#also we only got confirmation from one writer about it

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

#video games #patreon #hard drive #ai critical

[halemerry]

On Crowley, memory, and identity.

So full disclosure first, I am not someone who is particularly interested in having Crowley's angel name on screen - personally I rather like the idea of never having an answer to this question - but I also do think it's interesting and fun to speculate and we got quite a few hints at this throughout this season soooo

Obviously part of this is that we meet him. The angel that would become Crowley is the first person on screen this season. We confirm a lot about him here. He confirm that he is powerful enough to start the engine of the universe. We confirm that he can control gravity and time and space and light. We confirm that he is the being that says let there be light before the beginning. We also confirm that he consulted with the concept designer of the universe and that he's very comfortable with the idea of questioning authority. We are also given Aziraphale's anxiety as a contrast to this and as proof that that is not a universal trait for early angels.

Now, we have always had evidence that Crowley is powerful. He's done some things that seem impossibly big. He stops time very casually and seemingly without effort - even at the end of season 1 it doesn't even seem to give us the same strain on him that holding the Bentley together does. This is a thing that we only ever see Crowley do and notably a thing that you would think other beings would mess with to their advantage if it was possible. Which means they either literally can't or that it never occurred to them that they could. Or as is becoming increasingly clear: perhaps it's a bit of both.

But that's not the only implication of power we get in season 1 either. We get Crowley seemingly in tune with the universe in a way many angels and demons aren't. Which, makes some sense if he helped make it. This manifests in all sorts of ways. He's constantly aware of Aziraphale's presence. He can smell when the world state changes like when Adam names Dog. He holds the Bentley together through utter destruction. He notices that there are different books in the bookshop - something I always assumed was meant to convey he was familiar with the shop's contents but after learning he didn't even know Jane Austen was a writer I wonder if it's actually more to do with him being in tune with reality. He also can apparently quite literally feel when there are eyes on them.

We're given even more of all these things this season in some really interesting ways. Crowley literally tests the air to check if a miracle has happened - another thing that we don't see anyone else do despite Heaven literally assigning someone to Aziraphale to check for a specific miracle. This particular beat is also something we are shown twice this season. Both here and in 1941, when Furfur uses the miracle blocker on Aziraphale. Here Crowley tests his miracles and despite getting nothing of the sort when Aziraphale tries a miracle literally the beat before this, we are given both a visual and an auditory effect. It ripples out with a watery sound effect from Crowley's finger. It's like he's prodding at reality.

There's also several instances involving the recognition or lack thereof of angels and demons. Crowley feels that the demon army is arriving before it does. Neither side seems to be able to track Gabriel - one of the most powerful beings in existence - at all once he leaves Heaven. We also see countless angels fail to notice Crowley himself both as Bildad the Shuhite performing literal miracles right in front of them. And this happens again as he prances about Heaven after Muriel. Aziraphale can't tell Shax is a demon despite Crowley recognizing she's manifested behind him nearly as soon as he answers the phone. Aziraphale can't even recognize that he himself is still an angel at the end of the Job story.

He also. Quite literally. Brings someone back from the dead???? Like waves a hand casually on the street and reconstitutes Mr. Brown like he'd never been dead at all. Mr. Brown returns with no memory of what happened to him holding a newspaper that seems to have literal bite chunks coming out of it. It's not framed as a huge miracle or anything strenuous either - just a casual snap.

And that's not even getting into the parallels with Gabriel. First of all. We get the color purple. It's purple when Aziraphale and angel that would become Crowley start the engine of the quadrants of the universe and it's purple when they miracle to hide Gabriel. This color is associated with power and, historically in the language of this show, with Gabriel himself. Them using it together twice speaks a lot to the power they have together.

But that's not the only symbolism historically tied to Gabriel that has found its way to Crowley this season either. Most flashy of all is the lightning. This is how we see Gabriel arrive on earth at the end of season one and it is something Crowley apparently just Does when he gets too mad to contain himself.

This alone wouldn't catch my attention except. Except the way Crowley reacts to Gabriel's memory problems is... interesting to say the least. He's angry and understandably so. Part of this is him being mad and protective of Aziraphale - he says as much himself to Jim directly. And yet, weirdly, it's the kind of mad that reminded me of something else.

This is the mad he tends to gets at his plants. Do it properly. Think hard. You can do better than that. Grow better. It's the kind of angry that's steeped in projection. It's he kind of angry that is undercut with the occasional weird undercurrent of understanding. And so much of his dialogue with Jim around this is framed like he does actually understand. Jim says it hurts and he says he knows. Jim starts talking about it feeling like being an empty house that still remembers where the furniture is and Crowley immediately latches onto this and understands ah it's looking at where the furniture isn't.

And there's a few other conversations that center around this issue that I find really interesting from a projection perspective. There's the conversation that happens when Crowley goes to have an alcohol fueled chat with Jim. He says "You're Jim now. Got everything just the way you wanted?" This doesn't make a whole lot of sense for him to be addressing Gabriel with. As far as he knows all Gabriel would want was the end of the world.

And then there's the particular way he asks Jim to eliminate himself in this scene. Climb out the window. In other words, have a fall. Something he pretty immediately retracts and clearly feels guilty about no matter how much he hates Gabriel.

And then there's the first conversation he gets to have after learning about Gabriel. Crowley opens this conversation, thinking out loud. He's staring out, not talking to Az yet and the very first thing out of his mouth is, of all things: "He's going to be okay." A weird start for a statement about Gabriel in itself but then Crowley goes and adds what at it's core is his own trauma narrative to the end with, "We can just take him somewhere and leave him there."

Now the real fun bit: Crowley also has memory issues that are out very prominently on display even as far back as season 1.

He has inconsistent memories of his Fall. The answers he gives us to why he Fell change slightly - even when he's alone with himself. He doesn't seem to understand why exactly he Fell even though he clearly has some vague idea of the pieces in play. I always thought to some degree that this was just a trauma response, but season 2 drew even more attention to this and now that we know that memory alteration is how Heaven handles powerful angels I can't help but to wonder if there's more in play here.

Crowley can't remember Furfur - who he apparently literally fought next to during the war in Heaven. Crowley can't remember building a nebula with Saraqael. Crowley doesn't remember why they decided gravity was a good idea.

But he does remember bits and pieces here and there. He remembers doing some of the starmaking. He remembers how to access clearance locked files. He's missing pieces and also seems to have an understanding that Gabriel's memories ARE in there. Almost like he's done this work on himself before.

This narrative itself is also far more concerned with the angel Crowley was this time around. It teases his rank a few different times. Most notably is him having access the files only available to Dominions and above.

Now angel hierarchy is a bit of a messy area depending on what sources you're using but given Good Omens tendencies in the past we can assume that this leaves us five ranks. Dominion, Throne, Cherub, Seraph, and Archangel.

I might break down why I think Dominion, Throne, and Cherub feel kind of odd to me later if there's interest - now available here - in that but given the current length of this meta I just want to focus on that last one for now.

Crowley was an Archangel is far from a new theory and I've honestly historically had some fairly mixed feelings about it. But the parallels between Jim and Crowley lend some interesting connective tissue to a lot of those theories. And. There's also some interesting camera work and script writing tied to Crowley and that term outside of the scenes about Gabriel's memories specifically.

Firstly, during Crowley's chat with Beelzebub he says it's a big universe with plenty of places for an archangel to hide. Like Alpha Centauri perhaps?

Then we get Aziraphale and Crowley both presenting Hell and Heaven respectively the idea that it could have been them that did the archangel class miracle. Aziraphale gets scoffed at and yet. Shax is the one who says the miracle was archangel level and Crowley's response is "how do you know I didn't do it?"

Then later as she's prowling about the shop we get this interesting shot of Crowley in the doorframe and Jim in the background. Crowley grins and offers to let Shax look in and see if she can see any archangels in there while he's framed dead center and Jim himself is blurry in the back of the frame.

And most fascinating in my opinion is this shot that happens when Crowley and Muriel are accessing the classified files. Nearly every shot in this sequence is group shots or shots of Gabriel. The camera is focused in the plot and the way the archangels function as a group and on Gabriel himself. But we get one single shot in this entire sequence of Crowley by himself and it is immediately following Gabriel saying "I am the only first order archangel in the room - or, well, the universe."

And then in the end. We get the Metatron who goes out of his way to avoid using Crowley's name. He calls him demon (and insists correctly that Crowley would recognize him even when Michael doesn't) or refers to him as Aziraphale's friend. He only ever uses that name when trying to use him as a bribe for Aziraphale. That combined with the dark look he gives Crowley implies a familiarity that only the Metatron has with him.

So who is he then? There's plenty of old meta out there about why certain archangels fit or don't and I won't reiterate them here. They're interesting and definitely worth poking around at and very fun to read! Personally I'm not as interested in naming the someone he used to be as I am in examining the places that ghost of this angel has started to poke through the narrative so I'll end this here. It's spiralled into something far longer than I ever meant it to be anyway.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #gos2 spoilers #good omens meta #Crowley #Gabriel

[ellecdc]

A Man With a Plan (prologue)

prologue // p1 // p2 // p3 // p4 // p5 // p6 // p7

Remus Lupin x whimsical!reader - Hogwarts Era (no Voldemort) - Soulmate AU

A/N: Hello! I've been stuck in my head about the idea of a whimsical reader (think Luna Lovegood) after reading the many sweet writings of other writers on Tumblr (specifically @ moonstruckme)! I totally ship a character like this with Remus because I feel like Remus has a tendency to overthink and get stuck in his own head and a character like this would be a breath of fresh air for him and balance him really well. Please note: whimsical does not = stupid! Rather, quite smart but people find her odd and reduce this to lack of intelligence. This is my little prologue, a sort of soulmate-esque AU - what do we think? Do we like this idea? Would we read it???

CW: swearing (cuz it's Remus 'Werewolf McSwearWolf' Lupin's POV, duh)

If there was one thing people ought to know about Remus John Lupin, it was that Remus was a planner. At any given point, it would be safe to assume that Remus had a plan.

As would be typical of Remus Lupin’s luck, however, most of his plans got fucked to shit.

Example A:

As a child, Remus planned to grow up to be a wizard like his da, or a nurse like his mum. That plan was fucked to bits just before his 5th birthday when Fenrir Greyback damned him to a life of lycanthropy and a side serving of prejudice. 

Example B:

Remus Lupin planned to never be accepted to Hogwarts on account of his previously stated damnation. That plan also went sideways when an owl dropped a letter into his porridge on the morning of his 11th birthday, containing an acceptance letter to Hogwarts. Remus’ da told Remus it was likely a mistake and they would rescind the offer once they learnt of his lycanthropy. Once again, plans were nullified when headmaster Dumbledore himself showed up on the doorstep of the Lupin Cottage after not receiving a response from them.

Example C:

Once he confirmed his acceptance to Hogwarts, Remus Lupin planned to be completely invisible throughout his time at school. This meant: no embarrassing himself, no bringing attention to himself, and absolutely, under no circumstances, would he make friends.

Of course, as should have been expected, this plan was fucked upside down and backwards seven ways to Sunday when the likes of James Fleamont Potter and Sirius Orion Black set their sights upon him.

Though Remus Lupin did have a plan, he was still just a boy. He’d been homeschooled his entire life due to being unable to explain his absences to muggle teachers as well as his scars/injuries from every full moon, and the village kids were quite fearful of the scarred boy. All this to say; he’d never had friends before.

So, sue him for relishing in the interest these boys seemed to have in him.

No matter: Remus could handle this. “How?” You may be wondering. By a plan, of course! 

Remus Lupin would allow these two (and Peter who went about befriending the boy in a much gentler way, so let’s make it three) friends, and planned to ensure that they never learned of his lycanthropy. He’d only just made friends; he wasn’t about to lose them. 

Of course, Sirius being the nosey fucker he is, James being the doting mother hen he is, and Peter being far too perceptive for anyone’s good – that plan was fucked to shit as well.

Remus, then, planned then to never let anyone else ever learn his secret again.

That plan was once again fucked by none other than Sirius Black and his unfortunate ‘prank’ on Severus Snape that could have cost Remus and Severus both of their lives, or at the very least, their lives as they knew it.

Remus Lupin then planned to never forgive Sirius Black for that horrible, thoughtless prank. 

Remus was admittedly not all that sad to say that this particular plan was shot too, though he ensured Sirius suffered at least a little during the process of his forgiveness. 

So, as he sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall in September of his 7th year listening to his friend’s wax poetic about their different love interests or conquests that they had made over the summer (i.e., James’ love for Lily, Sirius’ many hook-ups, and Peter’s enthusiastic support of them both), Remus made yet another plan.

Remus John Lupin planned to never, ever, fall in love. 

Moony, it would seem, had other plans. 

Continue to the first chapter here.

#marauders era #marauders au #marauders fanfiction #reader insert #self insert #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin drabble #remus lupin fanfiction #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x you #remus lupin #werewolf mcswearwolf #werewolf soulmate #soulmate au #hp marauders #remus lupin ficlet #remus lupin blurb #werewolf #the lupins #james potter #sirius black #peter pettigrew #lily evans

[mottlemoth]

Re: "But don't you find it beautiful and meaningful that Izzy got to experience happiness before he died? He ended his life surrounded by love and that was great for him."

You folks are sailing right past our one main issue here. Namely, why did he have to die at all?

It's a comedy show - a comedy show where not-really-deaths outnumber actual deaths by ten to one - why did Izzy have to die? Some of you are talking as if he died the way that people in real life die, like it's one of those things you just can't change. But this wasn't like that. This was a constructed narrative where a decision was made that not only should he be dead at the end of the series, but that it should be confirmed beyond all doubt with OFMD's only grave. Even the Badmintons weren't shown in their graves.

So why did Izzy have to die?

And why do so many of you find it fitting and appropriate that he died? This is a good opportunity to sit down with yourself and maybe examine your own thoughts around ageing and disability. Con O'Neill is in his 50s, not his 90s, and a missing limb is not some kind of down payment on death. The show even went out of its way to fit him with a new leg, breathe new life into him. So "he had to die because he was basically halfway out of the door" is rooted in some nasty ideas about ageing and disability, ideas which you should not allow to fester in yourself. Dig those out. If you're healthy and young, this might seem like a very remote issue to you. It won't always be.

David Jenkins has indicated in interviews that Izzy had to die because (1) he was Ed's 'mentor', a frankly baffling assertion which is contrary to nearly everything established about Ed and Izzy's relationship in the show, and (2) "it's a pirate show."

Okay! It's a pirate show. Seems fair at first.

Until you remember it's also a comedy show where guys turn into birds and people routinely survive explosions and gun shots and being stabbed through the liver on a regular basis. Throughout the narrative, OFMD has established and confirmed over and over and over again that it upholds the comedic law that death is never really death. You can relax seeing Roach fall from the rigging because it's a comedy show - they're not going to do that to you.

But then they did.

They reversed that fundamental law within the world just so that Izzy could die - and so that Izzy could just die. Nothing came of his death. It didn't open up a new section of plotline or change anything. The show could have ended with Izzy off on adventures with the crew he'd grown to love.

Instead he just died. And we're struggling to understand why.

Telling us that he got to be happy before he died doesn't make any sense. If it was all so beautiful and meaningful to see him experience temporary happiness, wouldn't it have been nice to see him happy ever after?

So why did the writers give him death instead?

We're scared that it's 2023 and some folks still think it's just fitting for visibly queer characters to be tantalised with happiness then struck down. We're scared that at the bottom of this, it makes sense to you that Izzy died because you think he was old and broken and no use to anyone now. We're scared to have discovered that even the show which said kindness, kindness, kindness right from the start had none for this character we loved, and we're scared that you find it so beautiful.

