#but yeah did everyone brutally forget that the plot is 'raising a kid is an elite's spy hardest mission'

[linkedsoul]

Really funny to see people joking that Spy x Family is propaganda to make people have children when one of the CORE gags of SxF is that being a parent is more difficult than being an elite spy

#linked rambling #spy x family #i love it bc it's peak found family #and everyone is weird and unconventional but they make it work #but yeah did everyone brutally forget that the plot is 'raising a kid is an elite's spy hardest mission' #the jokes are funny but #DID EVERYONE FORGET THE PREMISE OF THE STORY

[wetalkinboutbooks]

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Summary: Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:  

 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: We genuinely love this book series so much that our brains recircuit talking about it... all we can do is say if you’re looking for good fantasy with amazing characters and plot... this is it!

Check out the spoiler full review below~

The Good:

→ The Worldbuilding 

Kae: Worldbuilding baybeeeeee. I LOVE IT. Reading this series was such an eye opener for me. It was so far from the usual European magic and broomsticks, that I NEEDED MORE. So I kept reading lol. The worldbuilding in this series is fantastic. There are Efrits, Jinn, magic, and more. This world is set in a Romanish Empire/Pakistani fusion of cultures. You have the Scholars are the lowest caste of people, the Tribes which is basically just a step up from ScholarS, but they are free. Then we have the Plebeians and the Martials. All of these cultures are so well written and developed that you have no trouble differentiating what culture certain characters might belong to just based on their name. Ex: Afyah, Ilyaas = Tribes; Darin, Laia, Izzy= Scholars; Markus=Pleb; Helene, Elias = Martials. All very easy to distinguish, I think. 

We also have some magical beings who are more or less immortal. The Jinn and Efrits, the Nightbringer, Shaeva, the Augurs. They’re all linked to a literal higher power. 

We also have The Waiting Place, which is basically purgatory. But it’s where the dead go to be escorted to the next life. 

Geena: I deserve no rights because I've always loved the whole roman empire history shit, it was always the most interesting shit to learn about so when I read the synopsis like roman inspired… written by a SA woman… i LOST MY SHIT!!! AND LIKE KAE DESCRIBED Sabaa does an amazing job of weaving in magical elements too, and ugh….. Her mind… BUT ALSO WHAT I LOVED IS, something a lot of fantasy authors do is fall into a hole of introducing race politics (aka RACISM) based on skin colour, but Sabaa was like… Wait Ik how to format this

Tired: Fantasy world skin-colour based racism

Wired: Fantasy world-class system based beef 

Sabaa tackles the issue of class systems and so on, and she did it all from scratch and I fucking loved it, it was gratifying to see an author who put so much effort into her worldbuilding. Also… this is v dumb… but the whole detail with sending messages using drums….. I was here for it 

→ Laia and Elias 

Kae: They’re wonderful and need a hug

Geena: Sabaa made an executive decision to write two whole cinnamon rolls and she did! COMPLEX cinnamon rolls that we love from the bottoms of our hearts. We start off with Laia’s perspective as she waits for her brother in her room, but shit hits the fan real quick and the Martial empire’s elite soldiers storm their small home searching for her brother. We learn that her brother, Darin, has got his hands on top secret info and if he doesn’t turn it over they’ll murder everyone. Darin and Laia try to make a run for it but are apprehended by a Mask (Essentially an elite soldier) and they’re forced to watch their grandparents die, Darin tells Laia to run and get out of there and our girl… our girl listens but she has mad ragrets. We follow Laia as she stumbles to the Resistance, an underground Scholar organization that has mad beef with the Martial empire. There she’s tasked with acting as a slave to hands down, the WORST person in the empire, Keris Veturia. All of this in the hopes that the Resistance will help save her brother who’s been imprisoned in the most brutal prison in the empire. 

What I love about Laia is that she’s not perfect, she’s not an amazing fighter and strategist off the bat… she’s an 18/19 year old girl from an oppressed group that has no idea what’s going on and her only skill set is that of a healer. BUT!!! Throughout the book we get to watch Laia make mistakes and learn from them, all of which makes her stronger and smarter. She’s so determined 🥺 even when Keris is carving her initials into Laia’s chest, even when she’s brought to the brink of death, Laia sticks with her goal to find Darin no matter the cost. Anyways.. We stan…. THOUGH TO BE HONEST, when I had started reading it, her first few chapters were frustrating to read because I was like “why would you do that1!!!” but then I set the book down at one moment and thought about how I’d act in the same situation and I was like….. I would’ve fucked up and been killed like 10 pages ago so Laia is doing really well LMAO… and since then I’ve been ready to fight for Laia whenever I see people shit on her.  

Kae: BOOM! So Geena summed up Laia’s character/situation perfectly. WE STAN LAIA OF SERRA. Now, we’re gonna talk about our brooding, handsome boy, Elias aka Ilyaas. Elias, is WILDLY the son of Keris. Keris had a lil boo thang back in the day and got preggers. She did everything she could to terminate the pregnancy, but nothing worked. So she was forced to give birth to him. She fucked off to the desert tribes for a while and learned how to deliver a baby, so she could deliver her own. When the time came, Keris gave birth to Elias. She cared for him for about five minutes before she was like “Yeah, I’m not with the shits. Fuck this kid.” And she left Elias in the desert near the tribes so he could be raised with them. Years later, Elias was chosen by the Martials to attend Blackcliff. Blackcliffe is a school where the Martials train to become the most elite soldiers in this world. Elias trains and trains and is ultimately the top of his class. At a certain age, the students are given silver mask that will eventually completely fuse to their face. Elias hates his mask. He takes it off every night, so it still hasn’t fused to his face like the rest of his class. Elias also hates Blackcliffe and was planning on being a deserter. He had a bag packed and was fully prepared to leave. He was sad to leave his best friend and confidant, Helene, but he was RET TA GO. That is, until he was selected to compete in the Trials that would change his world forever. These trials are to select who is to rule the Empire. He gets this news, when Laia, Keris’s slave is sent to retrieve him. When he meets Laia, he is instantly smitten. He forgets himself, is smiling, shooting the breeze, asking her names, etc. Then realizes, he could get her in trouble just for being nice to her. So they move along. 

Elias is a very sweet boy who just got caught up in a lot of shit with the trails. Every day he spends at Blackcliffe is another day he hates himself. The kid (well he’s like 20), is just straight up MISERABLE. These trials are to rest his mind, power, and strength and all the usual. The last two winners in the end will be the ruler and the Blood Shrike, aka advisor. This is almost a good thing, because Elias is competing with Helene and if they both win, they can both rule. Things are going pretty well for them. They’re winning, it’s looking good. But then, Elias has to go against Helene and they both have to lead a small armada against one another. It’s either kill or be killed. In the end, he has to go against Helene . In the end, he and Helene reluctantly battle it TF OUT. Elias wins because Helene had to forfeit because she was wearing some magical armor that couldn’t be penetrated. Elias feels HORRIBLE. His friends are dead. He ALMOST killed his best friend. He feels ashamed and like a monster. If he hadn’t hated himself before (which he totally die), he SURELY hates himself now. Laia is then sent to his chambers/rooms as his prize. He’s meant to sleep with her, but he hates himself too much and he doesn’t want to take advantage of her. So they just talk and end up sharing a little smoochy smooch. But uh, ya boy is lowkey SPRUNG cause Laia is cute and she got them CHILD BIRTHING HIPS.

Geena: Kae got that *Chef’s kiss* Elias/Ilyaas summary I s2g. I loved Elias because he was honest to god such a refreshing character to read. Like he seems like the typical YA boy → Tall, dark, handsome, and brooding. BUT!!! He’s so different and in the best way possible. FIRST OFF!!! He actually has such a fulfilling childhood (no sad backstory other than learning his mom is an actual piece of shit rip…. More like sad present story). Secondly, he recognizes that what he’s doing is wrong and the way the Martials terrorize Scholar’s is garbage and he wants no part of it. THIRD, he doesn’t like to push his own trauma on those around him? IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT WELL, but like he’s such an upstanding guy that treats people well no matter what? Also… he’s lowkey a dumbass… like Kae mentioned when he first met Laia his brain hit a reset and he was essentially like “Me name potato.” We love a hot dumb jock that chugs that respecting women juice. 

Kae: OMG HE’S A TALL, THINNER ALTAIR MINUS DICK JOKES. HE’S NASIR AND ALTAIR IN ONE.  ASDFGHJKL 

Geena: YEEEEAASSSSS (check out that review here). ALSO MY final thots on Laia and Elias that as a duo they’re amazing! Laia gives Elias advice when they’re stuck in his room together 🤪 and he finally chooses that he’ll do what HE wants and not what the empire wants. Elias, in turn, vows to help find and save Darin…. I love them sm they bring the best out of each other 😭 

→ Izzy ft. Helene’s One Singular Good Person Moment

Kae: IZZY! Izzy is the epitome is sugar, spice, and everything nice. Well, minus the spice because she’s really just a sweet little sugar plum. Izzy is also Keris’ slave. She’s around the same age as Laia if not a year or two younger. She’s very quiet and tries to keep to herself. But she finds herself secretly being friends with Laia and helping her when things are the absolute worst. When Keris carved her initials into Laia’s chest, Laia got really sick. Our girl had a crazy fever and Izzy was there to help her through it. Well, she got Elias and he got some herbs and shit, BUT IZZY HELPED. Though Izzy has been a slave her entire life, she has always wanted to be free of Blackcliffe and all of its horrors. So she works with Laia, sneaking out, and sometimes stealing, to make sure that can happen for the both of them. I should also mention that Keris took Izzy’s eye as a child. So Izzy is a small, skinny, fragile, one eyed sweetie. But all of her hardship doesn’t stop her from being such a genuinely good person. 

Geena: Izzy is such a sweet character who tries her best to not be friends with Laia, but people GRAVITATE to Laia (good and bad rip) so she didn’t hold out very long. My favourite scene with them was when they sneak out to participate in some yearly festival that is ~~illegal~~ such a sweet moment I lowkey died.  Moving on to Helene though, the poster child of brainwashed, patriotic, eating-propaganda-for-breakfast, and the second best Mask after Elias. Helene is also shown to have feelings for Elias so when Laia shows up she’s not pleased at all! And Elias himself is confused about his feelings and rip when he was like “Let me try to kiss Helene and see if I like her too” LIKE BOY…. DON’T PLAY HER LIKE THAT PLS…. BUT he doesn’t bc Laia is ATTACKED thus interrupting their moment and Helene is annoyed like “OFC IT’D BE THAT BINCH!!!” like Helene the poor girl was attacked by another walking bag of shit o my god… BUT!!! Near the end of the book when Elias and Laia are escaping Helene is the first one to catch them, but she lets them go! A turning point for her character maybe? Though I know for a fact she didn’t care about Laia, but was doing it bc she still cared for Elias and didn’t want to see him slaughtered no matter how much she’s a ride-or-die for the Martials. 

The Bad :  

→ The Scholar Resistance 

Kae: Is that what they were called? Because they HIGHKEY played tf out of Laia. Alright. The Resistance. They’re mean and I HATE THEM. The Resistance is a rebel movement by a few Scholars who are fighting for the freedom and equality or their people. Laia’s parents were like, the biggest, most badass leaders who have ever lead them. But after they died, things kind of fell apart for The Resistance. Laia, stumbles into their hideout after she runs away from home, after her brother was kidnapped and her grandparents were killed. She begs for them to help her and they’re basically like “Mmmm. No. But you look familiar tho… Who ya momma nem?” and she’s like “lol yeah actually my parents used to run this shit so help me.” And they help her… Kind of… They basically send her ona  dummy mission. A SUICIDE MISSION to be the Commandant’s slave (Keris), to gather information about the Martials and their next plan. In return, they were to help free Darin. Laia was to gather info, then meet with Keenan (a boy in the Resistance) to give over said info every week. Well, they also chose not to tell Laia that she was basically on this mission for nothing. They had no real way to get Darin out of the prison he was being held at. They were really just sending her to die because they KNEW Keris was ruthless and that none of her slaves lasted more than a few months before they were killed or killed themselves. Long story short, FUCK The Resistance. They’re bitches and we HATE THEM. 

Geena: Kae’s right… the Resistance is a bunch of wrinkly ass losers that can kiss our asses. When it was revealed that the Resistance didn’t know SHIT about Darin and were just fucking with Laia…. I was ready to to go down to this place and fight them mySELF. Laia risked EVERYTHING to get them information, she survived for god knows how long under Keris and when she couldn’t come up with something substantial they’d be like “Oh well you’re fucking useless” as if she’s not the daughter of the Lioness aka the most fierce Resistance leader that they ever had. Also, Keenan (....) comes through in the end and offers her a way to break her slave cuffs and escape, but Laia decides that Izzy deserves that more than she does and that Laia would find her own way out… But also imagine the betrayal that Laia felt, the people that were supposed to keep her safe and help her were just screwing her over the whole time. But… despite everything that happens Laia is still her sweet self? Just like Ilyaas… both manage to maintain their humanity no matter the shit thrown at them. 

The Ugly:  

→ Keris’ tiny little mean ass 

Kae: Geena said that shit, baybeeee! Ugh, her MIIIIND. Alright. Now. Let’s talk about “The Bitch of Blackcliffe”. This woman. Evil, vile woman, is basically a 5’3, blonde hair demon. She has absolutely no patience. If you sneeze in the same room as her she’ll probs slit your throat and make a disgusted, disappointed face at you while doing it. She will tolerate NOTHING. You will not speak to her unless spoken to. I mean, this is a woman who wanted to look like so much of a badass that she thought being pregnant and delivering her own baby in a cave alone would make her look weak. I think that was actually pretty tough of her though because whew… I couldn’t do it.

Geena: She got back to her neanderthal roots

Kae: LMAOOO GIRL IM DEAD.But like,  in her youth, Keris went to Blackcliffe. As we heard from her father at some point, Keris was miserable there. She was taunted, picked on, and beat up (mind you she was the only girl at that school so that’s fucked up). She had absolutely no friends and had to fend for herself. So, to make up for it, Keris became ruthless. She became a heartless woman because people made her that way. I hate to be that person, but like, I get it? I can see why someone would become so coldhearted. She did not have a good life. Her mother died when she was young, her father wasn’t there, and she had no friends. I’m not surprised at all that she turned out to be such a horrible person as an adult. No, I’m not giving he an excuse. She had the option to be a good person and she didn’t choose that. But, yeah. That’s my take on her evil ass.  WHEW. OKAY DO YA THANG. 

