#this is entirely unedited

[bareknucklebots]

Just a couple of snippets from the Hyperblaze mess I have been on and off working on. Not sure if it will actually get finished, so just enjoy them as little bits.

“Get up.” All Hypershock could do in response was wheeze, rolling over onto his back as he stared up at the ceiling. He could taste blood, likely seeping onto his tongue from his busted lip, or maybe even a tooth it was hard to tell. His world was spinning around him with that last hit he took, and all he could even hope to focus on was the man slowly circling around him, and the sound of the referee counting him out.

“Did you hear me? Get up!” Sawblaze spat, eyes locked on where Hypershock was laid out before him, beaten and bloodied but grinning all the same. Hypershock was fucking with him no doubt, throwing the damn fight because Sawblaze knew that there was more fight left in him. It’d be all over too fast, too soon if Hypershock went down now and didn’t get back to his feet and get himself back in this damn match. “I know you’re not done...”

Thankfully, much to Sawblaze’s relief, Hypershock gave a weak laugh and rolled himself over again, this time pushing himself up onto his hands and knees as the countdown continued. Sawblaze took half a step back, waiting to see if he could actually get back to his feet, or if he’d finally knocked something loose in that big dumb head of his. The count gets low, but before the match can be called, Hypershock pushes himself back up, stumbling just a little before getting his fists up in front of him. When he flashed Sawblaze the best winning smile he could muster right then, his teeth were stained with blood. He looked ridiculous. Hypershock always looked ridiculous.

“Good.” Sawblaze huffed, catching his breath for half a second before he motioned for Hypershock to come at him with everything he had left.

* * *

“Up,” Sawblaze muttered, staring down at Hypershock as he leaned over him. He slipped his hand down, resting his palm against Hypershock’s throat, pushing up on his chin to make him tilt his head back and look up at him. “Get up.”

Hypershock’s eyes were wide, locked on the man standing in front of him like he couldn’t believe what was happening. Maybe Sawblaze really had knocked something in his head loose with that final hit? Maybe he was just finally going crazy. Maybe he was reading far too much into what Sawblaze was saying, how he was touching him. Looking at him. The stunned expression on Hypershock’s face slowly melted into confusion, brows furrowing and the beaming smile that he’d been wearing since the two stumbled out of the ring finally turned to a frown.

“Wha-”

“You heard me, get up, Hypershock.” Sawblaze cut him off with a commanding tone, eyes narrowed as he gripped Hypershock’s throat, just enough to pull him up, but not so much to actually cut off his breath. Hypershock followed his hand beautifully, scrambling to his feet at Sawblaze’s order. As soon as he was standing, Sawblaze gabbed Hypershock’s shirt with his other hand to pull him around, turning and shoving him back against the lockers with a loud clatter.

“Awe, hey c’mon ‘Blaze!” Hypershock said with a bit of a nervous laughter, holding his hands up in a defensive manner. “You already won the fight, what else do you want?”

You. Just you.

“An apology would be nice.” Sawblaze said instead, keeping his hand placed firmly over Hypershock’s  throat, though he didn’t press into it. “That was a cheap fucking shot there at the end.”

“You should have floored me when you had the chance then.” Hypershock said lowly, breath hitching as Sawblaze stepped closer. So close. “Never going to win the tournament if you don’t go in for the kill now and again.”

“Big talk for the guy who lost today’s fight.” Sawblaze said.

“No apologies.” Hypershock said firmly, but as he spoke, his eyes darted down for just a split second, landing on Sawblaze’s lips before he locked eyes with him once more. “I’ll kiss your booboo better for you though, if you’d like?”

#Hypershock #Sawblaze #Hyperblaze #this is entirely unedited #and just... word vomit mostly #I really ought to primarily do headcanons #a lot faster #easier #and can write more of them all at once #these sure are words

[asexualbert]

Finally had the motivation to write something, here's a blurb that came into my brain which I needed to toss out into the void.

There's so much context for this universe and you get none. This takes place like, right in the middle of this AU which I've talked about not at all. Anyway, enjoy.

—————

"You gotta believe me Mr Batman, sir. I really didn't know, at the time I mean, that they'd been human people and all.

"Didn't much like that they was treating animals like that either but... Job's a job you know. Don't always have much option, an' with my wife back home an' my Millie..."

The man kept talking, but Bruce wasn't paying attention; the begging really wasn't necessary, and his mind had caught on something Hill had said.

They'd been human

Past tense, he'd used. The implication that they no longer were was clear as day.

It should have struck him as wrong, as an ignorant idea but...

His eyes wandered back to the glass behind them, taking in the two children, his miraculously living son and the small boy in his arms, curled up in a pitiful nest of old sheets on the ground.

Taking in his eldest, sitting on the floor, a wide berth between himself and his younger brother, nursing the wound on his forearm.

Bruce caught himself wondering...

Was it true?

#this is entirely unedited #I've had this kinda weird AU in my brain for months now #for some reason i was struck with actually story for a real hot second just now #i don't even know what to CALL this AU yet. #maybe #it makes sense with more context #I'm sorry that there's absolutely no details in this blurb #y'all have no idea what's going on #but i wanted to share #maybe just to prove that i do write stuff on occasion #but also just because i have no one to yell AU ideas at anymore #so i needed somewhere new to get that out of my brain #also for some reason my NPC sounded a little like Joe Hills in my head #so he got namesaked #anyway #Batman #batfamily au #tim drake #jason todd #bruce wayne #dick Grayson #Dehumanization #i think #I'm not really sure how else to tag this #how much is actually clear in this blurb? #dragon au

[deranged-fanfic-nugget]

Sometimes I wonder how well I can possibly be doing in life. I'm still a teenager, with no understanding of the real world yet. All I know are the past 18 years of my life, so distant in their structure from how the rest of my life will be. And even still, so far away from the norm that most other people have had. They understand each other, they ask for advice from their own peers or from their family and older friends and sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's good but it's always said in mutual understanding and relating to each other. Who can I possibly ask? Who can guide me when the most experienced people I know are just as stumped as I am by my struggles, who have never faced the obstacles I face in the same context? Who can only provide love and support, and it should be enough and it so often is but I'm still only 19. In an unknown world there are people that support me but there is no one to lead me, to instruct me. I take their advice, and love, and support, and I shape it myself. I create the molds from the templates I find and I fill them with what parts of their guidance that fit, and I create and the puzzle myself because there is no existing puzzle in the world that contains all the puzzle pieces that my life is made of.

And I try, and I've failed so often but that's okay. No one is guiding me but they're softening the blows of my mistakes. They can't build me a yellow brick road that will show me the way but they give me the bricks to build it myself. They show me how to clear the path, how to lay the stones, how to chart my way through the unpredictable terrain. So I'll keep building, because no one is guiding me so I have to guide myself. I set a little four year old girl in a frilly white dress onto my shoulders and tell her all the stories she loves. I take the hand of a scared ten year old girl who is clinging to her teddy, and I tell her the wonderful things that will happen when she takes the leap of faith. I smile at a fifteen year old kid with the same short hair as me, and despite the hurricane of emotions inside they smile back and trustingly stand by my side, no longer hiding.

I take a deep breath and I walk forward, step by step, placing the bricks down the only way I know how. I don't always turn the right way, and when we turn back from another dead end I can feel their worried glances, but still they follow me because they trust that I know what I'm doing, even when sometimes they know I don't. I'm only 19 but I'm the oldest I've ever been, so I lead them onwards and hope that I'm going the right way. I have to take care of them, I'm the one they look towards for help. They deserve a safe and easy road, I can only hope that the one I'm building will be enough. One day someone older will come and take my hand too, beckoning to follow them with a reassuring smile. But for now, the four year old girl laughs at my story and pulls on my hair a little too hard. The ten year old girl squeezes my hand and seeks protection at my side. The fifteen year old kid bumps their shoulder against mine in quiet solidarity.

For now I'm only 19, and I'm doing my best to guide them.