#izzy hands #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers

[olderthannetfic]

Maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, but something I don't get is when people bring up that it used to be that nobody got comments, we use to post in formats where no one could comment, it used to be that people posted fic and you didn't even know how many hits you got, etc. and seem to be proud of how much they don't care about comments and hits.

And I get it. It's unhealthy to like comments or hits. But I don't know if that means it's inherently more healthy to not like them. I certainly don't think it's healthy to see people say, "I wish someone commented on my stuff" and go, "back in MY day we weren't PARASOCIAL LOSERS who used fandom as SOCIAL MEDIA! We understood that fandom was about TRUE ART and TRUE ART doesn't involve others!" because... it just feels like, to me, it shouldn't bother people? If you're really, truly happy with your fandom experience that didn't involve talking to others, why would you then talk to others, even to tell them they're wrong? If silence is golden, why would you ruin it?

And before anyone goes "typical stupid Gen Z kid, wanting fandom to be social media": I quit writing three years ago, I'm not parasocially attempting to use fandom to talk to people.

--

Is this something people in general say, or is it something that one True Art anon with serious emotional issues says?

There's nothing parasocial about commenting on people's fanfic. The only way that would be true is if you're so influencer-poisoned that you think popular fic writers are internet celebrities totally separate from their audiences. In fact, fanfic writers and readers, popular and unpopular, are peers. The people who try to give themselves airs suck and are best avoided.

In oldschool spaces, we most certainly talked to people whose fic we liked so that we could make friends with them. Actual friends. Not some weird cult around a youtuber.

It's also not at all unhealthy to like comments and hits: It's unhealthy to obsess over them.

People who've been in fandom for decades will confirm that the ratio of hits or zine sales or whatever to good feedback was always terrible and so fixating on stats like that will just depress you. Trying to "fix" it is futile. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have an emotional reaction. An emotional reaction is inevitable. It's just that realistic context will make the situation feel less personal.

--

Anon... true fandom olds bitch about modern social media bullshit because it represents a loss of community.

Actual community is the opposite of parasocial.

You need to hang out with better people if this weird shit is what you're seeing.

[forever-rogue]

Hey there favorite writer

Would you be able to write something about reader and Joel having a baby together and falling in love all out of order? They’re not in an established relationship but had a one time thing and reader got pregnant. She wants to keep the baby because she feels safe in Jackson and Joel agrees to help her raise it, cuz it takes two to tango LOL. He starts falling for her during her pregnancy and she falls for him when the baby is born and she sees what a good father he is to their baby.

I’m sorry if this is a weird request I just thought it would be cool LOL

AN | Oh, but this turned out to be soft 🥰 

Pairing | Joel Miller x Fem!Pregnant!Reader

Warnings | Language

Word Count | 3k

Masterlist | Joel, Main

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"I'm pregnant."

The words crashed around him like a ton of bricks. Joel thought he might pass out. You looked just as distraught as he felt. 

This couldn't be happening. Fuck. This was the absolute last thing he wanted to happen. It was supposed to be a one night, one time type of thing. 

And now it suddenly became a much bigger thing. A potentially forever thing.

"What?" was all he could think to ask, causing you to roll your eyes in frustration.

"I'm pregnant," you repeated sharply, causing him to recoil slightly. You ran a hand through your hair, angry tears welling up, "we have sex one time and I'm fucking pregnant. It feels like some kind of horrible joke."

“Are you-”

“Don’t even fucking bother to ask if it is yours,” you glowered at him and Joel immediately regretting his decision to even ask the question. He knew you wouldn’t lie to him, even if he wished you were, “you’re the only one I’ve slept with in a long time. So yes, it’s yours.”

“Okay,” he nodded, still attempting to process everything. His mind was both blank and filled with a million thoughts all at once, “okay.”

“Look,” you pinched the bridge of your nose and tried to keep the tears from welling up and spilling over, “I’m sorry. I didn’t…I never thought this would happen. I never wanted this. And I’m so fucking sorry. But this is…the unfortunate reality.”

“I know,” he wished he could find something more comforting to say. He wished he could hug and tell you that everything was going to be alright but the truth was that he didn’t know if it would be okay. He was scared, “what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted after a few moments of tense silence, “I don’t know. I wish I did…I thought this would be such an easy choice.”

“But it’s not,” he stated as you nodded slightly.

“It’s not,” you confirmed, “I don’t even…I just figured you deserved to know, I-I guess. I don’t know; I’m just confused right now.”

“You didn’t get into this situation by yourself,” he hesitantly reached over and gave your shoulder a squeeze, “whatever you want to do, I’ll - I’ll do my best to be there for you and support you.”

“Yeah?” the way you looked at him with those teary eyes made his heart constrict. He could see how utterly scared you were.

“Yes,” he promised as managed to muster up a small smile, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“Thanks,” you took a step off his porch and turned away, letting out a quiet, shaky sigh, “I’ll see you around. I’ll let you know what I decide to do.”

“Okay,” his voice cracked as he watched you go and disappear into the softly falling snow. He was half tempted to call you back and have you come in and sit in front of the fire and figure it all out, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

Once you disappeared, he slowly closed the door and turned around, only to find Ellie on the stairs, her expression incredulous, “holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” he agreed. He had fucked up. Seriously, seriously fucked up.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was a couple of weeks before you saw Joel. Or rather before you allowed yourself to face him again. It wasn’t that you didn’t like Joel, it was easier to put the reality of the situation to the back of your mind when he wasn’t around. But you also were well aware of the fact that you couldn’t ignore the situation for much longer; you were going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later. 

And that’s how you finally managed to find your way back to him. He looked deep in thought when you found him coming back from patrol rounds with Tommy. His expression stiffened for a moment before he said something to his brother. The younger Miller held up his hand in a meek little wave and headed off; you cringed internally when you realized that he knew exactly what was going on. 

“Hey,” you offered him a tightlipped smile as he nodded in response, “do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“Of course,” he knew what was coming, had been expecting it now and was curious to know what you had decided. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at his eyes, and instead focused on the buildings behind him, “what’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about all of this,” you gestured vaguely towards your stomach, “and I, I ugh, made a decision.”

“Oh?” he couldn’t help but feel nervous; he couldn’t even fathom what you were feeling. 

“I want to keep it - the baby,” you almost whispered it and nervously allowed yourself to glance at his face. His silence sent you in a dizzying spiral, “I just…I don’t know. I just think that… I don’t know if I’ve ever really thought about a kid, especially in this world, but if there’s any time or place in this world to do it, I think it would be here. And I just…I don’t want to get rid of it. I keep thinking about it, am I making the right decision but…I keep going back to yes.”

Joel took it in what you said and it sent him down his own path of worries and fears. He thought about Sarah, about how he’d never even thought about another child, about you. It was overwhelming all at once and he stood there, staring at you. You couldn’t help the nervous laugh that bubbled up, “Joel? Say something…please. Anything.”

“I’m sorry,” he caught himself and shook his head, trying to snap back into reality, “I told you, whatever decision you made, I would support you. It’s not just…your kid. So…whatever you need or want just let me know. Anything, okay?”

“Okay,” you swallowed the lump in your throat, “thank you, Joel. Listen…I, umm, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?’ he asked softly as you shrugged lightly, “you realize there’s nothing to be sorry for, right?”

“I guess it’s just everything,” you brushed at your cheeks, wiping away the few tears that had pearled up, “I know we’re not…anything. But I’m glad you’re…you. Not many people would be doing what you are. You’re a good guy, Joel and I appreciate that.”

“It’s only what’s right,” he cleared his throat, staring at his feet. It’d been a long time since someone had told him that, “you didn’t get…pregnant by yourself.”

It’d been the first time he’d said that word out loud. He still had this weird feeling that if he didn’t say that world out loud, somehow it wouldn’t happen. But no, no. This was happening; you were here and pregnant with his child. 

“Right,” you nodded shyly, “well, I guess I’ll let you get back to whatever you need to do. We still have time to figure all of this out. I’ll see you around?”

“See you around,” he whispered, watching you go with a heavy sigh escaping his lips. 

Well. All of this left him with a lot to think about too. He was going to be a father again; he had no idea how he’d do. Sure, he’d been a single dad when it came to Sarah, and now he had Ellie. But a baby? That was a totally different story. He just had to hope that it would come naturally again, and that you’d be willing to do this with him. Whatever happened he knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy road. 

But as he looked down the road and spotted Ellie laughing with Dina, he realized that the best things in life weren’t always easy. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The next few months went by faster than you’d liked. At the moment it seemed like every day took forever, but they rushed by so quickly. At first it hadn’t seemed so bad but as you grew bigger and rounder, reality continued to set in. You were having a baby. 

It was Joel that found you as you tended to one of the gardens. You were sitting on the ground, sprawled out as best as you could, soaking up the sunshine that had finally come after the long winter. His heart ached at the sight and he felt an odd sensation run through his body, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

“Hey,” you looked up and smiled at the sound of his voice; it had been a while since he’d seen such a big and genuine smile on your face, “how’s it going?”

“Hi Joel,” you moved to stand up - a feat that was becoming harder and harder with each passing day - but he shook his head, “what’s up?”

He crouched down on his knees and started to help you without a moment of hesitation or being asked. It made your heart pitter-patter happily, “I’ve been thinking about…things.”

“Things,” you repeated as you fell into work next to him, “what kind of things?”

“All sorts of things,” you smiled to yourself when you heard his twang come out, “one thing was…that I thought maybe you could…umm, maybe move in with me and Ellie. It’s just, we have the space and that way you’d have your own space instead of sharing-”

“I have one roommate,” you answered softly, “with you, I’d have two. So, that’s not really much of a selling point.”

Joel huffed and you couldn’t help but smile; your friendship often consisted of this sort of banter, “I…well, it’s a bigger space away. And it might just be better if we were around each other, you know, in case anything happens. We’d have each other. And then…you know, once the - the baby comes it might be good to be in the same space. It’s just a thought…something to think about maybe.”

“What about Ellie?”

“She’d kick me out if it meant you moved in,” he chuckled fondly, “I think she might like you more than me. She’s…she’s excited to have a brother or sister.”

You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from making any sound; the fact that he and Ellie had such a good relationship gave you hope that somehow all of this would work out, “oh. Oh.”

“Like I said, it’s just a thought,” you stopped what you were doing and looking at him, overwhelmed with a rush of affection towards the man, “so, yeah.”

“It’s definitely something to think about,” you agreed, unable to stop yourself from imagining a life where you had him around you everyday. Where you had your own little family with Joel, and Ellie, and the baby. But you quickly caught yourself, “thank you, Joel. That’s very kind of you to offer.”

“Of course,” his hand brushed over yours, “and if you need anything, you’ll let me know?”

“I will,” you promised, and stopped suddenly when you felt a sharp jab in your ribs, “ouch.”

“What’s wrong?” Joel’s eyes widened as he looked you over to make sure you were okay, “is it…?”

“The baby’s moving,” you explained as his face grew into a combination of excitement and nerves, “kicking me and this is one feeling I’ll never get used to.”

“Painful?”

“In a way but it’s more weird than anything,” before thinking too much about it, you took his hand and put it on your belly, right where you had felt the kicks. There was a moment of stillness and you worried that he wouldn’t be able to feel it but then you felt it again. Joel sucked in his breath as he felt the small movements under his hand. It had been another lifetime ago since he’d gotten to feel that, “they like you, Joel. They only started moving once you showed up.”

“It’s…” he didn’t even know how to put all of this into words. You, his friend, the woman he’d had a one stand with to get some pent up frustration, was pregnant with his child. And he currently felt that child moving around. Life that he had helped to create. These days he was still wrestling with a lot of feelings and emotions he thought he’d buried or moved past, but as he sat there next to you with his hand on your belly, everything made so much sense, “it’s amazing.”

“It kind of is, isn’t it?” you laughed softly, amazed to be in his situation, “what do you think it’s going to be?”

You hadn’t really thought about it much and part of you wasn’t exactly sure that you should have asked him. He seemed to be in deep thought for a few moments before he looked at with a soft expression on his face, “a girl.”

“A girl,” he answered confidently, “it’s just a feeling.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” you grinned, “you got a fifty-fifty chance of being right, so your odds aren’t terrible!”

“Not terrible,” he playfully scoffed, “I’m going to be right, you just wait and see.”

You were grinning at each other like fools, only interrupted with the sound of people approaching. That seemed to snap both of you out of your trance. 

“I should go,” he whispered as he stood back up and dusted himself off, “see you?”

“See you,” you promised, watching him walk away. As that old saying went, you hated to see him go but liked to see him leave. You weren’t quite sure where to place your feelings, but an odd, warm sensation had bubbled up in your chest. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You wrestled with the decision of whether or not to move in with Ellie and Joel for a few days. Deep down, you knew that it really hadn’t been a question at all. Your answer had been yes from the moment he’d asked. But you, silly, silly you, still didn’t want to seem too eager. He’d gotten you pregnant, there really wasn’t any reason to be shy. 

He - and a very eager Ellie - had helped you to move into the spare bedroom in their house. It really hadn’t taken much, but the community had already banded together to help you get just about everything you’d need for the baby. It wasn’t much longer until the baby was here and you were slowly growing more nervous everyday.

You were thankful to have Joel around; he made you feel safe and protected and you just…liked him. You’d always liked him, and now it felt like the more you got to know him, the more you liked him. At first you worried that it was only because of your funky hormones and the situation in general, but you knew that it really wasn’t that. It was because you genuinely liked him, enjoyed his company and…everything. 

It felt odd to be developing feelings for him since you’d already done the whole ‘sleeping together and getting knocked up’ thing. The attraction had always been there, it had always been mutual, but now it felt like things were developing on a deeper level, blossoming and blooming.

You were slowly becoming more and more sure of your feelings for him, and you thought, maybe foolishly, that he might just feel the same. 

But you never got the opportunity to ask him or try and read any further into it. 

The night you thought you might do so, you were in the kitchen and making dinner when your water broke. Ellie had been just as shocked as you, but it was Joel that kept a calm head. Maybe it was the practice or experience or just his nature, but he managed to keep you from completely panicking and falling apart. 

He’d gotten you to the hospital that had been built back up in Jackson and from then on, everything happened so fast. People really weren’t kidding when they said it all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. 

Before you knew it, it was over and you had your baby in your arms. A girl, just like Joel had predicted. He couldn’t even hide the smile on his face if he tried. You hadn’t come up with any names and decided that Joel would name her. It didn’t take long for him to come with it - Violet. You thought it suited her perfectly…and he somehow then it was your favorite flower. You’d mentioned it once in passing, and had forgotten about it, but it had stuck with Joel. 

He was nervous at first - so, so nervous - about meeting her and holding her, but he quickly forgot all of that. From the moment he held her, he was in love with her and it was so clear to see. It made your heart warm and happy. Surely, this wasn’t an ideal situation and you’d really gone about things backwards, but you wouldn’t have changed a thing.

“I always wanted a family,” Ellie whispered to Joel as she held her new sister, thinking you were asleep. Joel made a small sound before he kissed the side of her head, “and now I’ve one.”

That’s when it hit you - you were a family.

Maybe not everything was figured out or said just yet, but you’d get there. All in your own time.

#joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x fem!reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller one shot #pedro pascal #tlou #tlou hbo #the last of us

[dailycass-cain]

2023 was another big stepping stone with Cass. The character was featured in A LOT of stuff this year amongst a few negative antics.

But unlike prior years the good really outweighed the bad. BY A LOT.

