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hopelesslyromanticshark · 1 month

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✧˖°. I COULD BE YOUR SACRIFICE - ii

author's note: youre gonna forget this is an 'x leo valdez' smau real quick girls. god, i wrote mystery man too hot. GUYS DONT FORGET ABOUT LEO HE'LL FIX THIS OKAY DONT GET DISTRACTED WHILE IN THIS PART OF THE FIC OKAY STAY STRONG SOLDIERS

a week. you had been moping around for a week. and you were finally sick of it. how dare a man have this much control over your life?? a man that clearly doesn't give a shit. you swore if you saw calypso post one more photo of her on a date with leo, hickies clearly on display, you were gonna swallow a jar of bees.

but as piper blared 'unwritten,' you couldn't help but sing along with a wide smile. and, as cheesy as it was, you knew you would be okay. because you had these wonderful girls, who were curling your hair and doing your makeup and making you laugh. just because they loved you. and, most importantly, they were letting you root through their closet!! you stole a black mini skirt that did amazing things for your ass and mesh stockings from annabeth. from hazel, you borrowed a white tank top with a dainty little bow that drew your eyes straight to your stellar tits. piper lent you a long sleeve cardigan that didnt have buttons but was rather tied close, once more drawing eyes to where your cleavage was spilling out of hazel's top. you felt the tiniest bit slutty, but that all went away with the girl's calls of it serving cunt and whatnot.

and then you girl's were off to the clubs and bars!! annabeth was dd because she had some big test the next morning that she didn't want to be hungover for. though, you were certain she could ace it while hungover, you didn't say anything. to be completely, honest, you drank more than you should have. okay, sue me, you'd had a rough week, okay?? and with every shot, leo's face was getting more blurry in your brain, which just encouraged more shots.

"im gonna get more drinks," you shouted over the music as you gripped pipers arm. she giggled and spun you towards the bar, her silent acknowledgment that she heard you. you pressed a kiss to hazel's cheek as you passed her and she wrinkled her nose at you and squeezed your hand, sloppily.

"two shots of fireball, please, good sir!" you called to the bartender, leaning over the bar. he gave you a smile on nod before going off to fulfill your order. you were squinting, trying to read the names of the bottles on display while rapping your fingers against the bar countertop. you stumbled slightly, having lost your balance from trying to read, but strong arms caught you before you could fall too far.

"oh, jeez, im a mess. thank you, truly," you mused, turning to your savior before your jaw dropped, "travvy?"

"woah, yn, long- long time no see," travis stoll managed to get out through his shock, attempting to subtly look you up and down but clearly he'd been caught based off the smirk that grew on your face. travis cleared his throat and looked away, trying desperately to think of something to say. gods, you looked so different from the last time he'd seen you.

"yeah. tell me about it. what are ya doing around here? still in school?" you questioned, tilting your head and leaning towards the boy. nothing like liquid courage to get you flirting up a storm.

"nah. got a good job at a bank, ironically enough. i don't know why they hired me with my criminal record, but who am i to ask questions. what about you? you and leo still going strong?" travis asked, a glimmer in his eyes that begged you to say 'no.' and he was about to get his wish.

"HA. no, we aren't- we've never- he's with someone else," you explained vaguely, waving your hand around with a roll of you eyes. and while you were saying 'no,' travis could tell that your heart wanted to say 'yes.' which was more than a little soul crushing.

"hmm. i always thought you were valdez's girl," taunted travis as he took a sip of his drink, shrugging as he noticed the rage building in you.

"i am no ones girl. im my own girl," you hissed out, shoving at his shoulder with a playful glare.

"prove it."

"a-alright," you shuttered out, keeping your eyes on his begging ones before turning to the bartender that returned with your shots, "you got a sharpie?"

the bartender nodded, reaching down into his pocket and sliding the pen over to you as you rooted through your purse, getting cash to pay the man. but, travis was already setting his credit card down, telling the man that he had it covered with a wink in your direction. which just solidified your next actions. you pulled the cap of the pen off with your teeth and gripped travis' arm, pulling it towards yourself. you wrote your number down before recapping the pen and pretending to inspect his now ink covered skin.