#stream of consciousness #writing #this is entirely unedited #so i dont know how much actually makes sense #just had to get it out #idk its not sad or anything #just had some thoughts and decided to write it out

[starrystevie]

18+ | explicit sex & smoking | read here on ao3

it's 1996 when steve's world gets turned upside down again.

or, well, technically it's a few minutes into '97 when everything changes. he's at a new years party that his ex timothy is hosting and everyone is still hooting and hollering as they ring it in, pressing sloppy kisses to cheeks and lips with arms hooked around necks.

steve doesn't get kissed. not because people aren't eyeing him with a smirk and mischief and open arms of their own. no, he doesn't let himself get kissed because something feels... off about the night. the energy is weird, buzzing through his skin like electricity, keeping him on edge in a way he hasn't been since he left hawkins for boston in the fist place.

it isn't long until he figures out why.

timmy is walking up to him with his hands on some guy's shoulders, pushing him backwards with a wide smile like he's trying to convince him of something. the guy is about his height, short cropped dark hair and a leather jacket, the sight of his back alone getting steve excited. timmy always did know his type to a t.

"hey!" timmy yells over the music as he catches steve's eye. "got someone for you to meet."

once the guy turns around, the smiles on both steve and the mystery guy's faces fall before their minds catch up with them and plaster them back together. even with the short cropped hair, even with the piercing in his eyebrow, even with the stubble spreading over his defined jaw, steve would know that face, that heartbeat, anywhere.

"steve, i wanted to introduce you to someone. jamie, this is steve, you know... the guy i was telling you about?"

timmy's trying to be helpful, not even attempting to be subtle as he pushes the two closer together with a wide grin. steve's going on autopilot, reaching out a hand to grab the one outstretched towards him, but his brain is going a million miles a minute.

"nice to meet you, steve," eddie, or... jamie, says, palm pressed tightly against his own.

steve can't say anything, focusing too much on the warmth on his palm and the way his deep voice shakes through him like thunder and the way he feels like he's 19 again with a stuttering heart.

"what are-" he starts.

eddie shakes his head and tugs on steve's hand. "not here. come on."

they end up in a secluded corner, close enough that steve can smell smoke and leather polish and the sharp bite of his cologne. close enough that he can see the lines starting to appear on the corners of eddie's eyes, the stray grey hairs popping up in his beard, the questions swirling behind his eyes.

"eddie."

"jamie," is all he says back, not even bothering to look away from steve's eyes. "it's jamie now."

they both sigh like they don't know where to start because they don't. steve grapples with all the questions in his mind before settling on one. the one that tore through him late at night. the one that stayed on the tip of his tongue anytime he heard a van backfire or metallica.

"where did you go?" he knows it sounds like an accusation because it is. he doesn't let himself feel bad when eddie (jamie) flinches.

"feds," he replies easily, sneaking a cigarette out of his pocket and putting it between his lips. he tilts his head back to light it away from steve's face, blowing smoke up towards the ceiling. "once i got better, they scooped me up and brought me to boston. new name, new hairstyle, new life. at least they let me choose my name so i didn't get stuck with some thing awful."

steve snorts. "so you ended up with 'jamie' how?"

"middle name's james. it just made sense." he says it with a shrug and puffs at his cigarette again.

they look at each other for a moment. steve watches his tongue flit out of his mouth to wet his lips, watches the overhead lights glint off the metal of a surprise tongue piercing, watches his throat swallow around nothing but spit.

he can see, feel, eddie doing the same. he hams it up, pulls his lip between his teeth and makes it a show, looks back up at eddie from under his lashes. takes in a deep breath when eddie inches closer to him until their hips are bumping and steve plucks the cigarette out of his lips for a puff of his own.

he's 19 again, in love or like or lust with a boy in a leather jacket that has the world against him. he's 19 again, working a hand over himself to thoughts of his crush who up and vanished without so much as a goodbye. he's 19 again, crying after he comes, wishing he could go back in time before he met curly hair and a battle vest.

"so how do you know tim?" eddie whispers like he has to be quiet even though the part is loud and no one could hear them if they tried.

"how do you know him?" steve asks back, blowing out smoke and putting the cigarette back between eddie's barely spread lips.

his eyes flick down to look at steve's still pursed lips from when he angled the smoke over his shoulder. "we used to fuck, once upon a time when i first got to boston."

steve hums like it's the answer he expected and maybe it is. "same here. dated for about a year."

eddies eyes grow wide and his hip bumps into steve's like it's a question in and of itself and maybe it is. "didn't know you swing that way, harrington."

"well, you don't really know anything about me then, do you? didn't back then either, munson."

his eyes goes even wider, something like fear and shame and comfort and hope swimming in them. "leonard. it's leonard now."

steve hums again, says 'jamie leonard' like he's feeling it out on his tongue. tasting it between his teeth. teaching his mouth how to form the words instead of what he really wants to say like 'eddie' or 'munson' or 'i'm still somehow in love with you no matter your name'.

"jamie leonard," he says again, breath hitting eddie's lips. he shivers when he sees his lips part a bit more like he wants to swallow the sound and air that steve gives him. "we have a lot to catch up on, don't we?"

steve's apartment isn't all that big, isn't exactly small either but it has everything he could possibly need. he has a living room that looks out over the harbor and a kitchen with all new appliances and eddie munson naked in his bedroom. you know, the essentials.

their clothes are all over the floor, eddie's motorcycle helmet flung somewhere in the vague direction of the armchair in the corner but the smack it makes when it hits the wall makes steve think there's probably a hole in the drywall.

but eddie's sucking on his cock, hands wrapped around his thighs as he takes him even deeper, eyes flicking up to meet steve's, beard scratchy as it rubs against his sensitive skin. he's never been blown by someone with a tongue piercing but he doesn't think he can ever go back now.

the last thing on his mind is wondering if there's a hole in the goddamn wall.

"oh fuck, yeah there you go. feels so goddamn good," steve breathes out as he feels the back of eddie's throat on his cockhead. he tangles a hand as best he can in his short dark hair to try and coax him even deeper. eddie hums at either the praise or the tug on his hair or the way it feels as he works his tongue over steve's cock and it makes him jolt unexpectedly.

if he could go back in time and tell his 19 year old self that eddie was alive, that he was okay and breathing and learning how to suck cock like a goddamn professional, he'd do it in a heartbeat. save himself a few years of pining and fly straight out to boston to see it for himself. he's sure robin would have preferred to not have to listen to his whining everyday about brown eyes and dark curls.

eddie brings a hand to cup his balls, finger teasingly pressing into steve's taint, bobbing his head eagerly like he wants him to come in his mouth, but steve has other plans. he tugs eddie off of his cock quickly, lines of thick spit falling between them and sticking to his chin before crowding him up against the pillows.

steve kisses like he's dying and eddie is survival. he kisses him like he is drowning and eddie is the shore that he's clawing his way towards. he kisses him like 19 year old steve could only dream about.

soon enough, steve's sliding into him with a groan that he lets eddie swallow from him. the headboard knocks heavily into the wall a few times making even more possible holes, but all steve can focus on is the heat around him, the way eddie's whines bounce off the walls of his too empty bedroom and cover him like a blanket.

he likes fucking this way. he likes being able to watch as someone's face contorts into pleasure, like to see eyes rolling back and mouths dropping open and sweat beading around their hairline. likes seeing eddie fall apart.

"steve, oh my god," eddie's voice is still deeper than he's used to as he moans so he angles his hips up more to hear it again, the low timbre snaking through his veins and leaving fire in its wake. "don't stop."

"i won't," he groans into eddie's open mouth. "wanted this for so long, for fucking 11 years, not giving you up yet."

it's a bit more open than steve normally is when he first fucks someone but this isn't just someone. this isn't fucking a stranger he picked up in a bar that had almost the right shade of brown eyes and patches on his jacket that are almost the right shape. this is eddie. his eddie. or well... jamie.

"fuck, i'm gonna date you so fucking hard, harrington. yeah, right there keep going, shit-"

he's babbling as steve works his hips faster, tangling their free hands together to press above their heads on a pillow, and it's everything steve could have asked for. hearing his name fall from the lips he's dreamed about for years, sharing the same air as they breath into one another.

he thought he was over it, thought he had moved on at least a little bit from a halfway stranger he knew in his teens, but with the way they're both looking straight into each other's eyes begging each other to see them, he thinks they might both be back in 1986.