So let's take a look back one final time #CAINAISSANCE2023...

The year started STRONG with the release of Batgirls #14 aka the BEST solo story that involved the character this year.

I've gone in LENGTH on how AMAZING this tale was. If you haven't read it DO SO. You don't need any context but to just take in the masterpiece given.

Writers Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad gave artist Jonathan Case just this canvas of an issue to tell AN EPIC mostly silent issue.

If there's a tale Batgirls will be remembered for it'll BE THIS ISSUE.

I've lost count to just taking in the gorgeous art Case delivers here and just letting the actions and emotions tell the tale.

The only regret is well no full payoff to what is fully learned within this issue.

It just hits EVERY mark and is something any Cass fan CRAVED, but never got in Batgirl Vol. 1. Batgirls #14 was a worthy issue that should be talked about amongst fans of Cass for quite some time.

February gave us Cass's grand entrance to Ram V's Detective Comics run (#1069) and what an entrance it was! Literally, I can't let it go of how AMAZING it was.

And the run itself? It just keeps delivering as THE Batman book out currently.

It's a slow burn and when the run lays the payoffs IT HITS THOSE PAYOFFS. The series just ended an exceptional bi-weekly event that featured Cass and well, I'm extremely curious where this run goes with the character.

If anything, I just want MOAR from Ram V or a smaller secondary story involving Cass. But given the various characters he's been rotating and given next year is 2024 (more on that later) I'm keeping my fingers crossed for ALL OF THIS.

This run does work in trade but I digress you'd be missing the GORGEOUS covers this series has been shelling out. If anything BUY the single issues and read the run this way until you get to the present.

Or reread them like I've been doing. 😋

The early half of 2023 marked Cass's surprise return to an actual role in mega crossovers. She took part in the final issue of Batman vs. Robin being one of the random factors to stall the possessed Batman until ALL of DC's magical users came to cast it out of him.

The weakest of the crossovers the character was involved in I have to say was Gotham War. It was a nothing burger that made me swear off the Chip Zdarsky run of Batman completely.

Honestly, I feel more rewarded reading Tec more. Unless Chip pulls off a miracle turnaround in 2024.

But I digress Zdarsky was only half of the problems with the other being Tini Howard and yeah, if you were a Bat Family member who wasn't Jason Todd (how did that mini turn out to be more entertaining then the ENTIRE event?!)?

This story SUUUUUUUUCKED. Quite possibly the worst Batman event story since War Games/Crimes for me.

Sadly, the most disappointing stories I'd have to say are on equal ground in Beast World and Knight Terrors. As there was interesting concepts with Cass involving them, and both stories just go NOWHERE.

I feel more so robbed with Knight Terrors as the design for Cass within it went hard. It's just that you give us THIS design and tease us with this little nugget and give us NOTHING?

COME ON!

Beast World was a whole nothing burger as well, save the pretty art and a full confirmation that Cass's old NML is now canonically her defacto one again.

Even if we had it mentioned earlier last year and again in the best crossover event involving Cass...

WHICH WAS IN LAZARUS PLANET: DARK FATE #1. It gave us Alyssa Wong returning for a THIRD time to write Cass and they were joined by Haining on art which introduced us to the world of Xanthe.

That in itself led to a spinoff mini-series that had Cass in it with SPIRIT WORLD. It did more with the new character Xanthe and laid out their origins and powerset nicely while also laying some seeds for MAYBE future Cass stories.

Again, I feel like a repeating record on how GOOD this series was. Like, I can't wait for the trade next year to take it all in again. But besides the creative team delivering it gave us Dustin Nguyen AND Marcio Takara drawing Cass again OFFICIALLY AS BATGIRL!!

Even when this series ended, I STILL WANT MOAR!! Like what memories did Cass lose? What the heck happened with Spirit World twisting her memories of Batgirl Vol. 1 #72?! How will Xanthe be with the Jade Court?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!

Something else that left me with MANY questions was DCeased universe as even though the story ended back in April.

I still crave more starring Cass, because let's face it STEPH/TALIA DESERVE CLOSURE!! Cass could be the gateway to that.

Doing so would tie up the final loose ends as well. Let's see how Rose is raising her kid with Jason. Silent Olsen. Harley/Ivy. Ollie/Dinah. Jim Gordon.

But I digress. It gives us more Cazzam. We need more Cazzam.

But an alternate universe Cass just didn't pop up there we had a Cass show up in various other comics. Knights of Steel which also had me hankering for MOAR and Harley Quinn & the Legion of Bats.

I know some didn't like it, but me? I think it was LEAPS and BOUNDS better than what we got in the actual season of HQ.

Let us never talk about that season again…

Now something we SHOULD talk about more is the first actual appearance of Cass in a DC ANIMATED MOVIE!! Yes, Kai Li Cain from Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham.

I was blown away at the extended role they gave the character in the film (to the, "Oh right Tim is here and alive." role in the books).

Kai Li voiced perfectly by Tati Gabrielle gave a balance of innocence and reason with the batshit craziness this film throws at us.

Like, I really REALLY want a sequel. Just to see what she'd do now given full access to Bruce's fortune? Will she follow his path? I mean yeah we want steampunk Bat!

Speaking of which artists we need designs for this stat still!

It just adds that anchor where you want to see more of this universe and the characters that inhabit it. I mean that's the sign of a REALLY good Elseworlds. Where you want more and sometimes you get just that.

But with all this good came the sad, and that was the canceling of Batgirls. I know many were against the series (especially after #7-8), but the series found its footing with #9 and ran into something I hope more positively can be talked about it.

It's true failing wasn't the creators behind the series, more just elements outside that just slotted it's end (Batgirl movie getting canned making #7-8 more wasteful), Evil Oracle #4 aka the pitch, and just being something it couldn't be).

I'm grateful for each and every creator who worked on this book because it was a GIFT that I'll always be appreciative of.

I'll say it again, THANK YOU TO ALL! 🙏

And its spirit lived on in the Nightwing back up a few months ago. It was something that was TRULY needed after the garbage fire that was Gotham War. It gave us this Cass/Dick sibling stuff and GIVE ME MOAR!!!

Unlike the past where we'd be done, DC brought us back up giving us the current BIRDS OF PREY ongoing which has Cass in it.

Really the series is a revelation of giving us things I always wanted that I'd never thought we get. Cass with Dinah? CHECK.

Cass meeting Big Barda and the two having a bond? HELLS YEAH CHECK! Anytime that bond grows I squee even more.

Just give writer Kelly Thompson ALL the time and ideas she has to churn this out to the proper conclusion she has envisioned. Just give me fifty-plus issues of her, Leonardo Romero, and Jordie Bellaire.

Finally of course there was Batman: Wayne Family Adventures which gave us THREE banger Cass stories. One where she and Steph are a MENANCE (as they should), Cass scaring the crapbaskets out of EVERYONE and of course...

Season 2 gave us A LOT of things I wanted in general (her interacting with Damian) and just showing the world why I really really love this character. Why I talk about her daily.

Really as 2023 closes and 2024 is about to begin... Well, it's the character's TWENTIETH-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY. 25 years of kicking ass and ripping our hearts out.

It's been a journey for sure.

really REALLY hope DC honors this anniversary and continues to mend the bridges burned all those years ago.

Give us that Omnibus. Give us a mini or SOMETHING to celebrate this character. If not, I'll take whatever Ram V and Thompson give us.

#CAINAISSANCE2023 may be over, but #CAINAISSANCE2024 will be the most important year yet.

25 YEARS OF CASS!! LET THE CELEBRATION BEGIN ON JANUARY 1st!

#cassandra cain #dc comics #cainaissance2023 #my thoughts #CAINAISSANCE2024 v

[ao3commentoftheday]

This is my reluctant fandom rivalry story. It’s long. Please bear with me. 

A couple years ago I got into a major (read: very active) fandom. I wrote a few fics, then began what would become my longest WIP to date. That WIP generated a lot of interest, and as the smut escalated, I started getting more engagement with a fic than ever before – especially after posting a scene in which the characters finally hook up, in a very kinky and unexpected way. While working on this story I was following the work of other writers, and at one point a certain author who is pretty prolific and well-established in the fandom posted a finale to a work that they hadn’t updated in a long time. 

Seeing as how this work featured an uncommon ship dynamic for the pairing I write for – which my WIP also featured – I was interested to read this particular work. Then, when I got to their newly-added finale, I was astonished: it featured a scene that very closely paralleled the hook-up smut scene that I had just posted about a week or so prior, to a startling degree of similarity. So here were two characters in a very specific relationship dynamic—ages differing from canon—who were hooking up in the exact same way as my characters (also of this age/dynamic), down to the very same environment and scene context – the same uncommon blocking; same uncommon smut scenario – in a way that I’d thought was highly original when I wrote it (I haven’t seen anything like it before or since), and posted very close behind when mine was posted! The author even went out of their way to say that they’d actually written that scene “months ago,” and were only just getting around to finally posting it… /: *suspicious eyes*

You can see where I’m going with this. 

While not exactly plagiarism per se, that author received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from their many followers, while my chapter received a comparably modest response (though still very positive by my own standards, being so new to the fandom). I also worry that a good number of shared readers had encountered the other [popular] story, first, then caught up with mine after, only to wonder if I had copied the other author (unless they bothered to go into “chapter index” -> “full page index” to confirm publication dates, it would’ve looked like mine came after once I posted the next chapter). 

I decided not to confront them about it, though. There was no way I could prove that it wasn’t “parallel thinking,” even if it would make for a very odd coincidence. The wording was not the same, but it was structured very closely to what I’d written, including certain spicy details. I didn’t want to stir up drama in a new fandom, especially with such a popular author, lest I inadvertently alienate myself. 

But here’s the thing: I decided to just be flattered that my work had "inspired" theirs, and I tried to get past any lingering resentment by befriending them. Left kudos and the occasional nice comment on their work. Followed them on tumblr. Liked/RB’d their posts. But they steadfastly ignored me completely, for reasons I can only guess at. We have many common mutuals and they never like/reblog even my most popular posts (though these must cross their dash), though they will promote similar posts by anyone else. 

Over a year later, I’ve continued to follow this author’s work, keeping an eye out for other “coincidences” (though it’d be very ballsy of them to "borrow" from me again, since my work is more widely read now). Meanwhile, I have risen in popularity, myself, and while still not as popular as that author, I’m very proud of my own contributions to the fandom, and feel that my writing is a lot stronger than theirs. So I really shouldn’t let it get to me, but seeing them around all the time, being praised for their mid-level works and interacting with so many of my mutuals (while giving me the cold shoulder) still rankles me. Recently they even posted something about showing common courtesy by not stealing others' work in fandom, etc. that really rubbed me the wrong way. I stewed over it for way longer than is healthy. 

Any advice on how to navigate this one?

I want to enjoy my time in this fandom, but their ubiquitous, icy presence and my own lingering paranoia casts a pall over my experience.

This is one of those situations where you either need to confront them directly and let the chips fall where they may or you need to block them on every platform you share and pretend they don't exist.

You can't seem to get past what happened in the past, but you're also not talking it out with them. That means that you're stuck where you are until something changes. That thing is either messaging them directly or removing them from view.

Do not write a callout post. From what you've outlined here, you have a suspicion with no solid facts one way or the other. Writing a public post will just create fandom drama and having been tangentially involved in that before, do. not. recommend.

Personally, I think you need to evict them from your mind because they've been living there rent free for too long. But that's just my opinion. What do the rest of you think?

You can also find this ask mirrored over on Dreamwidth.

#asks and answers

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

Hello there!! It’s 🦐 anon back at it again and I have another request if that’s okay.

I don’t know what character limit is the max, but could I have some headcanons for when Jeff, Toby and ben have a crush obsession on someone (reader) , but they discover they’re already dating someone else? What would they do? (Seperately)

If you can’t do 3, only doing Jeff and ben is fine! Just thought of this idea and you’re one of my favourite writers that’s active in here, so I came to you!! Have fun if you end up writing this. Have a lovely day.

-🦐

It's always ok to ask for stuff! And don't worry about character limit because i think the absolute most id be willing to do is maybe 10 per ask

Also it makes me smile to see that im one of someone's favorite writers 💞💞

Tw: stalking and obsessive behavior

Thank you so much for requesting!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff

Jeff doesn't really like people all that much

And as we know, he is very self absorbed

So if he actually finds himself enjoying you, let alone loving you, he assumes that you should automatically love him as well

He spends every second he can watching you through your windows, learning your schedule, all of your favorite things, etc, etc

And eventually, he builds up enough courage to sneak into your house while you are away

He smells your clothes, cherishing the heavenly scent

He steals one of your t-shirts and steals your toothbrush (definetly not to brush his own teeth with)

He snags your perfume/cologne as well, so that he can always smell like you

And with all of his treasures in his pockets, he sneaks back out

He continues this cycle for weeks until one day, you bring someone else home with you

"One of their friends" he tells himself, jealousy already boiling in his heart

But when he sees you look up at them with your gorgeous eyes, and sees you kiss them, he snaps

He is seeing red as he breaks through the window, killing your partner in cold blood

He feels betrayed, how could you do something like this to him?

He ends up knocking you out, and bringing you back to his home, where he ties you to his bed and waits for you to wake up

Because you have got some major explaining to do...

Toby

Toby finds himself feeling like a lost puppy around you

He loves you, oh lord he loves you

But he can't have you know that yet

If you were to see him, see the things he's done, that'd scare you off for sure

And so he watches you from afar

He watches you when you go to work, he watches you as you head home, he sits closely by you when you're at a resteraunt

He doesn't ever allow himself to break into your home (unlike SOMEONE on this list 😒)

But if you ever drop something, say, a piece of trash, or maybe something falls out of your pocket, he swarms all over that

He has a special little drawer in his nightstand full of all of the things he's collected from you

But lately, he's been noticing a...shift...in your schedule

Meeting the same person over and over again, until one day, his worst fears are confirmed

As you make your plans with them, you share a sweet kiss and walk away, holding hands as you do so

This breaks him

He can feel his heart aching, as he knows that he's lost you

He blames it on himself "if I had just talked to them sooner"

He can't bring himself to hurt them, though

And, they can't be all that bad if they make you happy

And so, he allows this person to keep dating you, continuing to stalk you from the shadows, waiting for the day that you leave them, and his chance will be presented again

BEN

Ben has a....knack, for finding people

It's almost like scrolling through the front page of social media to him

Scrolling past an endless sea of countless faces, watching videos, playing games, streaming, etc

But one day, he found you

Your gorgeous face entranced him almost immediately

And by the end of the first five minutes of just staring at you, he knew that he needed you

He comes back to you, day after day, saving all that you watch in his own personal playlist

If you like video games, he will know, and he will send you all of the games you could ever want

You don't know where they're coming from, but you aren't complaining

He occassionally peers through your electronics cameras, and just watches you sleep

You look so nice and cozy, he wishes he could be there with you, holding you, keeping you safe

And one day, he notices a new person coming into the picture

A....romantic interest of yours

He can't have that.

And so he hacks them. He leaks their adress, he posts life ruining things on their socials, even going as far as to make them think that you are doing these things, making them hate you and putting more and more strain on your relationship

Eventually, you break up, unknowing that BEN was behind it all

And he's been sending you love messages along the way

Little gifts he knows youd like too

And now he can make himself known to you, as an angel, a savior, rather than the monster that had ruined your relationship with your partner

#creepypasta #creepypasta x y/n #creepypasta x you #slender mansion #creepypasta x female reader #ticci toby #eyeless jack #ticci toby x reader #toby rogers x reader #toby erin rogers #ticcy toby #jeff the killer x you #jeff the killer x male reader #jeff the killer x reader #jeffery woods #jeff the killer #ben drowned x y/n #ben drowned x you #ben drowned creepypasta #ben drowned x reader #ben drowned

[morallyinept]

Writing For Ezra - An Overall Analysis Of Our Favourite Scoundrel’s Articulation.