"its missing something," you told the boy, looking up at him through your lashes before you pulled his wrist up to your lips, pressing a kiss against his veins, ensuring they left a kiss stain before pulling back. you inspected your handy work before taking your shots and beginning to walk away, calling over your shoulder to the boy with a wink.

"call me some time, travvy."

"if you think i won't, you're dead wrong, yn!"

you walked back to your friends, handing the shots over to them before looking over at the bar, watching travis watch you. you bit your lip in his direction, watching him sharpen his glare at you before turning back to your friends. all of there jaws were dropped, looking at you like you were the shit.

"yn, baby, im not sober, but is that travis stoll, staring at you like your a piece of meat???" piper questioned, a smile growing from her dropped jaw.

"whattttttt? nooooooo," you teased, winking at the girl, which left the two of you in a puddle of giggles, desperately holding onto each other to stay upright.

"well, i am sober, and that is definately travis stoll looking like he wants to eat yn alive," annabeth mused and you shoved her shoulder, holding a finger to your lips as a blush coated your cheeks. from the alcohol or the mentions of the boy, annabeth couldn't tell.

"stop, stop. he's gonna hear you, annie," you giggled out and annabeth just shook her head.

a few hours later and annabeth was regretting her decision to be dd. trying to get a single drunk girl to do anything you wanted was hard enough, three was like herding cats. the moment she got one of them into the car, the other two were whining about needing the toilet or something stupid. she had finally managed to get hazel and piper into the car, leaving just you sitting on the curb, eyes glazed over and a dopey smile on your face.

"c'mon, yn, just get in the damn car," annabeth whined, trying to drag you up to your feet but you were just going limp on her.

"noooooo. i wanna dance more," you cried and every second that passed annabeth could feel piper and hazel plotting on how to get out of the car.

"yn, you can dance at my house. please."

"no."

"yn-"

"need some help?" a voice called from behind annabeth, causing her to look over her shoulder. there travis stood, an amused look on his face. she nodded desperately and he made quick moves towards the pair, crouching in front of you.

"hey, honey, c'mere," he spoke easily and you were slumping against his chest like it was second nature. without breaking a sweat, he easily lifted you until your feet were under you. your legs were still wobbly so you leaned heavily against the man for support as he gently lead you to the car.

"i want mcdonalds," you all but drooled against travis' shirt. and he chuckled as he set you gently into the back seat with the other two girls, who perked up at the mentions of food.

"whatever you want, princess," travis laughed with an eye roll as he did your seatbelt for you. then he left the car, gently shutting the door as you leaned your head against hazel's shoulder. he smiled softly at the sight before nodding at annabeth and beginning to make his way towards the bar.

"hey, you need a ride home?" she offered and travis turned around, pretending to think his options over. walk home or spend more time with you? yeah, the choice seemed pretty clear.

"yeah, if you're willing."

"of course. you helped me wrangle the beasts, it's the least i can do in return," replied annabeth, like she didn't have ulterior motives. she loved leo, truly she did, but that boy was going to need more than a little jealousy to get him moving. and travis was going to be the perfect pawn in her masterplan to get you and leo together.

so, while she chauffeured the drunk girls around, she made sure to take plenty of pictures of travis and yn together. and all of them were gonna magically find there way to her twitter, posted for the whole world (leo) to see. but, most importantly, annabeth subtly mentioned that yn should make a tiktok. it was one of her favorite drunk pass times, the girl eagerly reaching for annabeth's phone and jumping out of the car to make it in the mcdonalds parking lot. and even though it wasn't trending anymore, annabeth made the subtle comment about the whole 'is it over now?' dance. you basically screamed, pulling piper out of the car with you before doing the same with travis, who nearly dropped all his mcnuggets at how hard you tugged him.

you were barely able to do the dance in your inebrated state, so you were mainly singing along. and the dancing was provocative as you sang about hips and thighs and whispered sighs. and then, whilst the song was playing lyrics about jumping off a very tall something, you pulled travis into frame, laughing as the lyrics continued on about someone coming running but you were struggling to sing along as travis wrapped his arms around you and lifted you off the ground, your drunken giggles bringing a smile to his lips. annabeth then stole her phone back and instantly posted it before shooing everyone back into the car. she dropped travis off at his apartment, you leaning out of the window and waving at him as annabeth drove off.

and annabeth could feel her phone buzzing with constant texts and comments and whatever else, a smirk growing on her lips.

man, she loved stirring the pot!!

