#antithesis six | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

riality-check · 11 months

Text

tw for mentions of substance abuse (part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7)

ao3

Steve Harrington has been awake for fifty four hours. With luck, he'll be able to eke out another eighteen. Three days seems to be the sweet spot, even if he only makes it there half the time and, of that half, it only works half the time.

It's better than nothing.

Maybe four days is the sweet spot. Ninety six is close to one hundred, and that seems like a good omen.

Omens don't really matter though. What matters is staying awake.

So, Steve chugs his coffee and walks into the conference room. Coffee isn't enough, not nearly, but it'll do until he gets desperate enough to take something.

He really does try to only take them when he's desperate. It's easier that way, to just do it when he feels like he needs to rather than measuring dosages and remembering times. Hours start to blur around hour forty of being awake.

He walks in, sits down in the chair closest to the door, and is met with a withering glare from Eddie Munson.

Listen. Steve isn't happy about this either, but at least he doesn't look like he stepped in dog shit on the way here. Then again, Steve doesn't have the luxury of ever looking truly unhappy.

Eddie is a rock star. Mean is part of his brand, while mean is the antithesis to Steve's.

Whatever.

"Are you kidding me?" Eddie says, still staring at him, but Steve knows he's not who he's asking.

"He's the best person for the job," Chrissy, Eddie's manager, says.

"We don't need him."

Someone taps Steve's left shoulder. He turns to see Jeff, the lead singer of Corroded Coffin, give him a warm smile.

"Nice to meet you, Steve," he says, and Steve shakes his proffered hand.

"Happy to help," he says, and it's only half a lie.

The drummer and the bassist - Steve would probably be able to remember their names if he wasn't so exhausted - wave their hellos from a few seats away.

"Hi, Steve," Chrissy says.

He takes another swig of his coffee and gives her a little wave in response.

"We don't need a pop singer to write lyrics for us," Eddie says, still not letting this go.

"Yes, you do," Steve says. He sets his coffee cup down on the table and opens the folder he brought with him. "I read through the lyrics of every one of your songs."

"You didn't even listen to them?"

"Would have taken too much time."

That's a lie. Listening, even with the lengthy guitar solos, probably would have taken less time. But Steve needs something to fill the hours when he's supposed to be asleep, and reading, that slow process with its ample, awakening frustration, is the perfect thing.

"You became so much less interesting after your first album," he says. "Every one of your songs talks about the same thing. Conquering evil, killing demons, blah blah blah."

"That's what's in right now," Eddie snaps.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve catches the drummer and Chrissy make the same motion. They pinch the bridges of their noses, clearly frustrated.

Steve sees why Chrissy wanted to talk to him.

"It is," he concedes. "But I also read the lyrics of every song by the bands with top ten hits. They don't talk about it nearly as much. They sing about other stuff. And they don't use an F major chord in every one of their songs."

"We don't-"

"We kinda do, Eddie," the bassist pipes up. "I'm a little sick of playing F."

Eddie takes a breath. Steve takes the opportunity to take a pill.

He found a way to make it less obvious for people who have something to say about it. Steve will take one from his pocket, yawn, cover his mouth, and swallow it dry. Easy peasy. They don't notice, he doesn't have to deal with people who don't get it making comments.

Except when he does, this time, Eddie narrows his eyes. Like he knows what he's doing.

Steve doesn't like that look.

"Have you read my stuff?" He won't ask if Eddie has listened to any of it. He knows the answer is no, if he keeps bringing up genre like that really means anything.

Eddie doesn't respond. He keeps those narrowed eyes trained on Steve and stays silent.

"Didn't think so," he says, and he slides over the thick stack of papers Robin stapled together for him last night. "Here's everything. Read it. Tell me if you like it. I'm only helping you if you give a shit. This goes two ways, and I don't want to waste my time if you think I'm wasting yours."

Eddie doesn't take the stack, but the drummer, sitting next to him, tugs them closer. "Thanks."

"Let me know tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Jeff says, eyebrows raised.

Steve forgets that most people don't actually take advantage of their twenty four hours.

"End of the week," he says instead, and he relaxes when Jeff does.

The drummer starts flipping through the pages while the bassist looks over his shoulder.

"Need anything else from me?" Steve asks Chrissy.

"I don't think so," she says. "I'll call you back to set up a time for Saturday."

He's amazed by the fact that someone as sweet as her works with someone as pretentious as Eddie.

"Sounds good," he says, and he walks out, trying to ignore the feeling of Eddie's eyes on him as he goes through the door.

It only halfway works.

The pill should kick in soon, within a half hour, maybe shorter because of the coffee. Maybe he'll write something. Maybe he'll work on the piano melody he's been tinkering with for the past week. Maybe he'll read the latest book Robin picked up from the library, something interesting enough to be worth the frustration of the moving letters, something that will still fill the time.

He'll make it to seventy two hours. Then he'll crash because his body is a worthless piece of shit, and he hopes this is the half of the time when he doesn't have any goddamn nightmares.

Maybe he should pop another pill, just in case.

#ria writes #tw drugs #tw substance abuse #steve harrington #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #corroded coffin #st #st ficlet #stranger things #stranger things ficlet #steddie #steddie ficlet #can you tell i just finished daisy jones and the six?#anyway it gave me worms #so enjoy #pop star steve harrington #rock star eddie munson #dja au

856 notes · View notes

aflame4goinghome · 5 months

Text

Antithesis

j.t.k x reader & j.m.k. x reader

part I

summary: You’ve been going out with Josh for a few months now, but his twin brother still hasn’t warmed up to you. Despite your efforts, Jake can’t stand you and he makes sure to tell you every chance he gets. Finally, one night it seems like you’re about to get some answers, but the truth is a lot more complicated than you ever could have hoped.

word count: 4k

warnings: THIS STORY CONTAINS SMUT, MINORS DNI!! swearing, mentions of smoking (tobacco & marijuana), drinking, kissing, sexually implicit language, heavy petting, cheating *kind of* SMUT: semi-public sex, fingering (f. receiving), dirty talk, praise kink if you squint

listen to the official playlist on Spotify here

✺⋅∘⋅•⋅∘⋅✧⋅∘⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅∘⋅✧⋅∘⋅∙⋅∘⋅✺

“Baby, you almost ready to go?” Josh pokes his head into the threshold of the bathroom from your bedroom with a soft smile.

“Oh, yeah, just another minute,” you reply, putting on the finishing touches of your mascara before turning toward him and slinging your arms around his neck. He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you in.

“You look breathtaking, as always,” he says with a smirk.

You and Josh have been going out casually for about six months now, but it never got to be very serious. You went on a few dates and had some heated nights together, but his band started its newest tour a month after you met, so the time that you’ve spent together since then has been sparse.

You first met Josh one night while out with your friends at your local bar. You’d gone to get yourself and the other girls another round when you saw him sitting there at the bar next to you. Almost immediately, his honeyed words and sweet smile drew you in. He told the bartender to put your drinks on his tab, you took the drinks to your friends, then you sat down next to him and the two of you got comfortable rather quickly.

You took him home with you that night and you couldn’t seem to forget him after, no matter how hard you tried. He was handsome, sweet, and ridiculously good in bed. You’ve had your fair share of flings over the years, but nothing could compare to him. As you fell asleep that night with his arm draped over your torso, you knew you were done for. Living in Nashville your whole life, you always vowed to never date a musician. You knew that they were wild and unreliable, but damn, this one just trapped you.

Soon after, he embarked on the band’s world tour. You didn’t always hear from him that often, but you never expected to. He called you after a show every once in a while, usually half-drunk and looking for some relief after a stressful day, missing you. You miss him too while he’s gone, but you’re still trying to avoid getting too attached to the idea of him being yours. You knew that he’d eventually get tired of you or find someone else while on the road. But despite never putting a label on it, he’s remained loyal, which surprised you.

After getting home from the European leg of his tour, he invited you to go with him as his date to a Christmas party at his brother’s house. Events like this made you nervous, considering the complicated nature of your relationship, but you could never really find it in you to say no to him. You’re feeling reluctant to go to this party in particular though, and not for the usual reason.

Josh’s twin brother, Jake, hates you. Yes, hate is a strong word, but you are convinced that he absolutely loathes you. You still haven’t been able to figure out why, no matter how hard you tried. You haven’t encountered him that many times, but all of the times you’ve seen him, he would never lay off you. He would question everything you said, scoff at your remarks, and you even caught him glaring once or twice from across the room when he thought you weren’t looking.

After every time, you would ask Josh about it and he would make excuse after excuse. “Oh, I’m sure he’s just having a tough day,” or “Maybe he just misheard you,” or “He’s probably just feeling a bit protective of me.” Whatever the reasons were, you had no interest in entertaining it.

The two of you aren’t even that serious, so you feel no desire to impress his brother. Besides, his younger brother Sam and their best friend and bandmate Danny have both taken quite a liking for you. Screw Jake, you didn’t need his approval anyway. So why were you nervous to go to his house?

You snap out of your daydream and come back to reality, looking up at Josh with a smile. “Thank you, baby. You look quite dashing yourself, you know.”

You’d decided to wear a midi-length black dress with a high slit, pairing it with a pair of black heels. You opted for simple makeup and added red lipstick for the season. It was a simple look, but elegant for a Christmas party. Josh was wearing a pair of khaki pants with a white pullover sweater, adorned with his favorite symbol, and some tan winter boots. His cheeks were rosy from the cold weather, a perfect canvas for the little white dots that decorated his cheekbones. They’re lifted slightly as he smiles at your compliment, revealing a toothy grin.

“You’re an angel. Shall we?” he asks, placing a soft kiss on your forehead.

“We shall.”

✺⋅∘⋅•⋅∘ ⋅✧⋅∘⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅∘⋅✧⋅∘⋅•⋅∘⋅✺

You both pull into Jake’s driveway and when you notice the lack of cars in front of the house, it becomes clear to you that you’ve arrived early. Great.

Josh turns the car off and gets out to round the car and open your door for you. You smile timidly at him as he takes your hand and helps you out of the car, then laces his fingers with yours and walks you to the porch.

“I promise, you’ll have a great time. Trust me,” he assures you as he knocks a few times on the large mahogany door. Much to your delight, it’s not Jake who opens the door, but Sam.

“Hey guys! Thank god you’re here. Jake thinks he’s running behind so he’s become so insufferable. Come on,” he says, clearly exasperated by his older brother already. The two of you follow Sam into the kitchen where you find Danny standing at the kitchen island, plating an array of cookies and appetizers.

“Oh, hey Josh. Y/N,” he says with a soft smile, then goes back to his task. You turn to your right to see Jake standing at the oven, hastily taking out a roast and placing it on top of the stove with a sigh. When he hears Daniel’s greeting, he turns his head and captures your gaze. You watch his eyes droop a bit as he turns back around, removes his oven mitts, and approaches you.

“Hello, brother. Nice of you to finally join us,” Jake mutters sarcastically, reaching over to grip Josh’s arm and giving it a light smack before turning to you. “Was this one holding you back? Probably takes hours to get ready, doesn’t she?” he jokes, stepping toward you to pull you into a one-armed hug, which is surely a formality. “To no avail, it seems,” he whispers against the shell of your ear, so quietly that only you can hear.