I often see writers mention in their blog/fics that they’re worried or concerned about writing for Ezra because of his loquacious nature. As a fanfic writer it can be daunting to translate an already loved character into your works, without trying to alter their main personality trait. In this case, it’s Ezra’s way of talking that is his standout mannerism and the reason why so many have a soft spot for him.

So, I got to thinking and put together this, somewhat, deep dive into him and his talkative ways. I hope it proves useful for anyone tackling him for the first time (myself included), or even for the experienced Ezra writers already here, who are already killin' it. 🖤

If this is beneficial to you in any way, please kindly re-blog, and also tag me in any Ezra works you write because of it. I’d love to read your work and feature it on my Ezra fic recs list for others to enjoy too.

⚠️This will contain spoilers for Prospect, so if you haven’t watched it yet, then you might want to save this for later. 

Ezra’s accent is Southern.

Ezra’s accent has been likened to a Texan accent with a side of ham. Ham meaning someone who enjoys performing or behaving in an exaggerated style. Not the pig meat. 🐷 And his accent and voice certainly does have that hamminess about it. Back in the day, approximately around 1882, the term ‘ham-fatter’ was used referring to a poor person who overacted. It was then shortened to just ham. 

It was Pedro Pascal himself who gave this specific accent to Ezra. Although it is not confirmed in the film where exactly Ezra hails from, he is confirmed human. In the Prospect-verse there is no mention of Earth as we know it, but that’s not to say it doesn't exist or isn’t referred to by another name. The closest being Camrea or Lau in terms of similarities of planets with land and water. So there is a good chance that his accent stems as a direct result of his heritage from either Earth itself, or a planet just like it in The Fringe. 

In the deleted scene with Ezra and Cee, Ezra reveals he has a brother. This is the only personal information we get from Ezra - and it was deleted. 

Ezra says in the scene where he encounters Damon for the first time, "me and my partner feel we both deserve... satisfaction." 

If you didn’t know already, the term ‘deserve satisfaction’ stems from the 17th century where duels were mostly single combats fought with swords. But then in the 18th century, the swords were commonly replaced with pistols. You’ve heard of the term ‘pistols at dawn’ right? Well to demand satisfaction means to restore one’s honour by demonstrating a will to risk one’s own life for it. Again, this originates from the Southern states of America, during such times where duels were prevalent.

Damon and Number Two actually have a duel-type shootout, which is how Damon dies (aside from Ezra putting him out of his misery).

So yes, Ezra is, in fact, a Texan space cowboy of sorts. 🤠

Edit: Whilst I can only find one source that states Ezra has a "Texan" accent (and it's a film review article, so not based in fact), many argue that he sounds Louisianan more than Texan. Either way, he's definitely Southern, so you can make your own mind up on where he hails from originally, as it's never actually confirmed. 👇🏻

Source of Article

Yes, Ezra is a rambler, but pay attention to the frequency of his actual rambling. 

It would be easy to overdo it on the flowery language when writing for Ezra.

The fact that Ezra throws in some words that are not commonly used in everyday conversation, doesn't mean that he does it ALL the time. Try not to fall into the habit of writing paragraphs of archaic and wordy language, when sometimes a simple sentence is sufficient for him to get his point across. 

Here are some examples where he speaks with simplicity in the film:

“How poetic.”

“The starter, if you don't mind.”

“Funny, I don’t see any mercs. Where are they?”

“This is so exciting.”

“You friendly with these fellas?”

“You got a field kit?”

“It seems I must.”

“Keep it creamy and it’ll be fine.”

See? Short and snappy sentences.

What’s in a name?

Names are important to Ezra; he uses names as a gentle threat. When he comes across Damon for the first time, he uses his name almost constantly: 

“Nice to meet you, Damon. I'm Ezra.”

“Where’re you from, Damon?” 

“Alright, Damon.” 

“Damon, it has truly been a pleasure, but pleasantries pass, it’s time to get candid…”

“So how did you get here, Damon?”

“The starter, if you don't mind. Where is it? Don't make me root for it, Damon.” 

“But Damon, if there is talk of the Queen’s lair, the excitement is momentary.”

“Damon, I have clearly underestimated you, I must stop doing that.”

“Damon… does this mean that the plan is off? You have me all hot and bothered up over the Queen’s lair, Damon.”

“It's a shame, Damon.” 

Ezra uses Damon’s name 11 times in just the first few minutes of meeting him and his untimely death. A name is important for Ezra to gain the upper hand and to subtly manipulate and appear menacing, more so than he probably is. It’s also done to grab the attention of Damon constantly; to ensure that Damon’s focus is directly on him by mentioning his name continuously.

Later, when Cee won’t give Ezra her name despite him asking for it repeatedly, you can see the frustration this causes within him. Because he has no way of gaining influence over her without it.

He refers to her instead as “little bird, birdie, girl & oi, number 3.”

When he does eventually learn her real name, he uses it only once. 

“Nice to meet you, Cee.”

He doesn’t use it again for the duration of the film as their relationship has evolved into an unspoken, mutual trust. Something he did not have with Damon and therefore used his name repeatedly as a way of asserting dominance over him. 

☝🏻So, if you’re writing Ezra, don’t forget to use names in abundance, like he does. Especially if he doesn’t trust or like them. 

Double Entendres.

Pay close attention to the possible hidden meanings inside Ezra’s words too. This might not be deliberate, but his face when he speaks and says certain things hints at a devilish playfulness about him.

A particular scene that stood out to me is when Ezra and Cee are at the Queen’s lair. 

 Ezra says, “somebody ought to give her a go… That's the price for a dry breach. My chem will calm the brine.” 

Now, if you’ve a dirty mind like me, (😜 ha!) A dry breach could be interpreted as ‘a dry pussy’ and his chem is ‘his semen’ that will calm it, or moisten it up as it were. 😏 I like that he can speak with a double meaning, if you're looking for it, but of course this is subjective.

So, dirty talk from Ezra doesn’t always have to be directly on the nose. 

Some more subtle examples are:

“Hello, sweetheart.” 

“Hold it like you love it.”

“Slippery son of a bitch.” 

His tone also changes when he wants to emphasise a point. When the Saters give him and Cee the juice in their tent, Ezra can sense Cee’s reluctance to drink it. 

He knows it tastes bad, yet urges Cee to drink it, without insulting his hosts who he knows could be dangerous. His face changes; his features become sharper and serious as he says "it's good for you, cleanses the dust."

Only moments before he was smiling and jovial. 👇🏻

Cussing.

Ezra never swears, in the conventional sense, for just the sake of it. I get the impression he would find that kind of language lazy. Cussing/swears are saved purely to express his frustration or fear in the situation.

“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh Shit. Oh Shit. Oh Shit.” - (Yes, 6 times he says it!) When he loses his arm. - Fear

“Slippery son of a bitch… No, no, no. Ah shit.” - When he's mining the Aurelac husks. - Frustration 

When mining for the Aurelac where he can’t separate the gem from the blister due to his physical impairment of only having one arm, Ezra mumbles a long string of unintelligible words in frustration.

Despite listening to the audio over and over, I can’t fully decipher it, but some words I pulled out were: “cob spitters(?)... can fuck more nuggets(?)... in this sleep for snatch(?)…”

Who knows exactly what he is saying here, (if you know, lemme know) but he rambles quickly and incoherently when he swears; especially when frustrated. 

He likes to fill the silence. 

When walking with Damon, he keeps conversation flowing by questioning Damon about the corporate expeditions, and with Cee, he tells her about the channel rats. He seemingly can’t abide silence.

And this is prevalent when he first meets Damon, he says “I can't tell you how refreshing it is… hoo… to encounter another talker.”

It’s safe to say Ezra likes to talk. If you’ve not already grasped that yet. So make that ramblin' man chatter away.

Ezra's redemption shifts his language too.

Ezra fully admits he is not a good man to Cee. He does this first by blaming the way of life that they are thrust in. 

“Why should I trust you? You stole from us. We did nothing to you.”

“That's The Fringe, girl.”

Later he confirms coldly he is indeed a killer when Cee tells him so. 

“You’re a killer. 

“I am. But are you?”

As time goes on, Ezra realises he is at fault for the death of Cee’s father.

“Well you can't... you can't think like that. If you go down that path. It's not good. If you need someone to blame, you blame me.”

You can see the shift in his language from being blunt and to the point in the beginning, to more accepting and gentler later on. Full character transition.

He also refers to Cee as his partner, rather than his daughter, when he is impersonating Damon to the mercs later on. His choice of words here is interesting.

This indicates he thinks more highly of her than he lets on; that she is equal to him. He soon thinks less of the Aurelac - the sole reason why he is on the moon - and more so of getting off the moon intact with Cee beside him. A complete metamorphosis from when we first meet him, and he's stealing Aurelac from Damon. 

“You are not understanding me.”

 “I say the terms have changed.”

“You’ll find a way if you want that buried treasure.” 

“A ride for me and my partner on your handsome craft, or no deal.”

Actions speak louder than words.

Ezra’s movement is interesting, as too is the violence he engages in - it’s slick.

He slices the Achilles Heel first of the merc at the Queen's lair, thus rendering him unable to fight back or run for assistance from the others before ploughing him face first into the acidic hole.

Despite only having one arm, Ezra’s strength is still pretty impressive. He’s quick, experienced and brutal. And not opposed to fighting dirty to ensure his survival. 

Ezra also has excellent aim with the thrower; he kills another merc with only one shot, and in the dark too. That’s pretty kick-ass when you think about it. 

Describing not only his language, but also the way Ezra moves in your writing, will really make him leap off the page when you write him. Be that in an action sequence, or completely fucking you up between the sheets. 🫠

A man of few words in the end.

Ezra’s last words are for Cee:

“You grab the gun and you go. You can make it. Get outta here.” 

He’s fully aware of his impending fate at this point and has accepted it. He doesn’t say anything else, not even when she comes back for him, suggesting their bond now doesn’t need a spoken word to cement it. It’s transcended verbal communication. 

Even when in the safe confines of the pod ascending up to the sling back, Ezra doesn’t say anything, even though you can see he is awake. 

☝🏻In the end, words are not always needed. Sometimes it's the things he doesn't say that has the most impact.

So there we have it, Prospectors. I hope this was helpful and insightful to you about writing for Ezra and how he talks.

He is my favourite Pedro Boy, and despite feeling that I know him pretty well as a character, the thought of writing him still brings me out in a cold sweat to some degree… 😬 So I can understand if you feel daunted by it too. 

There are so many wonderful works already out there that are written fantastically and really captures the essence and the personality of Ezra. And if you’re thinking about writing for Ezra for the first time, please don’t be put off by it - he’s such a great character who can be thrust into so many different scenarios, and of course, you can also mould him to be your own creation. 

That’s the great thing with fanfic and head canon - there are no rules. We all interpret characters differently. And that’s what makes reading about them so fun. 

If you haven’t seen Prospect yet, I highly recommend it. Check out the Ezra deleted scene here too.

Also check out my Ezra specific fic rec list for further enjoyment of this dashing rogue from other writer’s points of view. 

Ezra Thesaurus:

Loquacious. Flowery. Tincture. Drawl. Husk. Gravel. Gabble. Wordy. Babbling. Long-winded. Effusive. Droning. Garrulous. Gibberish. Multiloquous. Yakking. Muttering. Mumbling. Voluble. Cadence. Trib. Rambling. Glib. Clucking. Gregarious. Windy. Verbose. Prolix. Articulate. Fluent. Mouthy. Vocal. Opinionated. Drole. Gassy. Eloquent. Stylised. Chatterer. Logorrhoea. Word Vomit. Incessant. Spit-balling. Bleating. Clacking. Blabbermouth. Windbag. Motormouth. Harping On. Overzealous. Enthused. Mirthed. Crude. All Around The Houses. Effulgent. Airy-Fairy. Prattling. Harpsichord. Waxing Lyrical. Recounting. Din. Tone. Note. Music.

🖤

GIFS used by @uuuhshiny @perotovar @nicolethered @iamasaddie @pedgito 🖤

#ezra prospect #prospect ezra #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal #ezra is my fav #writing ezra #hints & tips #ezra (prospect) #ezra x reader #ezra prospect x reader #writing advice #writing tips #helpful advice for writing #character writing #writing

[ticklinglady]

The Guild's actions during the story are so insane, when you think about them properly, you know? When I first read the arc with them, this moment hasn't really occurred to me, as I was too busy going nuts over finally seeing the names of the familiar writers, but now when I think of that... I am not sure, I comprehend how they managed to achieve such a ferocious reputation. I have already made a little post about how extremely dysfunctional the DOA members are, but at least those guys have a plan, which actually makes sense more or less, even despite the gang using cheatcodes/the Book. The same cannot be said of the Guild however archghhjkn. Like, what the hell were these guys even doing??? XD

So here are just some moments, which weirded me out the most

At first I'd like to address the entire story with everyone's favorite tsundere, Lucy Maud Montgomery. Her introduction leaves quuuuite an impression in the best way and nothing makes me happier than the fact, that she gets a chance to find happiness in the following chapters and actually becomes a reoccurring character! HOWEVER, her entire involvement with the Guild is super odd... I still can't wrap my head around her getting fired. She is a girl with a hella powerful ability, who got taken to the Guild from a terrible, terrible orphanage in order to fight for them in the war for the Book, so not only is she very strong, but she's also immensely dependant on the organisation and wouldn't do anything outside of its interests. Yet Lucy is also put under extreme pressure. As she herself puts it, the Guild doesn't tolerate failures and will kick her out the moment she screws something up.

Later we see that this is exactly what happens, when she messes up her first mission. Fitzgerald himself confirms that, since she failed and revealed her ability to the enemies, she's no longer useful, so now a powerful esper, like Lucy works for free as a... laundress?

EXCUSE ME??? WHEN HAVE THE GUILD MEMBERS EVER DONE ANYTHING, BUT FAIL AND REVEAL THEIR ABILITIES?

Let's be real, these dudes were successful like only once or twice...

This fact not only makes Fitzgerald look like an idiot for wasting such a talented and useful worker, because of one mistake, but also as one hell of a hypocrite, cause he is more than fine with everyone else fucking up. And in case of Lovecraft and Steinbeck: fucking up twice. To add to the oddity, we later learn, that Louisa genuinely cares for Lucy and despite her social anxiety actually stood up for her during the entire story, but even that wasn't enough to change Fitzgerald's mind on the issue, though Louisa is one of the few people, whose opinion he respects. Honestly, this is such a waste of a truly useful subordinate. And speaking of which....

The Guild has never even tried to implement Edgar Allan Poe during the war...

This man is actually rather op when you think of it. He can capture and neutralise literally any ability user in Yokohama (besides Dazai, Mori and Ranpo ofc) just by throwing a book at them. Seriously, as we see with Chuuya, they don't even have to read it, they just need to see the pages. Plus the book can be actually sent via email!!! So why has there been an absolute zero amount of strategies with the use of this ability??? They could actually try to catch Atsushi by sending him such email containing any of Poe's mystery stories and then safely carry him back to their base. And it doesn't have to be just Atsushi, it could be literally any of their enemies. Non-combatant, like Ranpo could use this pretty damn well to his advantage and it doesn't take a genius to understand the potential of the "Black Cat in Rue Morgue". But nooooo, it seems like everyone has just forgotten of Poe!!! (Tho to be honest, I can actually see this situation in a funny extra awfgbfggfjj. Not the main story however) The agency would never even learn of his existence, if he didn't personally decide to try to fuck Ranpo's life up. Like, what does Poe even do in the Guild? He's the master architect and, according to him, the third ranking man in the organization, but we never see him be of any use, so Idk. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Lucy at least got to do something, unlike this poor man.

