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chosos-mascara · 1 year

Text

summer

𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙭 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 - you and eren don't want to start college as virgins.

𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 - smoking, make-out, dry humping, PiV, virginity loss, smut with a story

minors + ageless dni 5k words

Twelve months ago, the last exam had taken place. The day a weight was lifted graciously from the shoulders of the students around you, a day freedom was cast. No longer would you waste nights cramming, or evenings exhausted on subjects you'd cared little about, when they'd have been better spent with friends. This, was where life would begin. Adulthood was on the horizon, so close you could taste it.

A job, good money, no more worries over assessment, homework, or extra-curricular activities (at least, for a little while). A gap year of dreams you were taking alongside your best friend, one you'd meticulously planned with one another, details confirmed as if already experienced. The pair of you had celebrated, a parade of final good-byes to friends leaving for university, drinks to commemorate the past years of your life, and the future yet to participate within. You'd spoken with them too, of the ideologies, the great expectations of the next three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, leaving behind deadlines for nights out, visualizing flashing lights and bass boosted music through intoxication. This was the start of your twenties, after all.

But sometimes, through the consumption of media, we glorify things, scenes from movies blurred with that of real life. Sadly, these experiences do not occur for the average person. Eren and yourself, in particular, working shifts and going home to sleep, were a part of that majority.

Working was dull and unfulfilling, draining energy from you as if you'd been a mere battery in need of a recharge following an eight-hour shift, too tired to do much else. The year of greatness had come and gone, and nothing had changed other than the cycle of four seasons, of which you'd worked on auto-pilot for minimum wage. A soulless stacking of shelves.

The prospect of working along-side your best friend had been appealing in concept, though in actuality it had consisted of working on opposite ends of the store, only able to fit in a mediocre glance while passing one another. On occasion, the pair of you would be rewarded with a break spent in the other's presence. Though as time had progressed, it had become another monotonous part of the day, because it was another half-hour spent in the confides of the workplace, around colleagues twice your age with half the amount of wit, and motivation. More often than not, you'd worked alternating shifts all-together, and despite the fact you'd barely seen one another during working hours, those eight-hours were still harder to get through without him.

Armin was a three hour train journey, Mikasa a plane ride, and everyone else from school had been dotted throughout the country. Just as the pair of you had envisioned the gap year, your peers had plans for university too, intentions to return home once a month for catch-ups and drinks. These, much like your schemes, did not occur. It was more due to the fact they'd moved on with their lives - another rub in the face that the pair of you were still in the same place a year on.

Despite the lack of development surrounding your circumstances, Eren had changed. The differences had become more apparent, now - brown hair longer and tied into a messy bun, biceps peeking from the black uniform shirt had grown in size, as had he. The two of you frequented one another's homes, though the time would be spent playing games or watching movies. Conversations didn't happen too often, and wouldn't stray far from the topic of work. Though, you'd accepted the fact he wasn't a kid anymore, and most likely hadn't been interested in your babbles - not that he wasn't aware of every detail of your life anyway. You'd worked at the same place, lived a few doors down; your lives were practically carbon copies.

The last shift the pair of you would work at what had become an unremarkably repetitive part of life had passed, and you'd been relieved to part with the job. Every minute of the last stretch was one minute closer to the start of summer, the freedom of unemployment and transition back into student-life. A parallel you hadn't expected a year ago. Now, you walked side-by-side, just as you had on the last day of school.

Eren placed a cigarette to lips; a habit he'd picked up from his older brother's visits. Inhaling, amber burned inches from his face, the light dimming as he pulled the stick from his mouth to exhale a cloud of smoke. Late afternoon was turning to evening around you, but the sun was still warming on your skin, crickets singing in the patches of grass slotted between tree and pavement.

It was peaceful. The nostalgia of older times pottering back from school had followed you, simpler times that you'd shared with your friends. The first walk home from work had been so bizarre, turning the road without Mikasa and Armin trailing behind. This stroll home would be the last spent in his presence - Eren had a license now. He'd be driving the pair of you to university in a few months, though you questioned each vision that had come to your mind, because this year had let you down - who's to say upcoming ones wouldn't, too?

Closing on on your street, you'd peered over the familiar wooden door, chipped brick wall separating street from garden. Reaching a hand out, your fingers rested over the latch of the iron gate, paint peeling to reveal the orange of rust beneath. "See ya." A tired voice spoke, moving eyes from the tarmac beneath your shoes to meet his green irises, of which had been scanning over you in contemplation. A final puff of smoke left his lips while he'd flicked the butt behind him, leaving it to fall somewhere in the road. You waited for his good-bye, but as a few moments passed, you'd assumed a simple glance was all you were going to get.

"My parents are away tonight. Wanna stay?" Eren questioned, abruptly. Movements halted as he'd spoken, you turned from halfway down the stone path to look over your shoulder. It had been a while since the pair of you'd had a sleepover. Over the past few months, you'd spent no more than a few measly hours together before the other would return home for food or sleep. But, the glint in the glint in his eye was one you'd recognized from childhood - as if he'd asked you to come play for the first time again.

"Yeah, okay." You replied with indifference, though within your chest your heart had picked up pace, excitement coursing through fatigued bones as the prospect of old times wondered over you. You'd cursed yourself for hoping for anything more than the lousy gaming sessions you'd shared over the past month, but his expression had enlightened a glimmer within you that you couldn't shake.

Rushing inside to shower, you were focused on anything other than the water running over you, instead pondering over the evening ahead. Perhaps you'd find courage to ask him what you'd really wanted to, instead of shallow small-talk. Honesty shared between you, just like you'd used to be with one another.

Cramming clothes into a bag, a charger, a toothbrush, you deemed yourself ready, before long at his door. Hand raised, fist balled, knocking and waiting. Footsteps echoed through his hall, ones that brought a feeling into your stomach as you listened to him approaching you, lock turning. The old oak crept open, revealing your friend behind it, a loose fitted white t-shirt, relaxed black trousers, bare foot. "Hey." Greeting him, a smile on your face, bag slung over your shoulder.

Eren didn't reply, simply stepping back to allow you space to enter his home. You tread through, throwing your bag down in the usual spot, in the corner of the hall. "I got pizza." He stated, walking toward the kitchen. You followed him with your eyes as you'd taken off your shoes, finally trailing behind once they'd been placed neatly alongside his. Floorboards creaked beneath you while you'd passed through the narrow landing, through the unpainted door frame.

Two boxes, one open with a few slices missing, the other still folded shut, sat on the old stained table housed in the corner of the room. Opening the box had revealed a pizza you'd gotten many times before, one you'd considered a favourite. "You did good." You smiled, picking a piece up and taking a bite, glancing up to meet green eyes. He was leaning back against the table, arm folded over the other. He'd always worn a brooding look, one you used to pride yourself on reading, though with age you'd become less able to figure out what was going on inside of his head. "Not hard to remember the thing you always order." He commented, a bite being taken shortly after, an awkward silence airing between you disrupted by quiet chewing sounds. Once he'd finished the slice, he grabbed a remote, turning on the small TV that his mother had situated high on the wall, a source of entertainment in the small, dated kitchen for when she'd had to spend a few hours cooking a meal.

Memories of childhood with the Yeager family flooded through your thoughts, his mother's warming personality when you'd come in from the old outdoors, usually in tears after being picked on by her son. At first, yourself and the blonde had been closest, though with age you'd grown a backbone, no longer giving into Eren's teasing. Once this had occurred, the four of you got long well, a good balance between teasing and empathy, each part bringing their own qualities to mix within the group. Without them, the house had felt a little empty. You'd wondered how Eren had felt, losing what had been like a sister to him as she'd gone to study far from her adopted home.

Sounds of a game show had filled the space, replacing stale silence with soft chatter and laughter. You'd continued to eat, mind wondering while you were perched on the rickety chair, elbows on the table, eyes on the contestants. The brunette paced to the fridge, shoving the crust of a slice into his mouth as he pulled two cans from a shelf, placing them on the table before finally taking a seat - though over halfway through his meal.

"I can't believe we're done." You spoke through chewing, peeling your gaze from the small television to your friend, who'd been hunched over his own box. His eyes remained on the cardboard until he was done with his mouthful, finally flickering up to meet you after swallowing. "Thank fuck, couldn't stand that place." Eren spoke, bitterness raking through his voice as he'd recalled the past year of his life. He too had wished for better experiences, and was left with one of the worse years of his life. "It wasn't that bad." Disagreeing with him was something you'd often done, though as his stare hardened, you fought the urge to take back the words you'd spoken. "What're you talking about? Every day we were just hamsters on a wheel, just fulfilling meaningless tasks without question." The passion you'd heard him express many times before radiated through the words he'd spoken, brow furrowing as he'd looked over you in disgust.

You shrugged, looking down at the food in front of you once more, uncomfortable in the way he'd studied you. Although he was hard to read, his hatred was not. When Eren was angry, it was as apparent as the sky was blue. It had most likely been down to the fact his features had already been so cold, but when he was annoyed, the distaste ran through his expression.

"It was always temporary," You picked at the crusts you'd left in the box, prodding them as if to distract yourself from the male before you. "So, it didn't bother me." Voice timid, you surrendered your own argument, a weak defense as you'd wished upon the conversation coming to an end. "You back down too easy." He'd spoken the words under his breath, tearing his food with his teeth as his mouth was stuffed full. You chose not to fight back, maybe as young teenagers you would've bitten the bait, but now, you had little interest in debating with him. Though, this was most likely a positive, as Mrs Yeager wasn't here to come to your defence if her son kicked off at you.

She'd always been there, even when your parents hadn't been. She'd even housed Eren's brother despite him not being her own, and had been some what delinquent through his years. He encouraged the worst out of her son, but she supported him nonetheless. When you'd questioned her over the decision, she'd simply told you he'd needed a home, just as Mikasa had.

"Wanna smoke?" Eren asked, closing the now empty container before him, standing and brushing the crumby fingers down trouser legs. He wondered to the countertop, grabbing the carton and lighter he'd left there, glancing over to you as he made his way to the back door.

The sun was setting, you could see the amber glow through the gaps in the blinds, peering through to the garden. You stood, meeting him at the half-opened door, following through to sit on well-kept grass. It was always short, littered with daisies, bordered with stones and soil housing a few varieties of flowers. Nothing spectacular, but it'd had a homely feel. Another aspect of his house that had been unchanged since the day you'd first stepped foot within it.

The air was still warm on your sun-kissed skin, a faint hum of music playing a few doors down, most likely that of a garden party. There had been the scent of a barbecue too, one that had always reminded you of summer evenings like this. Eren lit his cigarette, tilting the box to you, allowing you to take one. You pulled one out, placing it between your lips, allowing him to lean toward you and bring the flame to kiss the end of the stick, innately sucking in. The familiar orange glow, a breath in and out.

"Still going to the same college?" You asked, though aware of the answer. He nodded, closing heavy eyes as he exhaled. "Can't get rid of me yet." Eren's voice was low, lids opening to let orbs wonder over the fence surrounding the small corner of the world you'd resided in, one he'd be able to recall blindfolded. You were sure you could, too.

"Do you think," You began with hesitance, watching a bee land a few feet in front of you, mingling in a buttercup. The insect collected a small amount of pollen, flying to the next flower. "-things will change?" The question left your lips, some worry within your voice, as you remained fixated upon the show before you, on the small creature conducting its way of life; fullfilling its purpose. With this, you'd wondered if you were satisfied within your objectives. Maybe everything would be simpler if the two of you had been born another species.

"Doubt it, they didn't after high-school, did they?" His reply was apethetic, and somewhat confusing. Things had changed, maybe he'd been oblivious to that, too caught up within his own mind to think about those surrounding him. "A lot has changed, Eren. Your sister moved countries, Armin has gone off to do some fancy degree-" You spouted, though the vent had been cut short by the slightly louder voice dominating the conversation.

"We haven't changed, though." He brought the cigarette to his lips once more, and as the tip illuminated his face, you'd realised how quickly the sun had set. It'd been minutes, but a curtain had still fallen over the garden, night nearing. The bee you'd peered over was now gone, most likely making its way back to the colony.

"Guess not." You replied, for the first time that evening you'd actually agreed with a statement. It had felt as if the pair of you had lagged behind your friends over the past year - they were all done with their first year of university, and yet, you were in the same place you'd been since high-school.

"Talking to anyone?" You asked between drags, the cigarette burning a little too close to your fingertips. The question made your chest tighten, anxiety rising as you'd awaited the response. You hadn't known why - he was free to see anyone he'd pleased, though deep within the confides of your brain had been a tinge of jealousy whenever you'd pictured him with another. Most likely a sisterly instinct, as you'd grown alongside him, though you'd been unable to deny your small crush on your childhood friend.

Eren never appeared to respond with his body language, only words. It made interactions with him a little stressful, as there had been no way in which one could predict what he'd say before the words were pulled from his chest. You'd simply had to await the response.

"Nah. You?" He replied, to which you'd shaken your head, finally parting with the burning paper between your fingers, flicking the nub to the other side of the garden. Sighing, your back hit the grass beneath you, gaze moving to the sky above. There was a deep blue painted overhead, a glow from the newly risen moon, stars dotting the canvas with a bright burn. The lawn was cooling over the skin on your back, arms situating themselves beneath your head, tickled with the nature under your skin. Eren mirrored your actions, the warmth of his body grazing yours as he laid beside you. He was longer than you, but he'd positioned his head to sit beside yours, to see what you'd seen.

"Do you feel like everyone's moving through life but us?" You inquired, tracing the small white glows to search for constellations - though you hadn't been too sure on what you were looking for. "Sometimes, yeah." Eren's voice was soothing, but you'd felt your stomach churn as he shifted beside you, a reminder of how close the pair of you had been laying. His tone was something you'd wished to hear more, longing to spend more time like this, alone with the world.

"Can I tell you something?" You'd been aware your continued questioning had probably held some annoyance to him, though within the moment, you'd felt at ease. The dynamic between the pair of you had complimented one another; you would talk, and he would listen. Others may assume his lack of dialogue had been due to disinterest, though you'd understood it was simply because he'd had little to say.

"Go ahead." He spoke, a sigh escaping his lips as you opened yours, curving them into an embarrassed smile as you spoke; "I'm still a virgin." Admitting your secret had left a tense strain over your mood, a small giggle erupting from the silence as if to aid the strain. The lack of response from your friend had left a bad taste, and with hesitance, you turned your head, praying that the impassive expression you were met with would reveal something of use. "Really?" Eren had sounded intrigued, though manner still cold. "Yeah, kinda pathetic, right?" An exhale had replaced the awkward laugh, though as he hadn't mirrored the innate response, you grew concerned over the topic.

Sex, and relationships, hadn't been something you'd discussed with him for some time. He'd assumed you'd delve into such thoughts with Mikasa, likely sparing no detail as she'd been forced to listen to one of your unforgiving rants - yourself assuming he'd boasted about under-cover experiences with his male friends.

"Sorry," Exhaling, you brought a hand to temple, face screwing up as you'd mentally cringed at the discourse. "Was that too deep?" The relationship between you had been a little hard to understand, and you'd been unsure where boundaries had laid. At times, it was as if the two of you were strangers, though evenings like this, he'd felt at one with you.

"Nah." His reply was late, allowing you to mentally fuss over the stillness following your admission, awaiting a response. "I am, too." He'd mentioned nonchalantly, causing your breath to hitch in your throat. It'd made sense - the pair of you were rarely out without the other, but with Eren's appearance and charm, it was questionable.