You scoff at him and roll your eyes as he pulls away, and turns around to head back to the oven. He speaks to you both as he walks away, facing away from you. “Would you both prepare the bar? All the booze is out in the garage, I’d like it in here.” Josh looks over at you apologetically then answers, “Yeah, Jake. We’ll go get it.” He takes your hand in his once again and you both walk back to the foyer to step out and grab the drinks.

Josh puts in the code and the garage door slowly rises, revealing the large pile of alcohol on the side wall. As you go to grab a few grocery bags of liquor bottles, Josh takes a pack of beer in each hand, opting to take the heavier stuff.

“I’m sorry about him. That’s just how he is, you know? He’ll warm up to you,” he says, looking at you and trying to gauge your reaction.

“How long does it take to warm up to a person? We’ve been seeing each other since June, Josh. Sam and Danny don’t seem to have any issues with me. So why him?” you ask, feeling frustrated.

Josh lets out a heavy sigh, looking at you with softened eyes. “I don’t know, Y/N. I’m sure he has his reasons. He doesn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. I’ve known him since the womb and I still can’t always figure him out.”

“Well, it’s making me crazy,” you pout. He puts the cases of beer down and walks over to you, wrapping his arms around you and rubbing your shoulders. “I’m sorry, baby. Just ignore him for tonight, okay? I just wanna have a nice night with my girl…” he says, placing his hand on your chin to tilt it up to meet your eyes.

“Fine… but you owe me,” you tease with a smile, looking up at him through your eyelashes.

“Oh, I’ll make it worth your while, darling, trust me on that,” he replies with a smirk, biting his lip. He leans down to capture your lips in his for a moment, moving his hand from your chin to the back of your neck, pulling you into him. His other hand which was once planted on your waist moves down to grip your bare thigh, exposed by the long slit in your dress. You sigh against his lips as his grip on your thigh tightens, pulling away from him slowly.

“We should get back…” you whisper. “Sorry, I’m just insatiable for you,” he says with a wink before reaching down to grab the beer and turning to walk out of the garage. You quickly follow, pressing the button the shut the door and then returning inside Jake’s house.

When you and Josh return inside, Jake has finished cooking and went upstairs to change into his party attire. The two of you stand around the kitchen island with Sam and Danny, chatting for a while as you wait for Jake to return downstairs in time for the rest of the guests to arrive.

You hear footsteps down the stairs and turn your attention to see Jake waltz back into the room. He’s put on a black button-down shirt, only fastening a few of the buttons on the bottom, leaving his bare chest exposed. An array of silver necklaces sits upon his exposed chest, the coins attached to the chains lying just right against his smooth skin. His wavy brown hair rests almost perfectly on his shoulders, which you notice has grown quite a bit since the last time you saw him. You think for a moment that it suits him, but you quickly shake that thought out of your head.

He’s wearing a pair of simple black dress pants with matching black ankle-length boots, seemingly leather. And of course, he could not go without his dark sunglasses, despite it being nighttime… and winter. Arrogant asshole.

Through the lenses, you panic as you see his eyes find yours. A smirk forms on his face as he finally approaches, and you already know that he’s about to piss you off.

“Didn’t anyone teach you that it’s impolite to stare, sunshine?” Jake says proudly, leaning against the kitchen island awaiting your response.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Jacob,” you scoff, standing up from your seat in the kitchen to go to the bar and make yourself a drink. Your cheeks flush as your back is turned to the rest of the group and you try to shake off the sudden feeling of embarrassment as you reach down to pour some tequila into your glass, topping it off with soda water.

Convinced that your face has finally returned to its natural color, you walk back to the kitchen, retrieve some ice from the freezer, and add it to your glass. You return to the island and stand behind where Josh is seated, placing your hand on his back and rubbing it slightly.

They’re caught up in a conversation regarding their time in the studio a few days back, but your eyes meet Jake’s once again. He takes a sip of his glass of neat whiskey, which he’s seemingly already poured for himself, not taking his eyes off of yours for a second.

What the hell is his problem? It can never just be a simple night, can it? Before you have the chance to question him, the doorbell rings and Jake retreats to open the door and greet his new guests. Perhaps you can catch him later to question him, but for now, you plan to just have a good time.

✺⋅∘⋅•⋅∘ ⋅✧⋅∘⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅∘⋅✧⋅∘⋅•⋅∘⋅✺

The night has gone smoothly so far, despite your concerns. Jake’s stayed out of your way, spending most of the time speaking with some record executives in the living area by the record player, attending to the music once the record ends every once and a while.

You’ve stayed by Josh’s side all evening, standing by the bar talking to Sam and Danny. You’ve already had three tequila sodas in and are luckily feeling much more relaxed. Not only that, but about three drinks in is usually when you start to crave a cigarette or two. So, you excuse yourself from the group and retreat to Jake’s back porch, stopping in the foyer quickly to grab your coat.

You slink out of the back door and sit down on the porch swing, pulling out a pack of American Spirit cigarettes and a black lighter. The porch is lit dimly by a string of lights, extending from the porch to the small garden next to it. The ground is laid with a thin layer of snow, probably only about an inch or two, and the pine trees in his backyard also have little blankets of snow resting upon them. It’s quiet, almost too quiet.

Then, as if the universe heard your thoughts, you hear the door open from your right. Much to your dismay, it’s Jake who walks out of the house onto the porch, with a joint already hanging out of his mouth as his eyes meet yours. He removes his sunglasses and his lips turn upward slightly as he walks over to sit next to you on the swing. You sigh quietly as you put your cigarettes back into your pocket, picking up on his hint and opting to smoke with him instead. What did you have to lose?

You reach up with your lighter still in your hand, lighting the joint between his lips for him. His eyes burn through yours as he inhales for a few moments before removing it from his mouth and blowing the smoke out to the side.

“Needed a break from the festivities, sunshine?” he asks, raising his eyebrow at you with a smirk, offering you a hit. You take it willingly, taking a drag and shaking your head.

“Not necessarily. It’s just about that time of night when I’d want a smoke,” you answer candidly, shrugging a bit before passing the joint back to him.

“Didn’t want your boyfriend to come with you?” he teases, taking a long drag. You roll your eyes at him, leaning back onto the back of the swing as he hands you the joint back and you take another hit.

“He’s not my boyfriend. And no, I just wanted to have a few minutes alone. You can see how well that worked out,” you say, taking one more hit before giving it back. He just looks at you for a moment with a puzzled look on his face, which soon turns back into a smirk.

“Well, who am I to let a lady sit out in the cold by herself?” he says, turning his body toward you more on the seat. His left arm moves to rest on the back of the seat, with his hand gripping the seat behind your head. You’re suddenly very thankful for the dim lighting, which you hope is successfully hiding the newfound pink tint of your cheeks from the proximity.

“What a gentleman,” you say sarcastically, taking a drag of the joint and crossing your legs as you turn your body toward him to mirror him. He takes it from your fingers and puts it out in the ashtray on the table in front of you, then sits back in his original position. The slit on your left leg causes your legs to become much more exposed to the cold, causing you to pull your coat over your legs slightly. To your surprise, Jake moves his right hand from his lap and slides it slowly to rest on your exposed knee, underneath your coat.

“You are cold, I can feel it,” he mutters, moving to sit a bit closer to you, looking down at your knee and then back up to meet your eyes.

“What are you doing?” you ask with a confused look, searching his eyes for any hint of what he’s thinking. You’ve never been this close to him before and for some reason, your immediate reaction wasn’t to pull away.

“I’m warming you up, sunshine…” he answers, his gaze still not breaking away from yours as he moves his hand from your knee to your outer thigh, rubbing it with his thumb.

“Jake, why do you call me that? I don’t get it,” you ask, hoping to finally get some answers about how he feels about you. Now was as good a time as ever. His lips turn up into a cocky smile, even showing a hint of teeth as he formulates a reply.

“Because you light up the sky, Y/N… and I shouldn’t look at you, or else I’ll go blind,” he finally answers, stroking your thigh again with a bit more force this time, causing you to take a deep breath and swallow harshly. “I shouldn’t touch you, or else I’ll get burned.”

Your eyes soften as you look back at him, still trying to wrap your head around what he’s trying to say. Before you have a chance to question him further, he continues.

“So, if I shouldn’t look at you… or touch you… then why do I still desire to?” he says inquisitively, gazing down at your lips for a moment before returning to your eyes. "Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight… For the greatest tragedy of them all, Is never to feel the burning light… Perhaps my own desire will be my downfall, hm?”

Your heart is beating out of your chest as you gaze up at him in shock. “Jake… what are you saying? I thought you hated me…” you say, in almost a whisper now.

“Sunshine, I’ve never hated you,” he answers, moving his hand slightly further up your exposed thigh. “I’ve just been resisting the light… but I’m not afraid to get burned anymore.” Oh. Your mind is spinning, from the combination of alcohol, weed, and hushed confessions.

Before you have the chance to tell yourself that you should take some time to think about this, your body acts without your permission and your lips crash against his. Immediately his hand snakes into your hair on the back of your neck, pulling you into him as his other hand continues to grip your thigh. Both of your hands find themselves tangled in his hair, tugging on it lightly, eliciting a groan from him into your mouth.

He pulls away from you for a moment as he moves his hand toward the inside of your thigh, inching closer to your already aching core. “Can I?...” he asks, and you nod feverishly. His lips find your neck as you lean your head back against the back of the seat, his fingers snaking slowly up the inside of your thigh.

His fingers find the black lace covering your lower lips, which is already soaked through from all the buildup. You feel him smirk against the skin of your neck as he feels the slick between your legs and then moves the fabric to the side. He runs his fingers through your folds, collecting your wetness before sliding one finger inside of you, causing you to gasp quietly.

His thumb rubs small, quick circles around your clit as he moves his pointer finger in and out of you, then inserts a second finger along with it. “Fuck, sunshine, so tight for me. Bet that feels so good, huh? Did you need it bad?” he whispers against your neck, laying wet kisses down to your collarbone. “God, yes, so good. Needed it so bad, Jake,” you mutter, already overwhelmed by the feeling of his lips and hands on you.

“God’s not here. There’s only me,” he says, increasing the speed of his fingers inside you, curling them upward to hit that special spot far back. You feel how close you are now, barely holding on. Your hand is gripping his shoulder hard, your nails digging into him through his shirt.

“That’s it, baby, come on. I know how bad you want it,” he says, kissing his way back up your neck to your chin. “Want you to come all over my fingers while my brother waits for you inside. Bet you look so gorgeous when you come. C’mon, make those pretty sounds for me, sunshine.” You whine, probably a bit louder than you should have, as his fingers finally coax your orgasm out of you. Jake’s lips find yours to muffle the sound of your cries as he works you through it, slipping his tongue into your mouth as you come down from the high.

He pulls away from you, keeping his eyes on you as he slowly removes his fingers from you and brings them up to his mouth, sucking your release off of them with a low groan. His left hand cups your cheek, pulling you closer to him, leaving only a few inches of room between you.