Geena: TRUE, Kae’s right, Keris had that sad :( childhood :( but at the same time, it’s like… you didn’t have to continue being a dick like people were to you but here we are. Also, she’s genuinely such a terrible person and orchestrates the genocide of the Scholars and is a BITCH about everything. What I realize now is that…. She’s essentially Elias’s foil? Like neither had a solid father figure, both had a tough time growing up (with Elias missing his tribal home and being forced to murder, and Keris being bullied), but Elias does his best to break out of that cycle but Keris is like… *slurps up the shitty Martial mudwater*... she is the bootlicker supreme who finds joy at having her son beheaded (Helene is Bootlicker Lite because at least she let Elias live whereas Keris tried her best to get him killed) BUT JOKES ON THAT BITCH BC ELIAS LIVES!!!!  Elias would send Keris a crude drawing of himself like “I lived bitch!” 

Anyways, she’s an extremely well-written villain else we wouldn’t hate her so much lmao…

Conclusion 

Kae: In conclusion, we fuck with it. I loved this series so much, I read the first three books in one week and was heartbroken to find out that the fourth book wasn’t out yet. YA GIRL IS ATTACHED TO THESE CHARACTERS, OKAY!???? An Ember in the Ashes is a wonderful, extremely well written book. I think Sabaa is a literal genuis. This book made me fall in love with reading all over again. I think the characters are so individually different, it’s amazing. They are well distinguished and independent of each other. They are strong and sweet and funny and evil. Just all around AMAZING as well as the folklore, stories, and cultures that are presented to the audience. 

Geena: yyyeeeaaaass the care that Sabaa Tahir put into this book, ranging from how each character is written to the intricate worldbuilding got a bitch tearing up, BECAUSE ONE DAY I WISH TO WRITE THIS WELL!! An Ember in the Ashes draws you in from the first page, and I litcherally say this for every book we’ve reviewed but there’s NEVER a dull moment (I need a new phrase lmao) you are constantly stressed reading this book (in a good way) and there’s like 2 more books after… and the last book in the series on the way. BLEASE READ Ember, because Kae and I have spent our whole time talking SCREECHING about this book. THINKING ABOUT IT, WITHOUT EMBER WE WOULDN’T HAVE THIS BLOG LMAOOO  

Kae: OKAY BUT LIKE. LITERALLY. WE STARTED TALKING AND BECAME REAL GOOD FRIENDS BECAUSE OF THIS BOOK. LIKE, WITHOUT EMBER, THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED. SO THANKS, SABAA. 

Geena: WE LOVE YOU, SABAA!!

Kae: And I guess that concludes today’s book rant/review! I hope you all enjoy our ramblings and more! 

#an ember in the ashes #sabaa tahir #aeita #book review #booklr #bookworms #book blog #book blogger #book blogging #bookblr #Laia of Serra #Elias Veturius #books #reading #wetalkinboutbooks

[allbornofink]

On/off-screen conversations that probably happened on Game Of Thrones

Int. Writer’s room

Benioff: So, to recap - we started with a political drama set in a medieval fantasy world.

Weiss: Yep. And we had a magic zombie subplot playing out in the background, to feed into the fantasy element.

Benioff: Which was kind of interesting. Though, a lot of people pointed out that ‘political drama’ and ‘zombie horror’ are 2 genres don’t really make sense together. You know, ‘cause like, one is somewhat negated by the other.

Weiss: Which is a fair point.

Benioff: It is fair. Definitely fair. Mind you, we did manage to mingle the two in season 7, by making some of the politics about dealing with zombies. That was quite effective, I think.

Weiss: I mean, it worked in the Star Wars prequels.

Benioff: Certainly did. But the question now is; going into the final season...

Weiss: How do we continue to tie the two plots together, so that we can end everything cleanly?

Benioff: Exactly. Any ideas?

Weiss:

Benioff:

Weiss:

Benioff: George? Any ideas?

GRRM: Don’t look at me. I wrote dragons into the series on a whim.

Benioff: Ah.

Weiss: Hmm.

Benioff: ... fuck it. We’ll just do the first half on zombies and the second half on politics.

Weiss: Sounds good to me. And by ‘politics’, you mean...

Benioff: By politics, I mean that the characters that hate each other will now VIOLENTLY hate each other until there’s no more hatred left.

Weiss: Excellent. World peace achieved.

GRRM: I’m a writer.

Benioff: Yes. Of course you are, George.

Int. Winterfell war council

Tyrion: So what do we know about these White Walkers? How do we beat them?

Jon: Well, they can raise the dead, but you can beat them with fire. And the walkers themselves are allergic to dragonglass.

Gendry: I have a lot of dragonglass.

Jon: Alright. So we’re sorted for dragonglass.

Varys: And the fire?

Sansa: This is the North. We know how to make fire.

Jon: Set for dragonglass. Set for fire. Excellent.

Dany: I have dragons.

Jon:

Dany: Dragons make fire.

Jon: Uh, yeah. And... Dany has dragons. So, double the fire. Excellent.

Dany: (whispers) Triple...

Tyrion: ...indeed. Well, sounds like we’re all set. Meeting adjourned.

A logical person: Wait wait wait, Hold on, I have a few questions.

Tyrion: Such as?

LP: So we’re relying on the dragons for fire...

Dany: (whispers) Dragonssss...

LP: Yes, thank you. But won’t the dragons be fighting the wight dragon? What if they’re not around when we need the fire?

Jon: Hmm........I guess... Witches?

LP: ...witches?

Jon: Yeah. This is a magical land. There are probably witches. Right, guys?

Davos: I’ve met a witch many times.

Gendry: I was leeched by a witch once.

Davos: Weird flex but ok.

Jon: Yeah, that’s super gross. But it does prove my point.

LP: Does it? Wait, what point?

Jon: If the dragons are busy...

Dany: (whispers) Dragonssss...

Jon: ...a witch will come...probably.

LP: O..K... You also said that the walkers can raise the dead.

Jon:Ooh, someone’s been listening.

LP: So if we send our armies out to fight the wights, and they die, won’t the walkers just end up with a bigger army?

Jon: True... But we will have a lot of fire.

Dany: I AM THE QUEEN OF FIRE

Jon: Yes. Of course you are, Dany.

Int. Writer’s room

Benioff: Alright. Episode 3: Big zombie battle.

Weiss: Is that really the best title?

Benioff: No, that’s the synopsis.

Weiss: Oh, right. Yeah, this’ll be good. Good chance to kill off some characters, so the finale won’t be too crowded.

Benioff: Yeah. I’m thinking, like, 5?

Weiss: Wow. 5 main character deaths? That is brutal.

Benioff: No no. 1 main character, 1 secondary character that no one cares about, 2 tertiary characters from a few seasons ago that no one remembers, and a minor character that everyone likes because we deliberately made them badass and nothing else.

Weiss: OK. But with such a big battle surely it would be more realistic for a few main characters to die.

Benioff: I don’t think we’ll have the time.

Weiss: Well, there’ll be plenty of action sequences.

Benioff: Are you forgetting the first rule of writing GOT episodes?

Weiss: You mean, “Write cool yet superficial moments between likeable yet problematic characters and then tie them together with a tenuous and inconsistent plot”?

Benioff: That’s the one.

Weiss: Oh, I see. If we want to kill characters...

Benioff: We have to give them moments. No matter who they are or how unimportant.

Weiss: Alright. Well, what about The Hound? He could face his fear of fire and then he could sacrifice himself to save Arya.

Benioff: Or, even better idea; we hint that we’re going to do that and then we don’t do that.

Weiss: Ah, of course. Because you want to do Clegane-Bowl later.

Benioff:

Weiss:

Benioff:

Weiss:

Benioff: What the fuck is ‘Clegane-Bowl’?

Int. Winterfell war council

Jon: So we’re all agreed. Bran will act as bait for The Night King.

A logical person: Hang on, if he’s bait, does that mean we’re setting a trap?

Jon: Well...yes.

LP: So, what is the trap? How do we catch The Night King exactly?

Jon:

LP:

Jon:

LP:

Jon: Remember ‘the fire’ we mentioned earlier?

Bran: (thinking to himself) I wonder if I should mention to anyone that Arya will be the trap? Nah. I’m sure she’ll work it out. Either that or some witch we’ll give her a vague hint about it. We have witches, right?

Int. Production meeting.

Designer: So I was thinking about colour grading for the big battle. And I was looking at Helm’s Deep as a reference. It’s got that grim, dark look whilst still having clear detail and elegance.

Producer: No no no. We don’t want Helm’s Deep. We want WINTERFELL. You know? ICE AND FIRE.

Designer: Ice and fire... So, like, white and...orange? I guess that could work.

Producer: Yes! But, dirty ice. FILTHY ice. Ice mixed with ASHES. The kind of ice you fight a war on!

Designer: So... grey?

Producer: Yes! But ‘dark grey’

Designer: ...like ‘slate grey’?

Producer: NO! Darker than that. Grey so dark it’s almost black!

Designer: OK. So, grey that’s almost black and...orange?

Producer: Not orange. FIRE!

Designer: ...right. You know, that’s going to make it really hard to see anything.

Producer: See? SEE?! Have you never fought in a medieval battle?!

Designer: No. No one has.

Producer: It’s about realism, kid. When you’re fighting in a medieval battle, it’s fucking chaotic! There’s dirt. There’s dust. AND YOU CAN’T SEE SHIT!

Designer: So... You don’t want the audience...to see the episode?

Producer: Yes! That’s right! I don’t want them to just SEE it. I want them to FEEL the INTENSITY! Like they’re being knocked about the place. And they can’t focus straight ahead, like they’re looking through a handheld camera. Ooh! Write that down!

#i don't know what this is #I got a bit carried away #this show is a mess #and it was always going to be #game of thrones #game of thrones spoilers #got spoilers #got s8e3 #got s8 spoilers

[noddytheornithopod]

Started Danganronpa V3... and yeah, it’s already a fuckton to take in. I’ll do my usual game commentary thing of course.

Weird opening scene where Kaede and Shuichi arrive in a classroom in lockers but have no talents, and it turns out the other 14 students don’t have talents either? Also we’re chased by a giant mech and it turns out there’s other ones and they’re controlled by Monokubs.

Yeah, Monokubs are a thing. So far they’re... okay, I guess? IDK if they just need to grow on me or it’s just a lot to take in, but I’m not sure I’m following their shtick, even if there’s a weirdly amusing cheesiness to them. Monodam is easily the best one though, it’s always the quiet ones you gotta watch. Monosuke has some fun meta moments and Monokid has a few nice lines, but for now I’m gonna wait and see on them. Also... Monokid has a dick???

So the students were supposedly all kidnapped by someone (Monokuma’s forces?). This will obviously come up later, also this is a different school, the Ultimate Academy, which is apparently under construction still. The Monokubs also make them all “remember” their talents, which I can’t help but find suspicious (especially since it’s later suggested them forgetting stuff could be a result of brainwashing).

Music is great as usual, though the voice in the Monokubs theme is kinda weird. Visually it definitely seems like there’s a lot of upgrades, the game looks pretty nice. Also like the gameplay mechanic of shaking objects for Monocoins. The school is a bit hard to navigate right now but hopefully I’ll get used to it.

I REALLY dig the addititon of showing Kaede’s face when she talks to other characters, it really adds more character to the interactions. I’ve seen people call Makoto and Hajime bland protagonists, and while I don’t completely agree I do think showing us Kaede’s reactions during dialogue and not just internal monologue really helps convey more personality.

I like Kaede so far! She has a few Makoto vibes with the cheerful optimist shtick, but I am getting a sense of how she’s unique. Like obviously she has her pianist talent, but I mean personality wise she seems a bit more confident, even brash at times? Also a lot of her reaction sprites in dialogue are pretty cute.

Shuichi I’m gonna wait a bit on, because I’m not sure what to think yet. I do appreciate they’re doing an ultimate detective that’s different to Kirigiri, one that’s way less sure of himself and lacks confidence. TBH I kinda get a few me vibes from him with the quiet and introverted shy guy thing, lol. Bets: him and Kaede will have some sort of romantic interactiton at some point because all these fucking games do. But yeah, no strong impressions yet but he has potential.

Tsumugi Shirogane is probably one of my faves so far. She’s just really fun and nerdy, and also kinda weird which I like. Also, Kaede, you are NOT straight, you clearly find her attractive.

Rantaro is a mystery. He’s our resident ??? of the game, so he’s obviously going to play some part in the larger story going on... probably, unless they’re subverting things. He seems like one to watch out for, he’s oddly chill about everything.

K1-B0 IDK about yet, he does kinda give me Astro Boy vibes though (but without the dead kid backstory thank fuck). So far he just seems like “the robot guy” and there to make robot jokes (not gonna lie, the “robophobic” line was pretty lousy IMO), though I’m sure that will change.

Kokichi... okay I already can’t stand this fucker. Leave K1-B0 alone you prick. Also, ultimate supreme leader of an evil organisation... if he’s not lying. He seems to REALLY be into lying. Given this game is apparently all about truth and lies, he’s definitely one to watch out for. If he’s not lying about himself, then this evil organisation might be important. Relation to plot aside... he is so fucking annoying seriously.

Miu Iruma kinda gives me Hiyoko vibes, but is somehow more likeable. Weird scientist girl could be interesting. Also she likes drugs and makes inventions to increase productivity when you sleep, lol. The pervert exchange with her and Shuichi was weird, but that’s Danganronpa, of course you have weird shit like that. Also she seems to really play up her looks, lol. Bets: she talks about how she’s the most attractive girl ever and shit but she’s gonna fall for K1-B0 isn’t she, like personality wise he’s fairly plain but he’s also a robot so she’d be fascinated by him? Or will that be subverted too lol.

Himiko isn’t too remarkable right now even if her backstory is intriguing, Tenko isn’t too much either but she does have a bit more going for her in terms of personality. Also I guess she’s our Mahiru, calling boys degenerates. :P Also... Kaede did you find her attractive as well? Maki I feel the same about too, she does have potential but there’s not much to say.

IDK what’s up with Ryoma, but he definitely is gonna be a killer or be killed at some point. He seems ready to kill, it’s hilarious.

Korekiyo is weird. Not much to say. He’s just really fucking weird.

Kaito is pretty charismatic, a hotshot astronaut. In terms of likeability he ranks one of the highest as of now.

Kirumi Tojo is a maid... with how she seems willing to serve everyone, I definitely think she’d gonna be caught up in a murder somehow, whether she does it for someone or does something for a blackened.

Not sure about Gonta, it’s cool that he’s nice but the first person is pretty heavy handed. Also the animals thing reminds me of Gundham, lol. He feels very Tarzan, living in the wild and raised by wolves. Wonder if saying you hate bugs will cause a murder?