"Oh." There had been difficulty formulating a response other than the small sound you'd made, and you'd recognised the discomfort he must've felt when the subject had been introduced to begin with. "Well, at least I won't be the only one in college with a v-card." An attempt at light-heartedness, though again, he hadn't laughed. Instead, he let his thoughts brew until he'd formulated a comment.

"Or, we could just lose it before college." He suggested, to which, instead of an awkward giggle, a genuine exhale of amusement passed through your parted lips. "How do you suppose we do that?" You moved the hand that had rested at your forehead to reside on your chest, the other arm still supporting your head. "Might be easy for you, but no guy would wanna fuck me." The response was solemn, even if you hadn't intended it to be. It's not that you had doubts within yourself; it was your confidence had let you down when it had come to an interest in a member of the opposite sex.

"God, you're so thick at times." He sighed, mentally cursing as you'd furrowed your brow, turning to him in annoyance to question what he'd meant, but before the words could spill from you, his lips were pressing against yours.

The movement had left you in shock, eyes open, his face atop yours. Though, as he lingered on you, adjusting to support himself with his forearm, the realization sunk in. After analysing the situation, riding out the wave of surprise, your lips moved in synchrony. The taste of burnt tobacco had radiated between the pair of you, a small hint of pizza, though mostly, the flavour you'd focused yourself on had been him. With a decade of friendship, you hadn't imagined yourself able to do this - to taste him. Though now the permission had been granted, you didn't want to stop. The way his lips danced with yours had felt as if you were made for one another, mouths created purely to accompany their counterpart.

The action had ignited a swirl in the pit of your stomach, radiating desire through you, to create a pulling between your legs. One you'd felt during fleeting moments of self-pleasure, though this had been the first time an action of intimacy had created the sensitivity. Eren's nose bumped with yours, a string of spit building between the two of you, a sheen over lips, though ignored. His skin felt smooth as you'd ran your fingers across his cheek to cup his face within hand, adjusting the arm that had been a pillow to your tired head to rest at the back of his head, intertwining his hair between digits.

He hummed as you'd lightly pulled at his hair, sinking his head lower with yours to deepen the kiss, while you'd tugged at the strands at the nape of his neck, fingers snug between bun and head. Eren's arms caged around your body as he pulled himself between your limbs, the summer dress you'd modeled falling upward, exposing your wettened panties to his clothed cock. You'd felt his hardness as he'd rocked himself over your slit; another feeling you'd yet to experience until now. A moan caught in your throat at the contact, hips bucking upward and legs curving to wrap around him. The kisses grew sloppier between you as the new sensation arose in the places between legs, frenzied humps against one another, a tightening in your stomach.

The eager whines from your lips fell straight into his, hands desperately clutching, tugging at his hair with maneuvre. His bulge massaged against your slit feverishly, building up a tension in your core, breaths between you manic as you shared the moment, savoring how your body had felt on his. This was something you'd never done before; you wondered if Eren had felt the same stir within the pits of his abdomen too, a tingle gracing down your arms, the tickle of the grass on your back as the frantic movements between you had caused the skirt to hike up further, exposing more skin.

A guttural moan left your chest, followed by stuttered gasps from your lips, eyes squeezing closed while your body tensed up, pathetic humps against his cock as you felt your orgasm crash over you, at an intensity you'd never felt before. The ecstasy flowing across your body hadn't been like what you'd given yourself before - it was different. You'd grasped his face tightly, a mess under him, a heat spreading across your cheeks as he'd been a bystander to the otherworldly experience you'd just had, allowing his friend to use his erection to reach her high.

When it had fizzled out, you hadn't time to flush with embarrassment, as Eren had been unbuttoning his trousers with one had, his body-weight supported by the other arm, lips ramming back onto yours. You pushed your tongue into his mouth as you pulled at your underwear, pulling away from his lips for a moment to roll the cotton down your legs, and he imitated the action, knees bare against the grass of his garden, chill hitting his exposed skin.

"Will anyone see us?" You asked, chest heaving. His green eyes meeting yours made your heart flutter, his cheeks tinted with a crimson tone as he guided his cock to sit at your slick, pumping over the shaft. "Nah, they're all old, they'll be asleep." His reassurance was half-assed as his eyes left your face, instead flicking to his cock pressed up against you, slowly teasing himself in. He exhaled, mouth hanging open as he pushed forward. You watched his guise falter, face relaxed as he felt your cunt embrace him, a whine escaping his lips at your warm walls hugging his leaking cock. The amount of friction he'd endured had almost been enough to have him come in his boxers, though he resisted the urge.

After pushing himself into you fully, his gaze flickered down to yours. A smirk played at his lips as he glanced over your blissful demeanor, expression soft as you'd watched him through half-lidded eyes. "Does 't hurt?" He questioned, pulling halfway out before easing back into you. Your breath was shaky as you exhaled, eyes locked with his. "A little." You commented, voice wavering. His movements were slow, gentle pants falling from him as he moved in and out of you with ease. Your tired eyes rolled back, back arching off of the lawn as pain turned to pleasure. Eren took that as a signal you were okay, and sped up, hands gripping at your thighs. It was hard to hold himself back from cumming during the first few moments; the way you'd clenched around him had his dick in heaven, biting his lips to contain moans he'd felt rising through him. He'd only had his hand for the past twenty years, a pussy had felt a thousand times better, tight yet soft, made for his cock to fuck.

You were whining under him, the top of your head kissing the ground as you'd arched back upward in pleasure, your fingers fining their way to circle over your clit. He watched you contort for him, gritting his teeth at the display, fighting the urge within him to just shoot his seed inside you. He'd wanted to fill the virgin pussy with cum, but he'd resisted, unable to allow this to end so quickly. Eren wanted to savor this moment he'd had with you, to watch your body move with his, his cock taken in by your warmth.

Coarse hands gripped at your hips, a cacophony of stuttered breaths and mewls played a synchrony of sounds, an orchestra made up of two. The way he'd held you, how he had loomed over you, the fact you were his first, were all things you'd be unable to forget. His face fixed on you, pleasure written across his features, burned into your mind. This was something only yourself and Eren would share.

"Eren-" His name fell from your lips, another swipe across your sensitive clit, his fingers squeezing the fat of your thighs tighter, until he'd had to halt altogether to stop himself from cumming. You continued to rub regardless, panting and circling your hips, stuttered humps as you worked yourself up again, clenching, tensing, pulling over his member. He groaned, the small motions from your pussy keeping him seconds from spilling. "Inside?" Only half of the question left his lips, thighs clenching to stop his orgasm. "Can I cum inside?" He was reduced to a murmur of words, a mostly incoherent sentence, though your frantic nodding had been enough permission, and he was slamming his hips into yours once more, a loud moan leaving his lips as his chest rose and fell, grunts erupting from his chest. You'd come undone too, for the second time, his name the only thing on your mind as you'd clenched around him, repeating the syllables over, and over.

He lingered for a moment, tracing a thumb over your cheek and pulling out, a warmth dribbling from the hole he'd just evacuated as his seed left you, too. An unfamilliar sensation, though knowing it'd been from him had created a new feeling within you, one familiar to that of arousal, mingling with a sense of accomplishment. A smile crept across your face as he pulled his trousers upward, laying beside you once more. You straightened out the creases of your dress, pulling it over your knees, goosebumps prickling over you as the heat of the moment had died down, cool air over you again.

1K notes · View notes

golden-barnes · 11 months

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So I have this concept in my head I think I even shared it with another writer. But anyway here it goes. Reader is the cook at the avengers tower and Bucky is convinced she's working for Hydra. He thinks she was sent to trick him and spy on him. His reasoning is she always where's these aprons that reminds him of his ma. Different aprons for every occasion. She always has 40s music playing and is always singing along and dancing. She's this soft feminine bundle of sunshine. And her chocolate chip cookies taste just like his ma's. He knows she's evil but she's really just wonderful. He has fallen for her but doesn't realize it and is constantly trying to get her to reveal that she is a Hydra agent. She just wants to make him happy because she saw what he was like when he was healing after what Hydra did and harbors a huge crush. She actually got the recipe from his sister before she passed away to make them to help Steve adjust and started making them for both of them. Anyway I'm done rambling.

Your freaking BRAINNNNN. Ugh if this starts a series in my page Im blaming you because I am obsessed but also don't have enough time to write a full story so I might do something longer later with this idk. (also I'm envisioning a chubby plus size reader because it just felt right) Hope you like it!

Warning: swearing

"Hey, Robocop, could you stop glaring at our new cook?" Sam joked, noticing his friend glaring at their newest cook.

"She's a spy, Sam." Sam scoffed at the ridiculousness of Bucky's words.

"Bucky, she is baking an upside-down pineapple cake and wearing a pink and white apron while dancing to a Nat King Cole song. If she's a spy, Beyonce is my wife." Sam tried to reason with the soldier, but Bucky glared at him.

"Maybe that's what Hydra wants you to think. They are trained to be unsuspecting and blend in." Bucky whispered to Sam, looking at the cook, who was singing the lyrics of the song that was playing. He was transported back in time when his mom and sister would do the same thing. And there she was, (Y/N) in his mom's summertime apron, singing one of his mom's favorite songs. Hydra was getting sloppy with their spies if this was what they were sending.

After his therapy session, Bucky arrived at the compound and noticed a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen counter. He didn't think much, but he grabbed one and ate it.

He paused and looked at the cookie. It was exactly like his ma's recipe. He could feel his eyes water because he hadn't realized how much he missed these fucking cookies.

"Hello, Sargent. Like the cookies?" The alleged spy asked. She was wearing a very familiar floral apron. An apron he used to laugh at, saying it looked like his nana's curtains. His ma would always stick her tongue out in retaliation. Maybe he should try and see if she has the same reaction...

"Nice apron... Kinda looks like my grandma's curtains." (Y/N) laughed at his joke.Like a full belly laugh. She looks cute, Bucky thought. But immediately shook his head. Nope, this girl that looks like a warm hug personified is evil.

"It does kinda look like that. My grandma had the same one." She said, twiddling with the edge of the apron. Hydra really trained this one well.

And every day it was like this. Bucky would find her singing and dancing with an apron that was exactly like the one his mom would wear. It was driving him insane. Sam had tried to reason with him, but everything felt like a trap. It was like Hydra stole his memories and was recreating them with a beautiful lady that was just Bucky's type.

But today, it was Bucky's last straw. (Y/N) was wearing his ma's favorite red apron. And he knew it was his ma's because he could see the J and R embroidered in the apron's hem. Bucky had bought the apron, and Becca embroidered it as a Mother's Day gift.

"Cookie?" She asked, showing him a plate of freshly baked chocolate cookies. They smelt exactly like the ones ma' used to make. It angered him.

"What's your deal? How did you get this recipe and that apron?" Bucky growled. (Y/N) took a step back, but she didn't look scared.

"You know the bakery in Queens called Paulie's?" She started saying; Bucky nodded. His mom used to bring them there anytime they were going to celebrate something special in their family.

"I used to work there part-time in high school. So did Rebecca, your sister... She was the head baker there and taught me all the recipes I knew. A lot of them were your mom's. When she retired and moved in with her grandson, she gave me all these beautiful aprons. I am sorry if it made you uncomfortable. " She said honestly.

Bucky kept looking into her eyes to search for a lie. But there wasn't any there.

"Steve went to Paulie's and tried my cookies. He said it tasted like your mom's, and that's when SHIELD hired me. They thought having a familiar aspect would be easier for your transition." She confessed.

"And the music?" Bucky whispered. He felt kinda nice; she wasn't a spy. She was just a woman who had a connection with his sister. Maybe he could find out more about her last moments through her.

"She wouldn't work if she didn't have music playing in the background. I think I just adopted that habit." She said sheepishly. Bucky chuckled; his mom was the same.

"Would you like to learn how to back?" She added and Bucky nodded, holding back the tears.

"Sure, I would love to." The smile that she gave him was worth a million dollars and he would gladly pay it if it meant he would see it again. To think he thought it was a fucking Hydra spy.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes drabble #nami answers

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lokisasylum · 7 months

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Say it with me, darlings:

"The industry" = HYBE/Bighit

If the label doesn't send your song to radio or pay$$, it doesn't get played.

If the label doesn't submit your work for nomination, it won't get a nomination.

So when we say "Like Crazy" & Jimin got snubbed, its not "the industry's" fault. It's HYBE/Bighit Label at fault.

Learn to call things for what they are BY NAME. Not excuses.

So that at-least ya'll won't sound like a broken record and actually DO something.

When Jimin started getting hate and d*ath threats by taekook shippers no one wanted to call them out by name. So the hate amplified and now there's solos of other members, other groups and even some "armys" in the mix.

Same thing's happening with the company vs Jimin. For YEARS we've been talking about unfair treatment on all platforms, getting singled out by the label and ppl said we were overrating or victimizing/babying him.

And now look what's happened in solo era.

-Got the least amount of promo time out of all the members and even when he succeeded above all the set backs. His company ignored it and shoved him aside for the faves debut.

- PAID articles to downplay historic achievements and openly humiliate him while raising another member (lets not forget that one article praising a racist).

- His work and creativity shamelessly copied for someone else' "concept".

- His streams and sales STILL being tampered with.

-His name shadowbanned from multiple imp. social medias, which in turn is affecting his Brand Reputation Ranking when Jimin had been leading at #01 for nearly 39 months and counting.

- Zero nominations in potential overseas awards since the label never summited his music, only the current company faves.

The list goes long and only getting longer.

#jimin #park jimin #bts jimin #bts #pjm #jiminie #and JK is a pig and a disgusting leech for using JM to rile up the shippers and get him more hate.

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syrupsyche · 2 months

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This chapter was an INCREDIBLE look into Valjean's mind, which we haven't entered into since his backstory all the way back in Digne.

I wanted to compare this chapter of self-reflection and the agony of choosing between two paths to another very similar chapter: Javert Derailed. Reading (and rereading) both chapters made me realise that though both are exploring the same moral dilemma, much of Valjean's reflection is him speaking to himself, placed in quotation marks as seen below:

"Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really true that I have seen that Javert, and that he spoke to me in that manner? [...] What is there in this incident? What will the end be? What is to be done?"

"it is God who wills it; I can do nothing against the will of God, [...] It is settled; let things take their course; let the good God do as he likes!"

Compared to Javert Derailed:

Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no longer find his bearings.

What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad; to leave Jean Valjean at liberty was bad.

This new chief, God, he became unexpectedly conscious of, and he felt embarrassed by him. This unforeseen presence threw him off his bearings; he did not know what to do with this superior [...] But how was he to set about handing in his resignation to God?

Not even in his final moment do we get much of Javert's actual, word-from-mouth, thoughts. These are all the narrator's speech; Javert may have – for the first time in his life – actually reflected on his actions and philosophy, but his inability to vocalise them therefore indicates his inability to internalise it, therefore leading to his demise.

Those quotes above also parallel (and contrast) eerily. "Where do I stand?" versus "Where did he stand?", Valjean's complete devotion to God versus Javert's shying away from Him. Both chapters even focus on the stars:

...the terrible cup which appeared to Him dripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths all studded with stars. (Tempest)

The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment which follows midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. (Derailed)

Tempest ends with a sky full of stars, Derailed ends with none (a concept that translated pretty well over to the musical ver.) All these subtly hints at Valjean's and Javert's differing mindsets and decisions, as well as their impact on themselves.