“So fucking perfect for me… Looks like my wings are melting, love. Too late to turn back now,” he says, his eyes glued to yours. “No regrets?”

“No regrets,” you answer, resting your forehead against his, taking a deep breath before pulling away and standing up, walking back toward the door. You turn around for a moment, meeting his gaze and looking at him softly, before heading back inside to find Josh.

You find Josh in the kitchen, standing at the island with Sam. “Hey, baby, I was wondering where you went,” he says, snaking his arm around you.

“Oh, yeah sorry. I just went out for a smoke and got distracted,” you answer with a soft smile.

“Are you tired? We can head out if you want, I’m sure Jake won’t mind,” he asks with a smile. You nod and turn to see Jake walk through the front door; you guess that he went around to the front of the house to not raise any suspicion. Smart.

You both say your goodbyes to everyone before walking to the foyer, leaving Jake for last. Josh hugs his brother and pats his shoulder, then grabs his keys and walks out the front door.

“Goodnight, Jake,” you whisper timidly, looking up at him.

“G’night, sunshine…” he says with a wink, stroking your cheek lightly as you smile at him, then back away and walk past him out the door. Your cheeks are flush as you walk out to Josh’s car, getting in and buckling your seatbelt before he drives off.

“Did you have a good time, sweetheart?” Josh asks, looking over at you for a moment as he drives.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did,” you answer, looking out the window.

You try to think over tonight’s events as you drive down the long and winding road toward your house. Never did you expect Jake to act that way toward you. You had been convinced that he hated you, but all this time he was just… afraid of his desire for you? It still didn’t make sense to you, but you’re fearful of the feelings that your encounter with Jake has brought to light.

He was so different from Josh, in every way. While Josh was sweet, Jake was assertive. While Josh was desirable, Jake was seductive. It was like he cast some sort of spell on you. Jake is the antithesis of Josh. And for some reason, that intrigues you. But now what? Now that you’ve entertained Jake, there’s no way that either of you will be able to resist the temptation of having each other again. God, what have you gotten yourself into?

✺⋅∘⋅•⋅∘⋅✧⋅∘⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅∘⋅✧⋅∘⋅∙⋅∘⋅✺

read part two here

Leave a reply or send me a message if you want to be added to the taglist! And as always, let me know what you think! I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter!

Our dear reader has a lot of decisions she has to make now, doesn't she? I guess we'll find out in the next chapter ;) see you then

Taglist:

@itsafullmoon @vanfleeter @klarxtr @itsdannysworld @lipstickitty @peaceloveunitygvf @wildmoonworld @ignite-my-fire

#greta van fleet #gvf #jake kiszka #jakegvf #josh kiszka #joshgvf #jake kiszka x reader #josh kiszka x reader #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fic #greta van fluff #greta van angst #greta van smut #greta van fleet smut

190 notes · View notes

amoratearte · 2 months

Text

The Valyrian Fourteen 🔥

Terrax 🌱

Mother Earth. First Godly flame. Queen of all creation, made light, is the antithesis of chaos. Had six children with her first son and husband, Arrax, and was betrayed and dethroned by them.

Based off: Gaia/Rhea

98 notes · View notes

dellalyra · 6 months

Note

i can't stop thinking about what toru's parents would be like!!! his mother would definitely be the energetic type and his father would be extremely calm, and their freak out about seeing toru getting married or adopting megumi and tsumiki and then coming to akio too!! it fills my heart with love

See I always had it in my head that Satoru’s parents were either dead/not around or his father simply married to create a new Gojo heir and it wasn’t a happy childhood at all. Raised by nanny’s and as a weapon/God rather than a little boy.

However - this got me thinking.

Satoru’s mother is the Gojo, all white hair (not only with age) and pretty blue eyes. A talented sorcerer in her own right, was married by the clan elders to a son of another noble family. She protested and fought against it - going so far as to barricade herself in her room at the estate, slipping out the bedroom window and sliding down the ivy on the walls only to trip at the last minute and be caught by a pair of strong arms.

The young man recognises her immediately.

“You hurt?” He asks, righting her on her feet with gentle hands.

She freezes and stares at him.

All jet black hair with a hint of soft curls and beautiful eyes, ivory skin and a slightly shy look in his eyes. His height towered over her, all lean and slim.

“I’m guessing you’re the one they want to knock me up, then?” She says, hands on her hips and glaring.

“I - um - if you’re Gojo Izumi, then yes, I suppose so.” He flusters.

“That’s me. You are Takahiro, no?” She says, dusting off the light blue skirt she wore.

He just nods, attempting a smile at the stubborn and brash woman before him.

Safe to say, a marriage that started as a contract between two families, ended in a marriage of love.

Izumi was all excitement and enthusiasm, high energy and over the top everything, a powder keg temper and a lust for a good exorcism. Takahiro was her antithesis. Calm, quiet, subdued and relaxed - endlessly gentle and warm without a bone in his body meant for anger or violence. Yet, somehow - they worked. Both 18 when married, Satoru arrived 2 years later. Izumi wasn’t overly maternal - of course she adored her little boy but her favourite way to bond was to train with him, or bring him along on missions. Her pride in birthing the first Limitless and Six Eyes user in hundreds of years contributed to that. Izumi, in Satoru’s eyes, was the fun parent. She did ice cream for dinner and ‘don’t tell your father’ secrets. Izumi, although an only child of the late head of the Gojo clan, was refused the title herself on the grounds of being a woman. So when her father passed (she was delighted, the cranky old bastard) when Satoru was just 3 months old, the title immediately passed to him.

Takahiro was soft, gentle and kind. He read bedtime stories and made cocoa with marshmallows and helped tie his shoelaces and kissed any rare boo-boo that he got. His father’s deep voice would echo in his bedroom, soft lullabies and words of love helping the young boy drift to sleep.

His parents loved each other dearly, too - they were the model from which he learned to love. Completely, and without hesitation.

That’s how Takahiro knew. The first weekend that Satoru came home from Jujutsu Tech, he seemed different. He had wrote to them about the Geto boy, his best friend and the RCT trainee Ieiri, and his third classmate - the future head of the L/N clan, a prominent, exceptionally skilled family shunned by the elders many years ago for their rebellious nature. The look in his face changed when Izumi had asked over dinner what each of his classmates were like, and he got to the girl.

“Taka, she’s a lovely young girl - fiery as the rest of her clan and exceptionally beautiful, her mother assisted me on a mission a few years ago.” Izumi informed her husband of the L/N clan eldest.

Takahiro saw the red on the tips of his son’s ears.

“What’s her name, son?” He asked, cutting a piece of the chef’s specialty chicken.

“Y/N.” Satoru replied, with a dreamy edge to his voice that he had only heard before when his own voice had first called for Izumi.

It was no shock when 2 years later, you came home with Satoru to the Gojo estate for a portion of the break. The Gojo clan was so different to your own, who were fiery, passionate people and were completely family oriented, Christmas was spent in pyjamas by the fireplace with spiced cider flowing and cousins fighting over which film to watch and parents cuddled up on the sofa with their brood between them, and Christmas dinner served with love after being prepared (between food fights) by grandparents and their own grown children. The Gojo Christmas had a professionally decorated tree, and a chef to make a Christmas meal, gifts exchanged neatly and primly.

At least - that was what you expected.

You didn’t expect to pull up in a private car to a beautiful mansion only to have a tall, elegant woman with shining white hair bound down the steps.

“Show me her! Let me see, yes - hello Satoru, move now.” The woman smiled, moving her son, now taller than her to the side to get a better look at you.

“Hello, Gojo-sama. Thank you so much for inviting me.” You say, slightly terrified of the imposing woman (it’s clear she’s where Satoru gets his presence).

“Nonsense, child - Izumi is fine. Look at you, you look so like your mother! What a pretty little thing you are!” She says, excitedly squishing your cheeks and almost vibrating with excitement.

“Izumi, dearest, let the child breathe.” A tall man, about Satoru’s height, slim and pale with wavy inky black hair and soft eyes and smile approaches.

You go to open your mouth to greet him formally.

“No, no - Takahiro is what you’ll call me, little one. You are my little boy’s love, no need for such formalities.” He says, voice deep and soft and smooth as chocolate with a smile that reminds you of warm winter nights.

Satoru begins to walk inside, before a voice stops him.

“Gojo Satoru! Get down here and take your lady’s bag! Gosh, what have we raised?! A feral bear?!” Izumi shrieks.

The evening was spent eating a meal, indeed cooked by the families chef, and sitting drinking mulled wine in a beautiful drawing room. Izumi informed you that your own mother was a year below her in school, although she went to Kyoto where your family were staunchly Tokyo attendees. Izumi and you quickly made close friends, laughing and chatting away and answering every question the fascinated woman could think of. Takahiro, insisted on serving you extra food, saying that you just need the energy to keep up with his son, who quickly refutes that he can’t keep up with you. White Christmas began to play - and Izumi smiled widely, turning to look at her husband who groaned.

“Must we, ‘Zumi?” He whines, so like his son.

“We must.” She nods and drags him by the hand to dance a slow waltz with her.

You look at them, as Izumi smiles widely, perpetual buzz of adrenaline surrounding her - wrapped in the arms of her husband - a soothing balm in comparison.

You whisper to Satoru.

“I love your parents.”

He smirks, shrugging.

“Meh, they’re alright.”

When Suguru left - and the elders were all informed what had happened - Satoru’s phone rang showing his father’s contact.

Both Izumi and Takahiro were on the phone - with all seriousness, Izumi asks if there’s anyone else except you and Satoru there. You say no.

“We know how much Suguru means to you, Satoru - now listen to me, if you can find him - if you can convince him to come back, everything can be dealt with. We can keep you all safe - the elders won’t refuse us anything.” Izumi’s voice is cold and serious - completely embodying the role of the Mother of The Six Eyes.

You both knew he wouldn’t come back. Yet, Satoru felt safer knowing his parents were behind him.

2 years later, a knock sounds out through the apartment while you make yourself and Satoru a coffee.

“I’ll get it!” Shouts Tsumiki.

“Thank you, sweetie! It’s probably just Aunty Koko wanting some lunch.” You reply, living in the staff accommodation definitely served your best friend well.

You heard the door click, and some muffled voices - a man’s deep rumbling, a woman’s and a child’s.

Drying your hands, you walk out of the kitchen to see who was there.

In the doorway, stood Izumi and Takahiro - looking very, very confused.

“Oh, hey parents.” Satoru says, poking his head around the corner from the living room.

“Hello Satoru, hello lovely Y/N. We were in the city and thought we’d pop in to say hello since it’s been several months. Is this little one a niece or nephew?” Izumi asks you.

You blink.

“Huh? Tsumiki? Nah, she’s ours.” Satoru shrugs, as you realise he didn’t tell his parents about the Fushiguro kids.

Takahiro drops his Starbucks.

“I - would you like to come in for tea? It seems we all have some catching up to do.” You smile, rolling your eyes.

After they settle themselves on the sofa, a coffee in each parents hand - Tsumiki sitting beside you and Megumi beside Satoru - Satoru explains the situation.

