground, and Riki gets off after apprehending him once more.
The city's a mess, and Spider-Man’s eyes want to shut down so badly, but he takes a few steps in Spark’s direction, pushing him off the side of the building as quickly as he can. Riki hears the thud before he peeks over the edge, seeing the water erode all of the engineering from the machinery. He slowly descends from the rooftop.
“You were in the accident, huh?” Riki shouts on top of the plethora of sounds. Pain, buzzing electricity, splashes of water as he lands next to Spark; it all echoes in his ears as he pours the water from the pot on Spark’s body. “Why did you try it? Why did you want to go back so bad?”
“If I could go back,” Spark coughs, trying to get away from the large pool of water, “I could’ve prevented the accident from taking the lives of the people around me. I could’ve saved them.”
Spider-Man understands loss, and he understands the regret that comes with failure. He understands how the man in front of him feels after having everything taken away from him, but his emotions could never justify his actions.
“You know you can’t change things,” Riki responds, “You tried your best, Spark.” It’s the last thing Riki tells the villain before his body slumps and police sirens grow louder and louder. It’s the last thing that he continues to think about, even if the medic quickly assesses the severity of his wounds.
“I’m fine- really,” he pushes away the hands of a concerned woman as she holds a roll of bandages. “There’s something else I need to do.”
Riki knew he had to tell you about this–he couldn’t just let you confide in him about..well, him, without your knowledge. And Riki wasn’t morally perfect, but he knew an explanation would be the only way to fix things.
Your house looks different when jumping over the fence instead of standing in front of it. When he realizes he has no idea what room belongs to you, he racks his brain, suddenly remembering how yours was the only one with a gray balcony over the pool. And so he climbs, slipping from the exhaustion creeping into his body.
You’ll understand after he explains everything, right?
“____, a little help?” And what the fuck is Nishmura Riki doing outside of your door? You go to investigate the muffled sound, inching towards the curtains and pulling them back to expect him there. When you hear a half yelp and a hissing sound that follows right after, without a person anywhere in sight, your heart drops to its stomach.
Do not say it’s true.
“Riki, where the fuck are you?” you ask, traversing out when you don’t see him anywhere across the glass.
“Down here.” You run in the direction of the voice, and your eyes grow comically large and you gasp, staring down at the sight before you.
“Holy shit.”
There Nishimura Riki is, with his mask half burned off his face and his blonde and black hair messy and matted to his forehead with sweat. The suit is ripped in multiple locations with gashes and purple replacing the healthy skin underneath. His face is in more of a grimace, as he holds onto the web with both hands and one foot planted on the stone of your balcony—read; the bottom of your balcony.
“A little help?” And you see his sheepish emotion through the tattered fabric, embarrassed after you had to find him in such a compromising situation. “I’m a little worn out and I think my webs are getting weaker.”
You’re a little frustrated with him for being out so publicly, but more scared and worried for his condition. Your gaze narrows on the mask, tattered and covered with scratches, but clearly visible. It was Spider-Man’s mask. The material gives way to a familiar face, and your mind almost blocks you from putting the pieces together. It’s impossible, almost horrifying to think of the implications of what it means to wear the blue and red suit.
Instead of being the villain, Riki is, in fact, the savior.
The harsh truth is that your classmate, who you spent the last month working on a project with and suspected was a villain, is the same superhero that went out and risked his life every night fighting crime. It’s jarring to see him like this, breathing heavy and straining against the stone of the balcony, and his cough snaps you out of it. “What the fuck do I do?”
Riki tries to put his hand up in surrender and shuts his eyes at your harsh tone. “Okay, okay, I get-“ and he cuts himself off with a yelp as his footing slips.
He holds out his hand, and you immediately bend over the smooth railing to grab it, leaning back on the heels of your feet to help him up the most that you can. You’re filled with confusion when the boy hobbles over the cool surface of the balcony and lets his head rest on the stone, not saying much as he catches his breath. You watch the rise and fall of his chest and how his right arm goes to nurse the left side of his ribcage, wincing and sucking in a pained breath as he assesses the smear of red on his fingers.
Sitting there with your mouth agape, you’re not really sure what to think about first; to check if RIki’s alright, to think about how your city’s greatest superhero is your English project partner, to yell at him for going to your house instead of his house to fix himself up, or to think about how good his side profile looks in the moonlight. Maybe you should’ve just been relieved that the boy you started to like wasn’t a fear-inducing villain.