Then there's the entire drama with the Guild's decision to destroy Yokohama. Where do I even begin...

First of all, Fitzgerald has no way of knowing that Atsushi is going to come to Moby-Dick to fight him. Poor guy is the Guild's primary goal and has already gotten himself captured once, so it would have been safe to assume that the ADA decided to hide him somewhere and not send him on any dangerous missions for the time being. That basically means Fitzgerald could have burned down not just Yokohama, but also the only person, who could actually help him find his precious Book.

But if we're to ignore this, let's also go with Wikipedia then~

"Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. Yokohama is also the major economic, cultural, and commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area along the Keihin Industrial Zone."

..........................

Good luck making up for the destruction of THIS, Fitzgerald 🖕

And if this in itself wasn't bad enough, most people, including me, tend to forget that all Guild members are actually big shots in the American government, which I think is very sad. Because first of all, can you imagine any of the Guild members actually working as politicians?!! The sheer idea makes me hysterical avshbgj. Like, just consider Lovecraft working as a senator or something. This eldritch horror of a man leaves the ocean once in three years at best LMAO. Second of all, I have a feeling, that the destruction of Yokohama at the hands of influential politicians from a foreign country would have resulted in an international conflict or two~ Like as if random deranged rich Americans arriving in Japan, wreaking havoc over there and destroying the second largest city in the country wasn't bad enough, these Americans just HAD to be super influential businessmen and politicians. Louisa, my dear, I understand that it wasn't your intention, but it's as close to a declaration of war as it can get, you know? Fitzgerald may be ready to do anything to resurrect his dead daughter, but I'm not sure, that the execution of himself and the rest of the Guild at the hands of the Hunting Dogs is something he'd like.

(And here's another funny thing that stems from them being politicians 🤭 As @originalartblog wittily pointed out, Fitzgerald wasting all his money fighting sskk has probably resulted in a market crash and recession over in the USA)

I also have some other questions in regards to this entire plan, such as why did they have to waste Moby-Dick just to destroy Yokohama? Yes, it works in the short term, but in the long term they loose a super powerful fortress with the stealth mode and as the practice shows, you better have a safe base, unless you want another lemon freak to blow it all up. I mean, you could just ask Lovecraft to destroy everything for free. Or, if the device is the only way to stop the giant whale from crashing, why didn't Fitzgerald just take it to a far away bunker or something and waited things out there without the need to spend millions of dollars just to survive the explosion? (And it would have been extremely funny, if during the fight with sskk he just threw the device overboard) But I think I have already rambled for long enough already atxhghbgv XD

The Guild is an even bigger mess than the DOA and I think that's glorious 🙌

#the guys stole mafia's building once just to show off and nobody has ever brought it up again #if that's not a true definition of hilarious I don’t know what is 🤭 #bsd fitzgerald #bsd lucy #bsd louisa #bsd poe #bsd lovecraft #bsd guild #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd meta #sort of #bsd francis #bsd spoilers #ticklinglady talks

[avelera]

"Sometimes it's not that deep," aka, How to Write a Mystery (That's Actually There)

A good rule of thumb about predicting a well-written mystery is that other people are predicting the same things. Even better if a lot of other people, on their own, are analyzing the material closely and each, on their own, are reaching the same theories and conclusions! Yes, this can mean everyone's falling for the same red herring too, of course, but generally speaking, no writer is putting all that effort into writing a mystery only one person can solve.

The thing is, a good mystery should be predictable, but at varying speeds based on the attentiveness of the audience.

The most laser-focused readers (or viewers), the true Holmesian mystery-solving mystery readers with encyclopedic knowledge and a fine-toothed comb to go through the material, should be ahead of the characters trying to solve the mystery, but not so far ahead that the story becomes boring, ideally. Your mystery shouldn't be so predictable that it can be figured out on page one but, if a truly clever sleuth does figure out your mystery on page one, your story should also be good enough that it is still an enjoyable tale even if the audience know how it ends.

The attentive reader should figure out the mystery at about the same time as the main character. They should have the "Aha!" moment about two seconds before the character solves it for that little thrill of feeling very clever, which to authors is very funny, because if we're doing our job right, we didn't just set the clues for you to solve the mystery, we agonized over the timing of each clue's introduction just to make sure you got that little thrill of self-satisfaction at the moment we wanted you to.

The casual reader should figure out the mystery when the characters figure it out. They should get the enjoyment of seeing the mystery solved, and in retrospect be able to see the clues, but in the meantime have enjoyed their time nonetheless. It should be a good story on its own.

Now, this is relevant to fandom theory mongering because clues are not accidental. And there are usually a lot of them, if the author is doing their job. Yes, you should be able to analyze the costume colors to see that there are parallels between the green dress or whatever that the lead is wearing in this episode and how it's a call back to another episode and that means blahblahblah is going to happen, but, that sort of deep-cut, freeze-frame sleuthing is usually only in support of more overt clues intended for general audiences.

(Not to pick on any one fandom, but Ted Lasso S3 for example had a lot of Tedbecca shippers looking for hidden clues in the cinematography as their hopes faded for a canon confirmation of their ship. Alas, those didn't bear out, because they were not accompanied by textual evidence in addition to the subtextual evidence of how any moment now, these characters are going to stop dating and pursuing completely different people and actually hook up with or even verbally express confirmed interest in each other.)

Of course, a mystery can be tough to solve and be satisfying! It is sometimes even possible to solve those truly out there or even not yet fully supported mysteries that eventually turn out to be true (say, predicting a later book in the series before all the clues are even there from installments in the meantime). It can be really satisfying to correctly extrapolate from incomplete data before the author even intended you to see it or had figured it out themselves!

However, more often than not, the clues are deliberate and to assume you're the only one seeing them is probably a sign that they're not actually there.

A good mystery, a well-written one, should provide all the clues for the audience to solve the mystery on their own, within the text, even if the last few pages are ripped out. A good mystery is not a "gotcha". And a sign of a good mystery is that more than one person can pick up on all the clues because those clues are placed deliberately and yes, that requires a certain amount of sign-posting as well and in fact, one of the most fiendishly difficult things to do as a writer is strike the proper balance between sign posting your clues at just the right time to reward your attentive audience with enough data to solve the mystery just before the characters do, but not so early that they lose interest.

So, why is this important for fandoms? Because it's entirely possible to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and convince yourself of stuff that's not there and then get really bummed when it doesn't happen. We're all guilty of this, myself very much included, especially in the largely subtextual world of slash shipping.

There's also real world exceptions and extenuating circumstances to my statement that a good mystery will actually provide the clues: like studio changes, dropped threads due to contractual complications, or a crowded writers room where not every idea gets pursued.

Plus, we've got the whole goddamn JJ Abrams-inspired mystery box bullshit run of television making creators think it's cool to pull one over on the audience and deny the clues they set up just to make a "twist" that no one predicted because it wasn't there, thus betraying the principles of a good mystery, and that also muddies the waters about how good mysteries should be written. (If you can't tell, I absolutely despise writers who pull this bullshit with the intent to trick their audience and they do not deserve any praise for being "clever" to just surprise people with an outcome that's not supported by previous text ala "rocks fall, everyone dies", ugh.)

But besides the damned mystery box crud, there are some good rules of thumb for determining if the clues you're picking up are real or not:

Is the subtext supported by text? Not "is her green dress backed up by a micro-expression glance you can barely see if you freeze-frame the show" but actually in the text. Does someone say, in dialogue, "Hey, we should go on a date," when you're reading subtext between two characters and can you be certain that the writers intended that text to be read the way you read it? One way to tell is if this sort of thing happens more than once, if there are more clues. Of course, there's also red herrings, etc, and hey, that's half the fun of a mystery, not all clues are Clues. But generally speaking, there's more than one clue for important stuff.

Is there evidence against your theory and have you considered it? This is basic Logical Thinking 101, of course, but only looking for evidence that confirms your theory and ignoring everything that doesn't will definitely convince you of some pretty wild stuff in a hurry!

Have you considered the genre of the work and whether it even has mysteries? Or is it, for example, a comedy which might address those "clues", most likely comedically, but might just as easily not even realize they were seen as clues?

But mostly importantly: do other people have this theory? Did they arrive to it on their own, based on the same text? If you are the only person with a theory and cannot use textual evidence to convince more than one person who is not of the same background as you (ie, convince your less-progressive dad that these two guys definitely want to boink based on the way they look at each other) there is a very likely chance you are stringing together disparate data points to match your desires, not the evidence. Bonus points if, seriously, you can convince someone who is of the same demographic as the content creators (writers, directors, etc.) that these clues are intentional. Most likely, your less-than-progressive dad has more in common with the thought process that went into creating the vast majority of content than your average Tumblr user does. (OFMD is the exception that proves the rule.)

As a final note, one thing it's very dangerous to do as a writer is introduce the idea of clues and a mystery without making your mystery air tight. Mysteries invite the reader to put their brain on high alert. It means they're looking for clues everywhere and even seemingly innocuous throw-away descriptions or the camera lingering on a random prop for too long can be misinterpreted and end up pissing off the audience who thinks it's a Clue.

You have to be so deliberate with a mystery, because it's not about just controlling the clues you release, but controlling the perception of the audience so they know what isn't a clue (unless it's a red herring, of course). That's part of why scifi author David Brin said all aspiring writers should have their first novel be a mystery, because it teaches you volumes on how to control your narrative and make everything intentional.

#maggie rambles #writing #writing advice #definitely not in response to some absolutely wild theories I've seen going about

[devine-fem]

I wanted to talk about Damian’s sexuality.

That comes out weird, I know but this is prompted more so because I saw someone post about how he’s always been straight and op didn’t understand how people were so surprised when he started dating Nika. Then someone took a jab at Damijon + another person who said they didn’t understand the concept of Damian not understanding queerness.

I think that Damian doesn’t understand queerness but I’ll get into it toward the end of the post.

This will be put in two parts. One for Damian and how he feels about his sexuality and Damian’s internalized homophobia.

Let’s start with his canon love interest; Flatline. Flatline unlike his other attempted love interests was supposed to be taken seriously and didn’t suck. Compared to the others on this list, we should be rejoicing at Flatline.

Then this person used panels where it suggested that Damian had a sexual interest in a woman.

Almost every single person Damian has been interested in has been treated like a joke and not taken seriously. Some women are much too old for him and just awful picks.

Katana… why… stop please. Another example of them only doing it as a joke. This is so weird considering she’s much older.

Supergirl. Another joke. And much older.

Djinn… I don’t even know why…

Cassie Sandsmark… in a Earth, nice one Tom Taylor.

He has a couple more one off ones that weren’t taken seriously as well.

I know he got a cheek kiss from Emiko. He also dated Raven in an animation but I feel it was more a plot device. Also there are a lot of sexual jokes about Damian and I hate because he’s supposed to be ten by that time… there were some weird sexual impilcations when he teamed up with steph and I don’t know why writers do that instead of exploring the potential of their characters together and relationship…

Now let’s get into how Damian personally feels about his sexuality.

He jabs at romance and the concept of it a lot.

In Robin 2021 he also was very against romance but it was more as a way to sheild himself from his feelings. The only real confirmation that Damian is attracted to woman is Nika. So thank you, Nika. Anything other than that is just comphet to me at least.

This is also why he’s hc as Aro, Ace or Demi because he literally shows no interest in romance and the only times he does it feels like the writer has forgotten his personality.

TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT.

People don’t talk about that time Damian was kind of drugged/mind controlled and sexually assaulted… I’m not sure if people don’t perceive it that way but it seemed like SA to me.

She’s much older than him. He’s a ten year old. The way she’s speaking… her being naked. Damian telling her he doesn’t like it. Him not being in his right frame of mind… it reads this way to me.

Listen, I don’t understand how you can interpret Damian as any sexuality anyway when he’s so young. Only when he’s thirteen/fourteen can it truly be explored.

Although, Damian saying he won’t/can’t feel that way also proves my case.

He’s never really shown a whole bunch of interest in anyone.

—— End of trigger.

Now for the internalized homophobia.

So, the arguement is “he’s too smart not to know about queer culture…” What? What part of not knowing about queer culture makes you stupid?

Damian grew up in a very controlled environment where he was taught how to survive, taught how to lead and how to feel. What part of his schedule would fit in learning about queerness?

Internalized homophobia is in no way a bad thing and personally, as others do as well, see it as another way to queer code because its something a lot of queer people experience. This doesn’t negate the attraction to woman by the way but that doesn’t mean Damian can’t be interpreted as some other type of queer.

There’s also people who like to negate and ignore this part of Damian’s character but… why? These moments are part of important comics with his character. Damian was young and didn’t know much about well, anything. If you’re not personally queer yourself then you have no real incentive to learn about queerness.

There’s nothing really wrong with it. Even if Damian used gay as more of an insult. I doubt he knew what being queer was outside of “When boy likes boy.”

Also, he makes some comments often that come off… not the best.

I still really don’t think its bad and can be interesting if explored.

This also coupled with his culture shock, probably adds to his confusion on certain cultures.

I mean, he doesn’t know all that much. He’s not exactly mister super genius when it comes to real life things as well.

He doesn’t know what laffy taffy is… come on.

All this evidence doesn’t even matter anyway because it’s confirmed that when he does go to pride that knows literally nothing about it and has to be EXPLAINED by a friend about how it came about and how it works but people get so upset about that.

I don’t know what Damian’s sexuality could possibly be but I just don’t personally think he knows either and that has nothing to do with Damijon or any ship, but with canon.

I wanted to go more indepth to this but yeah, internalized homophobia Damian is very close to me.

#damian wayne #damian wayne meta #batfam #dc comics

[randomshyperson]

Cherry Wine - Milf!Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Summary: Sometimes a glass of wine is all it takes to see someone who has always been in front of you. Or the one where Wanda is getting divorced, and you two are best friends.

Warnings: (+18), brief drunk making out, friends to lovers, lots of teasing and sexual tension, reader is a simp, semi public, a bit of roleplay, fingering (r giving), oral (r giving). | Words: 7.058k

A/N-> This idea has been on my drive for months, but I only finished it last week. Here it is, I think I've got all the warnings, but let me know if I'm missing anything. Good reading!

General Masterlist || AO3 || Wattpad

--//--

It was official. 

Exactly 3 hours and 8 minutes ago - and Wanda knew that because she was timing how long she could hold her breath under the short water of the tub - she became officially a divorced woman. 

She had just returned the cell phone with the lawyer's confirmation that all papers delivered had been read and the process was finished as she placed it beside the tub and was about to return to her childish challenge when the bathroom door opened.

You frowned at your best friend's posture, but there was a little smile on your lips. 

"You have strange habits, Wanda. I worry sometimes." You commented humorously, getting a weak chuckle from the other woman. You had two towels in your hands - one for body and one for hair - which you left on the sink. "Natasha said, for the twentieth time, that she's very sorry to miss the girls' day, but she's going to try to bribe Fury with bagels to see if she could switch her overnight duty to tomorrow."

Wanda nodded in understanding but said nothing about it. If she was one hundred percent sincere, although she also loved Natasha, you were more than enough. You had planned a surprise day with just the girls on the same day the divorce papers were filed because you figured Wanda would need company. She expected to arrive home from the court to do household chores that were sure to make her cry, but she arrived at the clean and organized place, a hot bath waiting for her and your companionship. 