“They… live with you? You’re starting the process to adopt?!” Izumi shrieks, Takahiro looks like he’s been hit by a truck.

“We’re hoping to, yes.” You nod, smiling, holding your boyfriend’s hand.

There’s silence for a moment, and Tsumiki re enters the room with a tray of cookies.

Izumi looks between both of the children, shellshocked.

Takahiro places his coffee down, and smiles at both of the children.

“Hello, children - what are your names?” He says, calmly and soothing - exuding an aura of calm safety.

“My name is Tsumiki, and this is my younger brother Megumi. I’m 8, and he’s 6.” The little girl smiles.

You could visibly see both the elders melt.

“Well then, Tsumiki and Megumi - I am your Ojiisan, and this is your Obaasan.” Takahiro says, patting them both on the head with his large hands.

Somehow, by bedtime that night - Takahiro had coaxed Megumi into showing him all of his National Geographic magazines, the older man’s calm nature a nice contrast to his adoptive parents chaotic selves. Izumi had also learned every piece of drama and gossip happening in 2nd Grade from Tsumiki, and was truly blown away by the audacity of Kinju saying that Nami’s new pink boots weren’t that cool and subsequently uninviting her to her Monster High birthday party.

3 years later

Izumi’s phone buzzed with a lunch invitation from her son, a rare occurrence outside holidays and planned visits. So she agreed, vaguely concerned something was wrong.

A small French cafe was their destination, full of decadent pastries for both Gojo’s to devour.

“Mother, I’ve asked you here because I need something.” He says.

Now that piqued her interest, Satoru had never wanted or needed for anything.

“Oh? What could it be?” She asks, sipping her tea.

Satoru lifts his sunglasses, looking her in the eyes.

“The ring.”

She almost drops the teacup.

“Satoru?! Are you finally going to ask her to marry you?! Oh, this is so wonderful! Gosh, I’ll go right away - it’s in my jewellery box at home and if you warp us there we can get it immediately and return so you can ask her right away!” She spews, grabbing her coat and purse.

“Mother - I have it all planned, I just need it by Saturday.” He smiles, taking her bag and putting it back down.

“Have you told your father? Tell me the plans! How will you ask her? Should we get the ring resized? My jeweller will do it in time for Saturday. The ring was your great grandmother’s. It’s truly beautiful, very delicate and the sapphire ” Izumi prattles off countless questions, enough to dizzy even Satoru.

The kids relationship with their Gojo grandparents was different to their relationship to your own mother, Ojiisan and Obaasan were people they liked very much and enjoyed being around, and were very spoiled by. Your own mother, their Baba, was someone they saw every week. They had sleepovers with their Baba, or Baba came to stay. Baba would sit them both on her knees and read them stories or teach them to bake. Your mother, despite being younger than Satoru’s parents, immediately became infatuated with the role of doting Baba - every Friday night they would stay with their Baba. Satoru had been greatly loved by his parents, yet as two high ranking sorcerers and both from noble families - his primary caregivers had been nannies throughout the day. Your Mama, had raised you herself with the help of your own grandmother - your family were close knit, and no nanny or external caregivers had been part of your childhood, and so it became the same for the children. Satoru fit perfectly into your family. His chaos matching theirs, his warmth and unconditional love far more suited to a less formal and traditional family as he spent his first Christmas in pyjamas watching Elf alongside you and all of the rest of the L/N clan, he realised that was how he wanted to love, and to live.

#jjk #jjk x reader #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #family formations extras #family formations

228 notes · View notes

zee-has-commitment-issues · 2 months

Text

I've seen a lot of "Kristina's grief came out of nowhere" and I can't help but disagree. Kristina has a great many problems, as we know, but her big problem is that, since season one, she has been trying to make Erik's death mean something.

Straight after Erik's funeral she is talking to Wilhelm about getting into meetings, and making sure he can take over after her. She even goes as far as to remind him that everything he does will be compared to Erik. When he reminds he that this is already happening, she can't take it, spits out her food and leaves.

She doesn't tell Wilhelm that August was the one who leaked the video because she "knew how he would react." And to her, in order for Erik's life and death to mean something, the monarchy must go on. She says so herself in that penultimate phone call in episode six.

In season two, we see her unable to go into Erik's room, opting to stand outside the door and try to get Wilhelm to come out instead. She hesitates every time she says his name. She keeps his picture on her desk. She reminds both August and Wilhelm that they must keep Erik's memory alive and his legacy intact.

It is neither about Wilhelm nor August in those moments. Both of those moments are her reminding them that, in order for Erik's life and death to mean something, the monarchy must continue.

And now, in season three, we see her crack.

Her first outburst is when Wilhelm and August argue in the settlement meeting. "I will never let you take over" and that is when she can't take it anymore. Because if August needs to take over in order for the monarchy to continue, she will be behind that.

Her second outburst a few scenes later is when August and Wilhelm argue once again. Once again, she sees this as a threat to the monarchy and therefor a threat to Erik's memory.

She cracks. She can't handle it. She disappears for most of the season, leaving Wilhelm to fend for himself because everyone is too focused on her.

And then on Wilhelm's birthday, it all comes to a head. Wilhelm can't stand the sight of her anymore because she can't stand the sight of him. He has become the very antithesis of everything Erik was, and she can't stand it.

He calls her out. He begs her to be normal and see him. She can't be his boss nor his mother and he tells her as much.

Kristina's grief didn't come out of nowhere. It influences every single thing she does in the entire show after Erik dies.

Her problem is that she needs Erik's death to mean something, and sometimes death doesn't mean anything. Sometimes it just happens. Erik drove too fast, too reckless, and he died. That doesn't have any meaning. But she cannot accept that.

#young royals #young royals analysis #yr s3 #yr s3 spoilers

143 notes · View notes

celestial-depths · 3 months

Text

Poor Things and Born Sexy Yesterday

(spoilers for Poor Things)

I stumbled on a discussion on whether Bella Baxter from the movie Poor Things (2023) is a representation of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope coined by video essayist Pop Culture Detective, who defines it as a mostly fantasy and sci-fi adjacent trope of a regular human man falling in love with a beautiful, otherworldly woman who, through some plot quirk or another, has no knowledge of social norms and no sexual or romantic past. Even though he is brutally average, he is able to win her love simply because he is the first (human) man she connects with and thus everything that's basic about him is impressive to her. Some examples of the trope given by Pop Culture Detective in his video essay are Leeloo from Fifth Element (the physically grown yet mentally child-like alien creature who falls in love with a taxi driver in a wifebeater) and Madison from Splash (a clothes-aversive mermaid who thinks that Tom Hanks is the most enchanting man in the world). I love Pop Culture Detective's work, and the Born Sexy Yesterday video essay was a cultural reset in my personal history. I saw the video when it premiered six years ago, but it has never fully left my mind, so of course I immediately thought of it when I saw Poor Things a couple of weeks ago. The movie certainly touches on the same themes that the Born Sexy Yesterday is made of. However, I think that the movie is an intentional subversion and a satire of the trope rather than a sincere execution of it.

The main character of the movie Bella Baxter starts out as a grotesquely literal version of the trope, as she is literally a newborn in the shape of a conventionally attractive woman who is being actively shielded from the influence of the outside world. She has the brain of a baby salvaged from the fresh corpse of a deceased pregnant woman, planted inside the skull of the reanimated body of the aforementioned woman as an experiment done by the unorthodox doctor Godwin Baxter. He keeps her locked inside his house and controls every aspect of her life, so when he invites the young doctor Max McCandles to join his research, McCandles is served what is essentially the perfect Born Sexy Yesterday experience: an exclusive access to a beautiful and naive young woman who is in a prime position of being groomed into whatever her keepers wish her to become.

Or so they would think.

A sincere Born Sexy Yesterday would be fully fascinated by this power dynamic and probably leave her here to be romanced by McCandles for the rest of the film. The audience would be expected to assume McCandles's perspective and indulge in the fantasy of falling in love with the untainted woman who has neither the life experience nor the critical thinking skills needed to question him.

But, fortunately, the movie doesn't remain here. After the first act, the movie switches its point of view from McCandles to Bella and starts putting her experiences to the forefront. She starts developing interests that absolutely do not align with the wants and needs of the men around her, and she begins to learn things that clash with the essence of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope. Soon, she has grown into a headstrong, independent, sexually experienced, intellectually curious woman who had zero interest in entertaining the whims of men and who intends to live fully for herself and herself alone: an absolute antithesis of the clueless and subservient blank slate the trope would require her to be. My reading of the film is that it's an intentional satire and an autopsy of the BSY trope and the gender politics that gave birth to it. It criticizes the men who entertain fantasies like it by making them look like absolute losers, urging us to ponder on what the hell is wrong with these creeps who see nothing wrong with drooling over a woman who is mentally a toddler instead of their intellectual equal.

The movie also reads as a critique of how women are socialized into a patriarchy. Godwin treats Bella just like a possession of his. Her body and her life are completely under his control from the moment she is "born" (another act in which neither Bella nor the woman she was born from had any say in), which isn't dissimilar to how a lot of fathers view their daughters. He wishes to keep her under constant supervision until the end of her life, until she protests and gets him to change his mind. When he asks McCandles to marry her, the two men treat the proposed marriage as a contract between the two of them rather than as a contract between McCandles and Bella herself. Again, this isn't too different to what marriage between men and women has meant throughout history.

McCandles is romantically interested in Bella even though he is fully aware of the fact that she is mentally a child. He seems to be looking forward to starting a sexual relationship with her after they are wed, as if the seal of marriage would make the intellectual disparity between them any less iffy. This bears resemblance to the way men in the real world prey on young girls with little to no sexual experience and whose brains are not fully developed because they're easier to control than grown women. I don't think that McCandles's hypocrisy is lost on the film. He agrees to marry Bella almost in the same breath as expressing his desire to keep her safe from other men, as if his desire to bed a person who is intellectually at the level of a five-year-old was any better than theirs.

When Bella chooses to leave Godwin's house to explore the world, the two men immediately replace her with a new experiment, showing that they were never truly interested in her as a person. They wanted the eternal baby, the thing that they can cage and control, and not the person who can think and learn and disagree with them. This exemplifies how disposable women are when they no longer serve their limited purpose in a patriarchy, and how replaceable people are when they are primarily viewed as bodies to be used. (Sidenote: I do think that Godwin and McCandles eventually learn to appreciate Bella for the person she is and that they both grow to be better people by the end of the film, but I still attest that these two are total creeps at least by this point of the movie.)

And then there's the supreme loser of the movie: the sleazy lawyer Wedderburn, who slithers into Bella's life and convinces her to run away with him. He is the darkest example of the kind of person who is drawn to inexperienced women like the ones represented in BSY movies - a predator who finds pleasure in the prospect of getting to corrupt and consume an innocent. He intends to take advantage of Bella and abandon her once he's gotten his fill only to find himself choking on his prey, who turns out not to be the malleable, naive creature he thought her to be.