"what do-" steve cuts himself off as he whimpers, close, so close to the finish line. "what do you want me to call you? is it jamie or-"

he's shaking his head on the pillow, leaning up to bite at steve's lips and pull it between his teeth. he looks serious and certain when he says, "no, that name's not for you, it's... i need-"

steve brings his hand down to work over his cock and revel in the way his eyes roll back until he can only see white. he hits something that makes his eyes fly back open and he gets to see his favorite shade of brown again.

"eddie," he whispers. leaning down quickly, steve presses a kiss to his ear before whispering his favorite name there too. "eddie, baby, come on. let me... come on, eddie."

it feels silly to be chanting a name of a ghost as intensely as he is. but he can see it crawl over eddie like it's bringing him back to life. like he isn't bones on the ground in an alternate dimension. like he isn't a plain headstone in a graveyard next to a forgotten trailer park. like he isn't playing pretend with a fake name and a fake life.

steve says eddie and it brings him home.

afterwards, they lay together in steve's probably too soft bed, tears drying on both of their cheeks as they catch up. as they tell each other secrets that their younger selves could never dare. as the piece together the lives they have and the lives they want to have and slot each other into the mix.

steve has a hand in eddie's hair, eddie has one trailing over steve's arm that's slung over his chest. he's always been a fan of cuddling after sex.

"y'know," eddie mutters, "tim's been trying to get me to meet his hot teacher friend for months now."

steve hums, presses a kiss to his temple. "and he's been trying to get me to meet his hot motorcycle tech for months, too."

there are a few holes in the walls from the headboard and eddie's helmet, but steve thinks that they can patch those up, too.

he's still jamie leonard to the outside world. he's still a guy who doesn't have much family other than a mysterious uncle in indiana and doesn't have many friends other than ex boyfriends. he still introduces himself with a handshake and says a fake name like it's real.

but when he gets home, when he crawls onto a couch that overlooks the harbor and has arms wrapped around him, he gets to be eddie munson once more. and with the ghost of a man in his arms, steve harrington feels more like himself than he ever thought he would.

#this was going to be something entirely different but i couldn't stop myself so.... here u go #steddie #my writing #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie drabble #steddie ficlet #steddie fic #steddie smut #unedited so pls ignore any typos teehee

[red-hood-vigilante]

pilot silhouettes my beloved

#supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #kripke era #these are raw and unedited btw. i thought about making them black and white for the drama of it and i still might #thinking about making a series of my fave shots per episode in the entire kripke era

[max-nico]

Sonic noticed Tails glaring at him a few minutes ago. He hasn't called it out or said anything, after about a year of being with the kid he's learned it's better to let Tails come to him first. Though he will say his patience has been wearing thin, it's been a week of nonstop staring and cutting eyes.

Sonic glances at Tails with an eyebrow raise making the fox flush in embarrassment. For another few minutes Tails sits with his namesakes on his lap and his head buried in their fluff. Sonic gives him privacy and looks the other way, hoping not to embarrass him any further, he'd really prefer not to prompt the kid more than he has to.

"I uhm- I have a question. If that's okay." Sonic shrugs, reaching down to dig in his bag, but he's not reallt looking for anything. "Oh, if you're looking for the cans of chili we put them in my bag, remember?"

Sonic plays it off as if that's what he was looking for, it's basically dinner time anyway so it's not a waste to start cooking.

"Right uhm- anyway, what makes you different?" Tails asks.

Sonic raises an eyebrow again, asking him to elaborate.

"I just... We're friends right-" Sonic nods without hesitation- "okay good. It's just that the people back at Westside didn't like me much, so... So why do you?"

Sonic gives another shrug. Is he supposed to have a reason for liking him? It just came naturally. He had a good heart, big ambitions, and an even bigger brain. Is there a reason he shouldn't like the fox?

"Is there a reason I shouldn't like you?" Sonic signs.

Tails' snout wrinkles a little, "Obviously."

The hedgehog gestures for Tails to keep talking.

"I'm weird, and I can't brush my fur by myself yet, I talk too much, I take half a portion of your food, I slow you down I-"

"It's our food, and you don't slow me down," Sonic huffs. "Those things don't matter. Why would they make me not like you?"

Tails frowns, gripping his Tails between his fingers, seeming unsure of the answer himself. His mouth opens and closes as he tries to gather his thoughts into a neat sentence, and Sonic continues food prep. An anticipatory silence sits between them.

It's not until Sonic's almost done with the first chilidog that Tails speaks again. His voice is a quiet murmur under cracking fire and a few distant flickies, but Sonic still catches his voice and it's little sniffles in the wind.

"I can't understand how someone so cool can like something that wasn't even tolerated by its parents..."

And isn't that heartbreaking? Sonic could join Tails crying after hearing that. What's he even supposed to say? Is there anything he can say?

Sonic places a hand on Tails' shoulder to get his attention, making the fox wipe his tears away.

"Your parents were dumb."

"But they were the smartest people in the village! My dad was the head research-"

Sonic places a hand over Tails' muzzle to quiet him.

"Being the smartest dumb person in a room full of dumb people isn't the win you think it is."

Tails looks away from Sonic with a sniffle and huff, wiping his eyes again.

If Sonic could take it all away he would. Unfortunately, he doesn't have memory altering magic, at least as far as he knows.

"How about I become your new family. I can be your brother or something." He says on a whim, looking for something to make the kid feel better. Maybe offering a replacement family would be better than claiming the old one.

And for just a moment Tails looks starstruck. His already teary eyes grow large and seem to well up even more before he tilts his face down, his eyes glistening in the ever brighter glow of the campfire.

Sonic swears he didn't do anything wrong, but those tears make him feel like the scum of the earth.

"You're just trying to make me feel better... You wouldn't actually want that. No one in their right mind would."

Sonic crouches down in front of Tails, waiting for him to turn and look him in the eyes. It feels like an eternity before the fox actually looks at him, and Sonic grasps desperately at the patience he's never had, but is determined to find.

Tails' face fur is wet and sticks up awkwardly, and the eye contact he gives is minimal at best but Sonic will take that over nothing.

Gently, Sonic bumps his fist to Tails chest, right above where his heart is. "We're brothers!" He says, in a voice that's just as foreign to the fox as it is to him. The re in the word we're doesn't quite come across, neither does the br in brothers making the word sound like buzzers, but Tails seems to understand him anyway.

Sonic can't tell if the fox is surprised by him standing his ground or by him talking, but it's probably a healthy mix of both. He repeats himself, pushing just a little harder on Tails chest to get the point across.

Tightly, Tails squeezes his eyes shut. Heaving out a sob, dropping his head down to stare at the log he's sitting on.

"Okay." The fox mumbles, "Let's be brothers."

Yooooo guess who finally wrote something !!! (Hint, it's me !!!) After receiving some of the most devastating news of my life, I decided to write some hurt comfort !!! Welcome back unbreakable bond fans, I'm glad I could keep us all fed this winter's night !!! I have so many unfinished drafts but take this, and thanks for reading !!!

This is NOT ship content. I am under the same name on AO3, and will post this there soon ! Come hit up my DMs or my askbox for now !! Toodles !!

#sth #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #i have the mic #sonic fanfiction #sonic headcanons #sonic and tails #tails and sonic #tails the fox #unbreakable bond #the brothers #sonic #this entire fic was me projecting onto tails i fear #but what else is new #youll reblog instead of just liking it if you love me #THIS IS COMPLETELY UNEDITED LMAO #that was an accident #expect to see the cleaned up version on ao3 tomorrow

[schwirrymartz]

Stop using anti-self language: tensimm edition (guest starring Jacobi!Master)

inspired by

yes, the "I'm not funny" screenshot was taken right after the Doctor had tried to make an Ood laugh.