"Are you ready to get out or should I leave the music on? You look like you're pretending to be a music video, and I wouldn't want to disrupt the creative process of the best writer in this country." You joke, and this time Wanda laughs with flushed cheeks.

"Stop it." She grumbles, but you just shake your head with a chuckle. "What did you say we were going to do anyway?"

"Cooking." You retort with one hand propped on the sink. "I know it's the only thing that helps you relax as much as writing, but since you hate writing when you're upset, Sokovian food will have to do." You reply and Wanda sighs heavily.

"Okay." She says. "Can you give me five minutes?"

You smile. "Honey, I'll give you all the time you need. Meet me in the kitchen when you’re ready." You said before leaving.

Wanda hugged her legs trying to get up the courage to leave the bathroom. Today would be a good day, she was sure. All the days around you were good, or at least, they were better than the days without you. These were not so common. Ever since the two of you met, so long ago in high school, you haven't been apart. Same high school, same college, same group of friends when you started your careers. While Wanda became a writer, you followed the same career as your mother and sisters in the medical field.

Today had to be a good day because Wanda had been needing these lately.

And while she was getting dressed, you walked casually down the stairs toward the kitchen.

Pietro called next and you put him on speakerphone as you moved to start getting the pans out.

"What do you need, my least favorite Maximoff?" You answered the call with a tease and heard laughter on the other end of the line.

"Please, everyone knows you are secretly in love with me." He returned, making you chuckle and shake your head. "Only that would explain why you lived at my house all the time in high school."

"Of course. And here I thought it was because your sister is my best friend, how silly of me." 

Pietro laughed, and before you could continue you heard two childish voices joining the call, and you left the pans on the countertop to look at the twins trying to fit into the camera view.

"And how are the cutest boys in the whole world doing?" You asked, making them smile.

"Aunt Y/N, Tommy and I got a new video game!" Billy said excitedly. "Uncle Piete gave it to us as a present!"

"Yes, because they were very well-behaved on the trip, and they promised they'll remain just as quiet while I'm driving home." Pietro advised, rubbing his forehead lightly and making you smile.

The twins were spending the weekend with their uncle on the other side of the state, and you had asked Pietro for a few extra hours because of girls' day - which he promptly agreed to, because besides adoring his nephews, he figured Wanda needed some break.

"What time are you getting on the road?" You asked.

"After lunch. We should get there around six, and with any luck, those little boys will fall asleep halfway, right, kids?" Peter tried, but seeing the way Billy and Tommy were jumping around excitedly, that seemed far from the truth. You laughed at Pietro's tired expression. "Hey, how's Wanda?"

Before you could answer, Wanda had come downstairs - her hair slightly damp and her posture relaxed as she put on a sweatshirt set - she looked good. Quiet pretty.

"Y/N?" You blinked in confusion, realizing that you were staring and hadn't said anything for a long moment. Clearing your throat, you picked up your cell phone and turned to Wanda - who smiled at the sight of her brother and children - and approached.

"Mom, look at our new video game!" The twins started talking quickly, and you smiled as you watched Wanda's face light up as she spoke to them. You left your cell phone with her and went to organize things in the kitchen.

After a few minutes, Wanda ended the call with 'Love you, see you all later' and a nod, and then approached you, sliding the cell phone into the back pocket of your pants.

"Don't put it away, we're going to need it." You warn, putting down the plates you took from the top. "I need to look up the recipes online, I have no idea how to cook anything, Wands."

"That's what I'm here for." She retorts with a smile, taking the plates from your hands. "Everyone knows that following recipes is like cheating."

"That doesn't make any sense." You try but she just shrugs her shoulders and moves to leave the dishes on the countertop, and you laugh, seeing that this argument you will not win.

Except that, many minutes between jokes, touches, and playful nudges - from grabbing an ingredient before Wanda can, gently pushing your shoulders against hers when she was measuring something, or tickling her when she goes to reach for something on the highest shelf - whatever Wanda was cooking sure wasn't going as planned.

"There's something missing." She commented thoughtfully as she tasted the seasoning, and you crossed your arms as you leaned your back on the countertop beside her.

"Sorry, miss we don't need a recipe, did you say something?" You teased playfully, and she rolled her eyes with amusement.

"Okay, Y/N, renowned chef from nowhere with impeccable skills in making instant noodles and ice, can you please check the ingredients for me?"

"Hum, I didn't sense much sincerity in your request, but I will overlook it because you are cute." You joke, and since you are distracted by picking your cell phone out of your pocket, you don't notice that despite her shy chuckle, Wanda's cheeks turn pink.

With the recipe, it was definitely easier to finish lunch. And the food was delicious. You and Wanda took the dishes into the living room - because it was a quiet day, and since the kids are not here, you could do it just today - and turned on the TV. 

Wanda wasn't even surprised that you had sorted out her favorite sitcoms, but she was certainly pleased. You were good to her. Always so good to her. And now, watching you out of the corner of her eye as you giggle at one of the jokes on the television, Wanda has to remind herself that she shouldn't feel her heart racing this way. It's not how friends feel.

"When do you have to go?" That is the question she lets slip almost four hours after you both have finished lunch. The dishes were carried into the kitchen by you at some point, and this must have been the only time you guys got up from your empty cushions besides bathroom trips. Wanda thinks that her anxious brain came up with this because she hasn't heard a word of the episode since she stretched out her legs on the sofa and your hands began to massage her feet.

You raise an eyebrow at her, surprised at the sudden question.

"Are you kicking me out, Maximoff?" It's ironic and humorous, and Wanda giggles, letting her head fall back on the couch as she looks at you.

"Of course, I'm so tired of relaxing and having fun all day." She retorts in the same tone making you smile. However you stop your caresses to check your watch, and Wanda regrets asking.

"I have the night shift, so I should leave before Pietro gets back with the boys." You mutter before returning your gaze to her. "But we have enough time to bake some cookies for them."

The suggestion makes Wanda smile. "Can we bake a pie too?"

You laugh, pushing her feet gently to get up. "Anything you want, sweetheart."

Wanda must have the flu. You always use affectionate nicknames, but now, it makes her heart skip a beat. She follows you into the kitchen lazily - even a little hesitant - somewhat confused about her own reactions. You don't notice anything.

Baking is different for you two - you are better at it than she is. Wanda helps with the dough though, and you have fun when you need to wash your hands in the sink, several playful pushings until you're done. 

"Now we wait." You say as soon as the last tray of cookies is in the oven. Wanda decides to sit on the floor, her back resting on the countertop behind her, and you laugh at the scene, but sit down beside her, both of you staring at the cookies baking. There is a moment of silence, just your quiet breaths. Wanda hugs her legs and you sigh. "How has it been today, sweetheart?"

Wanda knows you are asking about the divorce, precisely about the absence of Vis around the house now. But to be fair, it's not as if he used to be around anymore anyway. And that is exactly what she tells you. Despite offering you a hum of understanding, you complete with a quiet "I'm sorry."

She raises an eyebrow. "Why? You never liked him."

You let out a short chuckle, looking at her with almost surprise. "I'm sorry you're going through this, I mean. And that you're sad. It doesn't matter how I felt about him."

Wanda nods, resting her face on her arm. "I'm not sad, Y/N." She murmurs. "I'm somewhere between relieved and angry. Probably both."

"Yeah, I'm sorry." You repeat and Wanda lets out an almost impatient sigh, turning her body toward you.

"You know what, Vision is no longer my husband. You can be honest, okay?" She practically accuses, and seeing your confused and surprised expression, she completes, "About him I mean. You two never got along. You don't have to hide what you really think about him anymore. You can be honest, I won't mind."

"Wanda, I really don't think that talking shit about your ex-husband is the appropriate thing-"

"Stop it." She cuts off gesturing a bit. "Vision was all about the appropriate thing, remember? So please, Y/N. Let's just, for today at least, be honest. I need this."

You sigh, looking at her with some hesitation. "Promise you won't be angry?"

"I promise."

"Even if I'm mean, or rude?"

Wanda laughs. "Yes."

You giggle too, but then let out an almost excited exclamation. "Okay, I've kept these things since college when you first met him, but let's do it." You stated in a fake serious tone that made Wanda chuckle slightly. Theatrically you made a thoughtful face and cleared your throat before beginning. "Okay, first of all, Vision was the most idiotic guy you could have chosen to marry, and these are the reasons: He is crude, hugely arrogant, and manipulative. I always hated the way he talked to you. He treated you as if he were somehow smarter or more talented, and he was never either." You began to state and Wanda's eyes widened slightly. "And also, he couldn't read the room. I lost count of how many times he made you uncomfortable with some inappropriate comment. And the worst part is that he didn't have the slightest clue that you were bothered because even though he was with you, he seemed to know nothing about you!"

Wanda swallowed dryly, watching you vent. The worst part was that you were right about everything, and she remained silent as you opened up:

"And that was just the beginning, you know? You two started going out, and he didn't even know the basics about you! And then you got engaged and he bought you a really expensive ring and all I could think was 'what a stupid guy'. You don't even like blue, he could have spent less on a red stone and Wanda would have loved it even more." You comment and Wanda lets out a chuckle that you share. "And then you got married, and the party was beautiful I admit, but he drank too much and almost ruined what was supposed to be the best day of your life."

"Thanks for moving the cake, by the way." Wanda muttered remembering the day clearly, and you laughed, nodding.

"It didn't get any better after that, Wanda." You continued. "He was a terrible husband to you. He didn't go to any of your events, and I know that because I was at all of them. And remember the twins' anniversary and the wine accident? The jerk was more concerned about a damn bottle than an injured son. It was a good thing I already knew how to do decent bandages." You joke about the last part, but Wanda can't give you more than a short laugh. 

You keep listing - days and more days when Vision was a terrible father and husband - and you keep being right. But mostly, you were the one present in her life all the time. Attending her writer's publicity events, at family parties, gently picking the kids up from school, caring for this family as if it were your own. Wanda feels a lump forming in her throat. She wants to cry, especially if it means you are the one going to hug her.

Noticing her silence, you interrupt yourself mid-statement, looking at her with concern.

"See, Wanda, I knew I shouldn't have said anything!" You declare seeing the tears in her eyes, your face almost desperate. "I take it all back. Forget what I said, it was insensitive and foolish to say it at this moment."

Wanda gives a tearful laugh, shaking her head. "No, Y/N, don't worry." She says trying to push the emotion away, "You're right. Vis was an idiot, but that must mean I am too for believing him." She declares sadly and you deny frantically, but Wanda looks down at her own lap. "Maybe all of this is not for me, you know? I'm just not a good wife."

"That's what I mean, Wanda." You begin as you raise a finger to her chin, making her look up at you. Your hand doesn't pull away, fitting comfortably on her cheek, and it takes all of Wanda's mental control not to lean in or melt at the touch. "He made you feel like you weren't enough when he should have made you feel like you were everything." She knows she is blushing, and she knows that because your hand is on her face you are feeling the warmth of her cheeks. So she thinks it best to smile and nod, pushing her face away before she loses control of her own body.

"I have an idea." She declares because she doesn't want you to think she has rejected your touch or that she is angry, and is getting up. "Vis has carried most of his things away but left a bottle of wine from our wedding. I'm sure it was the last shot to try to make me feel guilty, but he's not going to have that victory. I want to drink that whole bottle with my favorite person, which is you."

Wanda didn't see the silly grin you had on your face because she was getting the glasses and the bottle from the cabinet under the sink. You checked on the cookies before you got up and Wanda brought the items to the countertop behind you.

"The saddest part is that your wedding wine is terrible." You commented, making her laugh.

"I know." She says as she opens it. "But it will have to do. One sip for the symbolism of the moment?" She asks, making you chuckle before nodding.

But time aging has improved the drink. You and Wanda share a surprised look as you taste the cherry, hum of satisfaction after the first sip.

"While it's not bad, I can't go to work drunk." You warn as you return the cup to the countertop and Wanda laughs, shrugging.

"More for me then." She says and turns your entire cup over in a single gulp, making you giggle and shake your head. 

You go into the living room to get your cell phone, and when you return to the kitchen Wanda is sitting on the countertop. She has given up on the glasses and decided to drink straight from the bottle.

"Natasha apologized again, and said that the attempted bribe ended up getting her an extra shift." You say as soon as you read the message from your cell phone, and Wanda lets out a hearty giggle.

"Damn, now I feel bad." She retorts. "I think I'll save some of my pie for her."

"My pie you mean." 

Wanda laughs, rolling her eyes. "We split the work!"

"Yeah, yeah, you can take five percent credit." You tease as you move closer, leaving your cell phone on the countertop next to her where you stop. 

"Five percent?" She repeats with false indignation.

"And I'm being generous."

Wanda lets out a short laugh, pushing your shoulder playfully but you are looking at her in a way that makes her legs go weak. Your cell phone vibrates the same second Wanda starts to lean in, and it breaks the moment completely.  She decides to take another long sip while you check the message.

"It's Harley. She wants to know if I can come in early because an appointment popped up." You count as you type. "Sorry, Wanda, but you just lost another hour with your favorite person."

Wanda chuckles. "You're never gonna let that one go, are you?"

"Not a chance." You retort with a mischievous smile, looking at her for only a second before you go back to typing. 

Wanda takes another long sip of her wine, and the next words are coming out before she can hold them back, "How come you never got married?"

You blink confusedly away from the phone at the sudden question, but you shrug. "I don't know. I guess I haven't met the right person yet."

Wanda is no longer smiling. She thinks she should, though. It would be the appropriate thing to do: smile relaxedly for a casual conversation with her best friend.

"Not even Harley?"

You chuckle at her phrase, putting your cell phone in your pants pocket, and she makes a surprised face. "You haven't heard? I think Natasha was waiting for the opportunity to tease me in the most efficient way about it." You begin. "We haven't been going out in almost a month now. We were doing well, I think, and I thought about asking her to be my girlfriend during a picnic. I set up a romantic date at the Municipal Botanical Garden, even took her to see a butterfly exhibit. And guess what? She fell in love with the flower girl."

Wanda stared at you in shock. "Sorry, what?" she asked, but you laughed, shrugging.

"There was a woman supervising the exhibit, a biologist. When it was over, Harley took my hand and said `Sweetheart, this has been lovely, but we can't go out anymore. I think I just found the love of my life because of you." You recount. "I particularly think it was a funny way for the universe to say it wasn't meant to be."

Wanda let out a nervous laugh, "Oh my god, I'm sorry." She said but you chuckled, shaking your head.

"Don't worry, I don't think it would have worked out anyway." You say. "Sorry for not saying anything too, I guess I ended up blocking that humiliation from my memory and forgot to tell you." You joke, making her laugh. You reached over to pick up the bottle she had left between her legs. "A sip of courage to face a twenty-four-hour shift." 

Your next sip of wine was miscalculated, and you downed a few drops, laughing at your own clumsiness. Wanda definitely must have been very drunk to be noticing the drop running down your chin, blushing as she realized the urge to taste it straight from your skin. 

And maybe because she was drunk, she thought it was an incredible idea to do exactly what she wanted. 

While you were scanning the place for a cloth to dry yourself, Wanda wrapped her legs around you before you could move away, ignoring your confused giggle as she pulled you closer by the shirt.

Your question about what she was doing turned into a gasping sigh when her lips met all the drops of wine falling between your chin and neck. You closed your eyes tightly, tensing up at the same moment, your hands gripping the counter as you try to keep your balance.