This is the point where I think the movie goes from simply critiquing the BSY trope and everything it represents to successfully subverting it. The characters who embody the BSY trope don't really evolve. The movies they appear in are not really interested in their inner worlds and individual experiences beyond whatever serves the interests of the male protagonists. These characters are projections of male fantasies, so there really isn't a way for them to exist without centering men. This is not the case with Bella, who quickly grows into her own woman who is only tangentially interested in the men around her.

The bright side of Bella's condition is that she isn't just unaware of the ways of the world, but that she's also unaffected by the years of patriarchal conditioning that most normal women are burdened with. She literally has no shame, no internalized misogyny, no history of crushing blows to her sense of self-worth, and no looming knowledge of societal norms society. She has skipped the part in life where she is constantly bombarded with demands to make herself smaller and more palatable, to hate herself, to think of her body and the way it finds pleasure as something disgusting and abnormal, to treat other women as competition, and to think of herself as so much less important than men that she must pursue their validation beyond all else. Because of this blessed defect, she is free in a very rare way.

Wedderburn absolutely cannot handle that. When Bella first gets to know him, he paints a flattering picture of himself as a proud social deviant who gleefully eschews the rules of polite society. However, when faced with the actually deviant Bella, who flatly refuses to obey and center him, Wedderburn is revealed to be a phony. He is not a genuine libertine. He does not want to live in a truly free world with a free spirit like Bella, because he is a pathetic, insecure little man who only likes women in scenarios where the power balance is stacked against them. In my opinion, this is a direct shot fired at the BSY trope and its average enjoyers: if your ideal woman is someone who is many steps behind you in terms of mental capacity and experience, you are quite pitiful and would not stand a chance in an equal playing field.

It's hilarious how Wedderburn loses his mind when Bella starts exhibiting the kind of behavior he himself has proudly displayed earlier in the film: having multiple sexual partners, keeping sex and feelings separate, not falling in love with him or treating him like he's special, dropping him once she's had enough of him, and generally living life in an unconventional way. Again, the movie is pointing out the hypocrisy in men who fetishize inexperienced women while bragging about their own sexual conquests.

The part in the movie where Bella becomes a sex worker delivers the final blow to whatever is left of the BSY trope in her story, because the trope relies on sexual exclusivity and the fetishization of virginity. By having many partners and gaining lots of sexual experience out of her own free will, Bella stops fitting the ideal of the untouched woman who can be deflowered and exclusively possessed by the male protagonist. Also, through the conversations between Bella and the other sex workers, the movie finds another way to address the politics behind certain men's sexual fantasies of women - such as pointing out that some men enjoy sex with women more the less the women themselves enjoy it. It's a stray observation that the movie doesn't get deep into, but it has its place in the tapestry of the general theme of what desire reveals about people.

Finally, there's Alfie, who gives Bella (and us) an idea of the kind of life Bella's "mother" lived - as well as the kind of life Bella herself might be living had she grown up the normal way. It seems hellish. She'd be living under the tyranny of her awful husband, under a constant threat of violence, under absolute bodily control. Alfie wants to impregnate her against her will and to mutilate her genitals to deprive her of pleasure, and there's nothing that she could do about it because he is her husband and thus legally allowed to lord over her. She sees a terrifying glimpse of the role even privileged women like her have in this world: objects who exist solely for the pleasure of the men who own them. I would venture to say that the same description lies in the underbelly of the BSY trope.

I am happy that the movie doesn't take its sweet time to revel in the horror of this part of the story like so many other movies that address the oppression of women do. Instead, Bella stays with Alfie just enough time to say a hard and a well-informed no to his bullshit before getting on her merry way.

I think Poor Things is such a great example of taking a trope and exploring its implications in a way that goes beyond just pointing it out or parodying it by simply repeating it.

#poor things #yorgos lanthimos #bella baxter #emma stone #born sexy yesterday #pop culture #tropes #feminism #gender politics #movies #cinema #film #film studies

147 notes · View notes

maggie0li · 7 months

Text

two screenshots from chapter 1 of antithesis six just to let u all know im still working on it

i still have. 2 half-done pages to finish and then the cover page and then ill be done with it :DD

#mlp #mlp fim #maggie0li #mlp art #mlp fan art #mlp g4 #antithesis six #cozy glow #lord tirek

18 notes · View notes

eganeyes · 27 days

Text

indulgent domestic modern!au clegan headcanons for the soul:

they're both really good in the kitchen!! i see them both as well functioning adults ngl so they both do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc working together like a well oiled machine.

bucky's more of the savory cook out of the two of them—I've been so into tinned fish talk on tiktok lately and been busy imagining this man just doing easy recipes for dinner and lunches. he likes making donburi, the air-fryer is his best friend, a risotto recipe he stole from benny's mom, wine marinated steaks, etc. he's the type to have to be in action to be calm so it's pretty common to see him running around the kitchen doing like six things at once.

buck's more of a baker, he has a sourdough starter on the counter and in the refrigerator bucky stays far, far away from. he makes the bread bucky uses for avocado toast breakfasts, cupcakes he shares liberally, dog friendly peanut butter cookies he made specifically for meatball, etc. rolling and smacking thick dough is like a stress reliever for him, so nearing the anniversary of him finally leaving his childhood house, the oven is on near 24/7 and the entire house smells like a bakery. everyone pops by now and then to take home some of the overload of baked goods and offer distraction in the form of chaos—at first by bucky's invitation but nowadays it's like an unwritten yearly calendar thing.

buck's usually in charge of breakfast. he makes fluffy pancakes more often than not, scrambled eggs on toast, always has two coffee pots ready for each of them because they go through it like its water. brady has made some very pointed suggestions on their kidneys, especially bucky's, but gets called out right back on the actual tobacco pipe he still smokes with in this day and age. if bucky wakes up earlier, he makes them avocado toast because he tried it at this hipster cafe as a joke but it's really not a joke anymore now.

they're both morning people it's revolting. when curt stays over he makes it very clear he won't be up before 9 the earliest and fuck them both if they try anything to actually wake him up. they wake him up. there's a guest room that may as well be curt's and his clothes are folded neatly in the dresser.

buck likes cantaloupe, so bucky regularly cuts up the fruit and packs them into lunch boxes for him.

brady shares the same birthday as meatball. so every year without fail, aside from his actual cake, bucky gets an extra plain cake with meatball printed on it with the words happy birthday meatball!! in large letters and a tiny (and brady) under it.

two of the shelves displayed in their house is just full of tchotchkes from all over the world from their adventures. yes there is concerning amount of unicorn statues. buck always looks moderately pained when someone asks about it. among them is a rock that tripped bucky up one random hike and somehow caused him to fall of cliff and get stuck in an outcropping of rocks. air rescue had to be called and he was an absolute nightmare of a broken ankle patient. again, buck always looks moderately pained when somebody asks about it.

they're hemming and hawing over getting a dog which the others find absolutely bewildering and when asked about it they both say its like cheating on meatball, which makes zero sense because the dog is benny's do not even think of stealing him cleven i swear—

they do get a dog from the shelter though!! they get a beagle. no really the dog is literally the bane of their existence they just had to choose the most exuberant 5yo dog with a powdered sugar face that's literally the antithesis of meatball. they name him tomato. benny despairs on how his dog isn't even really just his.

obsessed with the thought of them building their house by themselves like grey's anatomy's derek no hear me out architect!blakely helping them design the house and they have an open plan design which i kind of hate but the image of buck cooking in the kitchen yelling at bucky who's got his feet up on the coffee table oh

they go on these planned little adventures for dates and one of said plans is doing a pilates class together. hear me out: they both suck at it 😭. an hour in and bucky is literally stuck on the machine terrified of moving, he has cramps in muscles he didn't even know could get cramps. he looks to the left and buck is flat on the ground unmoving. they sign up for another class but bring curt into it thinking it'd be hilarious but no curt becomes the instructor's favorite within minutes. they sign up for another class in protest and bring brady and nearly kill the guy from sheer anger. their competitive asses work overtime and somehow end up getting instructor certificates just to prove they could.

the day they discover kahoot is honestly a mistake because when they host get togethers they do little presentations on what they've been doing since they last met and do full on kahoot quizzes and several expensive glasses are sacrificed for the worser worse. 'what was the shirt color of the lady photobombing us in that beach selfie?' and dougie straight up lobs his phone at bucky's face.

some extra casually possessive clegan hcs:

passenger princess buck with bucky's hand always casually draped over buck's closest thigh, absentmindedly playing with the inseam of his pants when they hit a red light

or: buck laying a hand on bucky's thigh to calm him down when some asshole cuts them off, or when bucky starts going past the speed limit, or just for comfort during a long drive

sitting thigh to thigh during breakfast/lunch/in the bar, sometimes even overlapping, buck's arm always around the back of bucky's chair

when they're sitting on high stools, bucky's leg is always propped up on buck's footrest

buck sitting on the only high stool available, bucky leaning by his side with an arm tucked around his hip

this pose of dua/callum insanity. squinting down on a tourist map of madrid for a random trip together, bucky's arms around buck with their heads bent trying to read tiny spanish lettering under the overbearing sun, buck tucking his hand into bucky's backpocket and tugging him closer like that'll help them find their hotel easier

some vacation fun: actually from this post I've added a few to and had brainworms on

the buckies go on a 7 day trip to somewhere with beaches and resorts and spa days and fruity little drinks with tiny little umbrellas and tell literally 0 people. they get ambushed on day 4 anyway.

in every beach outing thing, there has got to be a scene where they do each others' sunscreen. doing buck's, bucky purposefully leaves some parts of his skin unsuncreened on his back spelling out 'I SUCK' with an arrow pointing down to his ass. thankfully buck's blessed with perfect golden skin so he doesnt sunburn like at all.

buck brings a whole rack of books to read while sun tanning, a cute little folded table, cooler, bright towels for mats, and a rented umbrella setting up his downtime perfectly.

bucky leaves him to it for the first two hours because he loves the man: he goes to play beach volleyball with some random people he charms within minutes, saves a kid's sandcastle from being eaten by the waves and somehow ropes the kid and 4 other random children to build a giant fortress with a moat, accidentally step on a few crabs, takes hundreds of pics with other random tourists for some strange reason (they think he's a movie star and he does nothing to dissuade that), does karaoke near the beach bar with several equally enthusiastic drunk people, and pets every dog in his vicinity. he acquires exactly 9 numbers despite telling people he's very much taken, several insider local attractions added to his knowledge, and finds out the dirty sordid underground clubs in the area. all within 2 hours.

he comes trotting back to buck without a single hit to his stamina, and finally starts lobbying for a jet ski race.

in the two hours he was gone, bucky had flirted heavily with the jet ski rental managers, and rented 2 jet skis with a discount he refused and without an actual boating license but he's like really persuasive guys you don't get it. they do know how to ride it though because they're the kind of couple with a terrifying amount of qualifications in their CVs.

buck pretending not to be as competitive as his partner and hemming and hawing about going on the jet ski but the minute the race is on their trash talking gets so loud beach security has to stop by to calm them down.

buck leaves bucky with their kit to get some ice cream and comes back to bucky lounging on the mat. without pause, he kicks up sand directly on top of bucky and buries the man within minutes without giving the man the chance to defend himself from buck's onslaught.

buck sends the 100bg gc a pic of bucky buried under the sand with a coke right beside his head and a straw poking out straight to his mouth for easy access and it becomes the gcs new pfp.

the boys trace their location within days and on day 4 of their vacation they get ambushed in their hotel room and it turns into a big outing. jack scoffs at the buckies' itinerary and types out a new one for their entire group.