#finally have time for a bit of analysis postingg #les mis letters #lm 1.7.3 #lm 5.4.1 #les mis #valjean #javert #syrup ramble #syrup talks about lit

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walkingstackofbooks · 2 months

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A drabble on Bajoran Time

Or: Why would a Bajoran hour be the same as an Earth one?

Featuring the classic trope, Julian Bashir's genetically enhanced awareness of time.

The most disorienting thing about living on Deep Space Nine was undoubtedly the time. Not for the reasons you might think - Julian was far from the only new Starfleet resident who had heard "26 hour clock" and assumed that would mean Bajor rotated 2 hours more slowly than Earth. But in fact, a day on Bajor was only 44 minutes - well, 44 minutes, 17 second, 592 milliseconds, to be precise - longer than an Earth day.

Which was good, undoubtedly. Julian had been worried about the physical toll that changing to a 26-hour day would have on the human residents of the station, and although a 44 minute difference wasn't nothing, he was certain the effects would have been greater had a Bajoran hour been the same as a Terran one.

But, of course, it wasn't. It made sense, really - in fact, it would be stranger if a Bajoran hour was the exact same as an hour on Earth. Though Julian couldn't help feel that 60 really was a better number of minutes (Because 39?* Really?! A number with only 4 factors?!), it would have been some coincidence indeed for both planets' history of subdividing time to happen upon the same number.

In some ways it was remarkable that the Bajoran system, splitting their days up into teneyru, loiru and kerriloiru**, was so similar to Earth's hours, minutes and seconds. Each teneyn comprised of 39 loiru, and each loira comprised of 52 kerriloiru. It worked out that a Bajoran kerriloira lasted for 1.689 Terran seconds - which for the average person, wasn't hugely noticeable.***

Julian still hadn't got used to 1300 hours being midday, or that his automatic translation of 1700 hours into 5pm was no longer useful, given that the Bajorans had no concept of AM and PM - and even if they did, it would now be an hour out. He would still talk about time using "half past" or "twenty-five to", before catching himself - and realising there was far less of the hour remaining than he had thought! He was, however, beginning to use the Bajoran equivalent more frequently, getting a secret thrill when he told a patient their appointment was at "thirteens fourteen" or "two-thirteens twelve".****

But these were things that most Federation officers were finding difficult - at least, it seemed to be one of the more common grumbles he overheard in Quark's, definitely among his fellow humans. Non-humans were more diverse in opinion; some found the adjustment easy, having already had to adapt to the Terran time that was the standard used on Starfleet ships, while others found it doubly hard to be learning yet another time system.

What Julian was finding most troublesome to deal with was his until-now fastidiously-accurate internal clock. He had developed it when he was 16, wanting to put his memory through a real test, and figuring that if he could remember precisely how long a second was, he would always know the time. While it hadn't been quite as simple as that - he had spent hours staring at the clock on his PADD - eventually tracking the time had become as automatic as breathing, a calculation that his brain kept permanently ticking in the background. During a bout of illness and extreme boredom during his 1st year at the Academy, he'd even fine-tuned it down to deciseconds, although even he hadn't managed to make it more precise than that.

Which was why he was constantly finding himself off-balance in his time-keeping. For 10 years, he hadn't had to think about what time it was, it had just been there, in his brain. And now, even with a Bajoran clock in front of him, or regular check-ins with the computer, Earth seconds continued to tick by in the back of his mind, an ever-present distraction from getting to grips with station time. Trying to learn the length of a Bajoran second was like listening to a piece of music that you didn't know was written in 5/4 - it felt jarring and off and as soon as he felt that he had gotten to grips with it, a few kerriloiru later and he'd lost it again.

Eventually it would become second-nature, Julian was sure. But he was impatient to get there. For the meanwhile, it meant spending what little free time he had in his quarters, staring at a Bajoran chronometer, and trying to ignore the small pangs of discomfort as the kerriloiru ticked over - 1.689, 1.689, 1.689...

*I've decided Bajorans use a Base-13 system simply because it's fun and they have a 26 hour day. 🤷‍♀️😅

**The words teneyn and loira come from this Bajoran dictionary. Kerriloira is a combination of loira and kerripate (a fraction of a tessipate, a measure of land). The only example of a Bajoran plural I could find was maktal > makteru on this wiki so that's what I went with 😅

*** 1 loira is equivalent to 1 minute and 27.828 seconds. 1 teneyn is equivalent to 57 minutes and 5.292 seconds.

**** Obviously, the logical way to divide a teneyn up is into 3 lots of 13 loiru. Although humans cling so tenaciously to "half-past" as a concept, that eventually station Bajorans do end up adopting it as meaning 19 minutes after the hour.

---

Thanks for sticking with me in this silly little maths worldbuilding :P I'm totally not going to go and write up my Bajoran counting system now, that doesn't sound like me at all... 😅😬 (Who am I kidding, sign me up to everything numbers and Star Trek and alien cultures)

#bajor worldbuilding #DS9 drabble #Bajor headcanon #Julian Bashir headcanon #my trek musings #am i procrastinating my fic?#absolutely!#but i wrote most of this up aaaages ago and a fic i just read had an in-depth alien counting system in the notes #and it made me super want to finish this #(Anzoni Anniversary by JacklegPenwright if anyone's interested in an AMAZING Garashir fic with behind-the-scenes worldbuilding insight)#Andi writes #Julian bashir #WSB

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freddiemercurylegendabovelegends · 3 months

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Today, on 19th January, 1978

Group Interviews - Circus Magazine

Queen Deserve Rock's Royal Crown?

by Rosy Horide

Freddie Mercury and Brian May Hawk their 'News Of The World'

Freddie Mercury is no longer the leader of Queen. Has he been fired, you ask, or is he off to pursue a solo career? No it's simply, with the advent of News Of The World LP (Asylum) the personality of the music and of Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon have come across more strongly than ever before.

Those who have seen them on the recent US tour notice more than ever before that they're a group comprised of four separate identities, not just a lead singer and background band. Freddie Mercury is delighted to hear it.

'I've never considered myself the leader anyway,' says irrepressible Freddie. 'The most important person, perhaps.' And guitarist May agrees.

'Our separate identities do come to the fore on this album, on which every cut is completely different from the one before it and there's no concept at all. Apart from each having contributed two tracks to the album, Roger and John have been much more involved in the playing. Roger plays rhythm guitar on some of his cuts ('Sheer Heart Attack' and 'Fight From The Inside') which makes sense, because he had a better idea of how he wanted it to go. John plays acoustic guitar on one of his as well ('Who Needs You'). I played maracas on it. While we may not do it that way on stage, in the studio that makes more sense.'

Brian also does a lot more singing of his own songs on News, but he's content to let Freddie do the singing on stage.

'He's a natural performer,' asserts Brian. 'He acts on stage as if he was born doing it. That's great for us. We wouldn't want it any other way.'

As May and Mercury emphasize, it's not just musically that shifts occur in the group.

'John keeps a very close eye on our business affairs,' says Freddie. 'He knows everything that's going on and shouldn't be going on. If God forsakes us now the rest of the group won't do anything unless John says it's all right.

'Roger is very important to us in a different way. He's always been an out-and-out rock & roll fan with no time to stop and think about music and that's very good for us. Instinct. He's also the one who is most aware of facets in music, and that's essential in the band. If you listen to 'Sheer Heart Attack' on the new album you'll see what we mean. It sounds like a punk, or 'new wave' song, but it was written at the same time of the Sheer Heart Attack LP. He played it to us then but it wasn't quite finished and he didn't have time to complete it before we started recording. That was three years ago and now. . .almost all these records you hear are like that period.' And Roger now? 'He was into punk for a long time, but he's tired of it.' More about the album later.

But if you still don't believe no crown of leadership rests on the mercurial head of Freddie, it's worth repeating his comment about the composition of the group.

'If anyone left Queen, anyone of the four, that would be the end of Queen. We are four equal, interwoven parts. And the others just couldn't function the same without each quarter.'

Queen have just finished a special tour of the states. Not the longest they've ever undertaken, by any means, but special nevertheless.

'It was the first tour we've ever done without the support band,' Freddie explained. 'There was so much going on on stage that I doubt there would have been room for another band anyway. We have so much material we want to play for people now that it would have been far too long a concert. It's hard enough anyway to know what to leave out: we'd like to play all the new material, but there are some things we just would not dare leave out or I think the fans would lynch us.'

It was the sort of tour most rock bands dream of doing. Brian agrees: 'We've managed to get some of the most sought after halls there are, even though the tour was short. Most of them are places we've played before. In some cities we had to settle for second, alternative choice auditoriums - the thing was set up so fast. It was also a very compressed tour - 35 dates in six weeks. We did very large halls because we wanted to do a fuller show and our rig was about twice as big as ever we used before.

'It provided a complete stage environment, with an extension stage, three trailers and enormous lighting gimmick not just for New York and Los Angeles. That's why we booked big halls, so that we could give everybody the complete show. We first used our crown centerpiece at London's Earl's Court concert over the Jubilee. At the time, we didn't envisage being able to take the crown on tour with us, but we managed to have it demounted into a portable object. And so we had it for all the gigs. It made the most ambitious backdrop we've ever attempted, but it was worth it. The fans seemed to enjoy it and they are what matter.'

That last remark of Brian's is typical of the group's attitude towards their fans, for they have one of the closest rapports with the fans of any in the business. The same cannot be said for their relationship to the music press, however, especially in Britain. In fact, many people thought the chart-popping single 'We Are The Champions,' was Queen's way of telling the press in no uncertain terms that they've made it without them. Others thought it an arrogant statement about their rock supremacy. But how do they feel? First Freddie, who wrote the song:

'Certainly it's a relationship that could be, but I was thinking about football when I wrote it. I wanted a participation song, something that the fans could latch on to. It was aimed at the masses; I thought we'd see how they took it. It worked a treat. When we performed it at a private concert in London, the fans actually broke into a football chant between numbers. Of course, I've given it more theatrical subtlety than an ordinary football chant. You know me.

'I certainly wasn't thinking about the press when I wrote it. I never think about the British music press these days. It was really meant to be offered the musicians the same as the fans.

'I suppose it could also be construed as my version of 'I Did It My Way.' We have made it, and it certainly wasn't easy. No bed of roses as the song says. And it's still not easy.'

Brian concurs, 'You know, songs aren't always about what the words say. Messages in songs can appear different. I always see that as the difference between prose and poetry. Prose can mean exactly what it says, while poetry can mean the opposite. That goes for this song. Freddie's stuff is often tongue-in-cheek anyway, as you know. This song is very theatrical. Freddie is very close to his art. You could say, he's married to his music, whether it's 'I Did It My Way' or his 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' I must say, when he first played it for us in the studio we all fell on the floor with laughter. So many people in the press hate us because we've side-stepped them and got where we have without them.

'But there's no way the song says anything against our audiences. When the song says 'we,' it means 'us and the fans.' When we did that special concert, the fans were wonderful. They understood it so well. I know it sounds corny, but it brought tears to our eyes.'

Freddie and Brian are unanimous on that: the spontaneous responses to 'We Are The Champions' really move them. But that is the kind of general response News Of The World has received because, as Brian may says, 'It's a spontaneous album. I think we've managed to cut through to the spontaneity lacking in our other albums. I have no apologies to make for any of our previous albums. We're proud of them and wouldn't have let them out if we weren't. But I now feel some may have been over-produced, so we wanted to go with a more spontaneous rock & roll based album. It was nice to do something that didn't need such intensity. For example, with 'Sleeping On The Sidewalk' we did it in one take because it just seemed right the first time. We like to think of the album as a window on an unguarded moment, not a set piece. Each cut seems to do that, from the participation songs to Freddie's mood pieces. Even his numbers on the album are different, from his heavy 'Get Down, Make Love' to 'My Melancholy Blues,' which is just what it says.'

Brian admits that his own material is different too. But he still tries to keep his private life separate and out of his songs as much as possible.

'If you don't keep something back, it can be very bad for you.'

But for the band both the album and the tour are in the past and they have to look at the future. They got back to England on Christmas Eve.

'My mother would have killed me if I wasn't home for Christmas. I haven't missed one yet,' says Freddie. And the others felt the same.

It's time for some stock-taking. We've all become businessmen,' admits Freddie, 'even though it's against our better judgment. It's something that always happens if you get successful. Being a musician is not just cutting discs, unfortunately. I wish it was. We've all got companies now, some connected to music, others not. I'm producing Peter Straker, I have my car company. . . and lots of other fingers in other pies. We must take some time off to get things in perspective, or things will start to go wrong.

'Then there's been talk of doing a big world tour - Britain, South America, Japan, and of course the States as well as lots of other places. But that won't be until later in the year.'

So, American fans will have a chance to see Queen in 1978.

'You must tell them not to be too greedy, thought,' warns Freddie. They've already seen more of us than any other country.'

And what about a message for the American fans, Freddie?

'They know we love them. Apart from that, oh, say something outrageous for me.'

#1978 #circus magazine #freddie mercury #queen band #london #zanzibar #legend #queen #brian may #john deacon #freddiebulsara #roger taylor #1978 interview #interview

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larvaem1lk · 1 year

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ellie williams x reader <3

idk what to title this but it’s something!

🦋 no warnings i don't think... just like one curse word & kissing ooohhhmygosh

🦋 thank u thank u to anyone who reads this & i hope u like it! :-*

“i was just—so fucking outta my mind. and then that’s when i found you and we got crazy drunk and i don’t even drink! but, i don’t regret it ‘cause, well… that’s when you kissed me.” you looked to the floor bashfully after your sentence, warmth rising to your cheeks as you felt a little flustered when the event from last night’s party came to mind. you barely remember anything else, apart from the sweaty crowds, loud music, and… kissing ellie, of course.

“kiss? i kissed you?” she asks, raising her brows like the concept was the most unbelievable thing ever to be voiced. she leans forward to take the joint from between your fingers, and you watch as she raises it to her lips. her lips. the same ones that were on yours the night before. the memory causes tingles to prick in your own.

“yes, you kissed me.” you lean back against the couch, crossing your arms. her eyes narrow as she exhales, a cloudy puff of smoke fogging your vision.

she mirrors you, leaning back further into her own spot, brows pinching inward like she's in deep thought. “hmm… you sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

you scoff as you roll your eyes, snatching the joint from her fingers. “no i’m pretty sure it was you who kissed me.” you inhale slowly, maintaining eye contact with the freckled girl in front of you. something strange was in her eyes, an unusual type of shimmer within the emerald rings you’d never seen before in all your time knowing her. it was teasing, yet subtle, like whatever she was thinking was too shy to come out.

when you exhale, your mind is fuzzy, and you’re feeling too floaty to notice that this time, she watches the smoke escape from your lips. your lips, the ones her eyes linger on for a little longer than they should.

“okay, but, there were a lotta people at that party y’know. did i really kiss you?”

ellie watches the way your lips upturn into a grin and only looks back up to your eyes when you nudge her arm playfully. she chuckles as she leans back from the action but mostly at the way she can hear the obvious annoyance in your voice. “ellie! are you actually serious right now?”

“just sayin’,” she shrugs and tries to hide her smile by taking another hit. this time the hit is longer than usual, and there’s a brief moment of silence before she exhales the smoke away from your face.