“Okay, first of all, we need to have a huge talk. But I’m not a medic Riki- I’m going into accounting for fuck’s sake.” He hears the amount of curses flying from your lips as you ramble, and sees how stressed you look watching him sit against your railing.
“I don’t know how to help you. And also,” you lower your voice and scoot closer, looking around at the large property to really make sure no one’s listening. “you’re Spider-Man?”
The information all hitting you at once is worse than when your history teacher told you your essay was horrible. At least then, in her office, you could process everything. But here? You’re about to faint.
“I’m pretty cool, huh?” And of course Nishimura Riki says such a thing, taking deep breaths as he shallowly presses on the blossoming bruises on his skin and wipes the sweat from his brow.
“Pretty fucking stupid is what it is, Riki.” You cross your arms and try to take a look at where he’s been hurt, hoping that at least he has some sort of regeneration ability that helps him heal much quicker—because there’s no way he could deal with all of this on top of school.
“I have my reasons,” he says, his voice quiet.
You pause. “For being Spider-Man?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “For coming here.”
“What could possibly make you want to come over to my house instead of the nearest hospital? What’s that important to you?”
“I really want to ask you to prom.”
You simply stare at him, surprised.
“You came to my house, even though you’re like, a punch away from passing out, to ask me out? And you couldn’t have, I don’t know, asked me anytime during the classes we have together?”
Riki somehow finds it in himself to frown and shrink from your angry piercing gaze. “I can’t because talking to you makes me nervous–so yeah, I’m sorry I’m half conscious on your balcony in my suit instead of at your door with a poster.”
You’re conflicted, your mind still reeling from the recent discovery and your flood of emotions. Ever since you questioned his identity on top of your feelings for him, you had a hard time really knowing if you could like Riki if he turned out to be a villain, so to know that he proved both of your theories wrong leaves you quiet as you think. If possible, the color in the boy’s face drains even more when you go back inside, but the door stays open, and he thinks he hasn’t ruined things after all. You emerge with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a bowl of warm water, and a pristine white towel.
“I’m not mad about that, you idiot,” you reprimand him, setting everything down as you examine the cuts on his face. You squeeze the towel and start to dab at his skin, avoiding the cuts as you clean it. “Who does this for you if not me?”
“Jake.”
“Seems like a pretty good friend.” Riki nods in response.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs, sitting up to properly address you, even if you weren’t able to meet his gaze.
“For what?”
“For putting this on you–all of it. Not just the whole Spider-Man thing.” He knew he’d have to tell you at some point, or else it’d eat him up inside to know he kept all of it from you.
“Look at you, saving me mid-air and talking to me as if you didn’t know who I was.”
You notice a flash of regret through his wince as you clean up a cut with antiseptic. “I meant it when I told you I knew what it was like to have a lot of pressure.”
“Guess I wasn’t so far off, then. If we never talked, would you have told me?” Riki shakes his head, and the simple motion leaves you somehow disappointed.
“How do you ever tell anyone you’re…y’know, Spider-Man?” Even if it’s a hypothetical, you shrug, not being able to answer.
“How’d Jake find out?”
Riki chuckles and hisses at the same time before trying to remember. “I think I just kicked his window in after a nasty poison got hold of me. He was a little too excited to have Spider-Man on his bedroom floor, and less excited to know it was me. I’m not really supposed to tell anyone, though.”
“Then why’d you tell me? You could’ve just gone back to your friends.”
“I felt guilty–I know, I know, it sounds stupid. I’d definitely get my identity revealed at this rate.” You shake your head.
“Not stupid. Keep going.”
“I didn’t care that you suspected me, or if anyone else did, because I knew it was never true. But I felt so bad knowing you were sharing to me how you felt without even knowing it was me who was listening–like I was holding something from you.”
You admire his honesty, and when you look at his furrowed brows and his lip that he’s been gnawing from worry, you can’t even imagine what he’s had to hide and do for this. In a way, you look up to him more, for trying his best even if he’s gotten all odds stacked against him. Riki’s commendable in your eyes–he always had been, ever since you woke him up in class.