✶⋆.˚ taglist: @ssparksflyy @imasimpdealwithit @pro-oddity @aezuria @literallyimthenerdemoji @sunshine-of-ur-life @brodieland @ivyy-covered-walls @annybah @aryxchse @riordanness @stargirl-exe @shimas-pjo-addiction @shimas-things12 @butterandhoneytoast @pumpkinbxtch @balletfilmss @daniskywalkersolo @meerpea @mayo-0-o @hannenomical @eliseisclinicallyinsane @ellipsisspelled

#all my love ౨ৎ #𐙚⋆｡°✩ everythings alright when she calls me back #pjo #hoo #heroes of olympus x reader #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez #pjo smau #smau

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tibby-art · 9 months

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Given how much Scar’s character knows. (From him connecting series that we don’t think he should know about to his character. And him knowing things he shouldn’t…) I’m on the band wagon that Scar is some sort of Eldtrich God.

Righttt like, my best guess is he's some sort of dimension-hopper or something... a traveling trickster god.. mentally i'm at a corkboard w/all the red strings connecting to different scars trying to piece it all together, holding my head in my hands

It's like. Okay. He had an encounter with s8 tycoon scar where he stole his hat, and he killed him (?) but today he said he simply broke a wheel on the wagon and stole the hat? He says each hat has a story. Does Jellie's hat also have a story. Jellie obviously travels with him across every universe. He seems not to mind when people don't remember who he is but he gets VERY upset when people don't know who Jellie is; just thought that was interesting

Did P!Scar travel to the hermitcraft season 8 universe? After the moon hit the server? Did tycoon scar travel to the pirates universe? Or are they the same person and it's just a lie? When he first spawns in Pirates SMP he makes it a point to mention a mysterious flower crown in his inventory. He says it's an important crown, and it's the only one on the server. Buttercups??? (Sidenote he also spawns with some blocks of cyan glazed terracotta. Not sure what that's about but it's dangerously close to being light blue glazed aka the vex magic. I would have lost my mind)

At the very beginning Scar says his ship was called the Flying Jellie. The Flying Jellie. What if it wasn't a boat. What if it was a space ship. He calls it a pirate ship but that doesn't necessarily mean a boat, ti could be a space pirate ship. (He's done loopholes with his phrasing like this before, like today when he sold michela a sword that was "nearly full" durability, only to later clarify it was "nearly full-y depleted"). He says he won an important battle with the ship, but he lost the ship and the crew. I've seen people say that the crew is supposed to have been boatem, not sure if that's canon? Is the ship story even true?

He made references to both Pearl and Grian today, are they his Pearl and Grian from the pirates universe or is he referring to the hermits? He mentions Pearl by name to Sausage, who says he doesn't know who that is (and yet Sausage goes on to casually mention the moon at the mention of Pearl, either Sausage is also a dimension-hopper and he's bluffing or he has a subconscious connection to his other lives). He doesn't say Grian's name but he talks about a man on his crew who sunk with the ship that's very obviously meant to be Grian (says the man's head looked like a loaf of bread, that he wore red, would have been a Kite). He doesn't seem too upset about the loss.

He greets Cleo, Scott and Martyn when he first sees them even though they don't know who he is. Cleo flat-out says "I don't believe we've met" after he greets her by name. Interestingly enough when he first calls Martyn by name, Martyn doesn't question it (I know Martyn also has some Lore going on, maybe he recognizes Scar too) Also I saw someone point out that his pants resemble mayor scar's pants. Possible season 7 reference, season 8 reference with tycoon scar and a possible? season 9 reference?? with that flower crown???

I literally can't tell if he has this planned-out intricate lore that connects all of his minecraft SMP characters like Martyn does or if he's literally just saying random stuff for fun. His character could be lying about his entire backstory, we don't know. i have no idea what's important to the lore and what isn't. this man is such a trickster god its not even funny. tldr WHAT IS GOING ON

#sorry i so went on a tangent here #goodtimeswithscar #pirates smp

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nearest-dearest · 1 year

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The String (Wally x reader)

After reading a story to Julie, the rainbow monster is dead set on finding her soulmate and you tagged along without much of a choice in that matter.