“you seriously don’t remember?” you ask, a hint of disappointment in your tone. that kiss was all you could think about, and if she really didn’t remember you’d feel dumb for getting this far into the conversation. ellie was aware of this, feeling a little guilty for playing dumb. of course she remembered that kiss, kissing you, all of it. you had no idea how long she had been waiting to kiss you, after what seemed like an eternity of lighthearted flirting and small teasing touches. trying to strictly stay as ‘friends’. even though both of you were highly intoxicated last night, she still enjoyed it just as much. but it was fun messing with you, so she’d hold this one out for a little longer.

ellie shrugs. “i dunno… i mean, last night was a blur.”

you frown, suddenly feeling embarrassed. your eyes meet the ground again as you pick at your nail. “oh. well, okay.”

“hey, come on, stop that. i just… need a little more help remembering.” ellie chuckles, and she knows she shouldn’t be since you’re upset, but that wouldn’t last long anyway. she shuffles in her spot, reaching to the table nearby as she stubs out the joint.

you sit up straighter, eyes flickering to hers quickly as you smile. “oh really? how?”

“well, y’know,” she scoots closer to you. “just gotta get close enough for it,”

she sits there and looks between your eyes. they were glossy and pink, and she thought you couldn’t look any prettier right now. ellie’s eyes were the same, but now there was a stronger gleam of seduction in them, and you couldn’t help but feel a surge of warmth in your core at the sight. you’re pretty sure you could count all the freckles on her face right there, and maybe even swim in the pale green pools of her eyes if you tried. but you don’t think too much about that. the two of you sitting in stillness, admiring each other’s features, until you speak up.

“um, we’re pretty close, y’know.”

she smiles, her voice raising in pitch as she moves forward even in the little space there is left. “i think we needa be a littleee closer,”

you scoot closer till your knees are touching and all you can do is stare into her eyes. you’re sure you can hear your heartbeat’s rapid pulse in your ears, but you don’t care. you were high, hazy, and even a little bit horny too. all that floats and twirls around in your mind is ellie, ellie, ellie, and it’s as if you can hear it on replay, echoing with reverb as your eyes become heavier and heavier.

“i think this is where you kiss me now.” she says softly, and you almost don’t hear her. her breath was warm and ticklish against your lips, and you’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly before.

you tease, “no, where you kiss me,” she rolls her eyes before muttering ‘shut up’ as she presses her lips into yours.

when your lips meet, it’s as if sparkles and butterflies flutter all around you. they are warm and soft, and also slightly chapped but the roughness is nice. the effect of the both of you being high makes everything feel frenetic and surreal, but it's so so good.

as the kiss becomes needier, you feel the coolness of her palm cup your jaw. you accidentally let out a small whimper when she intertwines her fingers into your hair, the sensation on your scalp somehow soothing an itch you didn't know was there, yet it's mostly felt in your stomach.

ellie smirks gently against your lips at the sound of need that slips from your mouth, and the more you kiss, the more desire sizzles in your gut. this kiss definitely wasn’t like the night before.

things become rougher, and you're both panting into each other's mouths now, chasing after one another. you don’t even notice the way ellie is pushing you onto your back until you feel the way she slots her knee between your thighs to keep them open.

you place your hands on her shoulders, and the warmth of her tongue trying to enter your mouth makes you feel hot all over, combined with the growing ache in your stomach and it’s all too much. you don’t even mean to, but you pull away breathlessly, and ellie eyes stay on your plump lips, smirking at the thread of drool that trailed when you two parted.

“did—do you—do you remember now?” you scramble out, and ellie merely smiles. her hands are now on either side of your head, and she can't help but love the sight of you below her. your chest was heaving up and down, your lips were puffy and shiny from spit, and there were those gorgeous pink eyes again, glossy and heavy; threatening to close on her.

“mm, not really. can we try again?” she whispers, and you don’t even have a chance to respond before her lips are back on yours.

#ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x fem reader #ellie williams fluff

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mrs-luigi-vargas · 9 months

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Bowsario Rapunzel AU

Okay so I saw @istadris' post about figuring out what fairytale would fit Bowsario best and then I spent all day yesterday thinking way too hard about Rapunzel. This was supposed to be a little pithy ‘oh it's Tangled but Bowser’s Flynn’ thing, but then I started thinking about how being locked in a tower by himself would fuck with Mario’s psyche A Lot and then I had a 2.5k word outline oopsies.

So regarding Bowsario fairytales I would like to formally submit Rapunzel with Mario stuck in the tower for Magical Curse Reasons I haven't figured out yet.

Bowser hears about this and visits regularly to taunt him about it because he thinks it's hilarious the best and bravest knight of the Mushroom Kingdom who was always a personal pain in Bowser’s side when he'd go terrorize it got himself cursed.

(And then Bowser goes to terrorize said kingdom in Mario’s absence and severely underestimates Luigi, who kicks his ass so thoroughly that Bowser goes back to Mario's tower to complain about it. Music to Mario's ears, that is.)

(The insults directed to Luigi himself, on the other hand...much less so. And since Mario’s stuck up in the tower all he really could do to defend his brother was insult Bowser right back, instead of jumping down and wringing his neck like he sorely wanted to, with overcharged barbs that not only channeled Mario's overprotective big brother energy but also the genuine frustration and fear about being stuck in one place, isolated from his brother and his friends and the world as it spun on and on without him for maybe the rest of his life)

Eventually Bowser figures out that if he climbs the tower then he can get a better look at Mario's angry face as he insults him and thus derive even more joy from making this goody-two-shoes knight lose his composure.

But then he gets up there and Mario's anger turns out to obviously just be a way to cope with being sad and lonely and scared Bowser realizes that insulting Mario isn't really that fun anymore (Have the last couple of times been fun either? Especially as rumors started circulating, and Bowser pieces more things together about Mario's situation? And as he starts to wonder what it would be like if it was him, separated from his Koopalings against his will in a similar way — would his eyes have that same defeated and despondent look Mario’s do right now, a look that doesn't suit Mario at all?)

Bowser finds himself starting to feel low-key bad about making fun of Mario all this time, and about Mario's current lot in life. It eats away at him until Bowser begrudgingly starts acting nicer, and then he and Mario start having proper conversations that aren't angry screaming matches.

And then maybe Bowser starts visiting longer and more often, bringing card games to pass the time, or food Mario hasn't been able to have in a while, or some new books and recent newspapers to read, or a kidnapped Luigi or Peach to hug for the first time in ages...

Maybe even a different kingdom tries to capitalize on Mario's absence, wanting to attack the Mushroom Kingdom for one reason or another, and Bowser realizes that if he lets them win Mario will be sad (and probably lose the will to live while he's at it). And the spark in Mario’s eyes had literally just come back more often than not these days...Bowser sighs. He has Kamek pen a letter to Luigi and Peach offering aid. He goes to the Mushroom Kingdom personally to prove he's not kidding, and maybe Luigi and Peach catch on to Bowser's true feelings about Mario even before Bowser himself has.

When the dust from the invasion settles, Bowser and Peach hash out a fledgling alliance/peace treaty in the wake of it. Mario is ecstatic when Bowser tells him, and it takes most of the journey back home for Bowser to figure out why he's still flustered about the way Mario had looked at him for the rest of the visit.

Meanwhile, Mario is kind of baffled about the concept of Bowser being nice now. The insults from before were awful, sure, but it was a routine. It was something to focus on that wasn't the walls slowly caving in on him despite them not moving an inch, the yawning jaws of apathy lurking in his blind spot getting ready to swallow him whole, how he was already starting to forget what his family's voices sounded like —

(Luigi and Peach do visit, don't get me wrong. But Peach has a kingdom to run almost single-handedly, and Luigi is practically running himself ragged trying to fill in the void that Mario had been forced to leave behind because the big brother he was supposed to rely on had gone and poked something he shouldn't have like an absolutely stupid idiot. The tower is a multiple days' journey from the heart of the Mushroom Kingdom, just barely on the outskirts in a forgotten corner of it, and neither of them really have a way of getting up the tower, with it being so tall and the doors being locked. So. Less frequent visits than they would like.)

(They send as many letters as they can, though. Mario reads them at least five times and reverently puts each in a special box in a hiding spot to keep them safe, to bring out on particularly hopeless days. Luigi and Peach do the same with Mario's replies back home.)

(They're delivered by Toad, who's the only one willing to go all the way to the outskirts of the Kingdom to begin with — none of the other mailmen are especially willing, despite Peach’s pleas. He goes with a bundle of letters to the tower, gets them to Mario via some sort of cable system or something, and then camps there for a few days as Mario writes his replies. It's him that first informs Luigi and Peach of Bowser’s visits, having witnessed one of them — thankfully it was one of the...lesser charged ones.)

So. The weekly interruptions were welcomed by Mario. Even if they were annoying.

And then Bowser had the bright idea to come up here, which...wasn't ideal. He didn't need Bowser to see the mess he lived in, for starters, and once Bowser was face to face with him who knew what fodder he would be getting to insult him further? Especially with how vulnerable Mario had been lately?

But for all of Mario's imagined fears, the poorly-masked pity he got from Bowser of all people, King of the Darklands and the number one enemy of the Mushroom Kingdom, was a thousand times worse.

Bowser had continued to act off for the next few visits. He hadn't come back up to Mario's room, staying on the ground and shouting up at him about random things like weird inter-kingdom gossip he'd heard from his advisors or some of the other kingdoms he was sending his troops to and why or 'your brother’s a real piece of work I tried to kidnap the Princess last week and he went and talked down my Chain Chomps I literally trained them to bite everything they see with no hesitation when the fuck did that loser stop being a wimp' followed by the most concerningly detailed reportback on the Mushroom Kingdom's current defenses Mario had ever heard, considering Bowser wasn't supposed to have any way of getting half the information he was telling Mario due to both being banned from stepping foot where most of those defenses were located and the ironclad loyalty of the Kingdom’s citizens. He even started to include an upsettingly long list of inferred weaknesses, at which point Mario hurried to invite him into the tower proper so he wasn't just shouting them for anyone to hear.

From there Bowser’s visits officially got less annoying; instead of the distraction Bowser provided being a chance for Mario to yell and be mean until he tired himself out it was instead Bowser awkwardly telling him that Peach and Luigi were looking more or less healthy, he thought, based on how hard they fought against him the other day. Or it was Bowser sharing stories about his kids, whom Mario hadn't known existed until now, and Mario telling childhood stories about Luigi in return. Or it was getting to eat pizza for the first time in weeks, and almost bursting into tears before practically eating himself sick.

Or it was that one time the night of the Mushroom Kingdom's Star Festival when they figured out that Mario could access the roof, so they sat up there and watched the countless shooting stars for most of the night, teasing each other about the wishes they were making on them, until Mario fell asleep up there leaning against Bowser, the celebratory lights and fireworks from the capital visible from even way out here. Bowser had even brought a few fireworks of his own, based on secondhand knowledge about how this festival was celebrated, and they had lit them in a manner that was definitely and decidedly unsafe. Yet the fireworks at the castle had seemed to burn brighter and burst louder upon them doing so.

Or it was that other time when they figured out that Mario couldn't go down the tower like he could climb up to the roof — he would hit some sort of invisible floor and would seemingly be standing there in midair scaring passersby like Toad half to death. And then a few weeks later during a summer storm Mario had the bright idea to stand outside on said invisible floor to get soaked to the bone, and a few hours after Bowser called him crazy and pulled him back inside and pretended that Mario was just wiping rain from his face and nothing else Mario started sneezing, and Bowser had to stay with him a few extra days. Just to make sure Mario didn't keel over and die and waste the sweets Bowser had bought at the market before he came over here, that was all. Mario knew he didn't like this flavor of candy, Bowser had said, and he sure as hell wasn't letting his kids eat all of it and dealing with their sugar rushes. Besides, he could hardly get back home right now anyway, with the roads so muddy.

Or it was Bowser telling him about how Peach had held a ball for the first time since Mario had “disappeared” and it had gotten completely derailed because someone loudly and conspicuously talked shit about Mario within earshot of Peach. Luigi was across the room and Bowser couldn't let a Princess get her hands dirty so he had to obviously not let that shit go unanswered and haul that idiot out by his gaudy lapels and throw him into the moat himself to teach him a lesson and — why are you looking at me like that. What did I — she had better things to do then — stop laughing — they were all just standing there, what else was I — argh, shut up! I’ll show you funny, come here, you —!

It was a far cry from the abrasive hostility that Bowser wore like a cloak whenever he'd attack their kingdom in the past and Mario...liked it. It was nice. He looks forward to Bowser's visits, as regular as they were.

But...Bowser keeps talking in the future tense, about places in his kingdom he’s going to take Mario that’ll pale in comparison to any sights in the Mushroom Kingdom and people he’s going to bring Mario to meet because they can't make the trek here and all sorts of experiences that he’s decided they’re gonna have, all of which were very much impossible to have in the tower. And while the optimism was certainly appreciated, it...was never going to lead anywhere, Mario knew. He'd tried it, at the beginning of all this. It hadn't worked out.

And yet Bowser keeps at it, even if Mario would roll his eyes and shake his head every time he brought it up, that stubborn brash confidence that he could get Mario out of here slowly but surely reigniting that spark in Mario's soul that had dimmed but not quite died, holding a mirror to that hero’s spirit that persevered against all odds, no matter how small or nonexistent. And somehow, Mario starts to believe that Bowser would get him out of here, actually.

Which, of course, is when Bowser stops visiting all of a sudden.

Almost immediately after Bowser had realized he was Attached he’d tasked Kamek and Kammy with researching how to get Mario out of the tower, and finally, finally, they found something that would actually work. But in order to get it ready — or, perhaps, by consequence of getting it ready — they had to drop off the map with no warning, so Mario gets to sit in his room and spiral for a week or two or three. Within this spiral Mario thinks about what Bowser means to him, realizes that it's more than just a distraction from his situation and that there was a nonzero amount of hope and affection attached, and spirals harder. He doesn't quite spiral to the point of things getting as bad as those first few weeks, but it gets pretty dang close. For example, for the first time in weeks and months he tries to do everything he can to escape the tower again, short of throwing himself out the window (because he already knew that wouldn't work).

It's another couple of days after those futile efforts that Mario wakes up from a nap. It was arguably one of the best naps he’d had in years, he thought as he sat up and stretched, to have him feeling so much lighter than when he'd fallen asleep. It takes him a second to register an unfamiliar noise in the tower, and another three to realize it's the door, specifically the door handle, and Mario squints at it. He's not sure why it's moving, but it's not like it could be opened; Mario had locked it ages ago, shortly after discovering he couldn't leave the tower that way, and then the door had sealed itself shut, and Mario couldn't open it again even if he'd wanted to. And the door at the bottom of the tower was similarly closed off, so the stairwell itself was supposed to be inaccessible.

Mario creeps closer to the door and hears muttering. It...sounds like Bowser, almost. The muttering turns frustrated, and then there's banging on the door. That doesn't work either, Mario already knew; he’d almost broken bones in his hands trying that.

Except...the hinges are starting to bend, and the stone is starting to crack. Mario has a second to rub his eyes to see if he’s still dreaming before, with an almighty crash, the entire door and most of its frame falls forward, dust and fragments of stone raining down from where it once was.

Bowser glares at the door, smoke coming from his nose in an angry huff, and then he looks up and sees Mario. They stare at each other.