#doctor who #dw #tenth doctor #simm!master #jacobi!master #at first #placing the text to the left of the Doctor/to the right of the Master was entirely coincidental and unintentional #but when i noticed it (there were two or three unedited pictures left) i decided to keep it that way

[writer-in-theory]

The Devil Is A Gentleman — part one.

18+ ONLY - SoftDom!Eddie, Sub!Steve, Slight Feminization (Eddie calls Steve 'princess'), First Time BDSM, Aftercare, Kink Discovery/Exploration

this part is based off of this absolutely amazing art by @dreaminginpencil ✨

EDIT: read on ao3

--

"I want to try it."

Eddie's just walking through the door after the first summer session of Hellfire when Steve says it. Steve is stood in the middle of the main room, arms outstretched a little like he's forgotten what to do with them. He looks nervous, hazel eyes looking just to the left of Eddie and teeth gently biting into his lower lip.

"What're we trying, exactly?" Eddie asks, eyebrows raised as the question makes Steve shift on his feet. "Steve?"

"Your bandana," Steve gasps out, hand stretching out to gesture at Eddie's waist. "I want to try it."

"You want to try..." If anything could short circuit Eddie's brain, it was hearing Steve Harrington say that. "Stevie, what do you think you're asking to do?"

That only makes Steve blush. His cheeks are a brilliant red now, so much that Eddie might've mistaken it for a sunburn if he didn't watch the color bloom there with his own eyes.

"I—Eddie," Steve actually goddamn whines, and Eddie's just glad this was Steve's idea because that alone gives him about a dozen ideas.

"C'mon, princess, I gotta hear you say it," Eddie presses, smirking as Steve continues to shuffle on his feet.

"Robin told me what it means," Steve tells the ceiling, chin tipped up so he can focus on the crack where the Upside Down portal used to be. "Told me about the...um..."

Eddie doesn't speak, let's Steve figure this one out for himself. If they're going to be doing anything, Steve needs to at least be able to say the words. Still, Eddie can't help but feel like this is a dream, and he'll wake up any second to a Steve Harrington who couldn't possibly know what his bandana means, much less want to try it.

"She told me about the bondage, okay?" Steve shouts, panicked with hands that wave about as he explains. "And the, the pain and the dom/sub and why you have handcuffs and I want it. I want it."

"Are you sure?" Eddie presses again, taking a few steps further into the trailer until he can reach out for Steve's hands. "You don't have to do anything you're not sure about. I'm perfectly happy with what we've got going on now."

If the blush and tiny sigh are anything to go by, Steve is too.

"I'm sure," Steve answers, more resolutely than any of his other sentences have been all night. "I'm sure. I want you to dominate me, Eddie."

"Shit, Stevie," Eddie breaths out, eyes wide as he takes in what he just heard. His body has an immediate reaction, chest heating up and waves of arousal coursing through him. "You have no idea what you do to me, do you?"

"Maybe a little," Steve says with a smirk, some of his usual confidence starting to return. "So you'll do it?"

He wants to start yesterday. "Of course, Steve," Eddie begins, tugging on Steve's hands to lead him into the bedroom. Eddie sits down on the bed, patting the spot next to him for Steve to sit too. "But with something like this, we gotta lay out some rules, okay? And you have to promise me you'll listen and follow them. There's no being a hero here, you understand?"

Brief nightmares of Steve ignoring safewords to seem strong ran unbidden through Eddie's mind, making him shake his head a little as if to physically dislodge them.

"Rules. I can do rules," Steve answers. "Like what? That I gotta stay naked around you, can't look you in the eyes? Call you Sir?"

The words force out a startled laugh from Eddie, who immediately has to shift in his seat at the image of Steve kneeling prettily in the bedroom waiting for him to come home. "Easy, baby," Eddie manages to get out, "We can't rush these things. We'll start off easy."

"Easy," Steve repeats, as though he were testing out the word on his mouth.

"You have to tell me if you like or don't like something," Eddie tells him, reaching out with thumb and forefinger to hold onto Steve's chin. He sees the reaction immediately—Steve's pupils widen as a sharp little exhale sounds from his parted lips. "I don't want to keep doing anything you're not enjoying, got it?"

Steve nods. "I need words, Steve. That's rule number one, if you can't answer me, I'm stopping."

"Tell you if I don't like something. Answer you when you ask me something. Got it."

"You're already doing so good, Stevie," Eddie coos, smirking at the shaky breath Steve lets out at that. "This is all about communication, okay? We'll have to talk more later about the details, but for now if you want to dip your toes in..."

"Yes, yes please," Steve rushes to say, nodding as well as he can with Eddie's grip on his chin. "Please, Eddie."

"Okay, okay, sweet boy," Eddie says, chuckling at his enthusiasm, "I've got you."

Normally when they kiss, there's a little fight for dominance. Now, when Eddie kisses Steve he lets him, moaning as Eddie playfully nips his lower lip. It's only when Steve reaches out for Eddie's waist that he stops, keeping that firm hold on Steve's chin and pulling back enough to look him in the eyes.

"Who said you could touch me, Stevie?" Eddie asks, his voice a little harder than before, rougher.

"I—" Steve licks over his reddened lips, letting out a little keening noise that goes straight to Eddie's dick. "Eddie, please. Wanna touch you."

"Nuh uh, Stevie," Eddie laughs with just the right amount of condescension to make Steve pout. "Who's in charge tonight?"

"You are," Steve says, eyes looking down enough to conceal them from Eddie.

"Let's try that again, princess," Eddie says, tapping Steve's chin until he gets the man's full focus again. How had Eddie gone this long without seeing Steve like this, already nearly ready to melt with pleasure before they'd really done anything? "You can be a good boy for me, right, Stevie? I know you can, so focus real hard for me. Who's in charge tonight?"

Steve's eyes never waver from his own, his voice strong as he answers, "You're in charge, Eddie. I'm yours."

"Yes you are." Eddie grins, reaching out to swipe his hand through Steve's hair. Steve leans into the contact, a little noise falling from his lips that Eddie tucks away for later. "You're all mine tonight, Stevie. So why don't you keep being good and take your shirt off, come keep my lap warm."

Steve, for all his credit, moves quickly. He practically rips off his t-shirt, tossing it somewhere into the chaos of their bedroom. He's slower to climb into Eddie's lap, barely hovering until Eddie grabs his hips and rolls him forward until their clothes cocks brush. Steve's unable to stop the groan that he lets out, head tipping back a little from the sensation.

"Good boy, Stevie," Eddie tells him, reaching up with one hand to idly brush his fingers over one of Steve's nipples. When Steve starts to squirm in his lap, Eddie lightly pinches it until Steve keens, bucking his hips into Eddie's. "Here's what we're going to do. Paying attention?"

"Yes, Eddie." Steve is gorgeous like this, already looking fucked out, hazel eyes staring at Eddie like they're the only people who exist in the world.

"Doing okay?"

"Yes, Eddie."

"Alright. We're going to play a little game. You were a varsity athlete, you love games, don't you, princess," Eddie teases, unable to help the urge to pinch Steve's nipple again just to hear that whine again.

"Eddie," Steve groans, hands starting to grab at Eddie's arms but hovering in the air when he realizes he can't touch.

"Oh, what a good boy you are," Eddie croons, reaching out for Steve's hands. He pulls them behind Steve's bare back, crisscrossing them just at the butt of his jeans. He holds on just tight enough that Steve couldn't easily escape his hold, an improved version of cuffs. "Just for that I'll make it a little easier on you."

"I want to make you feel good, Stevie," Eddie tells him, smirking at the excited nod Steve gives in response. "Not so fast, sweet boy. You have to tell me when you think you're getting close to cumming, okay? Think you can do that for me?"

Steve nods again.

"Words, baby," Eddie reminds him.

"Yes, fuck, yes please Eddie just," Steve tries to get out, practically moaning the words out. "Please."

Eddie can't wait anymore. He starts to rock them at their hips, pulling with their hands so their cocks slide together through their jeans. It's immediate shockwaves of pleasure, and normally Eddie would pick up the pace but he wants to tease Steve a little, see how worked up he can make him. So for now, he keeps them at an even, casual rhythm.