“I like those things about you, Riki. That you’re honest with yourself and the people around you as much as you can be, and you try to help others when you can. I’m glad we got to know each other more this past month.” Talking to him feels different than talking to Spider-Man from a few days ago; it feels raw, like you’re not just confessing something to a brick wall anymore. If none of this ever happened, you doubt you’d get the chance to tell Riki any of this properly.
The boy stays silent, taking deep breaths while processing what you’ve told him. “I’m glad I could help you out.”
You furrow your eyebrows. “I hope you know I don’t like you because you help me out. I like you because you’re attractive, and because you’re genuine,” you blurt.
Riki laughs despite his ribcage hurting everytime he does so. Riki nods and mumbles a ‘thank you,’ also glad to truly get to know you. While his crush was more of an infatuation with your hard work and amiability, the past few weeks really opened his eyes to who you were. You never wanted to disappoint, and even if your recklessness left you in some dire situations, Riki could see how much effort you really put into things.
There wasn’t anything else he needed to tell you–you were smart enough to see how much he cared about you.
You’re so close, your lips glossy with lip balm as you watch him carefully. You hear and see it all; the heavy, labored breathing from his body healing itself rapidly, and the way his hand is full of rough cuts and calluses as his fingers intertwine with yours. But your eyes catch a glimpse of his mask tossed to the side, the blue shining in the corner of your eyes as you’re reminded of who he is right now, and what role you play. You are still ____ ____, but he’s a superhero.
It makes you momentarily forget whose suit you're peeling away, whose skin you're cleaning. It reminds you that he’s just the boy in your English class that you fell for. “What does that make us?”
“Prom-goers,” he answers with a slight nod.
You smile, wiping a cut before placing the towel back into the bowl for the last time and getting up. “We can be prom-goers, yeah.”
You’re not sure if you’re ready for anything, and you’re thankful that he understands that, too. As much as it warmed your heart to see him again and hear his confessions, the blaring truth still hangs over your head. You grab his mask, finally looking at him before handing it back and grabbing your things. His secret identity wasn’t something you could just ignore.
“Go home, Spider-Man,” you turn your back on him, and time slows when you falter before sparing him one more look. “I want you as Riki, not like this.”
MAYBE NISHIMURA RIKI DOESN'T NEED TO DIE–OR ALMOST DIE–ANYMORE.
He went home that night with his scars somewhat cleaned and his bruises miraculous healing on their own, and even if slipping through the window left him clutching his side in pain, Riki silently jumped up to celebrate his multiple victories before slipping out of his suit and finally getting some rest.
Riki’s scared of how he’s affected your relationship. He’s worried you’ll avoid him in the halls, and he’s worried you’d never want to see him again after putting you through all of it. As much as he'd understand how upset you'd be towards him, he hopes he did the right thing by telling you.
But you see him on your way to English, and you call his name. His eyes search for yours in the crowds, and you two see each other before you crush him in a hug.
Riki isn’t sure how to feel at first, but eventually wraps his arms around you as relief settles in his stomach.
“Thank you for saving me, Spider-Man,” you whisper, loud enough for only him to hear.
He smiles at you, ruffling your hair as you go to English together. “Anytime, ____.”
NEVERMIND, NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE WHEN HE SEES YOU IN YOUR RED PROM DRESS.
But first, he has to try something out.
He curses to himself when silently zipping from a tree outside your family property to the top of your house, staring past the ledge two and luxurious stories to your well decorated porch light and door. He just prays that Google Maps is right about how secluded the area is, so no one can see him pacing around your rooftop, with flowers elegantly wrapped in his hand (courtesy of your mother’s sleek envelope from a few days ago).
“Fuck it,” he says to himself, shooting a web and dangling himself down. Riki’s upside down figure watches swirled window frames and meticulously designed accents as he descends, and he wonders what kind of shady business your parents could’ve done to afford something so grand.
He faces your door—hanging down instead of rightside up, but he’s still here on time like he promised.
The door opens at 6:00PM like he instructed you to, but what he didn’t tell you what to do was shriek and slam the door. On his nose. With a loud yelp, Riki clutches his nose, rubbing the spot you hit and trying to apply pressure to alleviate the pain.
When the door slowly creaks open again, you face with the image of Nishimura Riki, aka your boyfriend, aka your English partner, aka Spider-Man, curled upside down in the fetal position as he cradles the sore spot on his face and swings slightly from the breeze.