#a no pain day <3 #gathered all my eggs in one post so i could be done with them #mota #masters of the air #buck cleven #bucky egan #clegan #buck x bucky #mota headcanons #mota hcs #mota modern!au #just indulgence honestly #curt biddick #benny demarco #john brady #james douglass #jack kidd #this is literally just for me im sorry 😭#eganeyes

86 notes · View notes

aliensupersyn · 3 months

Text

Love, Isolation, and Heavenly Restrictions

"Love is worthless" Sukuna vs. "I don't have a heart" Maki.

NOTICE: This was written after the end of 251, weeks before 253's serialization.

TLDR: My case for why Maki will play a pivotal role in killing Sukuna, and showing how her character arc has led to this exact moment. In other words, she's gonna humble the King of Curses. Skip to section four if you don't care for a summary of their combined arcs. Here's the reddit thread if you're into that sort of thing.

I. Fate

Love and isolation have been major motifs throughout JuJutsu Kaisen, mainly concerning Sukuna and Gojo; both these characters satisfy a fateful premise in jujutsu: the existence of the strongest sorcerer of a generation or era. Sukuna, Kashimo, and Gojo all hold the title of "strongest sorcerer" for their respective eras, and for the sake of this post, I will call it a fateful role.

I say fate because Tengen and the omniscient narrator refer to fate as something real that connects certain roles throughout the different eras. For example, it has been Kenjaku's fate to be stopped by a six eyes user.

Toji's existence as an anomaly beyond the power of jujutsu allowed him to break the chains of fate and change the world. By killing the star plasma vessel, something fate was constantly protecting, he opened the doors for Kenjaku to complete his ludicrous plan of merging all Japanese citizens with Tengen.

II. Visual motifs between Toji, Maki, Gojo, and Sukuna

The main (obvious) connections between Toji and Maki:

While Naoya was an idiot, his comparison between Gojo and Toji was not random and should be acknowledged. He recognized the two of them as being the pinnacles of strength. Though, Naoya did not have the sense to understand what Toji and Gojo represented: jujutsu and the rejection of it. Naoya could never occupy the space that Toji and Gojo did. Not only due to his lack of power, but also because he doesn't have the same Heavenly Restriction that Toji and Maki share. Moreso, Toji and Maki represent the antithesis of the strongest sorcerer by being the strongest beings beyond jujutsu sorcery.

Toji, and Maki by extension, have been narratively connected to Gojo, who satisfies the fateful role of strongest sorcerer. Toji's connection to Gojo mirrors Maki's connection to Sukuna. The backstab in 251 seals this connection between the two pairs (will come back to this).

Gojo thinks of the last time he's ever feared loss, and remembers Toji. I believe Sukuna will have a similar moment where he fears loss by Maki's hands which will mirror this page.

Gege has left little crumbs throughout the story connecting Toji and Gojo, depicting Toji to be the antithesis to jujutsu, and finally connecting Toji and Maki. While that's commonly understood, I don't think enough people respect the fact that Toji, Gojo, and Maki's connection meets Sukuna in the end. Gege has tied all four of them together in the narrative, and that's sure to have some major payoff.

III. Love and Isolation

Yorozu, Kashimo, and Gojo all misunderstand Sukuna as being lonely, the latter two projecting their feelings of dejection onto him.

Gojo and Kashimo's sentiments were useless, as Sukuna completely rejects love and calls it worthless. He's not lonely because he's the strongest, he's the strongest because he's alone! Sukuna has evolved past being a human who needs love and he does only what satisfies his own desires. He eats what he wants, he kills what he wants, and he makes anything his own amusement if he wishes to. Sukuna represents a completely selfish outlook that takes and rarely gives. The only thing Sukuna gives is death, and even that he withholds from people who do not interest him.

While Maki appears as being cold, she still cares for her friends. Even before her and Mai made up, she still showed love for her sister, but refused to belittle herself for the sake of their relationship. Maki represents a person who refuses to allow love to hold her back.

Even though Maki gained new powers after Mai's sacrifice, she still could not reach her full potential because she was modeling herself after sorcerers, which she can never be. Maki and Toji can see curses, but relying on her vision only held her back. Her last fight with Naoya was about her finally breaking away from jujutsu's holds and becoming free. First she cleansed her family tree, her namesake that literally connected her to jujutsu, then she freed herself from thinking like a sorcerer altogether.

Finally, she became a demonic fighter. While she appears cold, she still cares for others. She doesn't regret Mai's fate, but instead embraces it and their relationship. Maki's still a heartless fighter, but one who can express care and concern for her allies. She's selfish enough to refuse to allow others to hold her back, but loving enough to protect those she cares about. Sukuna similarly refuses to be held back by love, and therefore cannot be lonely. Maki exists somewhere in the same realm of being loveless, but not nearly as much as Sukuna.

While the two of them share a heartless attitude and a monstrous demeanor, they exist as complete opposite beings. Sukuna's the greatest and strongest model of jujutsu, and Maki's the absolute antithesis of sorcery. Both of them stand alone in their respective extremes, and again, are alone because they are the strongest. Maki's vision of curses, her last remaining connection to jujutsu was hindering her ability to grow stronger; she was blind to her own abilities because of sorcery. Gege makes it obvious that Toji and Maki break the rules of sorcery. Meaning, Maki will be Sukuna's downfall.

IV. Maki's Advantages Over Sukuna

Toji and Maki are the only two of their kind to ever exist. Therefore, Sukuna has never fought a being, a monster like Maki in his entire life. Megumi never found out about Toji or his abilities, so Sukuna still does not have a reference for Maki's abilities. He may be able to recount Megumi's fight against him, that's very limited information, especially because Toji was not full strength. Maki has the element of surprise.

Maki's backstab leaves many questions. The narrator specifies that Sukuna should have been able to sense a sorcerer performing the backstab, but he failed to sense Maki; she is not a sorcerer, but an anomaly, a monster who is not beholden to jujutsu or sorcery. Sukuna's lack of awareness could be because he's been weakened, but he's failed to notice Maki before.

Many people misinterpret this panel to be Sukuna surprised by Maki's aura, but I disagree and argue that he's shocked that he cannot sense her. Both Yuji and Sukuna are suprised by her sudden appearance. Due to Maki not having any cursed energy, Sukuna cannot sense her power and will be forced to rely on sight to find her. Yet, Maki needs neither sight nor cursed energy to fight curses. Maki senses the air's temperature and density, a sight only she possesses that gives her an advantage over curses.

Also, Sukuna sensed that Maki was a problem and thanked Uraume for possibly taking her out:

The top four seek to stop the merger and sever Megumi from Sukuna's body, and Maki possesses a sword that severs souls! Sukuna has been worn down until his cursed energy matched Yuta's, who's now number one since Gojo's died. Keep in mind that Gojo was worlds ahead of Yuta, so Sukuna's power has plummeted and he needs time to recover.

Sukuna's inner monologue in 250:

Maki has the Heavenly Restriction, the sword, the sight, and the timing needed to be able to face Sukuna and possibly even defeat him. Gojo, Kashimo, Higuruma, Yuta, and Yuji were all a means to an ends to weaken Sukuna until Maki could come and clean up (I'm exaggerating).

Maki's entire character arc has been about her clashing with Sukuna. Maki, the monstrous human w/o CE vs Sukuna, the monstrous once-sorcerer with the most CE. Their fight will be about both their ideals and powers. Is strength truly isolating? To what extent does the monster cast aside love? Can monstrous strength be used to protect others?

Edit:

Sukuna's domain may be the only one that works on her (and Kenjaku's but he's dead) because they don't have barrier mechanics. As pointed out by SwimmingStreet8981, "Sukuna showed that he cuts absolutely everything in his domain. He turned buildings to dust without even trying."

Either Gege restores Sukuna's domain to turn the battle once more, or the domain battle with Gojo was for the sake of the top 4 not having to worry about Sukuna's domain. I think the latter tbh.

Questions for their battle:

Now that Sukuna's down to two hands and one mouth, and Maki might be the fastest person in meta at this moment, how much deep shit is Sukuna in?

Will the soul splitting blade be the key to stop the merger? How does that even work against Sukuna?

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #maki zenin #ryomen sukuna #gojo satoru #jjk yorozu #sukuna you wil PAY for what you did to Megumi #mark my wrods #jjk manga #jjk spoilers #jjk 251

98 notes · View notes

theatrum-tenebrarum · 1 year

Text

Painting by the Japanese illustrator and designer Ayami Kojima, made for Akumajō Dracula Best Music Collections BOX

This macabre work, showcasing a duality play between light (gold) and dark (red), is heavily inspired by Byzantine icons.

Byzantine art is a term for art produced in the Byzantine Empire in the time span between about c. 330 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This art is primarily characterized by rigid forms of expression and characters presented in static postures, which is a way of communicating their divine, heavenly nature. The more static they are, the further they are from mortals regarding them. Such is the logic of Byzantine art, where in this way each figure on the panel is situated in the higher planes of existence.

Simon Belmont is shown in a saintly manner, on a background of gold, which was in Byzantine art created from real gold leaves. His garments are crosses and he is surrounded by six-winged Seraphim angels, considered to be closest to God.

On right there is the antithesis, Dracula, on a background of blood-red. A simple stylized city is shown behind the theatrically dark-clad Dracula, and a many-tailed dragon roars before his feet. In this way he is presented as the saint of death, as the Dragon is a mythical being most closely associated with evil and destruction. In the Biblical book of Revelation, a seven-headed dragon appears in sky, being one of the heralds of the End Times.

-Heidi (@theatrum-tenebrarum)

689 notes · View notes

acowardinmordor · 3 months

Text

Ignore what I did to ages timelines and canon to make this ficlet work. This is for @eddiezpaghetti and is, I promise, an actual event from my high school life. Mine was the football captain and star quarterback though. 😇

Deep Breath

Eddie was not an athletic guy. It didn’t matter that his fine motor skills were excellent with a pen or his guitar, the big picture version with hand eye coordination and ability to do anything even closely connected to sports was crap. So he never did sports for longer than a few days when he was young enough his mom was still around and encouraging him.

Any accidental skills he learned while wearing a uniform evaporated in the decade since his mom died. Then he met kids who didn’t make fun of him about sports, realized he could have friends without the ‘friendly’ sportsmanship, and Eddie didn’t look back.

Nerd for life. Sports for never.

Then Eddie was turning 11, and his dad had a chance for a ‘great job’ in Colorado. First in Pueblo. Then just north of the border into Wyoming. And then, in a little town halfway up the side of the mountains near Cañon City, while his dad went to Florence most days. Al usually managed to be home a couple nights each week during those years, Eddie found a book called a Player’s Manual and some friends, and that was that.