"Eddie," Steve moans out, hands tugging at Eddie's hold on them before his head tips all the way back, exposing his neck to Eddie.

"You're doing so good for me, princess," Eddie tells him, letting out his own groan of arousal. It still feels like a dream, getting to see Steve fall apart under his hands. He's the only one who gets to see Steve Harrington like this—blissed out and doe eyes swimming with tears from the pleasure. "Are you close, Stevie? How're you feeling?"

"Good, so good, Eddie," Steve moans out, tilting his head forward so their foreheads nearly brush when Eddie rocks them. "Please, I'm gonna, I need to—"

"I know, baby, I know," Eddie tells him gently while gripping Steve's hands tighter, pulling them just a littler further apart as if to restrain him more, "I've got you, Stevie, you're doing so good for me."

"Eddie," Steve cries out, hips stuttering a little as he tries to speed up the pace, tries to dig in a little harder to get more stimulation. "Please! You're teasing me."

"That's kind of the idea, sweetheart," Eddie chuckles, though obliges him and presses their hips together harder. "C'mon, Stevie. Cum for me, I know you can do it. Be my good boy."

Steve lets out a little cry at that, rolling his hips. His head leans forward, their foreheads pressed together. Under any other circumstances, Eddie might've teased him for the sweat matting down his hair, but now the thought only pushes Eddie closer to the edge.

Eddie feels the moment Steve tips over the edge himself, his soft panting turning into the hottest fucking wail Eddie's ever heard as his hips stutter, pressing against Eddie. "Fuck, Eddie," he gasps out, head lowering so he can hide it in Eddie's neck, "Fuck."

The moment Steve's body relaxes against him, Eddie releases Steve's hands. He reaches up, one arm wrapped around Steve's back and the other coming up to brush through his hair. The best goddamn hair Eddie's ever seen, though he'd never admit it to the man.

"You did so good for me, baby," Eddie tells him, "You're so good. My good boy, Stevie. Why don't we get you out of those jeans, okay?"

"Wait," Steve gasps, leaning back with wild eyes, like he'd suddenly forgotten something. "You didn't—"

"Don't need to, Stevie, seeing you like this is good enough for me tonight," Eddie promises, cradling the side of Steve's face with his hand. He's sure he could coo with how sweetly Steve leans into the touch, the other man's eyes fluttering closed and a small smile pulling his lips. "Just wanna take care of you tonight, I promise."

And he does. He carries Steve to the little bathroom, holding him up in the shower so they can clean up. Steve doesn't say much, but Eddie does. He keeps talking to him, telling him how good Steve had done and how happy tonight had made him. It's only until they're wrapped up in comfy clothes cuddling in bed that Steve talks again. Eddie's body is pressed close to Steve's back, arms wrapped tightly around him in a close hug. Eddie's sure neither of them have ever felt so safe.

"Did you really like it?" Steve whispers, fingers drawing little patterns into Eddie's arm. Sometimes he likes to trace Eddie's tattoos, fascinated with the ink sunken deep in his skin.

"Did I really like it," Eddie repeats with a playful scoff. "Steve, you amaze me every day and this was no exception. That was incredible."

"Okay, good," Steve breaths out, as though that could ever be a real worry. "I liked it too. Can you tie up my hands next time?"

"Fuck, Stevie," Eddie nearly groans, shaking his head against the picture that sends to his mind. "Absolutely, always. We'll talk about it tomorrow, lay out some more ground rules. There's more I have to tell you about all this, but yes, fuck yes."

Eddie falls asleep that night wondering how he got quite so lucky to have found someone as incredible as Steve. And Steve, well, he's wondering the same thing about his own luck.

--

TAGLIST: @alessiamargaux @minispice-1 @shadetea @emily19990 @alexxavicry @raven2008 @whoringrove @strangerleaves @blackpanzy @goodproofingwater @greetings-and-salutations @doralovesit @kerlypride @singmeyoursimpsong @im-sam-fucking-winchester @itch-my-b0nez @largechaos

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#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #steddie smut #dom!eddie munson #sub!steve harrington #steddie ficlet #steddie headcanon #steve x eddie #jay writes in theory #afterdark #this is entirely unedited i'm not sorry about it

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

#all the care guide says is 'biomass' #monster prom #asks #vanillabeenflower #this is. so long i am so sorry. #and its still not my entire thoughts because i have so many thoughts #this is an unedited ramble tbh and im very sorry for that #i have more complaints like #how fucking snide and condescending the narration is to its own characters #which it already had but gets even worse in the later games #which is why despite loving aaravi i dont want to play moncamp at all #where a character says they like something or feel something and the narration has to be so. sarcastic about it? #like how i mentioned about how it feels like how its looking down on them as people #instead of whats probably the intended read which is #more jokingly calling them dumb in an affectionate way like how you might do with friends #and ofc theres the whole miranda rant #i hate what theyve done with the merkingdom and i HATE adrien as a concept i wont lie #just. cool. this female character is too stupid to count as a lore character. we obviously need a MALE character to fill in instead #we cant just have miranda talk about this or center any of the other female characters #and how they feel about this and whats going on for them #no we need to make up a new man to talk to instead #im. im still really bitter about it i wont lie. #like i said i could go on and get way more specific about it #i just feel like any and all emotional weight to this has died and the characters are more and more obviously actors on a stage #for your own self gratification rather than their own people living their own lives #this is so bitter and i really shouldnt put this in the main tag #i am so sorry everyone who will see my rant. but my peace must be made. #dont worry im already asking myself if im just making all this shit up myself #what if some of us liked that the characters were so mean to the player and had no qualms about aggressively rejecting us #because it gave some illusion of them being able to make their own choices and decisions in what they wanted

[spacedustmantis]

pretty arch at the local ruin

rai @gunpowder-tim inspired me to do a tiny bit of photography again. more to come

#hashtag geoguesser guy dni #these are also entirely unedited #i have no skills whatsoever in post production #buggy thoughts

[brigidandair]

So, I saw Damsel today...

**Spoilers and complete plot for the movie Damsel will be all over this post, so don't read if you care about spoilers. Also, this is based on one watch only, so if some timeline details are very slightly wrong, that is why, though the important parts I'll be discussing are not contingent on these details.**

I'm not usually one to closely review a movie, but this one left me with a lot of thoughts that kind of sum up a lot of my feelings about big budget movies in the past decade, so here I go.

First off, I did like Damsel. I enjoyed watching it. It was gorgeous to look at, and Millie Bobby Brown did a fantastic job with the role and script she was given. However, I was left feeling like there was something very important about the whole experience missing, and it took me a few moments to really put my finger on it afterwards. The plot was fine, if a bit predictable, and I did appreciate the focus on Elodie as a protagonist. I loved that the dragon was given a plausable reason to want to devour/kill princesses, and that the dragon wasn't slain at the end, even though the opportunity was presented. And oh my goodness, the costuming department did a phenomenal job.

What I want to do here is give a rundown of the plot, and to then give my thoughts, so if you've seen the movie and don't care for a rehash you can skip to the next set of dashes.

--------

So, basic plot: The film opens on a scene of a king and his entourage of knights are entering a sinister cave, where there dwells a fearsome dragon. The king declares that they will defeat the dragon, and his knights charge, but are immediately melted by the dragon's fire, leaving only the king. The king drives his sword into the ground, and falls to his knees, and the scene cuts away before we see what happens next.

Centuries later, Princess Elodie and her little sister Floria live in a kingdom that is beset with hardship. They are low on money and food, and their people are facing a hard winter. So when the king is contacted by the royal family of the kingdom of Aurea--a kingdom they had never heard of, but that seems to be very wealthy--with the proposal that Elodie marry the Aurean prince, the family immediately travels to Aurea to finalize agreements. Amongst the traveling party are Elodie, Floria, their queen stepmother, and the king.

Upon arrival in Aurea, Elodie is introduced to prince Henry, while the kings meet alone. However, when the king emerges from the negotiation chamber, his wife immediately notices that he seems upset and deeply disturbed, though he assures her that everything is in good order, the deal has been made, and their kingdom will soon have more gold than he ever dreamed of as compensation for their daughter's marriage to the prince.