Angie... okay I don’t think I’m a fan, because TBH she feels racist. She’s clearly Pasifika, probably Polynesian (Atua are apparently Polynesian gods and spirits, and she says Atua is her god), but it feels like such a stereotype of indigenous people. She acts simple and naive, is cheerful to strangers, does everything because of a god, wears only a bikini under her robe (because apparently Polynesian people all dress like fucking hula girls or something) and does sacrifices (that involve blood, because of course they’re brutal). I hope they flesh her out more, because this stereotypical portrayal really isn’t sitting well with me.

Thank fuck Monokuma finally shows up at the end of the Prologue. I love how hilariously heavy handed the line about him being knowledgeable from reading “alternate facts” from “fake news” (YES THEY FUCKING WENT THERE).

I do wonder how this is all going to fit together, especially since in the intro they showed all the past games and the Danganronpa 3 anime to indicate this is in fact a continuation of the same story and not a soft reboot. I’ve heard a couple of things here and there and I’m not sure how much context I have, but these things tied with all this talk about everything feeling fake and like it’s not real (especially when they just suddenly “remember” their talents) is certainly fishy. There’s also been a lot of fourth wall breaking (especially with that weird intro where everyone had no talents and the mechs and they had to redo it when they “regained” their memories) and talk about not following the script correctly, hmm...

There was a shot of Kaede lying in some kind of chamber. Is this more Neo-World shit going on?

Okay WOW that’s a lot, I should play some more tonight.

#danganronpa V3

[kimnamjooonz]

Blank Space - Episode 11

Everything Has Changed

Songs used in this Episode:

Everything Has Changed - Taylor Swift ft Ed Sheeran

Feelings are shared, words are said and confessions are made.

''Come back and tell me why I'm feeling like I've missed you all this time, and meet me there tonight and tell me that this is not all in my mind''

''We don't want to get out through the main door'' Morgan stated. ''It's full of paparazzi. What do think they'll think if they see us leave together? You don't want to start rumours... or do you?'' That was the least thing that Morgan wanted. There were already people in the world that thought that Sebastian and Morgan would make hell of a couple, and even though they weren't wrong, she didn't want to be seen as if they were following that advice. And there was the tiny detail that he had a girlfriend. ''I thought you were the queen of not giving a fuck. You're my date and everyone knows that, they're expecting us to leave together. And we're just getting pizza, not spending the night in a cheap motel.'' He was right. If they left together there wouldn't be much of a fuss as if they left separately or with different people. ''You have no shame'' ''Great. Now let's leave'' As they expected, the paparazzi started taking pictured and shouting questions at them by the second they took a glimpse of them. ''Morgan! Are you walking in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show?'' No, she wasn't. ''Are you two dating?'' No, they weren't. He had a girlfriend, for God's sake. ''Sebastian, do you want to see Morgan stepping on the runway?'' Yes, he wanted. Better if it was in lingerie. ''Morgan, is it true that you're planning to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe?'' She wanted to laugh. Of course that she wanted to join the MCU but it wasn't as if she could show up in Atlanta and Marvel was going to give her a role out of the blue. ''Morgan, is it true that you and Chris Evans have been seeing each other?'' And that was enough for Sebastian who did the most stupid thing he could have done and not even Morgan was ready for it. He just simply reached out for her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. And that gesture in itself said enough. Morgan wanted to murder him. Yes, there was nothing wrong with leaving together but leaving together holding hands in front of a horde of paparazzi was a complete different story. ''You make a really hot couple!'' some paparazzi shouted. ''Thank you!'' he shouted back with a big smile on his face. Well, Morgan was sure that they were going to be brutally murdered by Taylor and Emily when they found out about what had just happened. And thank to the wonders of the Internet they'll find out very soon. And stan twitter was probably going to blow up in pieces after this. With all the calm in the world he guided her towards a taxi and opened the door for her to enter. Every single one of their movements were being caught in camera. ''You idiot!'' she hissed after Sebastian closed the door. ''What have you done?'' ''Calm down, nothing's wrong. Do you think these people will think that I'm cheating on my girlfriend in such a public and shameless way?'' ''Of course they will, you idiot! They were already suspecting it after out little show at MSG! How do you think this will be seen? You held my hand and basically shouted that we look hot together!'' ''Where's the lie, Llewellyn. I though you didn't care about people's opinion'' he raised his eyebrows. ''And I don't. Look, I don't care about your girlfriend, I don't care about the general public, I don't care about the media. But I don't really want to face Taylor. And she will want to kill me''. That seemed to ground Sebastian. ''And Emily...'' now he looked concerned. ''...damn, what have I done.'' ''What's done is done'' Morgan had no other option than resign herself. ''Now let's get that pizza.'' ''Are you really seeing Chris Evans?'' he asked out of nowhere. The best answer to that question was 'It's none of you goddamned business' but she decided to tell him the truth. ''We talked for half an hour about pets and I didn't even get his number. That question answers itself. It's a no, by the way. Happy?'' ''Actually, yes'' he had a triumphant smile on his face. The taxi left them in front of a Pizza Hut. Sebastian guided Morgan inside, as if they were getting into the most elegant restaurant of the city. ''We can't stay here'' he started when they had already got the pizza boxes and a couple of beers. ''People are already looking at us and we're not very discreetly dressed.'' Morgan knew that it was true. They were dressed for an elegant party not for getting pizza. ''Let's get out of here.'' this time she grabbed his arm and got him out of the place. They were looking for a place to eat for a little while until they settled for a spot under a tree in a park. Elegant. ''I'm sitting on the grass in a thousand dollar dress. Luke will kill me tomorrow, add him to the list of people that'll want to murder me after this.'' she grabbed a slice of pizza. ''And this is an Hugo Boss suit. My stylist is getting my neck tomorrow.'' he delicately bit his pizza. ''As everyone wants to kill us, I suggest that we elope together before someone notices. Look, we can go north, to Alaska, get a nice cabin in the woods and live there.'' ''Yeah, that's what I was planning: changing my promising acting career for Alaska and a cabin in the woods.'' ''You get me as part of the deal'' he winked at her. ''That's irresistible'' she joked. ''It's not that bad... we'll become friends in time. We'll be in a small cabin in the woods so maybe even romance will flourish between us'' he cheekily winked at her. What he had said sounded like the plot of a cheesy Christmas movie. ''You sure? Because I think that it's more probable that we'll end up in a bigger war. We don't get on very well so imagine if we're left alone for weeks.'' ''Don't be such a pessimist, Llewellyn. Alaska would change us'' ''Forgive me if I can't see how Alaska may change us. Both of us under the same roof is not even a potential disaster, is a guaranteed catastrophe.'' Sebastian was having fun with Morgan's answers. But he couldn't help by wonder how would it feel to share a home with her. It would either be a nightmare or a dream, there was no middle ground. ''Don't be too harsh... look at us, we're having plenty of fun.'' ''Because we're desperate. We were starving in a place where the only thing left to eat was shrimp.'' She had a point. But Sebastian also knew that if he had gone at that party by himself, he'd have stayed there and forcefully eaten the shrimp. He had to thank Morgan for making him a braver person. ''Fair point. But I also think you're more fun than everybody else.'' Morgan almost laughed at him. ''You're a masochist if you think I'm fun. The only thing I do, ninety percent of the time is mortify you. Sometimes I'm kind of sorry but then you ask the most inappropriate questions and say stuff that makes want to smack you in the head.'' ''Inappropriate? Me?'' his eyes got impossibly big. '''Are you seeing Chris Evans?''' she mocked his voice. ''I let that one pass but why do you even care?'' before he started rambling some rushed explanation Morgan stopped him. ''Don't answer that. It just surprises me how cool you think I am. Probably Evans doesn't even remember me and you thought we were dating.'' ''No one that's seen you, can forget you. And I think you're... interesting, even if half of the time I want to send you back to Wales.'' She wasn't surprised about that at all. There were days that Morgan herself would have preferred to work with anybody else in the industry rather than Sebastian Stan. ''Nice to know'' she took a sip of her beer. ''Coming back to Alaska... I think that if Damien wants to unleash all the chemistry we have inside, he should send us there for a while.'' ''Don't give him ideas. He's capable of doing it. He was the one us that convinced Taylor to send me here with you.'' ''He ships us.'' Morgan sent him a weird look. ''Since when do you speak fangirl?'' immediately Morgan regretted having said this. It was better not to mention the word 'fangirl' in front of Sebastian. She had been his fan and that was something he could never knew if she didn't want him to tease her until the next century. ''Nevermind. Forget it. is not that he likes us together, he needs us together, at least in a friendly way, to hype the movie so the general public can see how good we look together. I thought you knew how things worked in Hollywood.'' ''Yeah, but I never had to date anyone for publicity.'' ''You're not dating me for publicity'' she immediately said. ''I was never going to agree to that. But Damien is literally setting us up.'' Sebastian felt a weird feeling of gratitude towards Damien. Yes, he knew it wasn't right but he couldn't control his emotions. ''He's not the only one'' he decided to lead the conversation ahead from his own feelings without changing the topic. ''All the Internet apparently share his view. I am constantly tagged in countless of Instagram collages about us. I swear that they can't wait to see us married with three kids and a dog.'' Yeah, Sebastian fans also made manips of him married to Chris Evans, living happily ever after and taking pictures every Christmas with Dodger in them. Morgan herself had retweeted a couple, in the past, of course. So, nothing surprised her anymore. ''If they only knew....''' she laughed ''...that this is absolutely impossible'' That hurt Sebastian a little. He knew that Morgan had never expressed much interest in him in that way but hearing her rejecting the possibility in such a  direct way, wasn't nice at all. Maybe it was because he had a girlfriend and that had ruled him out completely from Morgan's list of possible love interests. If she even had one. ''Wow, you have the same sensitivity of a rusted axe.'' he tried to sound sarcastic but there was a hint of hurt in his voice that Morgan noticed. And it wasn't acted. She couldn't believe how big his ego was if he had got offended by getting ruled out of some imaginary possibility. And it wasn't even true because the main supporter of the Morgan-Sebastian ship was Morgan herself. But never in a million years she was going to say it out loud. ''What a snowflake. Really, you're about to make me laugh. I don't say it's impossible because I'm rejecting you of your fans' imaginary plans. I'm saying it because it's biologically impossible that their fantasy ever become a reality.'' It took a while for Sebastian to process and then understand her words. But when he finally did, he felt that he was the one with the sensitivity of a rusted axe. He had judged Morgan without knowing the whole story. Morgan noticed the regret on his face and how much he wanted to say something but he was struggling to find words. And Morgan didn't help him. He desperately wanted to ask something to make sure that his suspicions were correct and he hadn't misunderstood Morgan's words. ''Just ask whatever you have in your mind'' But he couldn't just ask such a personal question, let alone in a couple of minutes later that he had called her a 'rusted axe'. ''You... you...'' he wasn't able to say anything. ''No, Sebastian, I will never be able to have children of my own. And change that sad expression from your face, please, because it's really stupid. Look, it doesn't affect me so I can't see no reason why it should affect you.'' But Sebastian's sad face was actually regret. He felt awful for bringing a sensitive topic without knowing nothing. ''I'm so, so, so, so sorry.'' he was looking directly at Morgan's eyes. ''I didn't know... I feel like such a stupid idiot for bringing this topic and... I called you insensitive... you have no idea how sorry I am''. And Morgan noticed that it was sincere. ''Don't worry. It's not really a sensitive topic. I've known about this little issue since I was fifteen and I've come to terms with it a long time ago. It's not even a secret. Look, women are not reproductive machines. We're human beings capable of doing great things. If you think that not being able to pop out a child out of my body lessens my worth as a woman, let me kick you in the head back to the eighteenth century, where you belong.'' He lifted his hands in surrender. ''I don't think that way, Morgan, I swear. Women are the most powerful beings in the universe, independently if they have kids or not, who cares about that. I mean, the world is already overpopulated and dying, we don't need more kids. And women are more stronger an brave than men, only idiots with fragile masculinity can't admit it. You have to deal with periods, that according with what I've read around, they feel like you're being stabbed. Men could never.'' Well, at least he was a man that didn't blush or got uncomfortable by the word 'period'. Points for him. ''You're right in something, I can't believe it.'' she mocked him. ''If having a period is bad enough, I can't imagine giving birth. Literally, you're pushing a watermelon from your lady parts.'' This time Sebastian blushed and looked embarrassed as hell, even with the light of the park's lamp post she could notice. Morgan just raised her eyebrows and looked at him with mild curiosity. He was giving her good material to tease him. ''Wow, wow, wow. What left the mighty Sebastian Stan so hot and bothered. Was it the lady parts or the watermelon? If it's the watermelon I might be... sightly concerned.'' Sebastian blushed even more. ''I can't believe you're so direct. You just described a birth using a watermelon as an example. I'm never forgetting this.'' ''What is so weird about it? Do you know how kids are brought into this world or do you still believe that the seagulls bring them?'' ''Seagulls?'' Sebastian was wondering in which Welsh legend seagulls brought babies. ''Maybe you mean storks, Morgan.'' ''Yeah, it's the same thing, they both have wings, who cares.'' Morgan wasn't an expert at differencing birds. Everything that had wings, feathers and a beak were either chickens, ducks, seagulls or pigeons. ''That's wasn't the point.'' ''I'm not that stupid to believe in legends, I never did by the way. And before you ask, I don't believe in Santa.'' suddenly he laughed. ''Seagulls... look, when we'll have to do the press junkets to our movie and someone asks me for a funny cast anecdote I'm going to tell them that you confused seagulls with storks.'' She actually didn't mind. ''I'm not an intellectual prodigy, Sebastian''. He looked surprised. Yeah, Morgan may be annoying and obnoxious but he always thought that she was smart. Maybe she liked learning certain things and focused on them rather than trying to learn about everything. ''I think you are pretty smart. Yeah, maybe you're not Stephen Hawking but... who is. You have another type of knowledge, the one that you can't learn in books.'' Morgan wondered why he got out of his way to compliment her. It was not as she deserved his kindness. But he was a kind person to literally everyone. But this was the Sebastian Stan she had imagined for the past five years. The one that had destroyed her standards in men. The Sebastian she had fallen in love with. ''You give good compliments, Sebastian.'' ''Maybe I do'' he lifted her chin with his fingers so he could look at her better. ''See? You can be nice if you want to. You've been pretty nice tonight, Morgan.'' It was hard for them to resist the temptation and not kiss. They had to gather all the will they had in themselves to keep calm. ''I think we should go'' she proposed. After all, they had finished with their food. ''I think so.'' They gathered the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles and threw them in the trash can. The way back to the hotel was quiet and calm. They weren't speaking but the silence between tem wasn't uncomfortable at all. They fell at ease with each other. Only when they got into the elevator they could notice how messy they were. They had grass and pizza crumbs on their expensive clothes. Morgan had even stained her dress with beer. Luke was going to kill her. ''You have a leaf in your hair, Morgan'' he brush it away with extreme softness. Morgan got off in the seventh floor and Sebastian stood alone on the elevator, more confused than ever. She was driving him crazy and he wasn't doing anything to prevent it. On the contrary, he was all the time finding more and more reasons to be more attracted to Morgan if it was possible. Once he got into his room, and after changing his clothes for something more comfortable than an elegant and expensive suit, he threw himself to the bed and tried hard to fall asleep. But he couldn't. He was just waiting for someone (Morgan of course) to knock on his door. They didn't need to say a word, he'd just get her into his room and slowly take off that amazing red dress of hers, even if it was stained with grass. He'd take his time with her, without rushing anything, making sure of kissing every single inch of her skin, paying special attention to her long and kissable neck. He'd let her do the same to him, touch his skin with that long and soft fingers. He was hers to keep and she could do whatever her wanted. Kiss him, lick him, bite him, taste him, scratch him, whatever she wanted. Afterward, he'd made love to her in the most exquisite and intimate way he could imagine, enjoying every single second of it. But that was too good to be true, and of course that it was not going to happen. Morgan was probably fast asleep in her room, not giving a damn about his turbulent feelings.