Bowser quickly dons a boastful smirk. How about that, he brags, I told you I could get you out of here! No need to thank me or anything —

Mario punches him in the face.

Bowser recoils in pain, and he's offended for about two seconds before he starts laughing, loud and delighted. And here I was wondering if you were gonna wither away while I was gone, he cackles, and Mario can't help the twitch of his lips at that.

(He does kick Bowser in the shins, though. As a warning to never fucking do that again he thought he been abandoned up here —)

(Abandoned? As if! Bowser grins and scoffs. I like you, so you're stuck with me, pipsqueak, and there's fuck-all you can do about it!)

(Mario contemplates pushing him down the stairs. He settles for a hug instead, which was just as well because doing so seemed to throw Bowser off his game more than otherwise. His cheeks were bright red when Mario pulled away, and Mario smirked at him, despite his own face being pink to match.)

Mario packs up his stuff (i.e. grabs his boxes of mail and stuffs them in a bag, and then also puts the various gifts he's received from Peach and Luigi and Toad and Bowser into it) and with one last look around at this shoddily-gilded cage Bowser and Mario start descending the staircase.

They approach the point where the curse would usually stop Mario from progressing any further and Mario hesitates. Bowser pulls him over the invisible threshold with a casual ease, and Mario has to take a minute to stave off the incoming onslaught of tears about the fact that the curse was truly broken. Bowser awkwardly tries to comfort him, and Mario pulls himself together with a watery laugh at the attempt before marching the rest of the way down the stairs, Bowser right behind him.

(And it was a good thing that Bowser was so close, because it turns out being cooped up in one room for several months meant your stamina rested at an all-time low. Bowser had to carry Mario at the halfway mark down the rest of the way, to the embarrassment and secret delight of both of them.)

The two of them step outside. Mario squints, the sun bright in the sky. Luigi and Peach are there waiting for him, and he stumbles over to crush them both in as tight a hug he can manage; the three of them cry a lot and are generally glad that they don't have to be separated anymore and maybe poke a little fun about how pale Mario is now.

Bowser watches them from a slight distance, nearer to Kamek and Kammy, letting them have their Moment(tm). Yeah, he'd meant it when he said he wasn't going to leave Mario ever, but also he's feeling like the world's biggest fourth wheel of a tricycle right now and the uncertainty about what’s going to happen now that Mario had his family back and didn't have to rely on him for socialization anymore is starting to fuck him up a little. Kammy tells him not to worry about it while giving him a Mushroom for the bruise on his face. Bowser is having a hard time not worrying about it.

The Mushroom Kingdom trio finally part — well, Luigi and Mario are still draped over each other and Luigi’s still crying, but that's neither here nor there — and Peach goes over to Bowser to thank him profusely, to the point where Bowser starts squirming both because of the genuine uninhibited positive emotions being expressed and also if he’d been in this exact scenario a year ago he’d be milking it for all it was worth but now it’s just something to sit through as he steals glances at Mario throughout. He’s not exactly subtle, with those glances, and Peach starts teasing him about it. Bowser scowls, face red.

Peach mentions that they’re going to have to plan something for Mario’s formal return, including letting the Mushroom Kingdom citizens know about it. Bowser, of course, is more than welcome to join the inevitable festivities.

I can handle things back home, Kamek says, I was already basically doing that anyway, with how often you were gallivanting over here instead. He shoots a pointed look at Bowser, who rolls his eyes.

As long as it's not one of your ridiculous parties, Bowser grumbles to Peach, Red hasn't talked to anyone besides us in ages you can't just parade him around for your people.

Red? Aw, is that your nickname for him? A color? Peach laughs.

...What did he ever see in her, honestly.

The last thing they do before they leave is destroy the tower. Bowser’s brought some explosives with him, for some godforsaken reason, and Mario and Luigi and Peach take great delight in spending the rest of the day rending the entire structure to rubble with him. Kamek and Kammy pull out all the decor from the tower’s main room and Mario gets the honor of lighting the whole thing up in flames. It's very cathartic.

In the morning, they’re all going to go back to the Mushroom Kingdom to celebrate Mario’s return in a more semi-private setting, and then work out how to do so plus thank Bowser and his advisors for their efforts in a more formal and public way later.

But for now, Mario watches the light from the makeshift bonfire somehow cast Bowser’s fond grin warmer than it already was, and Bowser watches Mario’s eyes sparkle brighter than any fire or star could barely dream of managing. New freedoms meant new beginnings, and as they reached for each other’s hands they knew that this beginning was already off to a great start.

#bowsario #bowser #mario #princess peach #luigi #super mario #smb #hey check out the reblogs for an alternate concept of this i wrote lololol #(help me)#mlv.fic #Mario’s a fun character to fuck up emotionally and psychologically imo people should do it more often #give Luigi a bit of a break for once #but for real tho this is the first bowsario i’ve ever written it was fun~

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thehomeofplatonicfics · 1 year

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Talented Scholar

Tudor!reader x Elizabeth Tudor (platonic!)

Your older sister, the Lady Elizabeth, was well known in the court for her intellect and wisdom beyond her years. You felt that others expected you to be the same, born only a few months before Anne’s unfortunate demise. In some ways you were, often found in various places around the palace with a book in your lap. You spent your free time studying. Languages were your favourite, and you spent many hours conversing with various members of the court in equally varying languages.

It was unfortunate that you never reached your full potential, struggling with perfectionism. No matter how good your writings were, you felt your sister’s was better. She seemed to get ideas immediately, while you had to ruminate on them a little longer to understand them. Your motivation to keep studying hard began to waver, you wanted to get all these new concepts immediately, you wanted to be just like Elizabeth.

King Henry’s latest wife, Catherine Parr, noticed how you started to withdraw yourself from the court and stop your lively conversations. She grew concerned and she wanted to encourage you both. In her chambers one evening, she began pacing the floor, a book in her hand which she tapped against her leg every so often. “What if… I created a friendly competition between them?” She asked aloud, though not really addressing anyone in particular. Catherine flipped through the pages of the book she was holding, noticing it was a Latin text. That would be perfect for both you and Elizabeth. She decided to talk to you both about it the following day.

And so, you were summoned to your step-mother’s chambers first thing in the morning. You stood there fidgeting next to your elder sister, staring at the Queen with curiosity. “I have a little academic competition for the two of you. However, I would like you both to support and encourage one another in this task I give you.” You and Elizabeth turned to look at each other with a small smile and you gave her a slight nod of your head which she returned. From behind her, Catherine produced two identical books which she handed to you both. “This is a Latin text by the Roman Tacitus. I’d like you both to translate all of it into English. The goal is to translate it the quickest but for it to still make sense.”

You grinned at Elizabeth as she held onto her book more tightly. This would be a fierce competition. “This will be a true challenge, Your Majesty. I hope we shall not disappoint.” Elizabeth stated, as she gazed at the book in her hand intently. “I have every faith that both of you will excel in this.” Catherine replied, her gaze held on you for a beat longer, hoping she was encouraging you.

The pair of you ran off to find a quiet area of the palace to start working on the translation together. Elizabeth sat one end and you sat at the other end. Soon the only sounds were of page turning and pen scratchings on parchment. After an hour or two had passed, you placed your pen down and chewed on your lip. You looked down at the tricky passage, then over to your sister who was still diligently working on her text. Swallowing your pride as you stood up, you headed over to her.

"Elizabeth? Have you done this part yet?" You asked as you showed her the page you were on of the text. "I think it is a little too tricky for me." She took the parchment you were working on, comparing it to her own, flipping back to a different page. You stood there awkwardly for a few moments while she gazed at the two different translations. "What do you mean, Y/N? You've done a wonderful translation so far. You've always been talented in languages, I should not be surprised."

You felt your cheeks flush, the unexpected praise from your sister being music to your ears. "Oh… thank you." You whispered, lowering your gaze embarrassed by the compliment. "Is it this section here that is giving you trouble?" Elizabeth asked, and you responded with a nod. "Ah, I see. Here… this will help." She began scribbling notes for you in the upper corner of your parchment, and then handed it back to you. "Do you think you handle the rest?" You nodded again, heading back to your spot. "Thank you, Elizabeth."

After this, as you both worked on the translation over the next few days, the two of you began to relax a little more. Talking, laughing and getting other courtiers involved. It was the most fun you had ever had, and you felt truly happy and confident. Elizabeth won the contest in the end, but for once you didn't care… for you had earned something even more valuable than a win along the way.

#elizabeth tudor x reader #the tudors x reader #the tudors reader insert #the tudors imagine #platonic reader insert #the tudors

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hangmox · 1 year

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HangMox: An Audience of One

Warning: This is a very erratic essay about a feud that means a lot to me, personally. Posting to a sideblog because I’m trying to keep it clean and separate.

Word Count: 8.6k. A doozy. Please understand that I speak on Hangman and Moxley from their first moments in AEW, and I even provide a bit of background from before. Their feud did not start, for me, at the end of September 2022. This is a story that starts from the very first PPV.

Writer’s Note: This has not been revised. If you are a newer fan of AEW, this will help you to understand both mens’ journeys up until this point, and it also helps to express and tie in some ideas and concepts I have for them about blood, beer, and speaking their truths. I hope it makes sense!

After five years of watching weekly WWE television and Pay-Per-Views, my husband and I could not take it any longer. We were looking for an alternative. On May 25th, 2019, we found it, in the form of All Elite Wrestling: Double or Nothing.

It wasn’t the flashiest show we’d ever seen - there were a couple lulls in the show where it felt like the timing was off, the crowd wasn’t as energetic - but we knew why. This was a brand new product, the start of something new for a set of independent wrestlers that we’d heard about very rarely, but enough to maybe know some of their names. In the summer of 2018, I had took it upon myself in the wee hours of the morning, after my grueling 10-hr night shifts at the local chicken plant, to experience life outside of WWE for the first time in the form of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s G1 Climax. This is where I learned that wrestling could be quick, energetic, and still somehow feel like every fist, every high spot, could hurt viscerally. And it is here where I saw Hangman Adam Page on my screen for the very first time.

I was deep into my Red Dead Redemption era in 2018, and this guy hit all the boxes. He was handsome, he was funny, he could actually fucking wrestle, he was a cowboy, and most importantly, he was telling me a story. The known muscle of the Bullet Club and member of the Elite, this was the guy who was looking to prove he was more than just the guy who took the pins so his comrades wouldn’t. He was looking to win the damn thing. But that wasn’t all it was about - no, he had found a way to weave another thread into this tournament: he was going to pull the REAL Kazuchika Okada out of whatever hole he’d been hiding in. He was going to pull the Rainmaker out.

You see, Okada had just lost his IWGP world heavyweight title to Hangman’s friend and Bullet Club leader, Kenny Omega, and his life had taken somewhat of a comically downward spiral. He dyed his hair clown red, he walked out to his entrance music with shapeable balloons. At the time, we took to calling him the “Balloonmaker.” He walked out with a smile on his face, to hide the sorrow of his failure. But this wasn’t the guy Hangman was expecting to wrestle in his block of the round-robin tournament. No, he was going to make sure that if he beat Okada, one of the most legendary wrestlers in the history of the company, he was going to beat the BEST version of him. And if he lost? Well, at least he gave it his all against the best. The problem with New Japan, however, was the unbelievable amount of hours we would have to dedicate to the product. I think I ended up watching five full days of the G1 Climax, out of a possible 20 or so.

Around the time that Hangman took on the grueling month-long tournament against some of New Japan’s finest, another wrestler was making his re-debut on WWE television. After an elbow injury and a terrifying staph infection that nearly killed him, Dean Ambrose was back on Monday Night Raw, alongside his friend and enemy, Seth freakin’ Rollins. But this wasn’t the same Dean Ambrose we had witnessed for the past couple years, the hyperactive little shit that wouldn’t stay down, no, this was prison-break Ambrose. He came back swole and with a mean mugging look that would make a bulldog cry. This was it, everyone thought, we’re gonna get the heel turn of a lifetime.

Only, it wasn’t exactly what we expected. First off, it was late, and at the heels of an announcement that turned WWE on its head - Roman Reigns was taking time off for his 2nd battle with leukemia, and Ambrose chose now to turn on Seth Rollins. Maybe if the motive had made a little more sense, it would’ve been enough. After all, Rollins and Ambrose had a long, storied history together - if Ambrose could just explain why now, maybe I could be on his side. I wanted to be on his side. The WWE put out one of those documentaries for Dean that followed him for months, throughout his time out on injury, and then his subsequent return. We got backstage moments with him where he divulged his feelings, seemingly telling us what was going on in his head. And yet - nothing. It never truly felt like he had told us WHY. Now, years later, I’ve read Mox’s book, and I know how he felt about the whole thing, so I know he was just as frustrated as I was, if not more (definitely more, actually).

So Ambrose left the company, and my husband and I dropped the WWE. I don’t know if it was coincidence or fate, but there’s going to be a lot of that comin’ around in this story. Ambrose wasn’t even my favorite - Sami Zayn is my WWE favorite. But something about the way it all went down with Ambrose, and also largely in part the way that WWE treated Sami Zayn, is what finally made us break our ties.

Almost immediately after Dean Ambrose left WWE and cashed in his chips, a video dropped on his largely unused twitter account: a video of Jon Moxley breaking out of jail, with a shot of the numbers 5 & 25 found in the video - which just so happened to be the month and day of the first Double or Nothing AEW Pay-Per-View.

I would love to say that I was anticipating that day, but to be honest, I completely forgot about it until the day of, when my husband dragged me downstairs to the living room to figure out how to buy our very first pay-per-view on cable television, about five minutes before the buy-in aired.

But once I saw that precious cowboy come out as the Joker in the first ever Casino Battle Royal, I was hooked. I turned to my husband, pointing at Hangman on my screen. “That’s the guy we saw in the G1 last year! He’s in the Bullet Club!”

He smiled at the screen, knowing it was too late. I had found my favorite.

Hangman won the battle royal, earning him the first shot at the inugural AEW world championship at the next Pay-Per-View. Who he was slated to go up against, though, depended on the outcome of the Double or Nothing main event: the Alpha, Chris Jericho, versus Kenny Omega.

“Do you think Mox will show up?” I asked my partner, my entire body tense with anticipation.

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. If he doesn’t show up, it’ll ruin it for you.”

“He’s showing up,” I insisted, “I’m like 99% certain he will.” I’ve never been one to make guarantees, but this was as close to one as I could manage. I could feel it in my soul, and I was dying to see Mox live up to his potential.

I was bouncing off the couch when I saw Mox stalking through the crowd and into the ring. My adrenaline was pumping and I thought it was the best way to end their first PPV. My husband and I turned to look at each other - yep, this was enough. This was definitely enough to intrigue us.

I would spend the summer of 2019 watching everything I could about AEW - I finally got into Being the Elite, I watched the summer events, and I searched Hangman’s name on youtube as much as I could to get more of a semblance of his character. He was now important to me, and I was determined to understand him as best as I could. Through this, I met and connected with brand new friends, as well as dragged my WWE friends into it as much as I could.

One friend in particular was an EXTREMELY avid Mox fan. Even in his Ambrose days, they spoke about the old CZW Moxley often, and so I had an idea of what this new and improved version would probably be like. I also found myself a friend that had been following Hangman Page for the past few years and knew substantially more about him than I ever could. With them and a couple other new friends I found that also adored Hangman, we became a tiny little stable of our own.

And so, the brainstorming began.