The stepmother queen, sensing something is wrong, goes to Elodie and tells her not to marry the prince, but she has resigned herself to helping her people, even if it means marriage to a man she does not know. That night, she steps out ont her balcony and sees another tower, with another young woman doing the same, before the young woman's maid calls her back inside.

The next day, Elodie is married to prince Henry, and is told of a ritual that is performed after weddings up on a nearby mountain, that honors the trials of their ancestors. They travel up to the mountain, where Elodie is told of the story we witnessed at the opening of the film. When the ancestors of the Aurean people arrived on their island, it was inhabited already by a dragon, who set upon them, raining destruction for the insult of invading its land. Though the king was unable to slay the beast, he was able to broker an agreement. His people would be left alone if he were willing to sacrifice his three daughters to the dragon. So now, whenever a new royal heir is married, they make the trip up to the dragon's mountain, over the chasm that leads to its lair, to commemorate the sacrifice of that original king.

The queen motions to Henry, who then slices his palm, and once Elodie has done the same, they mingle their blood, symbolizing that their people have now become of one blood and line. The prince tells Elodie that, at this point, he is to carry her back across the chasm, and that she should close her eyes. But halfway across, he whispers that he is sorry, and then he throws her over the edge, down into the depths of the dragon's caves.

Elodie survives relatively unharmed, her fall having been broken by many roots and branches along the drop, but there seems to be no way out. Very shortly thereafter, she has her first encounter with the dragon itself, who epresses delight at the thought of getting to kill her, and Elodie is forced to run from the dragon's fire. She hits a dead end, and there she finds the body of the young woman she had seen the night before, half burned, and realizes that they were always ment to be sacrifices to the dragon. The dragon continues to taunt her, breathing more fire down the passage where she is trapped, but she notices a narrow hole in the cave wall that she manages to wedge herself through it, barely escaping and sustaining a severe burn on one leg. She rips part of her dress off, wrapping it around her wound, and continues.

From here, we get a lengthy series of scenes of Elodie navigating her way through the trecherous cave system, hounded at every turn by the dragon. She finds an area inhabited by bioluminescent slugs, which she gathers in another part of the dress that she tears off, to use as a lanter, and finally reaches a small cave where a princess before her has written on the wall that this place is safe, and that the dragon cannot reach there. Written on the walls are the names of dozens of other princesses that, over the centuries, have reached this cave before inevitably being caught and killed by the dragon. Next to the names is a rough map of the cave system, showing Elodie a passage marked with a sun, which she assumes is the way out. She takes time to rest here, falling asleep, but when she wakes up she finds her burned leg covered in the bioluminescent slugs. She tears them away in disgust, but notices that anywhere a slug has been, her wound has been healed. Her determination renewed, she continues.

Elodie follows the directions of the map, making her way to the presumed exit, but finds that there is no way down the sheer rock face. As some riders go by she screames to them for help, but the dragon appears and nearly kills her, forcing her to retreat back into the caves. In short order, she ends up in the cave we saw in the opening sequence, and Elodie finds a three broken dragon eggs, with the desicated corpses of the baby dragons that once inhabited them still in the debris. The scene cuts back to that opening sequence, showing us that before encountering the dragon herself, the king and his knights murdered the dragonlings as they hatched.

Elodie realizes that it was the king who had originally attacked the dragon, killing her only children, not that the dragon had been a tyrant. The only reason she had demanded three daughters was in recompense for the wrong that had been done to her. The deal that had actually been struck was that the humans could only be allowed to survive if, every generation, they continued to pay the same price so as to never stop feeling the pain of losing their children. The kingdom, however, has figured out a loophole. By taking princesses from other countries, they could simply mingle blood, fooling the dragon into thinking that the princesses were actual descendents of their line instead of girls that they only knew long enough to technically become part of their family before being sacrificed.

However, at this point, Elodie's father, having been overwhelmed guilt for selling his daughter, arrives at the caves to save her. Before he finds Elodie, the dragon shows up, killing the king's men and mortally wounding the king himself. The dragon resumes her search, and Elodie is given the time to bid farewell to her father as he dies, and he is given the opportunity to ask her for forgiveness, and to tell her to use the rope that they had used to enter the cave to escape. He tells her that Floria and her stepmother have a ship and are waiting for her. So Elodie forgives her father, and follows his direction, barely escaping as the dragon persues.

When the dragon realizes that Elodie has escaped, she begins to raze the mountainside, creating an inferno that is visible from the Aurean castle. The queen of Aurea sees the destruction, and takes action, going to the ship where Floria and the stepmother are waiting. She has her men kidnap Floria, cutting her son's hand and throwing her into the chasm in Elodie's place. When Elodie finally meets up with her stepmother and learns of Floria's capture, she immediately resolves to retrieve her sister, and she follows the same footsteps that she had taken before, returning to the dragon's main chamber.

The dragon, still set on getting Elodie herself and able to smell that Floria is of the same family as Elodie, sets Floria up as bait for Elodie, but Elodie sets up a distraction, drawing the dragon away. She goes to Floria, who has been injured by her fall into the chasm, and before they can get away, the dragon returns. Elodie takes up the sword her father had dropped before, and manages to position herself directly by the dragon's eye, determined to tell the dragon of how they have both been lied to. The dragon, however, does not believe her, and tey have a battle, where Elodie uses her ingenuity to trick the dragon into severely injuring herself with her own fire. As the dragon lay wounded on the ground, Elodie shows her the cut on her hand, and tells her that the dragon has only been perpetuating the violence that had so hurt her before, killing innocent daughters instead of exacting the revenge she had sought. The dragon tells her to end it, then, but Elodie refuses, instead retrieving some of the bioluminescent slugs and placing them on the dragon's wounds to heal her.

The scene shifts to another wedding, where the third and final princess is marrying the prince, unknowingly destined to become the last sacrifice. As the ceremony nears its end, Elodie, still in the rags of her own wedding dress, walks in. She gives a speech to those present, and tells the last princess to take her family and go. The queen declares that they are not afraid of Elodie, and she says that it isn't her they should be afraid of, right before the dragon arrives, killing the royal family and razing the castle to the ground.

In the aftermath, Elodie's stepmother is given rule of their kingdom, which now has all of the resources that Aurea once owned, and Elodie sails off on a ship, with the dragon flying beside her.

The End.

--------

So, what was wrong with this film? Plot-wise, nothing that would ruin it for me. It was a good story, and, like I said before, lots of fun to watch. But I was left feeling extremely empty. See, at its heart, this story was about the love and loss of children. The dragon was the last of its kind, left alone because of the unthinking cruelty of a king who viewed her as a beast, and cared not at all about the lives of her young. The dragon, though not innocent for all the dozens of lives she took over the centuries, was acting out of pain and loneliness, wishing only that that pain and loneliness be shared by those that inflicted it upon her. She was the one wronged, and the royal line of Aurea callously shunted their punishment off on the innocent and desperate. They did not deserve their prosperity, so the storyline had to lead to the breaking of that cycle, but the problem is that the film focused more on the retribution and that Elodie herself was badass than it did on any emotion.

And that's the big big thing. This movie left me empty because it was empty. Elodie was awesome, and she ended cycle of death, but we didn't know anything else about her. We get told she is clever, so that we don't question how her plans always end up working. We are told that she is capable, so that we don't question how she always manages to pull through. We are told that the prince is somewhat reluctant, but only barely, so that he doesn't seem too cartoonishly evil. We're not given enough to know the extent of his guilt, or enough to really know how complicit he is, or if it's really that his mother (who honestly is kinda cartoonishly evil) forcing the issue. It seems like we're supposed to kind of like him and feel bad that he doesn't want to kill these women, but it feels like it's only halfway suggesting the idea instead of developing aything. Elodie's stepmother is kind, but we are barely shown any of that, instead glossing over any real emotional connection in favor of action. She basically exists to give very heavyhanded foreshadowing, to tell Elodie when Floria is taken, and so they can say that Elodie doesn't have to be bound to royal duty after the death of her father, because there's someone else who can do it. And we're just told that Floria and Elodie are close. Floria seemingly exists solely as a plot device to make Elodie choose to face the dragon after her escape.