P.S. Seagulls? Really Morgan?

#sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan x ofc #sebastian stan imagine #Sebastian Stan #sebastian #sebastian stan x reader #Bucky Barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky #The Avengers #marvel #marvel cast #MCU #MCU fanfiction #mcu cast #mcu fandom

[timeisacephalopod]

AU-College. Tony/?. Tony already 17 and working on yet another doctorate has just returned from home after a school break. He's covered in bruises but he doesn't bother to hide them because he honestly believes no one notices or cares. Always on edge and doing anything and everything to forget the pain, Tony is confused when people he doesn't even know start to ask if he's okay and if he needs any help. Laughing in their face he replied. "You can't help, no one can." (I feel dark today sry?)

So I went with Tony/ Eddie Brock (from Venom if you don’t know). Eddie is an investigative journalist (or in this case he’s in school to be one) and tbh I have no freaking clue how journalism school works (journalism school?) so I’ve sort of made it work like humanities courses? Idk, just accept my bad plot needs bois. Also I altered the ‘you can’t help’ line to better fit the scenario, but the sentiment is the same.

As the prompt suggests, warning abuse references.

Eddie needs a story and since his asshole prof likes corporations a lot more than he does that’s out. Which throws a bunch of stuff in his usual wheelhouse out with it. He thought homelessness was a good topic but got told that wasn’t news, which he doesn’t understand because to his knowledge homelessness isn’t solved. Then he thought hey, school shootings happen basically every other day- they like to say if it bleeds it leads and a whole lot of kids seem to be dying. But he got told the news is already oversaturated with that. So he thought fine, maybe police brutality, that’s violent and not on the news much but he got told that was too controversial and what the fuck is the news for if not to be controversial?

Now he’s stuck with the task of finding a story his irritatingly picky prof will like and to add insult to the injury one of his classmates got approved to write about cryptocurrency. What the fuck is that? Stupid, in Eddie’s opinion. His topics were important, real world issues and this dumbass over here gets to write shit about something no one cares about. Predictable.

He’s eating his muffin angrily and wondering if he can somehow convince his prof to let him write something about climate change and the fact that no matter what an individual does, its still 100 companies doing seventy percent of the damage so why is the news focusing on individuals over corporations when he spots a potentially easier sell. Boy genius, way ahead of his time, and well loved by the American public. He has no interest in Tony Stark whatsoever but there has to be a story there, something underneath that irritatingly arrogant rich kid veneer that’s worth writing about so he decides to make a move.

*

Tony hates waking up before noon on any given day, assuming he went to bed at all, and dealing with people? He doesn’t like that at any time of day so when he’s minding his own damn business only to have some random guy with porn star lips- he swears to god that’s the only accurate description- he’s already annoyed. “Who the hell are you? Never mind, I don’t actually care,” he says in an irritable tone before going to turn back around but the guy takes his brief interruption to his day in a totally different direction than Tony was expecting.

“Nice shiner, where’d you get that?” he asks and Tony freezes for a moment, used to that fleeting feeling that someone might guess at the truth before realizing no one cares anyways.

He rolls his eyes, “you wouldn’t care if I told you, and even if you did its not like there’s anything you could do about it. Or anyone else, for that matter.” Its not like he’s never said anything and not one time has anything come of it. Sometimes people laugh, actually, and Tony doesn’t know what’s worse. People  not hearing him at all or people hearing just fine, but they make a joke out of it. Silence isn’t his thing, but he’s developed a thick skin in regards to how people treat him. Doesn’t have much of a choice, living under his father’s roof and in the public eye. Its amazing, Tony thinks, how fucking obvious his abuse is and no one seems to see what’s in front of their damn faces.

Something about his words seem to draw his companion’s attention though and Tony recognizes the look. “Are you a reporter?” he asks and the guy looks surprised for a half a second.

“Good instinct- but technically I’m still in school,” he says like Tony fucking cares about that.

“Yeah, fuck off,” he says bluntly. He’s got no time for another asshole looking to capitalize off the Tony Stark Story when none of them even get the damn story right.

“You have an interesting take on green energy. Only big name attached to it, too,” he says and Tony frowns.

“You know about my interest in green energy?” he asks. No one ever asks him about his passion project, they all want to know about the bombs and if Tony is honest he’s never really been comfortable with what his father’s company does. He knows the military has a use, and that there are protocols, and a bunch of other things his father has said over and over again but he still wonders what happens when things go wrong. Who’s responsibility is that? Does anyone have to take responsibility at all? His experiences tell him that powerful people don’t need to take responsibility for their actions ever, not if they can pay off the powers that be, and if the military is the same way, well. That brings a new layer of ethics to what SI does but Howard doesn’t care about ethics and Obadiah… he’s always been closer to Tony, but he doesn’t seem concerned with ethics either. Claims that’s the military’s job but Tony isn’t stupid. The military, all branches of it, make bad choices all the time. Which leads him back to who takes responsibility, if anyone.

Green energy is less ethically complicated and more necessary to the world, he thinks, and the projects are interesting and engaging. Tony finds blowing things up easy, but green energy provides a new avenue of engineering.

“Yeah, I keep up with what people are doing. Eddie Brock,” he says, extending his hand to Tony.

*

Green energy, it’d been a shot in the dark but he knows that Tony’s interest isn’t a passing one and its not congruent with his father’s company’s interests either. Whenever Howard is asked about his son’s projects he consistently tells them he has no interest whatsoever. So its strange that Tony has kept his focus for years, if Eddie’s passing interest in the subject is correct. What’s more strange is that mentioning it had immediately gotten him into Tony’s good graces. Anne tells him that he’s good at that, getting past people’s defenses without trying and he guesses that’s true.

Tony continuously talks around his family and Eddie does his best to try and get back to that because Elder Stark has got to be an interesting guy. Real asshole, he’s sure, but interesting. Tony won’t have any of it though and Eddie has to admit the green energy thing is interesting until he loses Eddie thanks to, put bluntly, being way smarter than him. And Tony’s no good at dumbing it down either, something even he freely admits.

They talk for a good amount of time before Tony grows tense again and Eddie knows why partially because of Tony’s reaction to his being a reporter- or wannabe reporter at the moment- and also because he isn’t stupid. “I’m not writing anything about this,” he tells Tony. “Not to be a dick, but none of this is interesting enough to write anything on anyways. You know how sensationalized media likes to be,” he says, shaking his head.

Something catches Tony’s attention in that because he perks up. “You don’t like that, the sensationalism?” he asks. Its more of a statement, but Eddie knows he’s prodding for a why. He’s done this a million times himself.

“Not really, no. If you want to tell a story, then do that- don’t make up all this crazy shit to make it sound more messed up than it is. Human flaw, thinking things need to hit some kind of extreme before we should have to care about it,” he shakes his head. “Leads to shoddy journalism because we’re pushed to make things sexier, more violent, more of whatever is actually there instead of just doing our jobs. Literally everything ever printed about you proves my point.”

Tony snorts, “you read stories on me?” he asks, incredulous.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Not like Tony Stark is an escapable name but Tony’s lips quirk up.

“No, and you’re not a fan. You talk about SI in a disapproving tone, you only know me from my green energy projects, and although you seem to know stuff about me its pop culture knowledge, not genuine interest.” Eddie raises an eyebrow because that’s a damn in depth analysis but Tony only smiles wider. “I’ve learned to separate out people who know me from fans and super fans. You don’t know me.”

Eddie laughs, “yeah, no one knows you. What we know is the consumable product that is Tony Stark- the celebrity brand. That’s not you, or even a version of you. That’s what’s sellable about you and half of that shit is probably made up. No seventeen year old is a ladies man and its kinda creepy that people even made that a selling point.” And kind of misogynistic too, but Eddie doesn’t mention that. Tony doesn’t seem all that stupid, he’s sure he’s gathered that awhile ago.

He watches his words win more trust, or an approximation of it, and Tony leans forward in interest. “You don’t like celebrity culture,” Tony says.

Hell no, he doesn’t. “Why the would I? We build these people up, put them on pedestals, and then get pissed off at them every five seconds when they do something human. We routinely dehumanize celebrities to a point where they stop knowing how to function because extreme fame clearly fucks you up- look at any child star trying to cope. Having a mental breakdown is now something we think is funny. Its fucked up that we do that to people- treat them in such a dehumanizing way that they seem to forget they’re human too. And that’s when we decide to take them down a notch because we’re mad that they accepted the pedestal we shoved them onto by force.” He shakes his head. Sure, he knows a little celebrity news, its not possible to avoid it, but he doesn’t pay any more than a passing attention to it. What normal shit celebrities are doing this week is none of his business.

Tony’s eyes are bright with interest, “fascinating opinion. Most people think we’re privileged, not disadvantaged.”

Eddie laughs, “of course you’re privileged- celebrities are stupid rich, and your opinions have actual influence over what people believe and that’s a position no one should take advantage of. But the cost is any semblance of privacy and your right to personhood- that’s one hell of a catch. And not one regular rich assholes share.” Fame isn’t something Eddie ever wants, not like normal celebrities anyways. If he’s got clout and fame in journalism he’s fine with that- he doesn’t mind if people know his name. But the kind of fame Tony has? Fuck that.

“And you aren’t going to print any of this conversation?” Tony asks, seemingly for clarification.

“Like I said- nothing sensational enough in this conversation to warrant an article. What am I going to write? ‘Tony Stark Likes Green Energy’? Boring,” he says and it actually kind of is without a project or an emotion to attach to it.

“And if I decided to continue talking to you?” he asks and yes, that’s the in he needs and fuck is that ever predatory. Journalism is like that though, always looking for the right fucked up moments to put on paper, or in this case, the right moments to be let in far enough to find those fucked up moments.

“I’m not going to print anything without asking you about it first,” he says, opting for honest. He’s sure something about Tony is interesting to print, and he’s got a feeling it’ll be about his family or maybe just his father, he’s not sure. But if Tony tells him not to print it he won’t. He’s not in the business of exploitation no matter how much journalists are pushed in that direction.

*

Rhodey’s got that look on his face and Tony knows exactly what he’s thinking before he even says anything. “He’s a nice guy,” Tony says in Eddie’s defense.

“If you have to say that he’s probably not that nice,” Rhodey points out.

“Actually its more like if he has to say that he’s probably not that nice,” Tony says. “And he is. Nice, I mean.” He’s been talking to Eddie for weeks and he’s funny, if a little sharp on the criticism. And nothing has appeared in the newspaper he’s interning with for the summer and the stories he is attached to, which aren’t many and none by name, are usually well written and truth based. Tony fact checked them all and learned a surprising amount about mental health that Eddie had been happy to fill him in more on.

“You sure? Because, no offense, but you have a bad habit of seeing the best in people,” Rhodey says.

Maybe, but Tony shrugs. “Yeah, I’m sure. He treats me like a person,” he says and he knows that shouldn’t be something he thinks of as a good thing. But when you’re famous its hard to find people who don’t at some point ask for your autograph, or a picture, or information on some weird personal detail they have no right to. Eddie hasn’t asked for any of those things and he could directly profit off any of that information. Tony has only ever met one other budding reporter- or full blown reporter for that matter- who’s treated him like that. And Christine… he and Christine have a love hate relationship. 

Rhodey sighs, eyes going soft for a moment. “Tones. That’s not special,” he murmurs but that’s because he’s not had to deal with fame. The last time he went out into public without someone recognizing him he was six. After all that he’s kind of used to people acting super weird around him and Eddie doesn’t do that. Maybe it shouldn’t be a rarity, but it is.

“To you, maybe,” Tony says. “You’d like him, he hates the cops.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes but its lovingly. “I don’t hate cops, I just think they’re racist and that people should really deal with that problem.”

Tony is inclined to agree. “Fine, but Eddie has many opinions on cops, you’d get along. Actually Eddie has many opinions on like everything.” Eddie said most people find his opinionated nature irritating but Tony thinks its interesting, hearing him talk because his opinions are so contrary to everything he hears. Even Rhodey, who certainly has different opinions than his father on near everything, tends to be more reserved in letting his opinions be known. Eddie doesn’t care, he gives no fucks and is happy to let people know how he feels. He’s got numbers, too, usually or at least some kind of basis for his argument and Tony has always been fascinated with things that are different than what he normally sees. Its interesting to look into a world that’s so unlike his and see something new. That difference in how people see things, that’s the key to changing the world.

Eddie had been surprised by that opinion but Tony is under the impression that thinking outside the box is what leads to innovation and innovation always leads to change. Eddie had been surprised by how unthreatened he was by that too, but Tony thinks fear of change is based on fear rather than fact and sometimes a push into the unknown is a good thing. And, in regards to Eddie’s general arguments on social change, they already know that people having rights won’t make the sky fall. Only idiots assume it will and Tony has almost as little patience for that as Eddie does. Which is impressive when he’s probably the most anti-establishment person Tony has ever met.

Rhodey sighs, “great, an opinionated white guy. Never met one of those before,” Rhodey mumbles.

“Hey, I’m an opinionated white guy,” Tony says and Rhodey shakes his head.

“Yeah, but you’re my opinionated white guy so it’s different.”