Wanda pulled away, licking her lips and her eyes so dark you couldn't see the green as you opened yours and faced her.

"There you go. Delicious." She spoke in a hoarse voice, and her gaze went down to your lips at the same moment. 

"W-what are you doing?" You stammered affected, your face burning and your heart racing. Wanda threw the consequences out the window, her brain screaming at her to kill this curiosity that had existed since high school, and she did. She closed her eyes and broke the distance, meeting your lips in a firm and deep kiss.

You choked in surprise, pulling back. Wanda blinked, mortified, and suddenly very sober. 

The apology died in a groan as you grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her for real the next second, tongue and teeth and with all the passion you had hidden for so many years. She matched the intensity, and as your mouths pressed together, her hands went to the back of your neck and yours went down to her thighs, encouraging her to wrap herself even more around you.

In the kitchen, all that could be heard was the sound of panting breaths and moving lips, until one of your hands went boldly inside her blouse and when your palm wrapped around her breast, Wanda gasped in a whimper, arching her body toward you. Something changed in you at the sound, your kisses grew harsher and your hands began to mark her. Wanda felt like she was burning from the inside out, so many years of buried feelings surfacing all at once and all she wanted was for you to release the hot knot in her belly.

Just as she felt your fingers work to pull up her blouse completely, the oven alarm beeped and awakened you. 

Wanda grunted at the lack of your lips, but you were stumbling backward in shock, and she had to hold onto the counter to keep from falling when you did, one hand on your chest and one in your hair, your breathing as out of rhythm as hers.

"Fuck, what we were..." You started practically panicking, only now noticing the wine bottle that fell on the counter with the movement, and exclaimed sweatily as you rushed to grab the item and a cloth, frantically preventing further mess. Wanda was busy trying to control her own breathing and ignore the waves of arousal and alcohol in her brain. 

But as soon as your gazes met again, she began:

"Y/N, don't panic." 

But you grunted, shaking your head. "Wanda, we're just-"

Your speech was cut off by the sound of a car parked in front of the house.

Shit.

"Oh, no, no, Shit." You muttered to yourself, and Wanda almost took it personally, but she could barely think about anything really, every cell in her body begging you to kiss her again when you moved closer again. But you were only trying to help with her messy appearance, letting out a gasping sigh as you raised your hands to smooth her hair and caught a glimpse of her swollen lips from the kiss. "God, so pretty..."

Wanda felt her face warm but you swallowed dryly, shaking your head and pulling away with a grunt. She would have complained but you adjusted your clothes and turned off the oven, and before she could comment, the front door was opening and lesser beings rushed into the room.

She heard your quick excuses about being late for work, and the promise of cookies in the oven was enough for neither Pietro nor the boys to question your hasty departure.

Wanda would have run after you, but she thinks her legs were still a bit wobbly.

–//–

You haven't spoken to Wanda in four days.

That's a record that impresses anyone who is part of your life - even Dr. Cho, who until last week though you were married to Wanda so many times she saw you leave the hospital for some family engagement with them. It was embarrassing to clarify that you were just a friend of the family.

Friend. 

You had a few. None like Wanda. And maybe that's why you're avoiding her.

The kiss hasn't left your mind since it happened. You had been running on automatic for days, and basically hiding at work to avoid the Maximoffs.

On the fifth day, Natasha had enough.

"This place is not a hotel, Y/N." She reminded as soon as she found you in the empty locker rooms again. You grimaced as you arranged the sheets on the bunk bed.

"But this has my name on it." You justified, gesturing with your head to the labels on the lockers. 

Natasha crossed her arms.

"The lodging is for on-call doctors. You were on call days ago. You have your own apartment, stop running away from your girlfriend."

You blush deeply and look away from the bedding in an attempt to hide it. 

"I don't know what you're talking about." You mutter, but Nat gives a dry laugh.

"Please, you've been working here for ten years, and for ten years Wanda has been making lunch boxes for you. Suddenly, she gets divorced and you start eating snacks from the machine and hiding in the dormitories. What, Vision finally found out that you were sleeping with his wife?"

“Nat!” You exclaimed embarrassed, but the redhead laughed and shook her head. "Don't say that! You know very well that Wanda and I, we never..."

"My god Y/N, you're still sleeping here?" Someone interrupted, coming to Nat's side. You sighed loudly at Harley, clearly arriving for her shift still in normal clothes and the lab coat inside her bag. "Did something happen to your house?"

Natasha smiles mischievously, leaning on the door. "That's what I'm trying to find out, and I'll bet you fifty bucks it has something to do with the hot Milf."

Harley raises an impressed eyebrow, her hands busy opening her own locker.

"What about Miss Maximoff?" She asks but you're sighing loudly and putting the covers away before walking away.

"Go mind your own business, Romanoff. And a good day to you two." You say as you leave in irritation.

But your escape from your colleagues is short-lived. Before lunch, when you've seen a few lovely patients that have improved your mood a bit, Natasha appears in your office.

"Hey, can I ask you a favor?" She asks leaning on the door, while you are checking the upcoming charts.

"Not if it's related to me staying in the dorm." You grumble grudgingly, managing a small laugh.

"I have found spiritual peace for that matter." She says mysteriously, and before you can clarify, she continues, "I'm going to take a little while at lunch, Maria and I are going to go over some adoption stuff. Do you think you can take over some General Practice patients? I can swap Pediatrics with you later."

You looked at your calendar before confirming, and Natasha smiled in appreciation, muttering that you were the best before you left.

In the afternoon, you were almost considering telling your long-time friend about what happened, but soon realized it was all her plan when you read Maximoff's name on the next appointment form.

In shock for a good few seconds, you almost considered faking a faint or escaping out the window, but both actions seemed very childish to you. 

It was just Wanda. Your best friend of a lifetime. You could have a conversation with her.

With trembling fingers, you pressed enter on the computer for the next password call and stood up to spend the next few minutes rehearsing exactly what you were going to say.

All the words went awry when Wanda's upset face came into your field of vision.

"H-hey." You greeted hesitantly, resisting the natural urge to break the distance and approach her, wrap her face between your hands and ask if everything was okay as you had done a thousand times. And Wanda missed that.

"Hi, doc." She greeted with a slight tease as she closed the door, you swallowed dryly wiping your soft palms on your pants.

"W-what are you, um, doing here?"

"Well, I figured if I made an appointment with the boys, you would have moved on to someone else. Given the way you're avoiding me." She replies without any ceremony, and you lower your head in shame, shifting the weight of your feet. "So I had to ask Nat for help."

You let out a humorless laugh. "Great plan." You mumbled before looking back at Wanda - who had taken off her coat. You cleared your throat. "Well, why don't you start by telling me what's wrong, Miss Maximoff?" You ask and Wanda tilts her head slightly, seeming to decide whether she was going to go through with this little theater or leave the room. Fortunately, she chooses the former.

With a soft sigh, she leaves her coat on the support besides the door and unhurriedly takes off one at a time the sandals she was wearing.

"I've had such a tough few weeks, Doctor." She begins, your eyes catching every movement of her hands taking off her sandals and causing your breath to hitch to the dark tingle that takes over her green irises. "With my divorce being finalized, I've been so stressed."

"That...I'm sorry to hear." You manage to say in a hoarse, affected voice, watching Wanda gently pushing her sandals to a corner of the room and starting to work the buttons on her red blouse in a tortured slow manner. Your heart leaps as you begin to see more skin. "W-what are you doing..."

"Oh, doc, I should be more comfortable, shouldn't I?" She asks with a false innocence that makes you swallow dryly, half her buttons open now. "So you can check me properly."

You choke softly, your face burning but your gaze mesmerized on the woman in front of you, who sighs softly as she removes her blouse, letting it fall down her arms to the floor.

Of course, in so many years of friendship, you had seen Wanda in lingerie a few times. But never like this. Not with her deliberately offering the image to you.

Your brain short-circuits, and she bites her lip, a hidden little smile as she watches your reaction.

"All this stress has left me so sore in so many places, doc..." Wanda begins, approaching in slow steps that make you hold your breath, the image of her cleavage covered only by a black bra making it impossible to concentrate on anything if not this. "Can you help me with that?"

You nod frantically, licking your lips to try not to look like a complete mess.

"W-where does it hurt, Miss Maximoff?" Your husky question makes Wanda smile even wider. She moves her hands to yours and pulls the first one until your palm is over her covered breast, drawing sighs from both of you.

"They are so sore since you touched me in the kitchen." Wanda confesses in an equally affected sigh, and you resist the urge to close your eyes, gasping a little. "Kept missing the feel of your hands around me, playing with them. It makes me tingle, unable to sleep. And thinking about that makes another spot hurt."

You blinked a little confused because of the liquid lust in your brain, but Wanda wasted no time in guiding your other hand to her belly and pushing down until it slid into her pants, past her panties.

You sighed deeply as you felt her wet pussy, instinctively squeezing her breast and making Wanda close her eyes tightly, her hands going to your shoulders for support.

"Fuck, Wanda." You grunt but Wanda is throwing her hips against your hand gently, urging you to start moving inside her.

"Please doc, only you can help me." She declares, and you shudder at the meaning behind her words, not resisting the temptation to slide your fingers through her folds, collecting and spreading the moisture that only seems to grow and makes Wanda whimper. "In-in-side, please... I need..."

You interrupt her with a kiss, overpowering with ease because Wanda is twitching at the feel of your fingers. She tries to match your hungry, intense kiss, but as soon as you push two fingers inside her cunt, she moans loudly, hands gripping your shoulders tightly to keep herself from sliding to the floor.

You hum in approval, your body burning with desire at the sensation of the soaked and tight walls of Wanda's pussy squeezing your digits. When she can no longer kiss you back because you have begun to thrust harder inside her and she can only rest her forehead against your shoulder, clinging to your body to keep from falling to the floor as your free fingers stimulate her nipple, you whisper in her ear, "You have such a greedy pussy, Miss Maximoff. Taking my fingers so well, so wet and tight for me. You know If you wanted this, you could have told me sooner."

Despite the closeness of her orgasm - Wanda could feel her legs wobble, the knot in her belly tightening, and waves of hot heat spreading throughout her body - she managed to retort:

"Would you have...helped me...if I had asked you before?" She said between breathless moans, and you almost flinched at the hidden meaning behind the question. But instead, you switched the rhythm until Wanda began to whimper, her hips moving against your hand in search of relief. 

Leaving Wanda's breast, you moved your hand to her face so that she would look up at you. Dark, dreamy eyes with very red cheeks. Wanda was absurdly beautiful, a mess on your fingers.

You make her cum before you say what you want. And she has to close her eyes for it, and you swallow the deep groan she lets out as she gets deliciously tight in your fingers, and soaks your hand with her juices.

As she recovers, you wrap an arm around her and draw patterns on her swollen clit.

"Look at me, Wanda." You call out in a whisper and wait until she does. "I would. Any time."

She swallows dryly, lowering her gaze to your mouth. "Even when..."

"Any time." You interrupt as you assure, sliding your fingers inside again and making her choke on her own breath. "I've loved you since high school, Wanda. If you had told me how you felt, I would have said the same. I would have kissed you in your dorm room, or at the church door. It could have been me screaming when the priest asked if anyone had anything against that union."

"Dorogoya..." Wanda starts out affectionate but turns into something like a whimper when you curl your fingers inside her. "Y-yes, just like that... chert vozʹmi, eto tak khorosho." she gasps in her native tongue, and you smile with a wave of pride in your chest as you watch her roll her eyes to the back of her head.

"Do you realize how many times I wanted to fuck you in that kitchen, Maximoff?" You continue, appreciating the way Wanda throbs in your fingers. "Or on your couch. Or my bed, when you and that asshole were fighting and you were going to cry on my shoulder?" You question, fingers stroking harder now. Wanda whimpers, shaking her head. "He never knew how to love you right, Wanda. Fuck you until you couldn't remember your own name. Good thing best friends know each other so well. I know exactly what you need, pretty girl."

Wanda was about to complain about the lack when you suddenly remove your hand from her pants, but you are kissing her hard and spinning her around until she is placed on the table. Your hands work to push her garment out of the way, and Wanda grunts when you break the kiss with a tug on her lips, only to feel her whole face burn when you start to get down on your knees.

Of course, she knows what you're going to do. And of course, you know that she has never received this before. You learned about it in a very awkward conversation on girls' night out, where Wanda had to confess that she was the only one in the group who didn't know what it felt like. Nat and Monica were too drunk to remember, but apparently you - from the victorious smile as you kissed her legs now - remembered very well.

Wanda tensed in anticipation, and you kissed her thighs before looking at her.

"Relax, Maximoff. You'll love it." You say trying to reassure her, but Wanda swallows dryly.

"You don't have to." She murmurs embarrassedly surprising you a little, "If you don't want to. Vision used to say it was weird and even unnecessary and I understand if you-"

"Oh, baby, you have no idea how much I want it." You sighed in solidarity. Ten damn years without decent sex. It had to be a joke. "Trust me, Wanda. I'm going to make you feel good like no one ever has."

She smiled shyly, and you kissed your way up until Wanda jumped softly with the first kiss against her clit. Your original plan was to go slowly, but as soon as you had a taste, your eyes rolled and you dove in.

Wanda cried out in pleasure and a little surprise, her hands gripping the table tightly.

“Oh, malysha… that feels-ah-really nice.”  Wanda gasped with her eyes closed tightly, her hips trying to match the rhythm of your mouth. Your tongue moved masterfully, in and out in a breathtaking rhythm as you spread her last pleasure all around. Wanda cursed in Sokovian as you sucked on her clit, arching her back and squeezing the table until her fingers turned white.

She was close, so tight in your mouth that you could feel how ruined your own panties were, but you didn't stop - grabbing her thighs to keep her open and continuing to eat her out even after she came hard in your mouth.

"Chert vozʹmi, dorogaya, eto slishkom" She babbled in ecstasy, falling with her elbows on the table, her whole body spasming deliciously. But you kept licking hungrily until her rambling words turned into cries of pleasure and she came again even more intensely.

You would stay there forever if you could, but the appointment time alarm began to sound and you grunted impatiently.

Licking her clean, Wanda blinked affectedly before she felt your hands wrap around her and help her stand properly, your lips dancing on hers and turning her into an even bigger mess as she felt the mixed taste on your tongue.

"Go on a date with me, Miss Maximoff." You say between one kiss and another, and Wanda chuckles softly.

"Is that an order, doc?"

"It's a request." You clarify even though you know she is only joking. "One that I should have made the second I laid eyes on you."

Wanda blushes, smiling shyly before kissing you again, slow and deep.

"I would have said yes." She confesses breathlessly. "Before or now. I didn't know, Y/N. If I had known-"

"It's okay." You interrupt her before she gets more anxious, kissing her mouth once or twice. "We have all the time in the world."

She smiles in agreement. "My place or in yours?"

You rub your nose against hers gently. "Is there a difference?" You retort getting a giggle in return.

You helped Wanda get dressed between kisses and stolen touches, and even after she left, your heart was still pounding inside your chest.

Wanda loved you back. And even though you had been friends for years, part of you felt that your story with her was just beginning. It was somehow terrifying. The possibility of screwing things up, of course. Good thing you would have your best friend by your side.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff smut #wanda x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #marvel imagines

[tfyoulookingatgiuxs]

Mama's Boy

Depressed!Eddie Munson x Reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: A very normal day at the Munson house. You were happy to visit your sweet boyfriend, too bad for you, he couldn't say the same thing. He wasn't in the mood and wanted to be alone. You had never seen him like this and that's why you had to ask Wayne for help.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: Insicure!Eddie, Depressed!Eddie, Patient!Reader, angst, blurb, fluff, hurt/confort, theme about alcohol addiction, theme about sigarettes, theme about drugs, past traumas, mommy issue, suicide, bad language, Eddie act like little child. (Whatever you now read about this one-shot is made up. Nothing I've written is canonical. Everything I have written is nothing that has been seen or confirmed in the Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things series!!!)