The glow slugs are a deus ex, somehow capable of healing life-threatening wounds on both humans and dragons in seconds, which seems to be just so they can pretend for a second that Elodie could really get hurt, but then have her in good enough shape to escape before her family leaves or the next princess is sacrificed. And also so that she can prove how badass she is by mortally wounding the dragon and having it at her mercy, but still have it up in moments, ready to come toast the real bad guys.

And Elodie's character is, unfortunately, also stuck with this same shallowness. She's intended to subvert the "damsel in distress" trope, and she kinda does...except that there are numerous times she is saved by pure luck, and the plotline of her having to go save Floria is just straight up doing the trope, just with a princess saving the damsel instead of a prince. I didn't even catch the names of the queen or king of Aurea, the prince's name (which is as bland as he is) is only spoken a couple of times, and the stepmother, who is arguably one of the more major characters aside from Elodie and the dragon, gets about 3 minutes of screentime and doesn't have a name that I can recall. Neither does the dragon, for that matter, though at least we get to see her more than the stepmother.

This is a story stripped down to its bare bones, and it's only as much of a huge shame as it is because there was real potential. I can't help but imagine how much better it could have been if given even another 45 minutes to help us understand and connect to our characters. I would have loved a real conversation with the dragon, getting to really feel her pain and experience the true cathartic acceptance and regret for what was done to her and what she did in response, instead of cutting away to the last wedding. I would have loved to see the dragon show any dimension of character other than anger and cruelty. I would have loved to see the prince wrestle with himself, or try to push back at all, or see the true struggle that Elodie's father experienced before he reached the conclusion that he'd made a mistake and needed to go save his daughter. Why did the ancestor king of Aurea choose to kill the dragon in the first place? It's implied by the end that the dragon was attacked unprovoked, but we don't really know. Was the dragon actually a hostile force that made them want to kill her, or was she simply there and the king wanted to eliminate a potential threat? Did no other princess ever try to talk to the dragon, espcially when they had a safe cave they could shout from, and the dragon conveniently seems to know when to immediately murder someone or let them speak for the plot? Why would the dragon continue to harbor such strong feelings for so long, and think she was truly achieving justice and exacting revenge when the humans were obviously thriving so?

And what do they plan to do from here? We know Elodie wants to travel and see the world, because she (once again) told us so, but is she doing that? And what of the dragon? We're told that she is the last of her kind, but how do we know there aren't any more elsewhere in the world? Is every gleeful murder of an innocent girl at her whim just forgiven and forgotten because she wasn't killing who she thought she was, and now centuries of hatred and bias has evaporated entirely, making her a friend of humankind? The ending could have been made better in seconds, should we have been given any kind of closure for either Elodie or the dragon in any way at all. Perhaps they're going off together to explore the world, to find out for sure if the dragon is truly alone or if there are more of her kind out there. Perhaps the dragon really does know, definitively, that she's the last, and so has decided to accompany the princess that ended the tragic cycle that defined her for so long, to keep her safe as she lives life the way she always wanted. Maybe the dragon has vowed to atone for her cruelty towards humans by going with Elodie, assisting the different peoples they encounter in their travels. Hell, even if a single narrated line was given that told us "and so they went on many adventures, and lived their lives to their fullest" it would be unsatisfying, but not as unsatisfying as the actual ending.

It just...it could have easily been vastly improved in almost every emotional sense. Caring about our characters, their motivations, their struggles, and the emotional heart of grief and loss could have made this a deeply moving film, but the focus was instead placed on the princess saving herself. And I get the desire to do so, the desire to subvert that trope, but a story can't be a full, satisfying arc with just that. It's the same problem we keep seeing with big budget companies and their attempts to cash in on social issues. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for any progress, even if it is largely a soulless cash grab, because any progress, however small it may be, is still heading towards an eventual shift in social consciousness, and thus permanent change. But this film wanted to get the brownie points for having a badass princess who doesn't need a prince to save her, and so they ONLY cared about that. It wanted to show off its budget and CGI, and "subvert" the trope, but it missed everything about why women might want a capable subversion of these longstanding, sexist tropes.

A capable woman isn't solely defined by the fact that she is capable. The point isn't to say "I can do anything a man can," but that's what this film makes it out to be. Elodie, and the entire story itself, is stripped of literally anything but what it needs to be to keep the plot moving. The story keeps saying it's about Elodie, and how she overcomes the obstacles in her way, but at the exact same time, it doesn't care about her at all. It cares about appearing to care about her story, and it's so frustrating to see all that potential wasted on such soullessness. It's like having every piece of a puzzle, but the filmmakers only bothered to put together the edge pieces, threw the rest in the garbage, and called that good enough. So instead of a beautiful, satisfying picture, we're left knowing that the rest of the pieces exist, but that they'll never be put in their rightful places, and that the beauty it could have communicated has been wasted.

So yeah, I liked this movie, at least in that I enjoyed the concept and the actual watching of it to a certain extent, but I wanted to love this movie. I hate how good it could have been, and that if it were given the love and care it needed, it could have been made into so much more.

At the end of everything, a story isn't just a spectacle. It's sharing and exploring our lives, ideas, and humanity through imagination and creativity. The beauty of fantasy is imagining what people would do when put into extraordinary situations, or at least imagining the extent of ourselves we wish we could be. A story like this one can be fun once in a while, but a truly good story, one that you remember and carry with you, usually remains because it resonates with you. And it just really sucks that Damsel denies its characters of their emotional cores, because when you eliminate the emotion of a story, the viewers are denied a connection to the humanity that makes that story worth telling.

#damsel netflix #damsel #this was entirely unplanned and unedited #and basically just stream of thought to sort out why i feel the way i do about this movie #so feel free to ignore it #not kpop #review-y brigid

[the-unfortunate-ly]

#this one is unedited from 2018 #i went to the mall with one of my friends at the time #and we just sat on the curb behind the mall waiting for our ride #and the entire sky was pink #so this one means a lot to me #my photography #midwestern gothic #american gothic #dreamcore #liminalcore #liminal space #oddcore #weirdcore #liminal photography #nostalgiacore #nostalgic #vintage #midwestern emo #surrealcore #midwest gothic #rural america #film photography #landscape #southern gothic #agoraphobia #sunset #sunrise #skyscape #clouds

[duahauuoplanh]

This particular choreography of 2PM's "Again and Again" is just ahead of its time.

#I've been dying for this whole unedited angle of this particular choreography my entire youth #the official ones before were just so over-transitioning edited #srl only this angle can do this brilliant choreography justice #and the beat of this part too #omg such a song #soo happy that I got this 2023 ver of it #one of the reasons I'm so in love with this boyband is their fabulous amazing incredible choreography of their songs #again and again #Junho #Nichkhun #Taecyeon #Wooyoung #Chansung #Jun K #Lee Junho #What time is it? #2PM #My time is always 2PM #I put my heart into every gifset I’ve made

[bambistan]

CW: Suicide attempt/suicidal thoughts.

James was tired. He was more than tired. He was exhausted. He had no energy, and everything seemed absolutely meaningless. He really tried to just smile and be "happy," but he couldn't. Not this time.

As he made his way up the steps of the astronomy tower, he started having second thoughts, but then he caught a glimpse of a figure standing on the ledge and he just had to go on.

The person didn't notice him. They were anxiously shifting their weight on their feet and looking at the seemingly endless drop off the tower.

James didn't know what to do. He knew he should say something, but what? What if he accidentally spooked them and they fell? He'd never forgive himself and probably throw himself off right after them.

"What are you doing?" He settled for, but still not his favourite choice.

The figure, whose face was still covered in darkness, turned around quickly. They didn't say anything, just stared.

"You should probably get down from there," He says, "You could fall."

"Well spotted," the boy said in a snarky tone, yet he carried such sadness in his voice. Still, he doesn't get down.