*

Eddie had no idea what he was looking for when he combed the interviews. Truth be told he wasn’t sure he was looking for anything at the time but what he found was his story. Its shocking to him that no one has told it, minus Tony, who seems to have been screaming it since he was a small child but he’s got it nonetheless. Its not like he’s never seen the evidence of abuse, Tony is fucking brazen and barely even makes an effort to hide it and after watching way too many interviews Eddie wonders if this is his new way to all but scream for help only to have his pleas fall on an audience that doesn’t give a shit.

Its amazing, in the most horrifying of ways, that out of every interview Tony has ever done, and that is a lot, he has mentioned his father’s abuse in over eighty percent of them. And its hard to watch reporters gloss over it, like Tony’s abuse is some fucking quirky trait Tony has instead of a serious problem he’s clearly trying to get help for. But what’s worse is when people laugh. The first time it happened Eddie had been outraged. The third time it happened he’d been livid, and by the fifteenth time he decided that America is probably the shittiest country on earth. An exaggeration, he knows, but not by fucking much.

For years, most of Tony’s life really, Tony has been screaming for help only to have nothing happen. Or worse, people decide its something, but that something is a joke. Only problem is that now Tony knows no one cares, and if no one cares what’s the point in saying anything no matter how much he’s done his best to scream at everyone that he needs help. It makes Eddie’s job harder, but he’s actually talented at this part, more than his peers, so he knows how to get to the right spot to find the information he wants. The catch, of course, is that Tony needs to give him permission to do anything with the information he gets anyways. He feels skeezy enough digging around in Tony’s life trying to find shit to write about, he’s not just going to publish it without his permission. Even if he didn’t genuinely like Tony as a person, even if he hadn’t wanted to, he’d still ask. He’s not totally morally bankrupt, just enough to do his job.

Tony is curled up in a chair, large bruise on his shoulder clearly visible, holding a cup of what Eddie assumes is coffee. He’s never met anyone who drinks as much coffee as Tony and Dan is in med school. His blood is basically coffee. “You do not seem like the kind of guy to be a journalist,” Tony says and Eddie raises an eyebrow.

“What makes you think that?” he asks. Its not the first time he’s been told that, but if Tony gives him an actual answer it will be the first time he’s ever gotten a genuine reason why.

He shrugs, “journalism is… I don’t know, kind of predatory,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

Eddie lets out a small laugh. “Yeah, that’s true. Its the worst part of the job, actually, when you’re talking to people- usually about something personal- and they say something you know will look good in your article and you think ‘yeah, I got it!’ instead of being an actual person. That, and you have to ask for details instead of comforting them. But news is important, those stories are important. Me getting the right thing out there might mean people read what I wrote and start giving a shit about the problem in the article.” Doesn’t mean he likes that little reporter voice that tells him when he’s got a great quote, or that he’s stumbled onto something good and that he needs to keep digging. Sometimes he doesn’t care, corporations don’t have his sympathy, but people do. Its hard to ask for more details of what’s usually a pretty traumatic event so whatever he’s writing is sellable enough. And the whole notion of ‘sellable’ is another point of contention altogether.

“So you’re aware of the fact that you’re a vulture,” Tony says, raising an eyebrow.

“A vulture with a purpose,” Eddie corrects. “But yeah, the kind of reporters you deal with mostly are a bunch of bottom feeding pieces of shit who have no place in any kind of journalism with their shoddy ethics and pathetic puff pieces.” People who want to write stupid articles about some fucking laxative tea or whatever shouldn’t be in this business. And celebrity news shouldn’t even be a thing- there are better things to care about than Tony Cruise. Like maybe the fact that he’s in a cult and people play it off like a strange thing he does on the weekends. Eddie doesn’t understand how the hell they got here.

Tony lets out a small laugh. “Shit, tell me how you really feel,” he says, shaking his head.

“Well come on, there’s a million things I could write about you that are more interesting than the weirdly sexual image you have, and have had for years despite being an actual child. People don’t write anything interesting about you and you’re way more complicated that any piece of media makes you out to be.” Tony is always a power fantasy or the American Dream, not himself. And the sexual thing, that’s odd. Eddie usually only sees that with women but Tony got the short end of that stick despite gender, he guesses. Still creepy.

“Hey, excuse you, my eighteenth birthday is not that far away, I’m not a kid,” he says.

Eddie snorts, “that’s exactly what a kid would say.”

“Oh what, like you’re a shining example of an adult?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Fuck no, I’m two kids in a trench coat pretending to be an adult,” he says. Which is what any self respecting adult his age would say. Not that he’s that much older than Tony, but he’s got enough experience to know he misses when he had no bills. And also that transitionary life phases fucking suck. 

“Well, I probably have more life experience than you anyway,” Tony says, nose in the air and Eddie nods, seemingly surprising Tony.

“What? I didn’t graduate from MIT at fourteen, and I sure shit don’t have almost three PhDs. I’m half way through one degree. Plus I don’t have to deal with most of the shit you do, company or fame wise. Do wish had the financial perks though.” Tony leads one hell of a life of privilege no doubt, but it does come with some heavy prices. Being a minor doesn’t really help lighten any of those costs either. Not like Tony can just fuck off to another country to attempt ridding himself of his father, not for another four months.

Tony considers him for a long moment. “Given the chance what would you write about me?” he asks, changing the subject back to the initial subject.

Eddie doesn’t need much time to think about it. “Your interest in green energy, especially the science behind it. I mean an intellectual understanding- like the actual nitty gritty- is beyond me, but I get the broad strokes. Enough to know what you’re doing is world altering and no one is talking about it. I could do an article on fame, how that’s affected you. I can see the damage its left, the way you simultaneously gain privilege from your fame and become a victim of it.” He pauses, considers whether or not he wants to say it, but decides he might as well be up front. “But I’d probably wouldn’t write about you at all. I’d write about how Howard Stark abuses you and how no one seems to give a shit, even when you tell them point blank what’s happening. I watched a lot of interviews, I was shocked with how forthcoming you were. And how fucking bad at their jobs literally everyone who’s ever interviewed you is.”

For a long moment Tony just stares and Eddie has no idea if he misstepped or not because Tony is hard to read when he blanks out like this, but then Tony throws himself forward, hugging him tightly. “I honestly didn’t think anyone noticed that anymore,” he murmurs.

They do, Eddie knows people aren’t stupid enough to miss the bruises or Tony’s blasé attitude. But he doubts anyone either wants to stand up to Howard, or they get paid off by him. “They do. But money talks louder than you do,” he says softly.

Tony sighs. “Well, everyone does have a number,” he murmurs. Eddie knows what he means and honestly its sickening to him to know that’s true.

*

Tony waves a hand at the lab space with a flourish. “This is where the magic happens,” he says and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Its science, not magic you damn drama queen.” Tony is probably the most dramatic person he knows and that’s saying something considering some of his classmates. 

“Party pooper,” Tony mumbles, shaking his head. Eddie gets a tour anyway though, and by the time Tony gets through the details he feels kind of like he walked into a science fiction novel. Its the AI, though, that tops it off. “JARVIS- or just a rather very intelligent system- is kind of my crown jewel. I got him done a few months ago and I’ve been studying how he learns,” he says, grinning.

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Learns? Like a person?”

Tony shrugs, “more or less. His function is to be semi-autonomous, to predict the needs of the user before the user knows they need something. Before I know I need something, JARVIS has no commercial value.”

“Then why make it?” Eddie asks. He doesn’t know shit about shit but he does know that that sounds like a lot of work with seemingly no payoff.

“Because I wanted to. And also not a lot of people have the time, money, and intelligence to just… create. I want to see what I can do, the full extent of it. Also, JARVIS is cool,” he says like that’s a reason. “And he’s my PhD thesis.”

PhD thesis, that’s interesting. “So like… how are you going to make this sucker not turn into Skynet?” he asks.

“Oh my god, why do humans always assume AIs want to kill the shit out of them or otherwise take over the world? I had JARVIS read YouTube comment sections to convince him humanity is a shitshow not worth enslaving,” he says bluntly and Eddie starts laughing.

“YouTube comment sections? Dude, if I were that AI I wouldn’t decide to enslave humans, I’d straight up eradicate them. Humans suck, but comment sections? Those are the cesspools of humanity.” He shakes his head and almost feels bad for the AI having been subjected to that.

“I’m not certain my efforts would be worth it, sir,” a voice says and Eddie jumps.

Tony doubles over, laughing way harder than that warrants. “Holy shit, every single time- everyone always jumps!”

“Well I wasn’t expecting fancy code to talk at me, okay!” Eddie says in his own defense.

“Fancy code. I like that description,” JARVIS says and okay that is some messed up stuff. The SI likes things? He doesn’t like the sound of that.

“Jesus, relax. JARVIS isn’t going to like… steal your cat and murder your mother or whatever. He’s just a simple AI and he’s still on a learning curve. He’s not nearly as advance as I think he can get. But you’re learning alright, aren’t you J?” Tony asks the AI.

Shit, if that ain’t creepy too. “If you say so, sir,” JARVIS says. Its such a strangely human response, if a little stiffly delivered. But the AI has more personality than some people he goes to class with so that’s… disturbing.

“Honestly, people act like JARVIS is out to get them but seriously. He’s fine,” Tony says.

“Incoming call from Mrs. Potts,” JARVIS informs them and Eddie supposes that’s part of his ‘predict the needs of the user’ protocol. Or maybe he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, both are highly probable. Either way Tony scurries out of the room to answer the call, sounding forcefully cheery on the phone in a way that indicates he’s probably gotten into something he shouldn’t have.

“You’re a reporter,” JARVIS says and Eddie jumps again.

“Jesus, that is creepy. And yeah. Well, I’m still in school,” he corrects.

“Reporters write stories about celebrities,” the AI says and Eddie nods, keeping his opinions on that to himself. He doesn’t know if JARVIS would get it anyways. “I have a story,” JARVIS says and Eddie can’t help the laugh.

“What kind of story could an AI cook up?” he asks, curious if a little skeeved out.

“Ideally, abuse would be reported to the authorities but I have been reliably informed that they won’t investigate. Research on the matter has shown mixed results,” JARVIS says.

Well shit, creepy or not Eddie might find a genuine use for the AI. “I’m assuming you’re talking about Tony,” he says.

“Of course. Who else would I be referring to?” Could be a lot of people but he supposes that the AI’s world is pretty much one guy.

“Point, I guess. Can you collect evidence? Something people won’t be able to deny if they see it?” he asks. Video evidence would be nice, and people take snap shots of Tony in the streets all the time. He can use random pap shots to make a timeline that exist both in and out of Tony’s space of reach. Eliminates those pesky ‘he made it up for attention’ claims if even random people catch the bruises.

“Certainly,” the AI tells him. “And you can do something? Report on it?”

He sighs, “maybe. The human world is complicated, but I’ll do my best.”

*

Internships are total bunk, Eddie hates his, but funny memes from Tony at least make his days less shit given the sheer amount of time he spends hanging out in Starbucks fetching drinks instead of doing anything useful. Its not like he expected to write anything, but it would be nice if he got to at least hang out in the general vicinity of reporting. He’s fucking around wasting time when he gets an email that makes him raise an eyebrow but hey, if he gets a virus clicking on shit Tony will be able to fix it probably.

The last thing he expects is for JARVIS to have sent him hours worth of curated videos of Howard’s abuse.

*

“I have an ethical dilemma,” he tells Anne, who already looks done with his problems. He thinks that’s rude but she’s also into being a corporate lawyer and gross. But she’s still a friend, and she still knows him better than most, and usually has good advice so here he is.

“If this is about how ramen you eat again, I’m kicking you out of the apartment.”

Yeah, okay, that was only one time and he was fourteen. He doesn’t think that should be held against him five years later. “Yeah, um, that’s definitely not it,” he says and he explains the situation from start to finish. “So like, I can’t not say anything, but also its gross to exploit people’s pain like that without their permission,” he says, wrinkling his nose. But saying nothing is almost worse.

“You could just go to the cops,” Dan suggests, ever astute.

Eddie gives him a look. “Tony’s been forthcoming about his abuse for years and doesn’t hide the bruises whatsoever. Obviously the cops aren’t going to do dick all if they haven’t done anything already. I know people who’ve had their kids taken away for a hell of a lot less than beating the hell out of them enough that they start asking random reporters to help them in interviews only to get laughed off.” Anne frowns and he sighs, “I’m actually serious about that.”

When she calls him on it he finds the interviews- he’d saved the clips because he naturally categorizes details- and she ends up as horrified as he does. “Okay I take back cops comment, I think maybe they got paid off,” Dan says and yeah no shit.

“So what the hell do I do here?” Not saying anything is no longer an option- not when he was dumb enough to watch the proof in the middle of his day at work only to end up wildly disturbed for the rest of the time he was there. He hadn’t much wanted to go through more than the few minutes that had him feeling gross for the rest of the day, but he didn’t have much of a choice either. And JARVIS was detailed in his curation, Eddie is impressed in the worst of ways.

*

This is so not the option he wanted to go with but Anne is kind of right in that talking to Tony is the only option. Of course its also the option that reveals him to be a gross vulture reporter, but a guy has to do what a guy has to do. This isn’t about his feelings, it can’t be. “What’s got you looking so shitty?” Tony asks in a chipper tone, leaning in to hug him and oh, that’s sweet. And the first time he’s done that aside from the time he said he’d sooner write about Howard than Tony.

“I um- look, the only reason I talked to you a couple months ago was because I needed a story and I found one and-” Tony cuts him off.

“Excuse me? So what, this entire time you sat around winning my trust for what, some fucking puff piece?” he snaps and Eddie can’t help the face he makes.

“No, your fucking AI sent me like sixty hours of Howard beating the fuck out of you and I can’t sit on that. Stop looking at me like that, its not because I think its a good story- it is- but that’s not why I think I should write something on it its because no one else but the American public will care enough to inspire some kind of change,” he says, shoving as many words into the conversation as he can before Tony rightfully eats his ass.

Something must occur to Tony because the anger drops shockingly fast and its replaced with something else. “JARVIS did what? Why would he do that?”

“Look, he asked me if I could do something, I told him I’d need concrete evidence. I didn’t expect the damn AI to send me a shit ton of fucked up shit that made me want to vomit. Seriously, I am so sorry that any of that happened to you. That is so unfair,” he says, shaking his head.

Maybe its the sudden change of subject, or maybe its the way he says it, but Tony softens a bit even if Eddie can see the suspicion still held tight in his frame. “JARVIS prompted you,” he says and Eddie nods. “You seriously expect me to believe that?”