So, when the mysterious job his dad had been working all that time went bad, and a major news story about an attempted breakout at Florence ADX, when cops showed up to arrest Al, Eddie ran into the trees, up the trail and kept hiding for a day or two.

He wasn’t an athlete, but he knew how to sprint, he knew how to hide, and life with Pops made damn sure Eddie knew how to keep quiet. He was seventeen, and knew some states would try him as an adult for all the shit he’d helped Al do.

Eventually they sent a park ranger with a dog instead of a cop. A few days later, his Uncle Wayne greeted him with a massive hug in Hawkins, Indiana.

The next day, he was enrolled at Hawkins High, as a junior in limbo. Colorado did classes in trimesters, Indiana did them in quarters, and through some kind of Evil Machinations, he had eight registered classes, only two of which were needed to advance to senior year.

The other six?

Theater. Jazz Band. Study Hall. Study Hall. PE. Another Study Hall.

And.

Advanced PE.

He argued that he shouldn’t have to take non-required courses. They informed him about Indiana Laws on Truancy. He argued he’d rather take five Study Halls. They cited policy. He begged to take chemistry and biology instead. They refused.

Thus was the cruel hand of the Universe, demanding he participate in not just one stupid sports ball class — where, at least, there were other nerds to hide with— but a second, where student athletes were put so they had an easy A, and extra time to workout or stretch or whatever.

He skipped the first one and immediately learned about those truancy laws.

The next week, defeated and miserable, but still running late, he donned the grey tone garb, and stepped into Advanced PE.

Which was the exact moment he noticed the first flaw in his previous assumption.

A class full of sporty kids meant a class full of people who ranged from hot to gorgeous to ‘as long as she isn’t speaking’ all bent in amazing shapes as they stretched and warmed up. Including a guy with hair from a commercial and lips that would be borderline illegal in the Bible Belt.

Eddie was definitely going to die of lack of blood in his brain at some point in the next nine sessions of this class.

At least he remained the antithesis of sporty. The polar opposite of whatever Farrah Fawcett had going on. He could lurk and not participate, ogle until his poor bisexual heart broke, and still be good to go into Senior year.

Except. A few more things leading up to the one that really mattered.

The coach was a little annoyed that his star athletes were putting in the minimum effort.

The other kids were shooting him dirty looks.

The coach was pretty good at sussing out the best leverage on teens.

And.

Unlike Eddie, coach knew the natural effect of living at high elevations for six years.

—

And see, it cannot be overstated that Eddie was not a sports-guy. But he did need to run (away) sometimes. Hearing that they were running six laps, at your own pace, was excellent. Then the sweetener: once you were done, you could cool down and be done for the day.

He wasn’t going to sprint, but a quick jog followed by half an hour napping on the bleachers? Yes please.

Whistle blown, clock started, and off they went.

It really, truly, cannot be overstated how much Eddie was not trying to be a little shit or that he wasn’t trying to go fast.

To be fair to Farrah up at the front, none of them were going fast. Eddie didn’t have practice after class like they did, and he badly wanted that napping time.

By the end of the first lap, Eddie and Farrah had pulled away from the others a ways, by the end of the second, Eddie had pulled ahead. And he kept pulling ahead. And ahead. Rolled his eyes as he caught and then lapped the rest of the class. They had some choice words for him as he went by.

Put some extra distance so he wouldn’t have to hear it. Got far enough by lap four he had a good view of Farrah’s ass, and was mentally writing a description for pathetic, but attractive court buffoons to use once he found a dnd group.

The coach was annoyed though, and knew exactly where to push.

“Harrington if the new kid laps you, I’m benching you for the rest of the year and I’ll make Jason Captain in the fall!” Came blaring through a bullhorn.

Farrah Harrington full on stumbled at that, head whipped sideways to stare. Gape? Slow down running as what sounded like a peak-jock-threat was leveled at him.

And Eddie wasn’t trying to be a lot shit at the start of this, but he damn well was now.

Eddie found out later the science stuff, but in the moment he decided it was either magic, or because he was used to dodging things as he ran up poorly maintained hiking trails in the Rockies. Cause now that he was trying?

No damn clue why he wasn’t dry heaving as he collapsed on the track to die.

No clue why he was closing the distance as they went into the last straight of the fifth lap, despite Harrington visibly realizing the coach was serious.

The magic theory was dismissed when Eddie didn’t easily lap the guy. They were around the first turn when Eddie got close enough that Harrington could turn to see him. Farrah was red faced and a little wobbly. Sure, Eddie was sweaty as fuck — it was way too hot for April, there should still be snow! — but he could do it. A little more effort, just enough to close another five feet, and he’d do it. Just about half a lap left. More than enough time. Eddie could be an absolute dick and lap Harrington, then get damn close to catching the rest of the class a second time.

The mere concept of their agony almost had him going for it. Who was he if he didn’t take a moment to gloat though?

He pulled level, tilting his head with a smile the drama teacher called “impressively deranged” planning to stay there until the turn, then actually sprint for the first time without cops behind him.

But Harrington turned to him, out of breath, red faced, plush lipped, with great hair, an ass worthy of songwriting, and gave Eddie the most desperately adorable puppy eyes god or man had ever crafted.

Eddie didn’t freeze, but the guy was hot, and maybe, maybe, he didn’t want to make him sad.

So he wasn’t a dick.

But he was a little shit, and he kept pace the rest of the way round. With his body half turned and awkward. With his dimples going crazy. With every person in the class well aware that it was an act of mercy by the new kid.

He even dropped back at the last second with a wink, letting Farrah cross the line ahead of him.

—

That was how Eddie became both beloved and beloathed by every sports kid on his third day in school. That was how he became the threat the coach used to intimidate the others. That was how the first rumor about witchcraft started.

That was not the day Eddie found out what coach had known.

No, he learned that the next fall, after running from monsters with Steve Harrington to keep a group of nerdy kids safe, overworking himself, vomiting on Steve’s shoes, and then bemoaning his lost magic in front of Dustin Henderson.

Who explained in detail how oxygen acclimatization worked.

—

If you didn’t know: when you live at high elevations, you get used to having less oxygen, so when you are suddenly at lower elevation, your body goes Woah! Free Oxygen! And you can do what Eddie did. It’s not permanent. A month or two if you don’t try to keep it, and it tapers off, but that’s more than enough time for Eddie to be a complete menace to the jocks. I know I was.

And obviously Steve thought this event was sexy, but he’s still with Nancy, and the boy is loyal. Eddie hates himself for not working to keep up his lung capacity the first time he and Steve hook up.

#my writing #eddie munson ficlet #steddie implied flirting?#not sure how to define that #didn’t reread or edit #write this in the tub #because work is insane

47 notes · View notes

dreamingsnowflake2013 · 1 year

Photo

Tantai Jin has been through literal hell and re-emerged in the world of the living with an eye that belongs to Susu, a heart that beats only for her and gets himself a sword which not only cannot kill (the Rurouni Kenshin vibes!), it actually creates life since it blooms as a result of his need to protect others and his feelings of kindness, sympathy and love. The original Devil God is sooooo fucked. Maybe he should cut his losses and wait another 10,000 years for some other ill-fated and wretched soul to latch onto and turn into a sacrificial lamb.

The devil artefacts are supposed to stand for the complete corruption of Tantai Jin by evil, the three puzzle pieces that create and symbolise the perfect Devil God, but instead, he transforms into the complete antithesis of what he had been destined to become. Both physically and metaphorically.

He’s got a sword which cannot slay anyone, much less a god, an eye constantly searching for the woman he loves, not someone to kill, and a heart which he gave someone else and carries six pain-inducing mementos of her. He simply hasn’t left a single piece he can offer to the Devil God, there is no place for him, because Tantai Jin’s mind, body, heart and soul all already belong to Susu.

#till the end of the moon #luo yunxi #cdrama

173 notes · View notes

oneluckygoose · 1 month

Text

Ok, guys. A lot of people have their fan casts for a Rat Grinders spinoff series, but hear me out.

What if season whatever of Dimension 20 was with the intrepid heroes, but Brennan didn’t tell them what their characters were. They get into the dome, The background is the normal Fantasy High background. The DM screen is the normal Fantasy High DM screen. They all sit as if they would for their Fantasy High characters. Brennan does the introduction, everybody’s smiling everybody’s happy, then he starts with the first scene.

But Nobody has a character sheet nobody knows who they are. “Strange, how do you play if you don’t know who you are playing?” A sentiment throughout the six heroes. The scene moves on, and he does it through one of the players perspectives, and it becomes clearer and clearer, slowly, that that person is playing their Fancy High characters antithesis from the Rat Grinders. Brennan hands them a character sheet.

The scenes go on, each hero getting their own. The character sheets are handed out. Horror: screams are heard throughout the dome, yells and shouts for Brendan to do unspeakable things. All the players are befuddled. All the players are filled with wishes for revenge.

The Intrepid Heroes, beloved of the characters they play called The Bad Kids, now play what they hate the most.

They are the rat grinders.

#brennan lee mulligan #has big #sam reich #energy in this post #he’s being crafty #this would be so amazing though #imagine the energy in the room #insanity #fantasy high #dimension 20 #fantasy high junior year #the bad kids #the rat grinders #the intrepid heroes #d20 #idk if the intrepid heroes would be bias or not #all of them are commited to the bit #it would work for before JY or durring or after #whatever happens after Ig #ally beardsly would play the shit out of Lucy Frostblade #IMAGINE MURPH HAVING TO HATE RIZ AS COPPERHEAD KETTLEFUCK #OR WOILD SIOBHAN PLAY HER???#so many possibilities #i would die to watch that first episode #gonna be like when brennan was killing that dog in season 2 #hes all the villains #i think one of them would physically rise and attempt to throw hands over the table #if I keep going these tags are going to go to the 9th layer of hell #maybe they’ll see Bill

41 notes · View notes

slexenskee · 1 year

Text

The Evolution of Pop Punk Gojo / No Scrubs

Honestly the real answer as to why he's such a pop punk gremlin in May Death Never Stop You is bc I wanted him to be lol. But I did come up with a backstory for it even if I doubt it'll ever make the fic itself.

Keep in mind this is not at all part of the story and Gojo / No Scrubs can play whatever music you want, any songs I call out specifically are really just examples.

BABY PUNK IN THE MAKING ERA: 2000

It’s 2000. The Sony Walkman CD player has been around for over 15 years; the iPod is only a year away.

Gojo is ten years-old and he’s just lost his useless minders in the crowded, tangled streets around Harajuku.

Being allowed out alone (for a given definition of alone, but at the very least without the usual entourage befitting the young master of an ancient house) is a new experience for him. He’s spent the entirety of his life enclosed within the guarded walls of the Gojo clan, learning his clan’s history and techniques. It’s been a very sheltered and secluded existence, and not entirely without reason; since the heralded birth of the Six Eyes holder, assassins and curses alike have been after him. The existence of Gojo Satoru changed the world order, and he was guarded accordingly. It’s rare he has a chance to leave the clan compound, rarer still to be out alone.