Before All Out 2019 even happened, I had posed the question to my friends: “What do we think about Hangman and Mox? Wouldn’t that be a badass combination?”

The noted Mox fan and the seasoned Hangman vet were the first ones to perk up. The Mox fan agreed immediately, and the Hangman vet said they had already started working on an idea to bring them together a couple days after Double or Nothing, when Mox had done his interview with Chris Jericho on his Talk is Jericho podcast.

“Hold on a minute - a podcast?” I asked, curious.

Enthusiastically, they told me that Jericho had asked Mox who he’d like to get in the ring with now that he was in a new promotion. Hangman’s name had been the first out of his mouth, said nonchalantly, very much like it wasn’t a big deal and Mox was just naming names to name them. But it was too late - this was now my obsession.

Three episodes into AEW Dynamite, we got our very first chance to see them in action together. The two loners, Pac and Moxley, were taking on the team of Hangman and Kenny. This team was brand new at the time, both having suffered major losses at All Out - Kenny had submitted to Pac, and Hangman had lost his shot at the inaugural title to Chris Jericho in the main event. The tag match made sense - for the most part. Mox had gone for the biggest fish in AEW at the end of Double or Nothing, giving Kenny Omega a Paradigm Shift that got the entire wrestling world talking. Pac and Hangman had beef that started in the early days of the promotion, the story told almost entirely through Being the Elite at the time. Kenny had just lost to Pac. And yet…there was no motivation here for Hangman and Mox to be across the ring from each other. The lack of a story between them was louder than all the other storytelling here combined. Perhaps, I told myself, this was a story in itself.

No worries, though. We were about to see just how much chemistry these two had. This would be the first step in gauging what a potential feud or even partnership could be like. We were absolutely shivering with anticipation.

Hangman spent most of his own time in the match trying to get the drop on Pac. The first moment he was in the ring with Mox, he practically paid him no mind until he had Pac dead on the floor. Before the match was done, they’d interacted maybe twice as legal men in the ring, and once when everyone was on the outside. At one point, Mox had Hangman in a gorgeous Texas cloverleaf submission, which was quickly stopped by Kenny. Another point in the match, Hangman tried to give Mox a buckshot lariat that Mox ducked. Almost immediately, Mox ate a clothesline from Hangman akin to an Okada Rainmaker finisher, and it was fucking beautiful.

It was clear to me, from the grand total of about two and a half minutes that they spent in the ring together, that they were an elegant match.

Four months passed by.

Hangman went on a downward spiral, leaving the Elite but choosing still to tag with Kenny. He started to drink, courtesy of those silly little guys, Private Party. This ain’t water, indeed. By the time Revolution 2020 came around, Hangman was on a trajectory to meet his former best friends, the Young Bucks, in a tag team championship match, and Jon Moxley was slated as contender to Chris Jericho’s AEW world championship in the main event.

And well, let’s just say, the better story won the night, even if Jon Moxley closed the show.

Hangman walked out of his match a winner, his tag title still in one hand and a beer in the other, with Kenny Omega at his side.

Jon Moxley, newly won championship belt on his shoulder, excitement still pumping blood in his ears, would go on to say it felt like it was “beer o’clock.”

An awkward pause.

What? I thought.

The camera panned to the crowd.

Mox was smiling, tongue sticking out like a panting dog, looking somewhat towards the go-position.

No, could he be…? There was no way. I couldn’t believe it. Was Hangman Page about to show up right now?

Whoever was in production scrambled to put a stop to this. Mox’s music hit.

“Hey, what the fuck?” said the newly crowned world heavyweight champion.

Hold on. Were they…Oscaring him off the stage? Is that what was happening in this moment? Say ‘sike’ right now.

My hands were on my mouth.

Let’s just say that for the rest of the five hours that I stayed awake after this show, unable to sleep due to the sheer adrenaline running through my veins, me and the gang were viciously wondering what the fuck that was about. Maybe Hangman was supposed to come out? But how does that make sense when he and Kenny just retained their titles? Why would he go for the championship again so soon? But it makes sense for him to want it. That’s the title that he promised he would win on day one of the company.

But we didn’t get an answer.

Whether that was because of the pandemic that shut down the entire world for the foreseeable future a week and half later, or because that was just genuinely something that meant absolutely nothing, we’ll never know. Truly, we will NEVER know. Unless one of us ever has the guts to ask Mox about it. Until then, “beer o’clock” + awkward pause + staring at the go-position + Mox theme + “hey what the fuck” will likely haunt me for the rest of my life. Thanks, Jonathan.

Lots of things changed during this time. Hangman’s rocky relationship with the Bucks came back to a head again before All Out 2020, during a tag gauntlet match that would reveal the first contenders for Hangman and Kenny’s championships at the Pay-Per-View. It was down to the Young Bucks and FTR. See, FTR had come in at the beginning of the summer, and they ended up making friends with Hangman. Hangman was there when they signed their contracts, with a brand new bottle of whiskey in hand. They bonded over drinks. But they weren’t so friendly with the Bucks and Kenny, which obviously caused a lot of problems. By the time that gauntlet came around, FTR had Hangman convinced that if the Bucks won the gauntlet, Hangman would regret it. They worked him with his own insecurities. They just wanted a friendly bout with him, they said. He’d already had one with the Bucks, so wouldn’t it be fun to have a match with FTR this time?

So Hangman cheated, costing the Bucks the match. A few moments later, Hangman brooding over what he’d done in the Daily’s Place bar, the Bucks kicked him officially out of the Elite, throwing a drink in his face.

He and Kenny would go on to lose the tag titles at All Out to FTR. He would lose his tag partner in the process. He would fight him at the next PPV in singles competition for contendership of Moxley’s heavyweight championship. He would drop to the ground, land flat on his face, losing this first opportunity to fight Moxley to his own partner.

A microphone blast to the head. Blood gushing from the middle of Jon’s forehead (a sight well known to the AEW fans). V-Trigger. V-Trigger. V-Trigger. V-Trigger. Pull him in. One Winged Angel.

One. Two. Three.

That was how Jon Moxley lost his AEW world heavyweight championship to Kenny Omega. An absolute steal. A few weeks prior, at Full Gear, the Young Bucks beat FTR for the tag team championships.

Months and months go by. Hangman finds solace in the Dark Order, and the Dark Order finds solace in him in return. They bring each other back up, from sorrows greater than we could even imagine. The loss of their leader, their friend, their Exalted One. Our Brodie Lee. Though Hangman would deny them on separate occasions, eventually he would understand that friends don’t let friends do battle alone. And whether he joined them as a group or not, it wouldn’t matter. They would keep Brodie Lee’s offer and promise that he made to Hangman the year before, when he left the Elite. They would never leave him alone.

Mox would continue his quest to retrieve the title, challenging Kenny at Revolution 2021 in an exploding barbed wire deathmatch that would end…not precisely as intended. However, much like Hangman, he would find that he was not alone. He would find someone to watch his back, in the form of an old friend and foe, Eddie Kingston. They would challenge the Bucks - now firmly planted once again at Kenny’s side - for the tag team championships at Double or Nothing 2021. This, much like his shot at the world title, would be for naught.

In the summer of 2021, the Dark Order would prove worthy allies in the ring to Hangman, when they challenged Kenny and the Young Bucks to a multi-man tag, with the stipulation that if they were able to eliminate each member of the Elite, Hangman would get his shot at Kenny’s title, and they would receive a shot at the Young Bucks.

Now, I’ll be honest - I don’t remember what Mox was doing at the time, so I had to look this up. Uhh, he spent a lot of time on AEW Dark. But the match that stood out the most to me during this time was a Texas Deathmatch with Lance Archer…which he lost. And with it, his IWGP US championship.

So Hangman and the Dark Order are unsuccessful. They beg him to keep trying, but at around this time, Hangman decides that he needs some space. He comes up to the ring at Daily’s Place, the first Homecoming show since AEW’s two month long tour away (when the entire world decided that the pandemic was finally over). Tony Schiavone is with him, and it seems like maybe Hangman is going to tell the crowd that he’s gonna take some time to himself or let some things off his chest, when the Elite show up. At one point he tells Hangman that perhaps maybe he would consider allowing Hangman to come back to the Elite - upon which a young woman in the crowd in a cowboy hat and a teal bandana yells, “Never!” (me). Yes, I got to watch live as the Elite beat Hangman down and the Dark Order could only stand back and watch.

…This would be the last time we see Hangman for two months.

While he’s gone, though, Jon Moxley brings up his name, in a backstage promo where he calls out the newcomers. At this time, AEW was seeing a surge of new talent entering its ranks - people like Daniel Garcia, Malakai Black, CM Punk. Mox questions whether this talent thinks that it’s easy to be at the top here - Kenny has an entire entourage surrounding him at all times just to keep the title around his waist, and Hangman can’t “get over his high school drama, BTE emo bullcrap long enough to get the job done.” He says that Hangman “ain’t no cowboy,” and he could “drink his ass under the table.”

Oh, I think. You mean like beer o’clock?

Mox was pulling wins around this time every week, and it was clear he was due for a push. This was the man who put the world title and the company on his back during an unprecedented time not just for the promotion, but for the world as a whole. And it was clear that he was due his flowers.

But very odd, to me, that he would bring up Hangman. Especially when they had nothing to do with each other.

Fast forward to October 6th, 2021. A fucked up time in my life. Probably the worst I’ve ever felt.

It was only fitting, then, that my favorite cowboy would show up and give me a small glimmer of hope. The roar of the crowd that night touched my soul more than I can ever say.

The last time he was the Joker of a casino match, he won. This time would be no different.

Except that Mox was in this match. And Mox was the one in the ring waiting for him. The moment they collided with each other, I was screaming. I was crying. My heart was thumping out of my chest. After two years, they were finally back in a ring together. Almost two years to the day.

One of the funniest moments in this casino ladder match is seeing Hangman drop Pac from the top of a ladder with a deadeye, pull himself up onto the ropes to celebrate with the crowd, only to turn around and get spiked on his head with a Paradigm Shift from Jon Moxley, receiving the double birds.

But it didn’t matter. The path was clear - Hangman was going to win this ladder match, setting up his final encounter with his old friend, Kenny Omega, for the AEW world heavyweight championship. And there wasn’t a damn thing Mox, Pac, Andrade, or Lance Archer could do to stop him.

Hangman, at the top of a ladder, guzzling a beer, closed out the show. The casino chip lay ominously on the mat, forgotten.

The next couple of weeks would see Hangman in the most confident state he’d ever been in, relaxed and sure of himself, breathing deeply and opening his heart to the fans. He was - in a word - beautiful.

Mox, however, was absolutely despicable. Ten days later, he would have his first bout with Wheeler Yuta, dropping him in less than two minutes and storming back out of the ring. He would continue his rampage all the way into the eliminator tournament, which would come to a head at Full Gear. All the booking made it clear: this man was aiming for the world title…and Hangman Page was going to be the one wearing it.

That would all change, however, when Jon Moxley decided to put his health first. His fight with alcoholism had finally resonated enough within him that he said enough was enough, and he pulled himself out of the tournament. In an odd way, his real life story and Hangman’s story on the screen were more similar than we could have expected.

And once again, like ships in the night…they would pass each other by, never knowing how close they had come.

I won’t go on a long tangent about how much Hangman winning the title meant to me, so I’ll just say this: Hangman Page winning the world title meant a lot to me.

Another similarity - both Hangman and Mox bled in the match where they won their world championship.

From here, we arrive in 2022.

“Nobody, no matter who you are, should be afraid to stand up in front of the whole world and bare it all, everything that makes you who you are, scars and all, and say ‘hey, this is me!’” - words Jon Moxley spoke when he made his return from rehabilitation.

I love these words. Because they’re very much in line with something that Hangman himself said in the post-Full Gear scrum two months before: “Fuck it, I’ll just say what I feel. I’ll just be me. And if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, I came by it honest.”

As the champion Hangman Adam Page bled and bled and bled his way through his title matches, Jon Moxley found himself in the Blackpool Combat Club - a group consisting of himself, Bryan Danielson, and William Regal, as well as (eventually) Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli. This was a group that prided itself in one thing - bloody violence.

The alcohol would be replaced, in both the champ and the former champ’s minds, by blood.

A sidenote: Hangman would have a Texas Deathmatch with the very same Lance Archer. Unlike Moxley, though, he would go on to win the match and retain his championship. And boy, was it a bloody scene. Two months later, Hangman would challenge Adam Cole to a Texas Deathmatch as well - and win.

We arrive at Double or Nothing.

A good friend of mine would meet Hangman Page at a meet and greet the day before the show. The limited edition print Hangman signed for her was a graphic of him, surrounded by a border that resembled a playing card. His sign - the Ace of Diamonds. Curious, I looked up the meaning of the card. Now, this could all be bullshit, but at the time, it meant something to me. It specified a message that was soon to come, or in a broader sense, a new perspective. I felt like this fit Hangman perfectly, and it solidified something in my own head about him - he was, in fact, an Ace in the company. At a time when I heard often that Jon Moxley was the top guy, when there were whispers that Jon might fight Tanahashi soon at Forbidden Door, I was dead set on maintaining Hangman as the One. And this, this was a sign. For me.

All those hopes and dreams would come crashing down though, obviously, when Hangman lost the title to CM Punk. After 198 days of being overshadowed by the explosive feud that was Maxwell versus Punk, Hangman’s reign would come to an end.

But as luck would have it, Punk would be injured about four days later, leaving the title picture up in the air.

“This is mine,” Hangman had declared, that night at Double or Nothing. “You will NEVER have it. This. Is. Mine!”

Those words, it seemed, rang nearly true enough.

The month of June would become a month so confusing, so convoluted, that even now I cannot remember what exactly the fuck happened. There was a battle royal to pick an opponent for the number one contender to the interim title, Jon Moxley, but the problem was that Hangman already had a match set for the night. I thought, surely he can pull a double. He’s the former world champ. Surely, they’ll let him do it. The only problem was, that double was actually pulling a triple, because the match between the winner of the battle royal would face Mox on Rampage, which was taped the same night.

I, and the rivalry I so desperately held to my chest, would have to wait once more. Another near-crossing. But I could feel it: the lines were drawing closer.

Mox would face Tanahashi and win the interim world title. Hangman would follow a confusing path to the IWGP heavyweight championship and lose against three other men. Hangman had another opportunity at a title shot in another battle royal, but he got dunked out of the ring before he could win it. By the middle of July, I was getting antsy. I wanted to know what the future held for my favorite guy in AEW, and by god, I was going to get some answers.

Comicpalooza - Houston, TX. July 16th and 17th, 2022. Hangman Page and Adam Cole were set to appear. They were going to have panels, autographs, and professional photos with fans.

And I, resident Hangman girlie, was going to be there.

Here’s where the shit gets interesting.

Cole ended up having to cancel, I’m assuming due to not being medically cleared after the concussion he suffered at Forbidden Door. Which meant that both days became wide open to meeting Hangman not once, not twice - but four times. Twice for photos and twice for autographs. And of course, the panel.

As a girl who’s never once met a celebrity that she actually cared about, this was a big fucking deal, and I was - hoo boy, was I nervous. The first chance I got was the first autograph signing, right before the photo and about twenty minutes before the panel. I could hardly look him in the eye. I was about as skittish as a horse, and super quiet. He tried to get light conversation out of me (complimenting my pearlsnap - which matched his own, mine was cream and his was brown - shirt, my belt, and my boots), and I ended up mentioning that I would see him again in a few minutes for the photo and then the panel. It was going to be a busy couple hours for him. After that was over, I saw him at the photo. I was the first in line.