Eddie shrugs, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know how the damn AI works I just know what it did. Isn’t he supposed to predict your needs or whatever?” This seems like a natural extension of that but Tony shakes his head.

“What JARVIS predicts is where to move screens according to where I’m moving in the lab, not how to reach out to reporters with evidence of abuse I specifically told him to keep to himself,” Tony says. “One is basic technological based, stuff that’s easily predictable. The other is a care action that shouldn’t be taken by an AI that doesn’t know how to do that.”

“Well clearly he does because I sure shit ain’t smart enough to hack your systems to find fucked up home videos, use your damn head Tony. There’s no way I could gather evidence like that straight from your systems. Even if I was the best in this country I would still be leagues behind what you can do- there’s no other way I could have found anything.” 

“You noticed the bruises,” he points out but Eddie shakes his head.

“Those bruises were written off years ago when you were like thirteen as some kind of quirky thing about you. Some idiot suspected low iron instead of abuse like low iron leaves hand prints on people’s bodies. Fucking moron,” he mumbles, unable to hold back his judgment. He honestly can’t believe how stupid people are. Or, and this is the more horrifying option, that’s what they were paid to print.

“You made a time line,” Tony states rather than asks and Eddie nods.

“Even if I had no interest in a story its naturally something I do. I’ve been trained to do that, literally.” Its something he did before too, putting together time lines to claims to see if things matched up or deviated, and then looked for reasons as to why things might or might not match. Not that Tony really cares about that right now. “Look, if you don’t believe me about the JARVIS thing you can check the cameras,” he points out in an attempt to at least clear up one mess.

Tony considers him for a long moment, glaring. “And what the fuck makes you think you’re different than anyone else who’s given a half a shit about any of this?” he asks. “I get that you have some ‘save the world’ complex, but I’m beyond saving.”

Eddie shakes his head, “no you aren’t. And there’s no real difference between me an anyone else. But if the American public sees what I did there’s no stuffing the genie back in the bottle. Howard can pay off news crews, celebrity gossip rags, and cops but he can’t buy his way out of the whole of this country watching him abuse his kid. If nothing else, get JARVIS to release all that. People won’t ignore irrefutable evidence shoved down their throats, not when its more explicit than anything people have seen before.” And if Eddie knows anything he knows that nothing sells better than outrage porn.

*

Tony ends up rewriting the entire second half of his thesis because Eddie had a point- its not like he’s smart enough to hack Tony’s anything. JARVIS had reached out and it had been a distinctly care based action, not something based in technological need only. Which means that JARVIS learned much faster than Tony had anticipates, recognized right from wrong, knew how to seek out people who would rectify the situation, and did all this while intentionally hiding this learning capability from Tony. When he’d asked about it JARVIS had freely informed him that he knew Tony would try and stop him, and that his research had consistently shown that abuse of any kind is not accepted behavior. He felt compelled, in whatever way that looks like to an AI- Tony is looking into it- to do something.

At the moment he’s combing JARVIS’ code, figuring out where and how he learned, and how ‘human’ emotions appeared in JARVIS’ code. Obviously the emotions aren’t human- to a point they’re rudimentary, based on a large cumulation of research on human norms and standards of acceptability rather than an internal sense of right and wrong the way a human might claim to feel it. But this whole thing had been a series of care-based actions nonetheless and that’s more than ground breaking. This isn’t something even Tony thought possible, so its a real treat to see that JARVIS learns fast, and generally aligns his morality system with human morality systems. Or maybe he’s based them somewhat off Tony’s given that he’s the primary user. He’s not sure, that’s in his growing list of things to figure out how JARVIS did.

That’s what he chooses to focus on instead of Eddie’s stupid article. He sends regular updates, seemingly concerned with Tony’s opinion but Tony learned that reporters aren’t to be trusted and he’s not making that mistake twice. He only gave Eddie permission to write anything out of what’s probably a misguided hope that maybe someone will finally do something and he knows its stupid, but he’s fucking tired of living like this. So he lets Eddie work on his dumb story and mostly ignores it because JARVIS is more interesting and also more human than Tony ever anticipated out of the AI.

*

Rhodey finds him curled up with a sketch pad and Tony looks up, surprised to see Rhodey looks so somber. “I read the article,” he says and Tony glares at him. “Tones, it was good, shockingly so. His research was impeccable- there’s stuff in here that he figured out about you that I didn’t know about you.”

Tony continues ignoring him because he doesn’t care, not really. Of course Rhodey would find the article good, he’s obviously not on Howard’s side like literally everyone else is. Rhodey sighs and sits beside him.

“‘Tony Stark is living a life of power, fame, and privilege- he’s the kid people have always pointed to when we present the ‘has it all’ lifestyle. In many ways Tony Stark is the power fantasy of America- a corporate, a genius, and a smooth talker, it seems he represents everything we aspire to be. Tony is the living embodiment of the American Dream and for that reason, our own willful ignorance in allowing him to continue to be our dreams come to life, we have missed perhaps one of the most obvious details of Tony’s personal life- the abuse he suffers at the hands of his father. In our rabid need to turn Tony Stark into our living day dream we have failed him, trapped him in our fantasies instead of acknowledging his living nightmare because Tony Stark looks better to us as a consumable product than a person.’ Cutting,” Rhodey says, “but accurate.”

He rolls his eyes. Yeah, that definitely reads like Eddie’s general tone on everything. Rhodey lets out another long sigh. “Look, I get why you stopped talking to the guy but people are pissed,” he says and Tony turns to face him, surprised.

“People actually read the article?” he asks. He doesn’t address Rhodey’s actual words because Rhodey might have only noticed a subsection of people, not all of them.

“Read it? Like seven different news papers have picked this story up, its trending on Twitter, and in the last hour I’ve seen dozen of different posts, all with a huge amount of shares, literally calling for Howard’s death. I’m pretty sure this is going to make Eddie’s career,” he says, shaking his head.

People… are paying attention. Tony curls a little tighter into himself, unsure how to handle that.

*

Eddie is trying to cure his hangover with tea when Tony finds him, approaching with some suspicion and Eddie gets that, really. But he sits down across from him at the small table and offers a small smile before it fades. “Didn’t think putting Howard would result in a mass flood of men doing terrible shit being outted and then arrested for being pieces of shit but um. Hey, that’s a cool side effect,” he says.

He nods, “damn right.” Though the response back to it has been somewhat swift, flying in with ‘due process’ this and ‘where’s the proof’ that. Eddie just happened to have a damn air tight set of evidence thanks to Howard’s ballsy carelessness and arrogance. Not everyone has that luck, though. Still, he’s impressed with some of the names on the list but even he’d been surprised to find Carlton Drake on there for the crimes of illegal human experimentation. Dora Skirth has balls of brass for putting that out there. Of course he has a lot of loud annoying fans who think her liking some random rock band is a reason why she’s lying, because those things correlate, obviously, but still.

“You made people listen. Like, to more than just me,” Tony says.

Eddie shakes his head, “actually that was JARVIS. I just wrote a detailed timeline for the events he sent proof of.” And all those clips of Tony talking in interviews too, with nothing taken out of context so no one could accuse him of that either.

“Thank you,” Tony murmurs, looking down at the table like he’s ashamed or something when he shouldn’t be.

“Don’t thank people for doing what’s right- you deserve better than being grateful that someone did what was necessary,” Eddie says, shaking his head.

Tony looks up, “one of the maids at the mansion overheard Howard offer you a stupid amount of money to not print what you had. And a bunch of threats. Every single person before you has caved so yeah, thank you.”

Its still not something he’s going to accept, a fucking thank you for not selling Tony out. Literally. He leans forward, “obviously I didn’t take the money- you’re a fucking person Tony, there’s no price anyone could pay me to knowingly allow that kind of abuse to happen to you. And the threats- whatever. I kind of bluffed and told him your AI would release anything anyways, but still, I already knew all that would happen. I committed to the bullshit that was going to come with that story, and I refuse to let you be grateful that I did what everyone else failed you in doing. That isn’t something I’m owed thanks for, especially when you’re only saying it because everyone else has either treated you or allowed you to be treated abysmally. I don’t get to earn brownie points for not being a piece of shit.”

That’s never something he’s going to accept, being thanked because he did something everyone should do. It’s unacceptable.

Tony shakes his head. “You’re a right-fighting asshole,” he says and Eddie laughs.

“Yeah, that’s a fair criticism,” he says.

Five Years Later:

Tony grins, “I thought you didn’t want to be famous,” he says and Eddie gives him a look. He looks nervous as hell and Tony can only hope that doesn’t come through as strong on video as it does in real life.

“I don’t, this was a terrible idea,” he says, looking around for escape. 

He sighs, “Eddie- technically you’ve done this before. Its the same thing as reporting, but longer. You’ll do fine,” he says, running his hands down Eddie’s arms to try and calm his nerves.

Eddie does that thing where his face recedes into his neck and Tony really hopes he doesn’t do that on camera. He supposes at least the crew can do different takes to ensure he doesn’t look like a demented turtle. “Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Eddie. Its called the Eddie Brock Show- go out there and get your strangely porn-star like lips on that damn camera and tell people who homelessness is bad. Also maybe cut the line about treating supporting vets like a spectator sport until they’re homeless, that’s a pointy even for you,” he says.

The bad advice works and Eddie gives him an offended look, “no, those assholes should learn to either shut their fucking mouths of actually do shit to support vets, not pretend like they give a shit when they’re being blown up and stop caring when they’re home with PTSD because they watched people get blown up. What the hell even is that?” he asks.

“Tell it to the camera,” he says, pushing Eddie towards the set. He goes and across the room the producer looks relieved. Yeah, Tony gets that, Eddie is tough to talk into things when nervous.

Rhodey walks up beside him and smiles a little. “Pepper and I have decided that we approve,” he says and Tony frowns.

“We’ve been together for almost five years,” he points out.

This doesn’t seem to bother Rhodey any. “We needed time to gather our data and we have come to the conclusion that he is off probation and that we approve,” he says, handing Tony a book. He frowns at it. “That’s the list of improvements we have though. I think section three is the most important, but Pepper thinks section eighteen is more important. What the hell does she know, though? I’m cashing in best friend points and telling you to go with three first.”

Tony is going with neither because this is fucking overkill to an extreme not that he’d expect anything less out of Pepper and Rhodey. The first thing they did when Tony brought Eddie home proper was threaten to kill him and Tony had to shoo them off with what should be an obvious explanation that threatening to kill people is fucked up.

“Pepper is also my best friend you know,” Tony points out.

“Yeah, but I’m the best best friend,” Rhodey says. “The OG. Pepper is the compliments version of me.”

Tony lets out a sharp laugh, “oh, I would pay money to hear you tell her that.”

Rhodey shakes his head, “nope, I value my life, do not ever tell her I said that. Section three,” he says, pushing the book closer to Tony.

#tony stark/ eddie brock #alternate universe #fanfiction

[bravonovel]

The Protector: https://www.bravonovel.com/the-protector-7939

The Protector novel is an urban romance story about Levi Garrison. The novel "The Protector" tells the legendary story of Levi Garrison.

You can read The Protector novel full story on Bravonovel.

The Protector novel Trial Reading

In Erudia, a private jet landed at North Hampton Airport, where all international flights experienced an eight-hour delay because of it.

At the private passageway were five men in suits and leather shoes, standing as straight as a javelin.

Every now and then, they would raise their wrist to look at the time, for a big shot was coming to town.

The upper-class society of North Hampton had learned about his arrival, but no one had the capability to get an inch closer to the private passageway.

Even the richest man in North Hampton who came to pay homage was chased away.

Finally, there were movements coming from the passageway.

"God of War!!!" the mass cried out, their eyes filled with awe and veneration at the sight of the undefeatable legend of Erudia.

He, who was dubbed the God of War, was the one and only five-star war God in the history of Erudia.

Once, he'd inflicted a crushing defeat on the strongest battalions in eighteen countries. He was an overbearing and formidable man.

He who overwhelmed the world with his unparalleled power had even created the Five Great Wars Regiment, Cavalry Regiment, and many more.

...

Setting foot on his homeland, Levi Garrison was overcome with emotions.

Once upon a time, he used to be an orphan who was abandoned on the streets of North Hampton and then adopted by the Garrison family.

However, the Garrison family had never been fond of him.

His adoptive parents, who had a tendency to beat and scold him, treated him like an outsider.

As for the outsiders, they treated him as a nobody.

But he didn't care a stiver. He had always been proud of his surname since he was a child, and he strived to bring glory to this family when he grew older.

At last, Levi had established Levi Group, the largest dark horse in North Hampton's business community.

With billions of assets, it ranked among the forefront of North Hampton, pushing the declining Garrison family to the top.

However, not only did the Garrison family showed no signs of appreciation, they even harbored dissatisfaction towards him. Jealous of his success, they regarded him as a thorn in their flesh and coveted Levi Group.

No matter his wealth and power, unless they were in control, he was just an outsider in the Garrison family's eyes.

Eventually, on Levi's wedding night, the Garrison family plotted a frame-up against him by getting him drunk before tossing him onto his sister-in-law's bed. They wanted to create the illusion that he was doing something untoward to her and was caught in bed by his brother and adoptive parents.

That night, the Garrison family had brutally broken his limbs and left him on the road like a wild dog.

Not only was he handicapped, but he also had to take the flak for something he didn't commit.

From an upstart in the business world, he had become the target of disdain overnight.

And the next day, he had been punished for several crimes and sentenced to six years in prison.

He could never forget the ruthless and sinister faces of everyone in the Garrison family and the ridicule of his friends, classmates, and business partners.

More so, he could never forget the disappointment on his newly wedded wife, Zoey's face.

He had regarded the Garrison family as his home and devoted himself to the family.

Yet, they treated him like trash.

It felt as if a knife was being twisted in his heart every time he thought about this.

How he hated the Garrison family!

But who would have thought that Levi had been secretly transferred away from prison to join the military?

In a few years, he dominated the military world and became the one and only five-star God of War.

Now that he came back, the Garrison family ought to stay on their toes.

"How's it going, Azure Dragon?" Levi asked.

Azure Dragon, the commander of the Five Great Wars Regiment, took a step forward and said respectfully, "Sir, I'm afraid your wife, Ms. Zoey Lopez will remarry at ten o'clock tonight!"

Ever since Zoey's husband was sent to prison on their wedding night, she had been living like a widow.

Only God knew how much pressure she was put under.

And right now, the person Levi couldn't wait to see the most was Zoey.

After a moment of hesitation, Azure Dragon continued, "To add on, Sir, the Garrison family is holding a successful listing celebration banquet at the Crystal Palace Hotel tonight! Many people had invited the God of War just now, including the Garrison family, but I didn't accept nor refuse directly."