"Alright then," James mutters as he climbs up next to him on the ledge.

"What are you doing?" The boy says hurriedly, sounding anxious.

"I thought we were gonna jump together?" James replies like it was obvious.

He reaches his hand out and grabs the other boys hand. It's small and his fingers are thin with somewhat long nails.

"Are you mad?" The boy almost shouts, yanking his hand away and jumping down to the safety of the towers floor.

He turns around, and that's when James finds out who it is. The stars illuminate his face, his porcelain skin almost glowing in the moonlight.

"Regulus," He breathes, surprised yet not at the same time .

James jumps down as well and notes the look of realisation on Regulus' face.

"Potter," Regulus says like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't have. Which is true.

James stays silent for a minute. Searching his brain for a sentence that won't make the young boy angry or walk away.

"Do you... Do you want to talk about it?" He asks, internally praying that he doesn't get slapped. It would only affect his mood more, although at this moment, James didn't feel anything apart from the desire to help and protect Regulus.

Regulus looked offended, then confused, and then sad again. He sighed and looked at his feet, his shoulders slumped and cheeks wet with tears even though his eyes were dry.

"I don't know," he said, then cried because of how frustrating it all was. He wasn't supposed to get caught. He was supposed to jump and no one was supposed to know.

James stepped closer hesitantly. When the boy didn't back away, he wrapped his arms around him tightly. He felt the boys body relax then tense up again as it shook from his sobs.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," He repeated into James' chest, "Everyone expects me to be perfect, to be the heir. They don't care what I want, they don't love me, everybody leaves me. I'm just so tired. I want it to stop, I need everything to stop. I just -" He cried harder and James tightened his grip.

"It's okay," he whispered into Regulus' hair, feeling his pain as though it transferred to him from his touch. "I've got you."

Regulus looked up at James and then cried even harder, burying his head back into his chest.

After a few more minutes of James whispering calming things into his ear, Regulus stopped crying. He didn't leave James' arms, though, and James didn't mind, so he just let him lay there anyways.

Regulus turned and looked up at him, "Would you really have jumped with me?" He questions.

"Nah, I wouldn't have let you jump in the first place," he shrugs, and Regulus just nods.

"Why were you up here anyways?" Regulus presses, and James breathes in deeply.

"Honestly?" Regulus hums. "I was going to do what you were doing."

Regulus quickly gets up and looks him in the eyes. James realises how much he misses the warmth.

"What? Why? You're, you're perfect Potter. You- I don't understand," He blurts out all at once.

James let's out a sad laugh, "I wish."

He pulls Regulus back in, and he doesn't object, which makes James a little bit happier.

"I'm fine," he starts, "I just get I these moods sometimes, it's hard to explain."

"Well, I suppose when you're publicly one of the most happiest people ever, then it only makes sense that privately you're the saddest," Regulus says matter-of-factly. James just hums and agrees.

"You can talk to me, you know? Whenever you want, I don't care," James says, pressing his nose into Regulus' hair and inhaling softly. He smells of lavender and milk.

Regulus doesn't say anything at first, and James fears that he's scared the boy away by trying to help, that is until he gently nods his head and whisper an "okay".

"You can tall to me too," Regulus states, and even if it's out of obligation, James is happy.

"So it's settled," James says, "we meet here when one of us has something on our minds."

"Yeah, okay."

And they did just that. Any time one or the other had something they needed to talk about, they would do so late at night in the astronomy tower in the arms of the other.

For months, this had been going on, and soon, James started to realise how strongly he felt for the other boy. He wanted more than just to protect him, he wanted him.

#i belive like to believe this is how jegulus starts #normally id just have james talk reg down off the ledge but i just watched All the Bright Places again #this is entirely unedited and written at 2am #sorry #dont ask why i always refer to regulus as “the boy” #i just do #regulus black #james potter #jegulus

[marzipanandminutiae]

That ridiculous esthetician with the fillers on TikTok reminds me of the time a photographer tried, unasked, to edit “dark undereye circles” out of my senior class photo

He edited out my lower eyelid definition. Because I don’t have undereye circles; I just have deep-set eyes. The final pics made me look like an anime character with a completely flat face below my lower lashes

#personal #photo doctoring #we ended up buying the entirely unedited versions of the pictures instead

[factorialsotherfandoms]

So um yesterday's tazercraft stream happened and I caught up mostly with other people's notes and now... have this I guess. I hesitate to call it a fic, but its definitely fictional prose imagining the night after Pac's return with the two of them in Chume Labs.

Usual disclaimer of I only speak English with any fluency and so characterisation is likely to be abysmal. I just... also love these two guys and I'm doing my best to make them happy. But it doesn't seem very realistic, so I'll make Mike cry instead.

Pac will not wake up screaming, he never does. Mike had when Pac was taken from him - when Walter Bob was taken too, and each and every time he remembers the cells they have been held in. Pac, though, Pac was the strong one, the one who could handle it, who could just manage whatever situation was thrown at them - who acted like everything was okay so he could look after Mike.

No more.

Now Mike is the one sat at Pac's bedside, holding his hand even as he sleeps. Pac seems frozen in time, perfectly still even with the tension running through him. His muscles are so tight that even his back shakes with the tension, clearly stuck in a nightmare despite how quiet he is.

And Mike... Mike does not know what to do.

He thought he was a protector, but he has failed to protect in every way that matters. It had always been the two of them - Mike would shield Pac as they fought the world, and Pac would be there to patch up his wounds. But then they were taken, and then their friend was taken, and then Pac was taken leaving Mike alone and now-

If there was something to destroy it would be easier, Mike thinks.

Destroying the Federation will not be easy, and whatever he has seen in his time, alone in their grasp, Pac does not even think it possible any more; something in Pac has been broken, or perhaps stolen, and Mike can only hope that it is something that, despite his clumsy attempts to soothe, will heal.

Impossible is not a word that should be found in Pac's vocabulary, and yet...

There it is.

Mike has never been good at picking up the pieces, not when building, and certainly not of a person. But, but if Pac has broken, has slipped beneath the water, then Mike will not give in until either he is dead, or until he has Pac in his arms, fully this time around. If Pac has learnt the word impossible then Mike will forget it, and bludgeon head first into a world trying to destroy them, tearing it piece by piece until they are all safe once again.

Pac is his friend, and Mike is Pac's friend, and they mean everything to one another.

So, when he catches Pac's eyes, half-lidded, barely open, Mike will reach slowly out, and brush the hair from his eyes. He will tell him he is safe, that Mike will protect him, that nothing will be allowed to touch him again. Perhaps Mike will fail, but he will get back up and scream and try again, and do everything Pac can't until his wounds have healed and they move together again.

He will be scared when Pac does not respond beyond a slow blink, hesitate only a little before squeezing his hands. He will help Pac sit up, fold his hands around a water glass, and keep those hands steady as his friend drinks.

He will ask Pac if he is okay, and receive only a slight bowing of his head in return.

Fear will grip him tighter - it has not left yet, it had never gone - but he will pull Pac against his chest, hold him close, clutch him closer as he tries to outsqueeze the fear.

Pac will turn his face into Mike's chest, and wrap his fingers in his shirt, and say nothing as Mike makes promises of them being together, of them being home, of having trapped the area around the beds to hell and high heaven and that, even if something can make it past, it will not be quiet enough to escape Mike's notice.

Mike will hold him and comfort him and, when the words run out with Pac still silent but now trembling against him, he will let himself sob, and he will cry for the both of them.

#qsmp mike #qsmp pac #qsmp tazercraft #qsmp fanfic #fanfic #qsmp #angst #hurt/comfort #only a little comfort though #present tense #future tense #unedited #I literally just typed out my stream of consciousness ok? #someone please wrap both of them in a blanket and give them hot chocolate #and hugs #I'd side eye fit but I think he'd be just as out his depth here as mike if not moreso #mike seems like the sort to if he thought they were in danger trap the entire labs #also that note in the book i don't like that much to at all #i guess we'll find out how it goes #(its been a while since I caught anyone's streams at time at all I've been trying to actually sleep)