“Hello again,” I said. He replied with a smile, and he seemed much more awake and excited than he had a few minutes prior. I noted that he must like taking photos with everyone. His cheery aura calmed me down significantly, and I was much more comfortable speaking with him. I asked for a hug, and he obliged me. He asked me what kind of pose I’d like to do, and I told him I wanted to do finger guns. In my head, I was imagining us back to back, like a movie poster, but he suggested we whirl into it, like we’re about to shoot at the camera. He asked if this was okay. I was so starry-eyed that I said yes immediately.

Once the camera flashed, he pulled me over to the photographer’s screen of the image. He said he wanted to make sure it looked good, and asked if I liked it. It was an amazing photo. I know it was amazing, because I actually thought I looked good in it.

Now, I debated on mentioning this part but I figure I may as well - at this point in time, I asked him if I handed him a letter, would he read it. He said, “yes, of course!” I handed it to him, and he quickly asked me if he should read it now, to which I yelled, “no! Nuh uh! Not right now!”

“You sure?” he asked playfully. I shook my head. It was too long a letter for him to read at the moment, and he had a line to get through and then a panel to get to. I was not about to hold him up. Plus, I had tapped out all my remaining courage for this particular moment. I was not about to watch his face as he read the feelings I bore on those pages. Knowing I was strong enough to put the letter in his hands was enough for me. He said okay. I thanked him as I left, saying I would see him at the panel.

The audience at the panel was small, way too small for the ballroom they had set up in. But it didn’t matter, because I was in the front row anyway. I brought a little sign that said “Hangman Gang,” which was the name of my group of wrestling friends. The mediator of the panel pointed it out to him when he sat down at the table in the front of the room.

I had never attended a panel before, but I knew the basics of what it was like from a couple of panels I had watched on youtube. At some point, there would be a Q&A where fans could go up to a microphone setup and ask him a question.

I had thought about what I would ask him for weeks. But by the time the day came around, none of the questions I’d thought about were sticking in my mind as The One. I had questions about the meaning behind some of his gear, questions about the Elite, questions about Adam Cole. But none of them felt…right. When I finally got out of my seat to take my spot in line for the microphone, I was in “fuck it” mode. I knew what I was going to ask, even if I wasn’t sure how I was going to ask it. Plus, I needed to tell him happy early birthday.

“Hi,” I said shyly. He responded with a quiet “hello.”

And so it began. I wished him a happy birthday, barely stopping to acknowledge his thanks before continuing on with what I was there for. I prefaced my question by saying that I knew him and Mox had only fought twice in the past two years, but never in singles. And I believe, if my memory is correct, that I said: “Is that on purpose? Or like, are you dodging Mox? Or is Mox dodgin’ you?”

A chuckle from the mediator. The absolute audacity of my asking my favorite wrestler in the world whether he was afraid of another wrestler must have really gotten to him.

Hangman replied, as I recall, very eloquently. He remembered that first match at the beginning of Dynamite’s run, and he remembered the casino ladder match. But as for why they hadn’t met again, he could only chalk it up to…”fate.” Fate was what kept them apart. Fate took Mox out of the tournament, fate took the belt off Hangman, fate kept him from these opportunities all summer long. It was out of his control, but he would love to fight Mox. He certainly wasn’t dodging him on purpose. He would love to do a match with him.

At this, the mediator prompted. “...Texas Deathmatch?”

Hangman’s eyes looked out into the ether, weighing those words. “Yeah. Yeah, Mox likes deathmatches, right?”

My entire body started vibrating at those words. I thanked him and sat back in my seat.

I would not stop thinking about those words until the end of September, when Hangman won the battle royal at Rampage Grand Slam. The newly crowned NOT-interim world heavyweight champion, Jon Moxley, was set to do battle against Hangman Adam Page.

This was an important match for Hangman, as it would be his first major shot at the world title since losing it a few months back. From the moment Hangman walked out to meet Mox face to face in the front of the ring, I was hooked on every expression, every set of their jaws, every word from their mouths.

“Three years of AEW Dynamite…three years of watching you, three years of studying you because I knew this was comin’...three years of us circlin’ each other…”

The camera cuts to a wide shot of the two in the ring, dancing around each other.

The image in my head is of Raymond Holt from Brooklyn Nine Nine shouting, “VINDICATION!!”

“You know, between the two of us, we’ve probably beaten everyone there is to beat…except each other…on October 18th, there will be one Last Man Standing here in AEW.”

The first pearl of foreshadowing dropped. Texas Deathmatches, at their core, were considered ‘last man standing.’ Mox goes on to say here that he was going to choke Hangman out, because Hangman was in the way. In the way of Mox being, once and for all, the Top Guy in AEW. Just like I had been told. He goes on to say that he respects Hangman as a competitor and as a person. At one point, after Hangman goes too far, he calls him a ‘sweet kid.’ But at the end of the day, he was going to put him down, no matter what.

The next week in the ring, Mox mentions that being world champion means having a target on your back. Many “crumble under the pressure…some faster than others.” This is, very clearly, a knock on Hangman and his reign. Though Hangman bled, and bled…and bled to keep his title, the story of his reign was a tough one. Having finally beaten the man whose shadow Hangman felt trapped under, there was nothing now to fight but the weight of being the champ. Keeping the gold that symbolized his worth had been, as Mox points out, too much to handle.

And now, he had to get his worth back.

When Hangman walks out to meet Mox here, he begins by telling Mox that whatever he has to say to Hangman, he can “say it to his face.” This would be the first, of many times, where he says this to Moxley in the months to come. He goes on to say, “but actually, you said it all last week.” He mentions how Mox said he respected him in the ring and as a person, and “[he] would be lying if [he didn’t say] coming from [Mox], that meant the world to [him].” He says that Mox was a damn good father, husband, champion, and that he looked up to Mox and wanted to be like him. But the moment that Mox called him a kid last week, all of those things vanished, in Hangman’s eyes.

“Is that what you think of me?” He demands. Mox takes the mic and says it’s exactly right. Because the Hangman standing before him now is not the same guy who knocked him off the top of a ladder a year ago to cash in his shot at the title. The Hangman of now, broken and aimless, won’t be able to pull the trigger if given the chance.

Mox��s observation here was sound - Hangman had many opportunities as champion to end someone in the most brutal way possible. During the Texas Deathmatch with Adam Cole, there’s a wonderful shot of Cole tied to the ropes while Hangman debates hitting him with a steel chair. A similar shot was shown the night he lost the title to CM Punk - where he holds the title in his hands while no one is looking, and debates whether he should use it to knock Punk out. He had a similar choice the day he won the title, but he chose not to and won.

In every instance, he has a shot at ending it. He refuses every time, out of some sense of nobility. It’s clear here that Mox disapproves.

Hangman agrees. He’s not the same person. Hesitation cost him the title. Hesitation cost him the trios titles, as well, in September. His old friends were gone and his new ones were dropping like flies. “I’m angry, I’m depressed! The medicine is not working but I am STILL HERE because I am a man!”

Here’s where he ties in to Mox’s words. How could he be a sweet kid if he was a man? An adult? Someone who has been through hell and back? He’s lowered family into the ground, he’s helped bring life into this world, he’s been choked until he turns blue but he keeps getting back up!

At this point, Hangman gets so worked up that he beats his fist into his eyebrow so badly that it breaks the skin. And here’s the part that I love the most - “I have my shot, and I have my word. Tuesday, I take my shot, and tonight I give you my word.” He palms at the blood staining his brow, wipes it on Mox’s white shirt. “...That is my word.”

The week before Hangman won the title off Kenny, there was a contract signing. At this contract signing, Kenny Omega and Don Callis conspired to rough Hangman up to give him a disadvantage going into the match that Sunday. Hangman broke wide open, over the same. Fucking. Eyebrow. And what did Kenny do? He signed his signature to the contract in Hangman’s blood. And then he lost.

I guess you could say Hangman’s blood holds a lot of promise.

“And unlike him,” Hangman said, pointing to a lurking Maxwell in the rafters of the arena, “I wanted to make sure to say this to you face-to-face…man-to-man.”

Of course, Hangman would go on to lose the first bout, as he suffered a very real, very scary concussion, but my god, was that match a work of art before the finish. It’d been a while since Hangman fans saw him pull an orihara moonsault from high up on a barricade, but he pulled it out for Mox.

At this point, I sat and wondered. Would I get to see him again? How soon? They were set to have three shows in Texas come December, and I wondered if we would finally get the Texas Deathmatch that seemed all but a promise. Because I didn’t think he would be cleared, I didn’t go to any of them. I just watched, anxious and a little bit heated, as Hangman showed up to answer Moxley’s call at the beginning of the first winter month.

Moxley’s first reaction to this was to make a tone-deaf joke about how Hangman probably didn’t remember what happened the last time they had met, instead of waiting to hear what Hangman might’ve had to say. He was met with a sock to the jaw.

This would go on for weeks, with Hangman saying that this wasn’t how he wanted it to go at all, but Mox just HAD to goad him. Say something stupid. Meanwhile, Mox held firm in his belief that he didn’t know what the fuck Hangman was talking about, and he could fight him any day of the week, no problem. Hangman would go into a brawl with him nearly every week, not being cleared to wrestle in the ring on account of his concussion. In a segment with Renee, he would reveal to her that the night of their first bout, when he got injured, he forgot his own son’s name. So Mox making light of his memory loss was, of course, not at all funny.

By January 2023, a date was set between the two in California. All three Texas shows went by and not one mention of a Texas Deathmatch, which had me very confused. But no matter, because there were two more Texas shows now slated for February, and I was going to one of them. I hoped, even if it wasn’t the match I was hoping for, that at the very least the feud would continue.

Before this rematch, though, they had one last face-to-face. Mox would tell Hangman that all this whining about get knocked out made him absolutely sick. And Hangman, of course, would have to point Mox in the right direction. “You think that I’m mad at you because you knocked me out? Is that really what you think?”

See, Hangman was well aware that being knocked out was part of the job. That was never the problem. Condescendingly, Hangman continues. “You don’t seem like a guy for nuance, so I’ll put it to you simple…”

The night of Hangman’s return, Mox didn’t let him get one word in before he made a joke. He believed in that moment that Mox saw him as a threat. But Hangman had not walked out to Mox that night for a fight, though it was what he was here for now.

That part was so interesting to me, because I wanted so badly to know why Hangman showed up that night to face Mox in the ring originally. This goes back to Hangman’s need to say things to Mox’s face and wanting the same in return.

Hangman won the second bout in a great match. Mox suffered what looked to be an injury, with the way he asked, “What happened?” repeatedly. Almost as if he had suffered a concussion of his own. Hangman would leave the ring, concerned and most of all, ashamed. Mox had been right in October. He was much softer than was expected to be of a champion.

So now they were tied, 1 to 1. At this point, Renee conducted a couple of interviews with Hangman, one of which was very interesting.

Renee started by asking how he was doing, and then she told him something that Mox told her. Apparently, Mox believed that Hangman made him better. That he both “despises” and “cherishes” him.

The HangMox girlie in me was bouncing off the walls. Knowing that even after two fights, Mox still had a nice word to say about Hangman was everything to me. It was beyond anything I could have ever expected, and he turned visibly awkward here. This would be one of three times in the interview where his body language changed.

He answers by saying that if Mox wanted to say something to his face, he could say it to him, and Hangman would gladly knock him out again if need be. Again, bringing up speaking to his face.

Three days before this segment, someone asked me what I thought was next for Hangman, and although I didn’t have a clear answer, I knew that it would have to do with something from the past. “The only way he can move forward is by looking back.”

Renee asked Hangman the same question, and he responded with, “the more I look forward, I can’t help but see back.”

I yelped. This was insane. There was no way we were this in tune. Basically, he wanted one final match. To prove that his win wasn’t a fluke, to prove that at the end of the day, he was the better of the two. To put this feud to bed. He also says that something Renee said earlier (calling him and Mox “elite” level performers) reminded him of some friendships that needed mending. This is another time he visibly changes his body language.

Once the interview is done, Hangman asks how Mox is, truly. Renee says that he’ll dust himself off again soon. Here is the final time where he seems to become visibly awkward - he begins to ask Renee, “could you tell him -” before stopping himself. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”

He holds himself here to the standard he holds Mox by. He wants Mox to say things to his face, so he knows that he shouldn’t relay anything back to him through Renee either.

Their third match, while just as fun as the first two, ends in an anti-climactic finish. After getting his ass handed to him by Hangman for about eight or so minutes, Mox pulls him in for a deep cover and gets the roll-up win. Hangman is, understandably, pissed. He ends up getting in Mox’s face, with Wheeler and Claudio having to keep them apart. They exchange flips of the bird. Mox lays down and makes a snow angel, much like Punk did to him in September. Hangman responds with a burpee.

They are absolutely little fucking kids about it. And it’s great.

It’s clear that the dick measuring contest isn’t over.

Still pissed off, Hangman comes back the next week in an interview with Renee and he is positively livid. He is so livid that he almost, almost tells Renee to relay a message to Moxley, but he’s interrupted by Kip Sabian before he can finish his thought.

The next week, Hangman wrestles Kip Sabian. I’m in the front row, cheering my ass off. He wins, as expected. He leans onto the ropes, frustration over another match crystal clear in his eyes. I raise my poster up so he can see. “Cowboy, you stole my yee-heart,” it reads. (It was the day after Valentine’s Day.)

He sends me a little kiss, keeps his eyebrows angry and his lips pouting. He does it like he’s mad about it, and it’s oh-so-fucking funny.

Behind him, Mox and his friends pull up into the ring. My heart is pounding out of my chest. I am seeing Hangman and Mox in the ring together with my own two eyes, and it’s amazing.

Mox tells Hangman that it’s over between them, he won fair and square. But Hangman refuses. He takes the mic, saying that there’s no way either of them could be happy with the finish of that match. That it’s not how their story should end. Their story ends at Revolution, when they go back in that cold, dark alley and only one man is left standing.

There it is, I thought. Those words again. Last man standing.

Mox seems glad of Hangman’s pushy nature at this point. He admits he’s kinda glad that Hangman has no friends to talk him into a smarter decision.

It’s at this point that the Dark Order makes itself known. Evil Uno, mic in hand, asks if he heard Mox correctly. “Did you say that this man has no friends?”

This moment was insane. Absolutely astonishing, to see Uno walk into the ring, square up to Mox and tell his own friend, Hangman, to get out of his face. Uno even goes so far as to pie-face Moxley to get his attention, something very few people have ever done and gotten away with, if ever.

Refusing to see Uno as a threat, Mox looks past him to the upset cowboy. “Cowboy…Texas Death.”

That girl in the front row went absolutely insane (me).

After missing four separate shows in Texas, I still managed to witness the announcement of the Texas Deathmatch between Hangman and Moxley. It was like the entire segment, the entire feud, up to this moment, was waiting on me to become a part of it once more. To be their lone partner, standing witness to the wonderful feud that was unfolding in front of my very eyes. Because not only were Hangman and Mox going head to head with the stipulation I’d been expecting since it came out of that mediation’s mouth, springing from my own completely odd and batshit question, but now the Dark Order was involved with the now merciless Blackpool Combat Club. Which means that this is likely far from truly over.