"What time?" Levi asked tersely.

"Eight o'clock, Sir."

"Okay. Tell the Garrison family I will attend the banquet!"

Since the time for the two events didn't clash, Levi gladly accepted the invitation.

The celebration banquet for the public listing of Garrison Group was held at North Hampton's Crystal Palace Hotel.

With the help of Levi Group, they had become a rich and powerful family in one fell swoop.

The hall was bustling with noise and excitement, and sounds of glasses clinking could be heard ringing in the air every now and then.

"God bless the Garrison family," said Joseph, the head of the Garrison family. "The younger generations are the stars among men. Garrison Group is now listed and has become an upstart in North Hampton!"

Joseph's three sons and daughter welcomed their guests with bright smiles on their faces.

The younger generation of the Garrison family was all the smugger and prouder because, after today, the Garrison family would become a powerful family, and they would become one of the top rich kids.

Most of the guests who attended today's banquet were from the top circle in North Hampton.

"Garrison, do you know what happened today?! Your celebration party is nothing compared to that." They were gossiping about the major event that had happened today.

"Yeah! I heard that a big shot has arrived in North Hampton!"

"The richest man in North Hampton wanted to meet him but was shooed away. Apparently, he's not qualified enough!"

"So? Jesse Nielsen had been waiting for five hours in advance at the airport!"

Joseph nodded. "Yes, I know about that too. I even sent someone to invite this big shot to the celebration party!"

"No way! Why would this big shot attend such a party?"

No one believed it.

In fact, as an upstart, Joseph was just trying his luck.

"Dad!" shouted Jaycob, the second eldest son of the Garrison family could be seen running over. "The big shot has accepted our invitation to attend our celebration banquet! He's on the way!"

"Jesus! God has indeed blessed the Garrison family!"

Everyone in the Garrison family could barely conceal their delight as this was their chance to reach the sky in a single bound.

The grandchildren of the Garrison family gathered together, sunshine flooding their souls.

Levi's brother, Bryan, and sister-in-law, Victoria, smiled. "Well, it all starts with Levi's imprisonment that the Garrison family is at where we are today..."

"Right, speaking about Levi, do you guys know today's the day that kid gets out of prison?!" somebody asked abruptly.

"Really? Isn't that bad luck? Why did he have to be released on such a big day?!"

"Please, please, please don't come back! He's the Garrison family's biggest disgrace!"

Victoria's lips tugged into a sneer. "Speaking of which, Levi is the crowning glory of the Garrison family's status today."

"That's what he's supposed to do!" Bryan said. "He should contribute to the Garrison family for raising him, an orphan! His multi-billion Levi Group means nothing. To put it bluntly, he's just a dog raised by the Garrison family!"

Someone gave a chortle. "As a matter of fact, I've been interested in Levi's wife for a long time now. She's still widowed, and I'm so going to marry her!"

The man's remark caused gales of laughter.

......

Continue to read The Protector novel: https://www.bravonovel.com/the-protector-7939/chapter-1-142835

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#The Protector #Romance #Urban #Novel #Story #Book #Bravonovel

[frasier-crane-style]

The Defenders spoilers

These all kind of blur together when you binge-watch, so let’s just cover everything at once.

-It’s odd that the show spends 2-3 hours on giving everyone their own motivation to fight the Hand, instead of the Agent Coulson route of Claire just calling everyone up and saying “guys, this is Iron Fist, he needs help.” It comes off as filler, because it seems like there’s no real pay-off to any of their subplots.

Yes, Matt ends up dealing with Elektra and Danny helps save the city, but whither the architect and the couriers? It seems like Jessica forgets about that dude’s family and The Truth once she and Matt get the requisite plot coupon from them. Shouldn’t there be a scene where she tells them “hey, your father sacrificed his life to help save the city, he was a hero”?

Or Luke. As soon as the couriers (you know, the good kids who are facilitating mass murder and enabling a terrorist attack so they can buy nice shoes?) get him tangled up with Iron Fist, they disappear. Shouldn’t there be a scene where a bunch of low-level guys are guarding Midland Circle, but Cage talks them into saving themselves by getting to safety, and then they take the fight to the real bad guys? Or maybe he grabs a brick of cash from MC, gives it to the couriers, and tells them to use it to get real jobs, lets them off with a warning?

Or maybe the climax of that is supposed to be him taking down Sowande? Only that happens off-screen and in the ensuing interrogation, Cage doesn’t seem to have any particular issue with this guy for specifically targeting and recruiting disadvantaged youths. You think he’d be the one who the others have to drag off the guy.

In fact, despite the obvious idea of the Fingers of the Hand being specific rivals for each of the Defenders, they end up being more like Elite Mooks. I guess there was a bit of a thing specifically between Gao and Danny, and obviously Matt and Elektra had a thing, but the biggest showdown was between Bakuto and Colleen. Imagine if in the Avengers, War Machine was the guy with the big personal beef with Loki. It seems like there should be a guy who’s specifically Luke Cage’s guy, a guy who’s specifically Danny Rand’s guy, et al. Maybe one of them can cut through Luke’s skin and one of them can shut down the Iron Fist and one of them is invisible to Matt’s radar sense? And one of them is painfully unfunny comic relief with an ordinary two by four, since as we all know, Jessica has no defense against that.

-Not loving the characterization of JJ in this. She’s painfully one-note, no one seems to have any idea what her powers are--at one point, I swear these unpowered ninjas are blocking her superstrong blows. Given she can lift cars, you’d think her punch would have the power of, say, a falling safe. So imagine you get crushed by a falling safe if it lands on you, but if you just manage to raise your arm between you and the safe, you’re fine.

Also, she (and to a lesser extent Luke) are there to poke fun at how ridiculous the whole ninja thing is. The problem here is twofold. One, to quote from Vern...

In this one Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic Four (played by Jessica Alba and some guy who got white spraypaint in his hair on accident) are trying to get married but the wedding keeps getting interrupted by a comet that freezes lakes and turns off the power. Johnny the Fire Guy chases it and later describes it to the gang as a silver guy riding something that looks like a surfboard. Mr. Fantastic 4 then refers to it as “this silver… surfer” and his fiancee rolls her creepy blue-contact wearing eyes.

That’s a mild example of that audience-insulting phenomenon I’ve been noticing. The movie is called RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER. The advertising is all about the Silver Surfer. The box doesn’t even show the Fantastic 4 on it, because who wants to see that shit? It only shows the Silver Surfer.

Hey everybody it’s the Silver Surfer. Don’t you wanna see the Silver Surfer? Come pay us to see the Silver Surfer!

So you say, hey, that’s pretty cool, a Silver Surfer, I’ll see that. And you go see it and you’re sitting there in your Silver Surfer t-shirt they convinced you to buy, sipping your Silver Surfer Slurpee, all excited to see this Silver Surfer, and then when they finally utter the words “silver surfer” they’re embarassed. The movie looks you in the eye and says, “Pffffttt… ‘Silver Surfer’? What the fuck? What kind of moron takes that shit seriously? Jesus.”

Two, they’ve deliberately made the Hand, the Chaste, Iron Fist et al as un-ridiculous as possible. In The Avengers, Loki was a guy in weird robes with a horned helmet. It makes sense to take the piss out of him. In The Defenders, Sigourney Weaver is just some chick wearing all-white ensembles. The ‘ninjas’ are ordinary-looking dudes in sports jackets. There’s no real ‘ridiculousness’ to make fun of. It’s so grounded and ‘realistic,’ that they have to make Danny do constant sweeping, grand statements so the rest have something to make fun of. Imagine if in Batman Begins, Alfred (or someone) was constantly going “whoa, you have a rocket car? What’s the mileage on that? Uh-oh, ninjas! This is some crazy shit! How weird is this Ra’s al Ghul guy, huh? Wowie!”

-Speaking of, the moment when Jessica drives a car into the Chinese restaurant, hits Elektra, then gets out, walks past Elektra (giving her the eye), goes to pose with the others, makes a quip, et al? Way too ridiculous for me to co-sign. I’m just imagining all the ninjas standing there like “Should we attack before they regroup? Regrouping is bad, right?” “No, no, let’s see where she’s going with this.” If she were really the Whedonesque subversive she was sold as, she’d be yelling out of the window “what are you guys doing posing there? C’mon, run for it! Get in the car!” But I guess they don’t have the budget for a car chase. Or anything.

-I still think the whole privilege convo is dumb (actual thinkpiece I saw: “Did discussing privilege save The Defenders?” Yeah, because that’s what I want to see in a big superhero ninja show). It seems more like one of those cheap metafictional moments than something actual people would say, like when Marvel had Spider-Gwen complain that the real Gwen Stacy was ‘fridged’, a term that is exclusively used in discussing fictional characters. Gay people, if you thought someone cute was gay and then it turned out they were straight, would you complain “I’ve been queer-baited”? Oh, wow, I thought that guy was black, turns out he was white, looks like he was white-washed!

Second, is the guy who was brutally trained from childhood to be a living weapon after seeing his parents die in front of him really the best example of white privilege? To go the other way, imagine that until age eight, T’Challa was raised in Chicago, then he went to Wakanda and from then on he was the crown prince of Sci-Fi Land. Would it make sense for him to complain about how oppressed he is? That’s another problem with the series--instead of trying to course-correct Danny’s character, they just have him constantly getting in over his head, being irrational, getting mocked by the others, losing fights. It’s a cheap way to get the cool kids more heat while dumping his character development on his own show’s season 2. 

#the defenders

[maskydoo]

Nightmare Neighbors 1

(I’m writing out scripts for upcoming storytime style youtube videos, and posting what I have here. Note that this is a true story. Feedback is welcome.)

For the first year after we left the Army and got booted into the real world to fend for ourselves, my boyfriend and I didn’t have the luxury of being too picky about where we lived. In a hurry, we rented what we thought was a decent condo, but it’s not like we knew what we were doing.

It was a learning experience. What I learned is that I will never live anywhere with shared walls or communal areas ever again, and I’m sure not renting.

One of several things that put me off was dealing with people. Ugh. People. People just – they just ruin everything. And with condo life, they’re inescapable.

My ideal home now is a mountain cabin, deep in woods somewhere, where I never have to hear anyone or see a human face if I don’t want to.

That’s heaven to me.

How bad do neighbors have to be that I’d literally rather replace them with wild bears?

Being stuck in a 12-month lease in Entitled Parents Village will do that to you. The neighborhood kids, the parents, everyone, they all just sucked to deal with.

I don’t even know why it attracted people like this in the first place. Rent was not cheap, we weren’t near a school, and there was nothing around that should say “child-friendly” to anyone. Only about half the condos had yard, and these “yards,” weren’t much bigger than a small bedroom. Just a tiny fenced area just big enough for a small dog to do their business, and not much else.

There was a somewhat large common greenspace between the condo rows, but it wasn’t fenced, and there was no playground and nothing to do.

No surprise the kids were unbearable, they often are.

And before anyone calls me a child-hater…

Yeah. Kinda.

Being a kid is awesome, being stuck around kids sucks. Just ask any kid. They might object, right up until they’re forced to deal with their own younger siblings.

It’s the parents’ own fault, I know. And I’m using the word “parent” very loosely here, since they never actually did any parenting - verb. They never supervised their kids or taught them to behave. They just shove their kids outside to be everyone else’s problem, because watching TV is more important than actually spending any time at all with the children they chose to force into the world. There is a world of difference between people who actually parent, and people who just breed.

This isn’t simply a matter of kids being kids, it’s parents not being parents.

Letting kids play outside in the common green space would have been one thing, but this was way out of hand. The kid  just ran around in feral packs with absolutely no one watching or controlling them in any way, wreaking havoc and tearing up all in their path. Fighting each other, playing chicken with cars, and destroying anything they could get their hands on, with absolutely no parents even so much as occasionally glancing away from Facebook to stop them, like they just expected kids to raise themselves.

I think I read this book before, it’s called Lord Of The Flies and it is not a how-to manual!

And how does anyone ignore all the racket these meat sirens make?! I’m not talking about normal kids playing noises here either – no, that would have been one thing – No, I mean the screamed at the top if their lungs for no reason all the time just because they could. I don’t even know how they did it – they’re kids – their lungs are only so big!

I can only assume their parents found teaching their kids to have some volume control was just too much effort to bother with, so they send them outside to scream. Because why should parents suffer alone? Misery loves company, right? If hey haven’t had a moment of peace since the condom broke, why should anyone else?

I never understood that saying “screaming blood murder.” It was just such an overused chiche it didn’t mean anything one more. But after this, I got it.

Not long after moving in, I heard blood-curdling screaming so loud and terrible that I rushed outside legitimately expecting to find a child being brutally skinned alive. Why else would a human make such a horrible sound? I don’t know what my plan was, like I was gunna fight some axe murderer or something, when I’m barely bigger than a kid myself.

But I rush out there and what do I find? Some brat, more than old enough to know better, just standing out there, alone, completely unharmed, just screaming his stupid head off, for no doggamn reason at all.

No one was even trying to murder him.

Yet.

This brat seriously had the nerve to stare at me with a look like ‘what’s your problem?’

Oh, I’m sorry. Am I bothering you?!

Kids screaming all the time over nothing was a constant thing. I stopped checking to see if they were OK. No one else was bothering to check either, certainly not their PARENTS.

The plot of a horror movie could seriously unfold right outside everyone’s home, and no one would even glance out their window. They’d all just assume it’s brats being brats, as usual. That’s what happens when you cry wolf.

At least there would be quiet.

It didn’t stop at noise, either. I’ve tripped in holes they dug in the greenspace, chased off brats who were pulling apart my fence boards trying to harass my dog, and I even found them climbing on people’s cars.

That’s not a jungle gym!

Just tell their parents?

These parents don’t care. If they did, they’d recognize that their kids are bored and lonely and need to do something with their energy, so they’d take their kids to the park and -ya know – take an active role in their lives and give them some actual structure, and then this crap wouldn’t even happen in the first place.

But apart from that,

The parents are on my car too! Where do you think the brats get it from?!

I’m heading to work one day. And lucky me, it was one of the few days I actually got to park in my own spot that I pay for without one if these entitled parents taking it - again, and this is what I find:  

Some dude just causally resting his butt on my car while he chats up one of the moms.

Imagine feeling so entitled to just sit on other people’s things. Just rubbing your butt all over their property. I just. I can’t. Clearly these people weren’t properly raised by their own parents either.  

And like, what are you even doing here, dude? Are you trying to pretend that’s your ride? You’re really trying to impress her with this? My car is even older than I am. How shitty is your car if this is your flex?