“You scared me, dumbass! How was I supposed to know it was you? It was so hard to see!”
Although muffled, Riki’s able to mumble, “You have a porch light for this reason, _____,” and a jab at his stomach from you follows his sarcastic remark. Finally, his nose feels better, and he straightens out to finally look at you.
Pretty, pretty, pretty, and the boy wonders how you look even more stunning with a glittering red dress and perfectly done make-up. “I like the red,” he says, trying not to freak out over your beauty. “Reminds me of a certain neighborhood superhero.”
“I have some blue spider earrings to match.” With a beautiful smile, you turn to show him the little accent, and it melts his heart. “Are you okay, though?”
“I’m fine. I should’ve probably put more thought into that.”
You snicker, sliding into your heels and closing the door behind you.
“One of us is better at romantic gestures, it seems.” It warrants a scoff, and Riki brings a gloved hand to poke at your forehead teasingly.
“Let me have a do-over, then?” And the way your lips curl up into a bright smile leaves him quiet and in awe.
“What, were you going to kiss me? Very original, Spider-Man.” With the way the fabric shifts over his features, you can tell he’s pouting.
“I thought girls liked this.”
You shrug, pretending you aren’t swept off his feet by the effort he’s put in. Taking a step in his direction, your hands reach up to gently pull the mask over his chin, ears, and then his nose.
Whispering quietly, you ask, “You’ve kissed other girls upside down?”
Riki’s quick to shake his head. “You’re the only girl I’d withstand a head rush for.” And god, you just can’t stop yourself from grinning at his sweet, genuine words.
You lean in, placing a small kiss on his nose as a silent apology. Then, you close your eyes and lean into him once more, feeling his hands carefully holding the side of your head and his lips on yours. Your kiss with Riki is saccharine and slow, making you pull away when the urge to beam at him is too much. Your cheeks definitely hurt by how romantic he’s being, and you can’t resist kissing him once more.
“I’m not gonna lie,” he starts, finally letting himself down, “It feels weird.”
“You ruined the moment.” And he really didn’t, but you enjoy his subtle reactions to your light digs at him.
“Whatever.” Riki laughs. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
You nod, sitting down on the porch and dragging a manicured nail over your lips with the ghost of his affections, thinking about how you literally just kissed Spider-Man.
Riki comes back, dusting off his suit and smoothing out the wrinkles, with a large bouquet of red roses and one blue one snuck in there. Your lips stretch into a grin and you accept the bouquet, keeping a mental note to read the card in there.
“You never cease to amaze me, Riki.” It’s the last thing you mutter to the air before you loop your arms around his neck, urging him to lean down as you kiss him once more—this time rightside up, but still as sickly saccharine as the one before it. Your heart is fuzzy with fondness and your eyes glitter with adoration.
“So, which kiss was better?” he asks when you pull away, a little breathless and dizzy.
You swat his arm and walk past the gates, seeing the sleek limo waiting by the curb. “I don’t know, Spider-Man. Maybe show up in your suit and we’ll try it again.”
REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED AND ALWAYS READ!
RIKI FIC DONE!!!! ngl y/n u were right there how did u not know riki was spiderman but whatever idc she's a hard worker not smart LMFOAOAO. my first ever action fic so i hope you enjoy! also i hate the ‘oh he pined after her for 4 years she liked him for 2 months’ bs because I WAS IN IT. and it sucks so i tried to deviate from it :)
꣑ৎ permanent fic taglist (TAGGED IN TEASERS, FICS, HEADCANNONS, DRABBLES, ETC.): @dimplewonie @minleeeknow @heeheesang @mintpjzroll @llvrhee @firstclassjaylee @in-somnias-world @rairaiblog @suneng @mavlogist @sensitively-taken @sumzysworld @simpjay @moons-v @riksaes @txtari @jungwonscatcus @tya0 @sasfransisco @woorcve @shypen @pinkriki @rikisluv @saranghaohoshi @lilifiedeans @wonmyheart @k1ttyluvr @nikisgfff @ramenoil @laurradoesloveu @lvcky-g1rl-syndr0me @ikeulims @missychiefs1404 @qwonyoung23 @yangjungwonnie @onementally-unstabel-kid @microwvdstrawb3rri3s @blooqz @anormieee hi permies hope u enjoy! kith
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