I left that show an elated woman. I was finally getting what I wanted.

And now, two and a half weeks later, the match is here. After watching the Countdown to Revolution, I can say without a doubt that they’ve satiated me well enough with this build. This idea that Mox is an animal without mercy that craves violence, completely and totally juxtaposing the man that needs to put down this rabid dog even if he doesn’t want to, but is going to have to by any means necessary. He said that Mox would never be the same, but I think the opposite is true. I think Hangman’s going to reach a point that he hasn’t been brought to yet in AEW. I think this time, despite all other evidence to the contrary, he’s finally going to snap. That heavy heart that Mox couldn’t take from him, that heart that Mox couldn’t carry, might turn to stone, if only for a moment.

A few weeks before Bryan and Mox had their bloody match at Revolution 2022, Mox uttered these words: “I don’t stand side by side with nobody…till I bleed with him first.”

It’s very clear that this Sunday, these men are going to bleed together. But I wonder…will they end up standing side by side? Will they share non-alcoholic beers together? Will Hangman ever tell Mox how he really feels, or will he keep it to himself, as he’s so often done before?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

#hangman adam page #adam page #jon moxley #aew #aew revolution (2023)#hangman page #all elite wrestling #hangman x moxley #hangmox

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showtoonzfan · 1 year

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I love how most of the reactions of the fandom towards Stolas snapping back at Stella for this episode was mainly “LOL YES KING”, or “GOOD FOR HIM HE’S STANDING UP FOR HIMSELF”- “THIS IS SO FUNNY GET HER LOL”- mainly people just stroking his cock oh- I mean supporting him pissed me off because it just goes to show how the fandom and writers don’t give a damn about Octavia, or realize how serious her situation is.

It also doesn’t help that the story’s pacing is lazily sloppy as well, the writers want you to feel bad for Octavia since Stolas is occupied and can’t take her to her special event, but at the same TIME want you to laugh at her parents bickering at eachother, even though the show itself introduced this concept in a depressing light back in Loo Loo Land. Again, it just goes to show that writers don’t really care enough about Octavia. How are you going to introduce a serious topic about divorce and parents arguing around a child who grew up with them and loves them, yet later play it all for laughs? This isn’t really the first time the show did this, they did the same at the end of episode 5, where Octavia was sitting with her parents at the dinner table, listening to music while Stella was just screaming about plotting to kill her husband and Stolas couldn’t hear because plot. The show really just contradicts itself, I said it once and I’ll say it again, Octavia is done so dirty. The writers try to act like they care about her and how she’s upset with all the trauma she’s endured living a toxic household, but not only do they invalidate her feelings and push it to the side so we can have more Stolitz content and “funny” Stella and Stolas scenes, but Viv is SO afraid to fully call out Stolas on his actions. She can’t even fully make him a flawed character without excusing him, pulling the “he’s trying” card in the recent episode, even though Stolas has done the bare minimum as a father from what we’ve SEEN, emphasis on SEEN not HEARD. It’s all bullshit, but let me get back to what I said in the beginning.

For starters, I really don’t understand why fans are patting Stolas on the back in this scene for simply bickering back at Stella, because this isn’t the right moment nor the situation to be doing that. Octavia woke up happy and excited because it was a day that her father promised to take her to, to see this meteor shower. She then goes out and sees that Stolas is busy with packing Stella’s things out of the house, (which btw, doesn’t make any sense because Stolas established in episode 7 that Octavia would “visit her mother” on certain weekends implying that Stella already had her own place but then again I doubt the crew rereads their scripts) but yeah Octavia rightfully so gets worried and upset, asking Stolas if this will be done before he can still take her. Stolas then practically brushes her concern off, and continues to bicker with Stella, this scene once again painting ONLY HER as the one in the wrong, which is another thing that pisses me off because I wish Viv would stop painting this relationship as one sided. Anyway, we see Stolas irritated, shooting back at Stella, which the fans were happy to see, expect this isn’t the moment to cheer?? First of all, all Stolas is doing is being petty back, he’s not acting professional at all, acting like a child as well. If he would have said something like “I’m not taking your abuse any longer, and don’t you dare treat Via the same way or endorse her to this”- THEN I’d understand, but he’s just selfishly slashing back at his wife while his daughter is RIGHT THERE, the same daughter that clearly expressed to him how upset she is about her parents fighting. Like the fans are really saying “I’m so happy for Stolas” while Octavia is right there, endorsing something that isn’t healthy, and yet the show wants you to laugh here. Like the writers really don’t give a shit about Octavia, (saying she should just acknowledge that her father is “trying” when she had every right to be pissed) nor do the fans. They all just care about fucking Stolas, a character that hadn’t done anything to deserve sympathy. Saying he cares about Octavia is the bare minimum, he needs to actually change and put her before his dick, and thanks to the shows awful storytelling, we haven’t seen any of him trying for his daughter, except Loo Loo Land, which is a bad (and the only) example.

The sad thing is that…don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the lesson of “This character isn’t perfect, they’ll make mistakes and you need to acknowledge that” because in general it is a good lesson for people to learn, however it just doesn’t fit in this scenario, nor for a character such as Stolas. He’s still a horrible dad and I stand by that. It doesn’t matter if he genuinely loves her and is more kind to her compared to Stella, that doesn’t excuse any of his actions, and saying “he’s trying” doesn’t cut it because he’s really not. If he were, he would have talked to her about what he’s going through, or Stella and the divorce, and would have just…BEEN there for her. Instead he’s mostly emotionally neglectful, and never thinking about how she might feel. I’m honestly just…done with the fandom and the writers sucking him off all the time just because he’s in a sad uwu marriage. He’s just an awful character and Octavia deserves better in every way.

#vivziepop critical #spindlehorse critical #helluva boss critical #anti vivziepop #helluva boss #helluva boss Stolas #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss season 2 #anti Stolas

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pricechecktranslations · 3 months

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The heavenly yard blog infomine, part 7: More Albums and Events, Collaborations, Cloture of Yellow, then, a Break! (to do more work)

Mothy is pretty busy in this set, primarily working on making his songs and videos as well as attending events, so we don't get as much concept and idea discussion, but we do finally get him releasing Cloture of Yellow!

4 March 2010 ~ 26 August 2010

---March 2010---

4th

-mothy announces that he'll be uploading "Last Revolver" to NicoNico.

8th

-mothy releases Last Revolver to NicoNico. He talks about it a little bit--he actually made the song in September of last year, but it was much longer than even Moonlit Bear at the time so he's spent a lot of time cutting the song down to size.

-Naturally, Ichika did all the work on the PV this time around.

18th

-mothy announces his participation in VOCALOID PARADISE 3. He's going to be selling Prelude to Forest there.

-he's also working on a new album that'll have his recent song releases on it.

---April 2010---

6th

-mothy thanks everyone who came to the VOCALOID PARADISE event (apparently it was his first Kansai event)

-mothy will be releasing his new album, Evils Forest, at the next event.

-He also announces that he'll be releasing a new song, "Wendy" for the "Haiten Girl 2" CD.

10th

-The Daughter of Evil musical performs tomorrow. The Classical version of Servant of Evil has also released.

20th

-mothy makes the official announcement that he's going to VOCALOID MASTER 12 alongside twinkledisc (SignalP's doujin thingy). He'll be selling Evils Forest there. He makes clear that some of the new album songs will also get videos in the future, as well as the fact that the album booklet itself will have more content than his previous album releases.

25th

-mothy's going to have Regret Message on the VOCALOGENESIS album.

-He answers one or two questions about the distribution of his new album.

26th

-mothy uploads the video for Heartbeat Clocktower onto NicoNico (and specifies it's a re-arrangement of the one he uploaded onto Piapro before).

---May 2010---

8th

-Tomorrow is VOCALOID MASTER 12. Mothy will be in the same space as Twinkledisc, and he'll be selling content alongside SignalP, Ichika, and Tamura. He lists off a few behavioral requests for anyone going to attend (ex, don't take photos of the booth) and a few other minor things people can expect.

-He thanks people for watching Heartbeat Clocktower.

-Someone asks him if he really intends to retire after the Seven Deadly Sins series is finished. Mothy is just "what lol I didn't say that" (this is HILARIOUS).

10th

-VOCALOID MASTER 12 is over. Mothy's been getting so much attention he's had trouble responding to everyone, so he's sorry about that. He's also selling Evils Forest on consignment at D-Stage now.

-He can't give a lot of details yet but he's gonna be hard at work on the series still.

25th

-he talks a bit about the VOCALOGENESIS album. Someone's made an MMD for all the songs on it, including Regret Message, and the album has also topped the charts at Oricon.

-That doesn't mean he's a millionaire or anything. He doesn't even have a girlfriend!

-He's got some work he'd trying to finish by the end of May, and hopes to start making videos in June.

---June 2010---

8th

-mothy announces he'll be at VOCALOID MASTER 13 (this time by himself it looks like). He doesn't have anything new to release there, but he does intend to have something for Comiket later on down the line.

-Unfortunately, despite lots of requests he isn't going to be reprinting Evils Theater. It's all available for digital purchase still, but as an independent producer it's a bit complicated for him to get another physical run of an album that's a year old by now.

---July 2010---

7th

-mothy's going to be participating in the Supernova 3 album with his new song Desert Bluebird (which he intends to upload a video of very soon)

9th

-mothy uploads Desert Bluebird's PV.

17th

-mothy thanks everyone for watching Desert Bluebird. He's switching to a new video editing software, so he's hoping to make more dynamic videos with it. However, it apparently makes the video quality unnecessarily high, so he's concerned some people might not be able to play them. He'll work on fixing that.

-He says the song is inspired by the "Blue Bird" fairytale (I'm not familiar with it but it looks like it might be a French story?), and has some influence from a Wii game he was playing before making it (some kind of…tank RPG??? I think?). He likes the change of pace, making more of a Sci Fi after so many Medieval style songs.

18th

-Tomorrow is VOCALOID MASTER 13. He gives a brief rundown of what he's selling there (again, nothing new). He doesn't expect it to be as crowded, but he'll also be there by himself so he might be busy anyway.

20th

-Mothy thanks everyone for coming to the event, shares his impressions of it a little.

-He makes oblique hints at a book (and I think we all know which one) which has gotten pre-orders on Amazon, but he can't give details just yet.

-Unfortunately he doesn't know what's going on with the Gemini CD for the stage play.

-He doesn't have time to make a new album for summer Comiket, but he will be selling some CD-Rs that he'll be burning himself.

-He'll be uploading videos for Lunacy of Duke Venomania and Twiright Prank very soon.

25th

-mothy gives official upload dates for Lunacy and Prank.

26th

-Lunacy has been uploaded to NicoNico!

29th

-Mothy finally announces his new novel, Cloture of Yellow!!!! Oh, also Venomania's hit 100000 views. He'll talk about it some other time.

-He includes the publisher summary of the book, as well as purchase details (again, it was already getting pre-ordered on Amazon). There is a fanbooklet that's included with purchase at select locations.

31st

-mothy finally talks about his new novel in more detail. He answers questions first, such as where it'll be sold, the format it's written in, if it's a standalone (he says he wants to make a sequel but it depends on how well this one sells), what's in the booklet (mostly creator commentary stuff--I don't think there's anything that isn't included with the VG re-release), etc.

-He talks about the contents a little, clarifying that while it is based on the simple plot he provided for the writers of the stage play, it's different in a lot of ways (such as character names). He's added a lot of things and characters that never showed up in the songs. However, despite all the changes, it does still adhere to the plot of the songs--nothing outright contradicts the earlier work, that is.

---August 2010---

1st

-mothy is going to be participating in the DEBUTANTE5 album with his new song "Flames of Yellow Phosphorous". The song is a collaboration with JounetsuP--apparently they've been wanting to collaborate for a long time now.

-He answers questions. He won't be selling the novel at Comiket since it's an officially published work, so that'll still be Evils Forest and the hand-made CD.

-Also apparently there are some issues with the Daughter of Evil pinups included in Cloture of Yellow? But it won't delay the novel's release or anything.

3rd Page 1

-Twiright Prank has been released on NicoNico!

Page 2

-mothy confirms that the pinup issue has been sorted out and there will be no complications with Cloture's release. I guess there was some kind of copyright dispute? In any case it's been taken care of.

Page 3

-Evil Food Eater Conchita will be released on the VOCALOANTHEMS CD by Exit Tunes. Apparently Exit Tunes will have done a lot of remastering for the VOCALOID parts of the song, so mothy's not sure how it will sound by comparison. Additionally, another, separate remastering of Conchita's song will be on the hand-made CD that mothy is releasing at Comiket (I think this is the Evil Food Eater Conchita CD).

5th

-mothy talks about the novel some more. More sales info, and then contents (primarily the characters this time around). He gives a basic rundown of who everyone is, with name and place in the story. No spoilers. He does note that Elluka might seem a bit of a forced entry, but that's because they weren't selling Elluka at the time the original song came out. He goes on to list Gumillia, Gast, and Keel as additions to the story that hadn't debuted elsewhere, and he applied VOCALOIDS onto them retroactively (so--they might not have originally been the VOCALOID that he turned them into, but their characters already existed previously).

6th Page 1

-Evils Forest will be available online on KarenT

Page 2

-Cloture of Yellow now has its own website (the site has since folded, unfortunately)

7th

-mothy gives some more information on promotional events and goodies for the book, though he reminds people that this is just his personal blog and so it might be better to ask questions to his publisher or the retailer they're planning to buy from, as he doesn't know everything.

9th

-More info on Summer Comiket. He is indeed going to be selling the Evil Food Eater revision CD (which has Evil Food Eater with Meiko's vocals revised as well as any other songs that are not on his other albums), as well as Evils Forest.

-These include the old Clockwork Lullaby demo he made with Len instead of Rin.

-Debutante5 is also being sold there, but not by him.

10th

-Cloture of Yellow releases today!

-mothy answers some questions on Venomania and Twiright Prank. Apparently some people recognized a sound effect at the beginning of Venomania from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni--this is news to him, as he hasn't played Umineko and just took the sound from a collection of free sound effects.

-He confirms that Twiright is deliberately mispelled for reasons of having a double meaning. 1. "Twi"=twist "right"=correct, normal, etc. 2. R=Rin, L=Len, and it was Len that shared his snack, not Rin.

12th

-Flames of Yellow Phosphorous has been uploaded to NicoNico.

16th

-Summer Comiket wrapup. Mothy thanks everyone for attending. He ran out of the Conchita CDs really quickly, so apologizes for that. Apparently due to the logistical issues in making them, he doesn't intend to do any more hand-burned CDs. He doesn't intend to make more of those CDs, but he'll come up with a way for people to get the music on it some other way.

-mothy also intends to take a break from attending events as a producer for the time being. He was so busy with the events and writing the novel that he ran out of songs to upload. He wants to shut himself up and take a good look at how he's going to work on his projects going forward. Though, he'll probably still go to events as a member of the general public.

-…That being said, he is participating in the ECHO charity CD. Despite the uplifting theme of the charity, his song is going to be depressing, apparently.

17th

-Servant of Evil has hit 2 million views!

20th

-Daughter of White has hit 50000 views!

26th

-Little announcements. Riliane and Allen are getting their own avatars with the online game TinierMe, Dwango is releasing Evils Forest ringtones, and the Vocaloanthems crossfade has been released (the revised Evil Food Eater Conchita is on it).

#()mothy blog posts

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