𝐀/𝐍: Sorry for my english, this is not my native languages. Please support new writers and reblog!Hope you enjoy! Anyway, if you shake your phone/tablet the daisies move :/ (DIVIDER NOT MINE)

It was a simple fall day in Hawkins. The streets were quiet and the days too, while the citizens were already preparing for the Halloween party that would take place in a few months.

Autumn was perhaps one of your favorite seasons and apparently also that of your metalhead boyfriend, Eddie Munson.

Today as expected, you got ready to go to his trailer. You were supposed to go out together to pick up a movie at Family Video and spend the afternoon like that. You were happy to see Eddie again after a long week due to your studies. You were finally free and no one could take that smile off your face. Or at least that's what you thought...

You knocked cheerfully on the door only to hear an "Coming!" from the other side. His voice was hoarse. It wasn't Eddie. In fact, Uncle Wayne opens the door for you. He gave you a warm smile and invited you in but after you stepped into the trailer his smile disappeared turning his face into a worried look. You wanted to know what was wrong, but you thought maybe it wasn't any of your business. Maybe it was personal stuff and you didn't want to intrude. So you looked around noticing that Eddie wasn't there. "Is Eddie home?" You put your arms behind your back waiting for a response from the adult as he headed towards the kitchen counter.

He nodded "Yes, he's in his room but..." He didn't continue his sentence, in fact he seemed to be looking for the right words. You got worried thinking something bad had happened but then Wayne spoke "If you want I'll call him but I'm warning you kid, he's not well" His tone was low and you could see the concern "What happened?" You asked while hoping that nothing serious had happened. Wayne sighed and then pulled a photo out of his left pocket and placed it on the counter for you as you walked over.

It was old and what's more it was also in black and white. In the photo you could see the panorama of a wonderful beach with two subjects present in the photograph: a woman and a child. Both had their backs turned as they looked at the sea or perhaps the sunset. The woman, even if you couldn't see her face, was definitely beautiful with comfortable clothes. The child's features appeared to be five or six years old. You were confused but let the man in front talk to you.

"Today my nephew and I cleaned out the closet," he began, continuing to talk "In one of the junk we found an old photo album with him and his mother" at that news I felt a great weight on your chest.

You knew that Eddie was without his parents and that he had lived most of his life with his Uncle Wayne, but he had never openly told you what had happened to them.

"After we settled everything, he took the photo album and locked himself in the room. I tried to talk to him, but he said he wanted to be alone" You didn't know exactly how to react. You wanted to know more but at the same time you wanted to go console your boyfriend and find out how he is doing. After a moment of reflection and silence you decided to ask questions.

"If I may ask Wayne...what happened to Eddie's parents?" You were unsure whether to ask since the topic seemed sensitive. The man looked away for a moment and then took a cigarette and put it between his lips and motioned for you to go outside. You followed him, you both exited the trailer and Wayne sat down on the steps in front of the front door while you sat down next to him. He took out his lighter, lighting the cigarette, inhaling the smoke and then releasing it.

"Sorry for taking you out, I'd like to talk to you about it in private" He said. You nodded understanding his reasons.

"My nephew never told you about them, did he?" He asked, surely knowing the answer, but it seemed he wanted to be sure. "No, never. He only told me that they died, he never told me how" You replied as you fixed a lock of your hair feeling the cool air hitting your skin making you shiver. Wayne was silent for a moment, continued to smoke as some ash fell to the ground and he sighed. "My nephew. Before living with me, he lived with his mother" The question arises spontaneously "And his father?"

"That asshole brother of mine? He ran away. When he found out that his wife was pregnant he ran. I never heard from him until I was told that he died in a car accident" you were shocked at the news "His mother was desperate, she hadn't accepted being left like that" her eyes looked at the surrounding landscape of the Trailer Park as more smoke released from her lips "She raised him until he was six and then one day we found her dead on the sofa in her house" you were speechless and every part of Wayne's story made you feel bad, you had become a stone statue no longer knowing how to react and comment on those words of his coming from a difficult past, but the story wasn't finished.

"After my brother left, all she did was drink and take care of Eddie when she could. Most of the time I helped her and tried to keep her away from alcohol, but she never wanted to listen to me." Wayne sighed as if he were throwing himself into memories "She then started using narcotics and smoking more often, it had now become her daily routine..."

You wanted to say something but you was immediately interrupted by him "When she died for my nephew was a hard blow at that age. He loved his mother very much...even if every now and then she forgot that he had a son to raise and spent the hours watching television drunk" This time the man looked at you and noticed your sweet soul worried "I can't imagine what it was like for him, losing a mother at such a young age..." you said it in a whisper and Wayne heard you and nodded "It was very difficult for my nephew. His mother was everything for him, even if it doesn't seem like it now...he may seem scary but in reality he has always been a mama's boy" Wayne smiled and his words had the same effect on you.

You had never thought of Eddie as a mama's boy, and it made you feel tender. "Really?" You asked as if you were in disbelief and he chuckled "Really. At the age of five he was already helping her, asking her for help and taking advice from her for anything. However, he never came to me to ask me for something, for my nephew it was obligatory ask mom" You were touched by this side of Eddie that you didn't know. You were really curious to see how he would act if his mother was still here.

"His mother though? How did she react to it?" You asked and Wayne smirked again "Well, yes, she was happy to have this relationship with Eddie, they spent time together, even if it wasn't much, but for my nephew that time was enough for him to be happy" your smile widened hearing those words "But as I told you before, she forgot about him and spent the rest of the days on the sofa. At times like those I took my nephew home with me so he wouldn't see the horrible state of his mother..." Wayne finished the cigarette and threw it on the ground, stomping on it. "Has he ever thought that his mother didn't love him?" Your lips moved by themselves, you didn't know where this one came from but you tried to identify with that little Eddie who was just trying to stay close to his mother even in the most difficult moment, but she was psychologically destroyed and let her uncle get away with it took care of it for him, you would surely have thought something like "Does mom love me?" or “Why does mommy do this?” something similar.

Wayne nodded "Yes...I remember he told me this on an ordinary day while he was having lunch with me. I didn't know how to answer him, I mean, how can you tell your five year old nephew that his mother takes drugs, drinks and that does he do anything but smoke? And what's more, she only loves it because it reminds her of my brother?" That answer left you stunned and Wayne seemed to understand your reaction "Exactly. His mother, as much as she might love him as a son, loved him even more just because he reminded her of my fucking brother... she always said that Eddie looked a lot like him" The cool air moved your hair slightly "And that's it?" He glanced at you "Do I have to be honest? Not at all, it's all her mother. Especially now" You let out a giggle.

"But now I don't know how he must feel years later. Now he knows things that we hid from him as a child and knowing the truth certainly hurts, but he must learn to face it" You looked at your shoes while thinking about what to say "Do you think he has he gotten over his mother's death?" It took Wayne a while to answer "No. I'm sure of this...As I told you, his mother's death was a hard blow for him and he still suffers from it today" his look was sad, and not do you think you've ever seen this sensitive side of Wayne "I tried to do my best to reassure him and be close to him, but my nephew will never be able to get the image of his mother lying on the sofa lifeless out of his head..." his eyes began to become shiny and you instinctively put a hand on the man's shoulder "Hey, you did a great job with him. You may not have managed to heal that wound of his but you healed many others during his life and I'm sure you never let him lack anything." Wayne smiled big and seemed to feel better "Thanks kid" He stood up and you did the same "Can I talk to him?" You asked as you both walked back into the trailer. He nodded "One moment..." He told you as he headed towards his nephew's room.

After a couple of minutes Wayne came back to you motioning that you could go into the room. Before leaving you took the black and white photograph and headed towards Eddie's room. You found him sitting on the bed looking at the photo album and it made your heart ache. As soon as he saw you he whispered a soft "Hey" while you whispered a soft "Hi" and sat down next to him.

"I'm sorry sweetheart, today we were supposed to go to Family Video and catch a movie to watch-"

"Don't worry Eds, it's okay, it'll be for another time" Your tone was sweet, making him understand that you didn't care about seeing a fucking movie now, but rather being close to him.

"Did my uncle tell you everything?" He said as he looked at you. As soon as his eyes met yours you could see his wet cheeks. He had cried, and it broke your heart in two. You hated seeing him like this and just wished you could console him as best you could. You nodded "How are you?" He didn't seem to want to answer you. Your hand began to caress his back as your eye fell on the album. “I miss her..." Was hi answer. You now saw a color photo of a woman, who you understood to be very beautiful, holding little Eddie by the hand. "I can tell,"

"She's very beautiful and looks a lot like you" now you understood Wayne's words. Even if you didn't know what Eddie's father looked like, he sure as hell couldn't have looked like Eddie looked like his mother, they were identical "Uncle Wayne tells me that too, but she always said I looked like my father" you could hear the note of sadness and contempt falling from his lips "And that's why she left..." You saw how he bit his lower lip tightly, surely keeping himself from shedding tears as you moved closer to him "Why do you think that?"

"Why is it like this... I ruined her life. Every day he woke up looking at the spitting image of my father and that's why he despaired on the sofa ruining himself day by day" Damn it hurt to see him like that. You immediately wanted to hug him tightly "But she loved you and you loved her right?" He nodded "Yes, i love her very much but she didn't love me and she had her reasons, I was the cause of her pain and it ended with her death" Eddie hid his face with the palm of his hand. “I ruined his life Y/N… I'm ruining the lives of everyone around me, starting with Uncle Wayne and-”

"Eddie look at me" A note of seriousness came out of your mouth and you didn't let him finish. Not after he started shedding tears. He looked up and looked at you and with your free hand you cupped his cheek, his eyes were bright "You're not ruining anyone's life Eds. Get it through your head-" "How can you say that? I should never have been born in the first place, so she wouldn't have died" He said irritated and immediately more tears hit his cheeks.

"What happened to your mother is not your fault, nor was your birth. Maybe it's true, your mother loved you above all because you reminded her of the man who abandoned her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't has ever truly loved you" You took out the photograph Wayne had shown you. "This photo is of you and her, Eddie. And all these others too" you pointed to the album "You were always her baby, and as hard as life was on you that doesn't mean she stopped loving you as a son"

"I don't know exactly the whole story, but I know that there is no more beautiful bond than that between a son and a mother, and yours was a beautiful bond Eds and it certainly didn't lead her to kill herself" Fuck... he started to sob "You haven't ruined anyone's life honey, not your uncle or even the people around you. If your mother isn't here today it's certainly not because of you, she was suffering too much and wasn't able to move forward" With your thumb you dried the tears Eddie was shedding "But at least she left with the knowledge of having given birth to a wonderful son" you wrapped him in your arms while he let himself go, wetting the cotton of your t-shirt with his his tears. You gave him a light kiss on his scalp as you stroked his hair. "You are the most beautiful thing your uncle could have asked for and the same thing goes for me. You are one of the sweetest and most special people I could have ever asked for. Every day you improve my life so don't even think about something like that" you whispered in his ear as he held you tighter.

Eddie didn't answer but vented his tears some more before trying to compose himself.

You didn't accept that your boyfriend talked about him that way. His horrible past had left him with too many insecurities and doubts after his mother's death that a poor child like him at that age didn't have the strength to face. An image of a little Eddie spending moments with his mother appeared in your mind. The afternoon, the first day of school, the days with his uncle. Your imagination of that sweet, beautiful child was overwhelmed when you then thought about how he and Wayne found his mother dead. Coming home, ready to hug his mother again but she was gone forever. You felt a lump in your throat as you thought about how he must have felt when he tried to wake up his mother. The tears and desperation he felt, something you absolutely couldn't understand but imagining it was definitely heartbreaking. No one would have tolerated it...

Eddie was one of those people who never fully enjoyed his parents. He never knew his father and his mother had passed away dying of an overdose. You begin to think that in all respects you were lucky compared to him. You had a mother and a father, even if they were distant because they no longer felt the love they had before, but they were still your parents. A feeling of guilt invaded your abdomen thinking about how although you had a mother who takes care of you, you didn't have the relationship that Eddie had with his and that perhaps he would like to have again. You were also envious of this, yes. But you felt like somehow it was your fault. You have always had arguments with your parents, especially with your mother and now you realize that not everyone was lucky enough to have a mother who takes care of you.

You really appreciated what your mother did, but you never admitted it and maybe that was the reason why you didn't have a good relationship. You could sense that something in you had changed as you caressed the boy's dark curls, pressing light kisses from his ear to the crook of his neck. His breathing had returned to regularity but he was still sniffling and sobbing slightly. Now you felt somehow good, lighter with less weight on your shoulders. You wanted to be even closer to him than you already were and somehow heal his wound that was still dripping blood if touched with a finger.

"Feeling better big boy?" You used the nickname he loved so much. He just nodded. "If you need anything you know you can tell me right?" He nodded again and gave him another kiss near his ear. It was hot, actually burning hot. You could tell all that heat was from the outburst, the crying and even the embarrassment. He absolutely didn't want you to see him in that state and be able to understand it. Eddie had always been a guy who preferred to do everything alone and without anyone's help, which is reasonable, you had been there too...

But Eddie will also have realized that obstacles are not always faced with one's own strength. Sure, you've always been there for him and definitely Wayne too, but you didn't know how many times Eddie needed his mother. To go to her and ask for help or hug her if he was sick, something Eddie desperately wanted. You felt his grip tighten on you again as he started to sob again "Shh Shh Shh...it's okay Eds" a hiss came out of your sweet lips and after a couple of minutes he broke the hug trying hastily to clean his face “I-I'm really sorry, you shouldn't see me like this.”

"Why do you say this?" He shakes his head "Beacuse...well you don't-" you didn't let him finish "You didn't want me to find out about you and your mother?" He looked at you in surprise as he nodded quickly “Did you by any chance think I would judge you?” He looked at you and was afraid to give you the answer, because even though he loved you to death and had known you for a long time he was afraid that you would actually judge him, he didn't answer "You know I would never judge you, especially on something like that," you placed your hand on his. "Knowing about you and your mother makes me happy, because I know that you loved her very much, and that she loved you despite everything" now your foreheads were touching "I'm sure your mother is very happy to see the mama's boy grow up" you smiled and he did the same and you pressed a kiss to his forehead "Let's do this..." Eddie looked at you with his puppy eyes "How about I'll bring you a glass of water and then, if you want to, can you tell me about your mother?" You asked. You couldn't lie, those photos intrigued you and you wanted to get to know Mrs. Munson a little through those beautiful photographs.

He sniffed and you nodded smiling at you "Now big boy, dry these tears, I'll be right back ok?"

“Okay” He said and you gave him a kiss on the lips which widened his smile.

And so you spent the afternoon with your boyfriend. Sitting leaning against the headboard of the bed while together you browsed through those photos showing off smiles while you were wrapped in each other's arms. Eddie's head rested on your shoulder while yours rested on his head. He looked up when you finally closed the photo album "Thank you sweetheart" He said as you caressed his scalp "Whenever you want big boy, you know that I'm always there for you"

“I wouldn’t know what to do without you” his chocolate brown eyes got lost in yours.

"Well, don't think about it then. Just think that now I'm here with you" He chuckled and you both smiled at each other as your sweet boyfriend fell asleep in your arms.

Even though he was now a grown man, Eddie was still a mama's boy.

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