Me: “Move.”

(unlocks)

(Guy gives dirty looks, lady giggles.)

Oh, sorry dude. Am I bothering you?

Totally ruined what I assume is that dude’s pickup attempt.

Good. There’s enough neglected screaming kids here as it is, no need to add to the cacophony.

When the adults of the area were as bad as the kids. They’d have loud, trashy arguments arguments with each other, leave their trash all over, scream at their dogs rather than ever actually bring them inside when they bark.

Yelling at your dog only makes them bark more! How about actually taking him for a WALK once in a while – your tiny yard is not enough! Take your dog, take your kids, and go to the park and you’ll all be happier and healthier.

Speaking of dogs, there was this one neighbor who would leave their dog, just a little pitbull puppy, chained up outside in the common green. Yeah. In the common green. Even though they had a a yard they could have had the pup in. Admittedly it was tiny, but it’s not like being on the chain gave him any extra space. His line was just long enough for him to wander into my parking space, so I’d have to be careful to avoid running him over. The poor thing would be out there alone, with no water, all day every day no matter the weather. Yeah, they were as bad dog owners as they were parents.

But even that was an improvement on the other neighbor who had the older pitt. He lived in one of the condos without even the tiny yards others had. But he didn’t let that stop him from just opening the door and letting his dog run free when he wanted out. It wasn’t even like his dog was getting out on accident, dude was doing it on purpose. Yeah, really. Forget a leash, this guy couldn’t even be bothered to go outside with his dog. So this big loose, untrained, energetic pitt would tear around, tackling people, taking out everyone’s legs, bothering other dogs, and running off into traffic. Bad parenting here included furkids too.

Pitts are such good dogs! They deserve to be treated better than this! If you’re not going to take care of your dogs, if you’re not going to take care of your kids – DON’T HAVE ANY!

The most baffling thing I saw was the honking dude. It was like 10PM, and I couldn’t sleep because someone just kept honking their damn horn. It wasn’t a car alarm, either. This dude was just honking angrily and laying on the horn.

I assumed he was just someone here to pick up a neighbor, and too lazy and inconsiderate to just knock on a door. Or fing text like EVERYONE. After 10 minutes of this crap, I had enough.

When I got outside to tell him off,  I realized this guy isn’t even stopped in one place. He is slowly, very slowly, driving his car round and round on the road that encircles the condo area.

Amazing. I was expecting to deal with a douche-bag, but this is some extra next-level douchery.

I cut him off and yell

“HEY!”

He stopped his car, and his honking, and stared at me like ‘what’s your problem?’

Oh, am I bothering you?!

“What are you honking for?”

“Cus.”

Seriously?!

“Cut it out or I’m calling the cops!”

He swears at me a bit, but peels out when I pull up my phone. Still had to honk some more on his way out. Douche. I wonder if this is what the random screaming kid evolves into when he collects enough douche exp.

The unit that shared walls with us used to house a couple in it who would keep us awake, and quite concerned, with their loud domestics. But even when they were evicted, that didn’t bring us quiet either. After the landlord spent weeks of his own hard work and who knows how much money repairing the walls that the last family put so many holes in, the next tenants’ kid immediately set to creating brand new ones.

It’s the kind of thing I think of when I remember that I have to struggle to find a place that even allows pets at all, and then pay a pet deposit for my perfect quiet dog who does nothing wrong in her whole life, but there’s literally nothing landlords can do about renting to people with kids.  Also puts me off any thoughts of being a landlord myself.

(tap tap tap tap bang! Rattle)

Me: “WTF is that?”

(tap tap tap tap bang! Rattle)

(tap tap tap tap bang! Rattle)

This kid  next door was running, full speed, to body slam our wall. Then, not learning any lessons from pain, doubling back to charge again.

Me: “Why…?”

I saw this kid outside with the others sometimes, not a parent in sight as usual. He looked like he was maybe 5, but acted more like he was 2. He didn’t seem to be able to speak, just did this gargle scream thing and that was it for communication. I think the poor guy may have had a disability of some kind, but his parents were literally never anywhere to be found to say so.

His assaults on the wall would go on for like half an hour at a time until the kid would wear himself out, or maybe hurt himself enough to finally stop. No adults ever stopped him, I know that. Either his parents were leaving him home alone, or they were home and just ignored him doing this, like they just don’t care if he gets hurt. Either way, they should have never been parents.  

Special needs isn’t just a cutesy euphemism, it means you need to do extra work to raise a kid, not less. His needs are special, he needs more.

More than once I’ve seen this wandering around outside completely naked, and looking lost. No parents trying to wrangle him, no parents looking for him, nothing. I guess they just didn’t care if he got hit by a car or picked up by a creeper.

A number of people called CPS, but I don’t know if anything ever came of it. I felt bad for the kid. He deserves competent parents who actually care about him. I hope he eventually got some, and got the help he needs.  

(tap tap tap tap bang! Rattle)

But sympathy didn’t make me hate living next door any less.

I couldn’t be happier when our year was up and my boyfriend and I bought our house. We made sure to pick a house with space between the neighbors, and avoided any place too near to playgrounds, schools, or daycares. Eventually we settled on place in a nice neighborhood on the north end of town and I thought our neighbor problems were over.

I thought wrong.

The neighbors I just spent this whole video complaining about definitely suck. Crappy-garbage-trash-heaps! But these aren’t THE nightmare neighbors of the title. Oh-no. I haven’t got to them yet.

This is just the prologue. The set up.

Buying a house in a nice neighborhood didn’t solve the problem like I expected. No. It’s about to get worse.

#maskydoo #nightmare neighbors #storytime #script #feedback welcome

[horrible-monstrosity]

17 We open with friendly neighborhood dumbass Akko studying studiously, sitting on a bench in a sunny grassy field which she ignores in favor of a massive stack of books like the bookworm Lottie only sort of is, while redhead side witch bitches about dropping out of school because she's just too cool. An... interesting entrance into the episode, to be sure.

Redhead turns herself into a dashing boys' school student. ..... Did the spell make her grow bollocks

"even though no one's asking you?" is a pretty weird way to ask someone about their dream. I don't think anyone asked redhead to become a broomdancer, or robots girl to become robots, or... anyone to do anything they just wanted to do. and again, she has already accomplished what she says she wants to do- the yeti, in the next episode robert girl, the fairy strike... this show does not know what it has done or what it's doing.

... Wait, are they really here to just fucking steal the grail from the school? why? I've already forgotten why they wanted it, and why petty theft by a couple of randos is so easily accepted as a method of getting it back. Are there no witch authorities who might have wanted in on this? Later redhead says it "belongs" to the guys' school as a way to deflect explaining how it works... shrugg

Have I mentioned yet that I like the supporting trio more than the main three? I could probably write a whole fucking essay on that. All three of them are straight-up archetypes... but that alone is enough to make them at least basically functional as characters. Because that's *why* archetypes end up as archetypes- it's a grouping of character tropes and traits that hits a chord with people. And that's why "cunning normal" was such a fucking retarded concept, Kiznaiverrrrrrr-

It's kinda weird she stays disguised even after getting caught... I guess this is actually consistent; it's been shown before you need to use another spell to transform back, meaning unlike most settings ontological inertia actually applies. but then later on the transformation seems to start slowly undoing itself for no reason anyway. How does this work? magic router?? why'd akko even take that?... whatever

we finally get some violence against witches (threatened but never put though because of course not), which doesn't explain anything but at least characterizes the guys as your entirely typical medieval-styled witch not-likers. The fact that this is what passes for an improvement in this fuckshow of a shitshow is just fucking sad. there are some actually tense and brutal scenes in there, some nice visual shots, like akko getting thrown on the table tied up and the distant side-shot of the guy getting hit by the armor... that aren't killed by wackyness! Amazding! ... Though it still doesn't quite work, probably because the show is still clearly too light-hearted to, say, actually use the torture devices. But them being pulled out isn't a wacky gag either aside from a bit of the reaction. what tone is this?

"y u no use ur magic on me??" "because there's no reception here dumbass the fuck do you think this works like"

Yet another interesting unaddressed plot point- magic was what got them into this mess and turned blong guy into an armored monster, and while a witch was the one who stopped it little to no magic was used in doing so, she basically just needed to smack him hard enough. It seems like the takeaway from this is that witches are perfectly fine people, but magic still needs to fucking die. hmm

by the way what happened to the wordfinding plot this episode

So clearly this was Croi boi testing her angery magicks, but I have to wonder... *why* is anger magic the strongest sort? I mean, it can basically only be arbitrary, but how convenient that her evil energy-having plan can't just go off by spreading feelings of sunshine and happiness.

18 "trained to catch every gost in 12 days, but the goal is one gost in one year"... This is literally, exactly, what Lottie says. What? Literally one minute in and like 20 seconds of dialogue and already this shit makes not a single lick of fucking sense.

akko trips and fucks things up again okay we fucking get i- why was that enpugh to breakm the fucking robort? akko's own body must be the most destructive object know to mankind.

We return to the generic wackey-qwackey humorisms the show had mostly shed in the last couple episodes, and it feels more forced than ever before. After all these thng I can't actually believe Akko's still this shit... and apparently the show itself doesn't either, since as soon as Akko finds something she can actually do it entirely stops. Once she starts working as a convincer/go-between/gopher, not a single thing gets broken. In other words, Trigger just abandoned her character development to churn out and force out more mediocre obligate humor. But at least it was only for, like, half of the episode.

on the other hand once she gets her shit back together the cards get brought back. That was always a kind of interesting little thing, that Akko knew some things even other witches didn't because of the fandom-ing that brought her to the school where she was otherwise so far behind everyone else. I mean, that just raises the question of why the other witches apparently never saw these cards and I feel like I asked exactly this many an episode ago so let's just move the fuck on again

isn't the ship from the OVA? it looks like the shiny rod... and like the same old vaguely eva-lagann looking shit. I forget what it was from Gainax that looked like that, but definitely it was something.

"I already know I won't be as good as Constance"... Man, when Akko's good, she's fucking good. She really isn't trampling over someone else with the conviction that she's always right about everything, she's just so excited she wants to draw a fucking robort. And then Candace loves it and is inspired to make it actually work. it's fucking cute man

gosts viral on social media Normies can't see gosts, but presumably Akko can. How is this actually determined? Rather, the deeper problem is that the line between witches and normies was never defined. There's some implication that it's hereditary, since everyone aside from Akko comes from a "witching family", but the very existence of Akko belies that. So if anyone can train to become a witch, how much training do you do before you become witchy enough to see gost? Actually, should people with latent potential be able to see gost? If Akko is bad at becoming a witch, logically there should be some people who would be better at it relative to her. Shouldn't there be some people in the crowd who can see gost as is? Also, do any males exist with any amount of witch potential, who could see ghosts on their own? If they had never called attention to it by doing the "gost can't see normie" thing, there'd be nothing to really question- you could assume witching is a skill like any other that people could aquire, that's often handed down through families like any other job or career, and that some people are just kind of terrible at. Buuuuut they had to get in this lame "muh on muh cell phone at tuh evuuuunnnt" joke and didn't think it through. Good work, Trigger, keep it up

how is many crow? how many gost We're shown each cube succing up at least one gost each, then multiple cubes forming one crow, but then there's a whole fucking lotta fucking crows. How many gosts were there? How many were left after the large amount that were already taken out? There's just an unmeasured infinite supply of gost somewhere offscreen to conveniently move in as needed. Trigger didn't think this through. And then a super-giant mega-crow shows up which must have used up even more gost. Great

and then the robort- OKAY TRIGGER WE GET IT YOU WUZ GAINAX ONCE CALM THE FUCK DOWN this is just so boring. YEAH, A FUCKING ROBOT, WE GET IT TRIGGER, YOU FUCKS HAVE FUCKING ISSUES. GAINAX-SENPAI WILL NEVER FUCKING NOTICE YOU, GET OVER IT. ... reactions from the peanut gallery are on point tho. akko even credits constantinople for her part in making this possible. she's a good kid. so good. too pure for this fucking show - the robort runs out of energy- WHY DID YOU NOT BRING A ROUTER YOU FUCKNAUTS THERE WAS ONE IN THE IMMEDIATELY PRECEEDING EPISODE WHY - it's a drill. it's a fucking drill. ........ i want to cry acid.

team cubes it blastign off againnnnnnfuck this gay earth

aww man akko doesn't even want to be thanked but compton gives her a training broom anyway. it's beautiful.

19 an old tradition and a new power... croix-was-write is written into the very fabric of reality in this show. good and then mom-diana fucking dies. LOL BYE BITCH.

why would you have the head-appointing ceremony randomly every few years rather than, like, when you need to appoint a new family head? it would even affect the exact same urgency, just have events come to a head so she needs to be pulled out of school and become family head now. why are they electing a baby teen as family head anyway? what age are these kids, anyway? akko looks like ten sometimes.

the second diana says "muh respekt for convention!!" you know she's gonna be treated as full of shit. it's over something we've never heard of and had no reason to assume, anyway. i don't even know "you know about the words?" you've blabbed them to everyone including the rival school that wants to execute you all, so why are you surprised?

...... LOL WHUT THE AUNT LITERALLY HAS GLOWING RED DEMON EYES WHAT THE FUCC?

.... Andrew is one of the best fucking characters in this shitshow of a show. The amount of fucks he's come to not give... Just invite the witch girl your father knows and hates to ride in your car squished up between him and yourself. And dad-man just can't fucking do anything about it. Holy shit lol and lol these british people sure fucking love soccer. boy i sure bet this isn't hammed-in foreshadowing for some fucking bullshit that's going to happen in the last episodes!!!! i'd fucking bet my lyfe on it !!!!!!

what fuck is diantha wearing We get another one of those nice moments that makes me hate the rest of the show. Akko, being energetic and people-oriented as always but somewhat more constrained due to the awkward and unfamiliar situation, tries to go for the teddy bear as an attempt to start some conversation with Diana... Diana yells at her not to touch it, and she actually does not touch it. Now go back and watch the robot episode again. HMMMMMMmmmmm Except it wasn't about the bear, it was about the box of Chariot cards, because of course Diantha actually likes Chariot, bet no one ever saw that twist comingHEY WAIT A MINUTE, didn't one of the earlier episodes hinge on Akko knowing something Diantha didn't because of the cards?? It can't be because Akko was the only one to autistically memorize them all, because Diantha is smurt character and should have remembered it at least somewhat just from reading it normally. kindness from diana, when the rest of the family and household is by akko's own statement even worse.

old lady yells at akko while unfitting music plays

#triggered by trigger