But he’s almost eleven now, and he’s mastered his clan’s Limitless Blue technique as well as Infinity; even first-grade curses wouldn’t give him much trouble anymore. He no longer needs the stifling protection of his clan to the degree he had as a small child, and accordingly the hold his clan has on him is growing tenuous. So he’s given the day in Tokyo, ostensibly to find himself a present for his birthday.

He probably would have just gone with cake— he has a rampant sweet tooth, but is rarely allowed to eat sweets— but he’s distracted by blaring, foreign music.

He finds himself alone in front of a record store blasting rock music from a boombox speaker in the front. The store is full of punk clothing, streetwear, and endless rows of CDs all stuffed full of questionably dressed youths. The whole store is very Western, which is a novelty for a child with a very traditional and secluded upbringing in the already secluded Jujutsu society— it’s noisy and loud and seems to be the antithesis to everything his clan has tried to teach him about etiquette and propriety as the scion of a noble house; suffice it to say, he loves it at first sight.

So of course the first thing he does is buy himself a Sony Walkman and grab a handful of CDs from the front table.

The hapless and chronically underpaid part-timer who happened to stock the front display that day was not prepared to accidentally set the most powerful Jujutsu sorcerer on his road of anti-establishment chaos, but really what else did you expect from putting up all that 90's alt-grunge?

Siamese Dream ℗ Smashing Pumpkins, 1994 | Nevermind ℗ Nirvana, 1991 | Third Eye Blind ℗ Third Eye Blind, 1997

Gojo basically grew up in a house with little exposure to music, so throwing himself directly into a genre baked in themes of social alienation, angst, and loneliness that happened to perfectly reflect his own life experiences was something of a happy coincidence. He didn't understand nearly enough English at the time to comprehend the lyrics, but the feeling was conveyed nonetheless.

At some point during his pre-teen angst era he gets access to a computer. His very traditional and insulated family have no fucking clue what the hell a computer even is, so when he says he wants one and goes and gets it they have no idea what kind of open frontier they're giving him with access to the internet. 2001 rolls around and Gojo gets his hands on his first iPod, and promptly becomes that kid on iTunes who racks up hundreds of dollars worth of music purchases before even realizing what he's done.

Most Played Tracks on Gojo's poor Sony Walkman:

Nirvana: Come As You Are, Rape Me, Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom

Smashing Pumpkins: Mayonaise, Today, Cherub Rock, 1979, Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Soundgarden: Black Hole Sun, Spoonman

Third Eye Blind: Semi-Charmed Life, How's It Going to Be, Jumper, Narcolepsy

--MIDDLE SCHOOL GLORY DAYS ERA | 2002 - 2005--

He's in junior high when Fall Out Boy drops Take This To Your Grave in 2003. He's a tiny body of angst and arrogance at the time, so the rebellious-spirited, nihilistic bad-boy aesthetic of pop-punk really resonated with him. He gets really into it; middle school sucks for everyone, but it especially sucks when you've been heralded as a once-in-a-generation sorcerer with god-like powers yet somehow you're still shucked into an elitist young master's private school full of normal (if not blindingly rich) people.

Gojo is very good looking and very good at everything he tries his hand at, so it's not a matter of popularity necessarily. People flock to him all the time, but even amongst a crowd of enamored pre-teens he's never felt more alone. His arrogant personality keeps everyone at a distance, just as he likes it. It all seems so pointless to him, when he's going to Jujutsu Tech for high school anyway. These people don't matter, and they may as well be aliens with how much they live in an entirely different world than Gojo.

Take This To Your Grave ℗ Fall Out Boy, 2003 | American Idiot ℗ Green Day, 2004 | Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge ℗ My Chemical Romance, 2004

This is also around the time he commits himself to actually learning English well enough to understand the lyrics - no matter how fast or convoluted the accent - and he spends a lot of time ignoring the world in his room with his headphones at full blast. A rite of passage for any self-respecting preteen full of existential fatalism.

Completely alone even as he's put on a pedestal by Jujutsu society, music is really his only solace. It makes a profound impact on him, if only because it's the only human touch that can still reach him through his Infinity. He's pushed everyone out of his life but Gerard Way and Patrick Stump, which I also firmly believe is a preteen rite of passage.

He definitely lays around in bed and debates blowing things up, except unlike regular preteens who regularly stomp up to their room and slam the door shut and tell the world to fuck off he's actually capable of doing it. He doesn't though, and instead just listens to You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison for the hundredth time.

Songs that Made it Onto Gojo's iPod Shuffle:

Blink 182: What's my Age Again, Mutt, Stay Together For the Kids

Bowling for Soup: 1985

Fall Out Boy: Homesick at Space Camp, Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over, Saturday

Green Day: Jesus of Suburbia, American Idiot, Holiday,

Good Charlotte: The Anthem, Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous

Lit: My Own Worst Enemy

The Killers: When You Were Young, Mr. Brightside, Somebody Told Me

My Chemical Romance: You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison, I Never Told You What I do For a Living, I'm Not Okay (I Promise), Famous Last Words, Helena

Sum 41: Fat Lip, In Too Deep

Weezer: Say it AIn't So

--HIGH SCHOOL ANGST ERA | 2005 - 2008--

Gojo finally starts his tenure as a student at Jujutsu Tech and it's... unexpected. There are only two other sorcerers in his year and he's not really getting along with either of them. Not that he really puts in anything but a nominal effort. He's spent all of his junior high career as the king of his school, and that was among a bunch of kids who couldn't even comprehend his actual greatness.

Now he's returned to the Jujutsu World, and becomes the irreverent, chaotic, rule-flaunting little shit we all love and adore.

He's a bit disillusioned by it all, to be honest. Life, generally, but also all the pageantry that goes into every facet of it. There's a certain anxiety and depression that goes along with looking at your own life, which is the premise of most of Pete Wentz's lyrics on Fall Out Boy's Under the Cork Tree and also just the thematic overview of Gojo's high school existence. There's an emptiness that comes after the existential dread of self-introspection that Gojo promptly fills up with Fall Out Boy, and then with the addition of Infinity on High (his favorite album, entirely because it has Infinity in the name) even more Fall Out Boy.

From Under the Cork Tree ℗ Fall Out Boy, 2005 | So Wrong, It's Right ℗ All Time Low, 2007 | Infinity on High ℗ Fall Out Boy, 2007

It's an era of Fall Out Boy for him, interspersed with some other great bands of the time/genre. This is also around the time that online music radio Pandora was making its rounds amongst the online music scene, which Gojo spent a surprising amount of time in, for someone who had little to no interest in making music himself.

It would have been nice to be able to bond with his fellow students over music, like he's seen in plenty of movies, but Shoko is a die-hard City Pop fan and Suguru is one of those disturbing 'I just listen to whatever's on the radio' types. Maybe there are other kids in the other years that have better taste, but Gojo's not really the sort to be broadcasting his likes or interests like that - doesn't really fit his 'bad boy' image.

He starts high school pretty firmly entrenched in his pop-punk / emo phase, but it's a pretty tumultuous three years of his life - and society in general, with the internet becoming mainstream and smartphones hitting consumer markets globally - and his music tastes reflect this.

Most Played Tracks on Gojo's Hot Pink iPod Nano:

All Time Low: Dear Maria Count Me In, Six Feet Under the Stars, Coffee Shop Soundtrack, Stay Awake

Cage the Elephant: In One Ear, Back Against the Wall

Fall Out Boy: Sugar We're Going Down, Dance Dance, Nobody Puts Baby in The Corner, A Little Less Sixteen Candles, Thnks fr the Mmrs, This Ain't a Scene It's an Arms Race, The Take Over the Break's Over, Coffee's for Closers

Modest Mouse: Float On, Dashboard

My Chemical Romance: Cancer, Disenchanted

Panic! At the Disco: I Write Sins Not Tragedies, But It's Better if You Do

Paramore: Misery Business, That's What You Get, Decode

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Dani California, Scar Tissue, Under the Bridge

Taking Back Sunday: Makedamnsure, Twenty Twenty Surgery, Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)

The Strokes: Reptilia, Last Night, Someday

--- ADULTING IS FOR OTHER PEOPLE ERA | 2008+ ---

Post Star Plasma Vessel/Suguru's defection Gojo is a Mess™, but you'll never know it because he continues on acting like an irreverent little shit who doesn't care about anything.

He goes through a period where he doesn't consciously reject the songs that encapsulated his idyllic teenage life, but nonetheless pivots away from the pop-punk genre. He spends a lot of time pulling that Pablo Escobar Narcos meme and staring blankly out into bleak vistas in total silence and solitude. In hindsight, for all his teenage angst and loneliness, his time with Shoko and Suguru had been the least lonely he'd ever felt. Now that he's once again entirely on his own - Shoko off being a doctor and Suguru going off the deep end - he realizes he'd had a brief taste of the feeling of belonging he'd been missing his whole life.

He gets into a lot of indie pop and post-punk stuff, with more electric and synthetic sounds and upbeat tempos.

He traded in his trusty iPod Nano to an iPod Touch, and shortly after switched to the iPhone when it hit the global markets in 2009. Yeah, he was one of those Apple heads, the kind who always had to have the latest Macs and Apple products. In his defense, he was not a tech snob so much as a music snob, and at the time iTunes was the dominant music platform.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix ℗ Phoenix, 2009 | Oracular Spectacular ℗ MGMT, 2007 | The Modern Glitch ℗ The Wombats, 2011

He spends most of his early 20's in an indie phase, gets into a lot of electronic, and then from there uses the powers of the internet and gets into all sorts of other genres. One way or another he spends some time in the disco/house music neighborhood, a genre he and Makoto will spectacularly bond over, only to then do a total 180 and decide to form a pop-punk band together.

By the time he's stuck in his second life, it's been decades since he's listened to some of those songs he used to love as an angsty teenager. As an adult he lost track of all his old CDs, probably gathering dust in the attic of the Gojo clan house he avoids at all costs, and as the world moved towards streaming services he stopped keeping up with his staggering iTunes library. It's not as if he forgot those bands or anything, but as the world's strongest sorcerer he rarely had the time to listen to music like he used to.

When he gets dragged back into life as Todoroki Touya, it's been ages since he's heard Fall Out Boy and frankly, he misses it.

There's a glaring lack of the grunge, pop-punk and emo music in this new world he's in, and after digging around online - and begrudgingly, the local library for history books once the internet proves unforthcoming - he learns that most of those bands he used to love don't even exist in this world. Quirks appeared in this parallel universe just around the time Gojo himself had been born. The global upheaval that followed that profound change in human existence caused a chain of events that would have all the disenfranchised youths of the 90's and 2000's too distracted by global chaos, world wars and civil terrorism to make the music he loved and remembered. Music is art after all, and art is a direct response to the experiences of the people who make it.

As far as Gojo's concerned, not having the likes of Nirvana or My Chemical Romance in an entire human history is an absolutely travesty, so he sets out to not only bring those songs back for himself but also as the one good deed he'll ever care to do in this second life of his. And if he happens to make tons of money and reach critical acclaim while he does it... that's just a bonus.

#fic may death never stop you #totally unnecessary backstory #but here we are

127 notes · View notes