🍎🎀🍎🎀🍎🎀🍎🎀

“Awe! How romantic!” Julie swoons after you just finished reading to her. More specifically the part about how the two main characters found each other through the red string of fate. Where soulmates are connected by a red string tied to their finger. The red string is strong too, it may twist, tangle but it will never break. And all this info came from the new romance book you ordered last week and wanted to share it with Julie.

Julie suddenly gasps “Do you think I could find my soulmate through the red string?”

You couldn’t help but let out a little laugh “I’m sure you can Julie, but only if you can see the red string though.”

“Fear not dear neighbor! For I have a plan!”

And that’s how you ended up outside Julie’s house. A red string tied to your own finger while Julie does the same to herself.

“Julie, I’m not sure this will help us find our soulmates.” You voiced your concerns before she can enact her plan of throwing her red ball of yarn to any “lucky” passerby that could catch it.

“This is just a theory! Don’t worry (Y/n) dear. Who knows, maybe your string could land on Wally!”

The last sentence had you sputtering your words. “What?! Why would you say that? You’re making it sound like I like him! I mean, I like everyone in the neighborhood, including Wally. But it’s not like I like, like him!” You said all of that so fast that you ended up taking a deep breath after you’re done.

Meanwhile, that knowing smirk on Julie’s face never left, but okay, she’ll play your game “Sure (Y/n), I’ll drop it, but it could happen.

Should’ve known it wouldn’t be easy for her to fully drop it. Now you’re wondering what could’ve happened if you hadn’t blushed or stared during Wally’s little singing two weeks ago. Ever since Julie found out, she hasn’t stopped alluding to it when the two of you are alone. And when the others are there, she carries on as if she knew nothing. At least she’s great at keeping a secret. But you couldn’t really find a fault within you to like Wally. The painter is already attractive, he’s also talented and charming and you always find an aura of calm and serenity whenever you’re with him.

And as your silly little crush grew, so did how Wally make you feel. One moment you feel serenity and the next feeling is confusion. You don’t know if this is love or just infatuation. Is it because he’s so. . .

Mysterious?

You know Wally like any other friend you had, but there’s something about Wally that makes you want to know more. But will he ever allow it? Does he even like you the way you like him?

“Awe, (Y/n) Vandermeer. Of course, Wally likes you!” Julie suddenly says.

You paused. . .

“Wait! Was I saying all of that out loud?!”

“Unfortunately, yes. So, you do like Wally!”

“I—” You sigh out your defeat. There’s no denying it anymore.

“Nothing to be ashamed of neighbor! After this experiment, you’re sure to know whether Wally likes you or not!”

“Again, Julie, I don’t think this is how it works.”

“You never know until you try! Now let’s look for our soulmates!” Julie is the first to throw her yarn, and it landed on. . .

A rock!

Julie skipped her way to the rock until she was close enough to pick it up. Lovingly staring at the rock like it’s made of gold “Who knew you were so close the entire time!”

You shook your head at the display, but the smile on your face suggests a playful expression and tone.

“Now it’s your turn (Y/n)! Go find your soulmate!” Julies calls back to you.

You stared at the ball of yarn in your hand. The hesitancy kept you from throwing it. Although, it may land on a rock as well, and you and Julie can have a laugh about it. Everyone in the neighborhood is inside their houses or backyard. It seems like a safe and shame free action. With a deep breath, you got ready to throw it as far as you can. In the count of 3. . . 2. . . 1. Off goes the yarn in the air. Landing on. . . It landed on nothing, it just kept going and rolling away.

“Uh, I’ll be back Julie!” And with that, you began chasing the ball as it unravels. This is one good bunch of yarn; it’d be a waste to just leave it all behind. Let alone just leave it littered— Okay! How long is this yarn?! It goes on forever! You better catch up soon, the ball is getting smaller too.

Then the yarn stops.

Finally.

And it stopped by. . .

Wally’s feet.

Oh no

You suddenly felt your legs freeze to a halt on the spot. As for Wally, he picked up the ball of yarn to examine it. Then he looked up and met your gaze. Wally smiles.

“Ah! Hello neighbor, is this yours?” Wally offered the ball of yarn.

“Hi Wally! Yes, it is, thanks.” You say in a fast speed, hoping he doesn’t ask about what you were doing.

“No problem! If I may ask, what were you doing?”

Plan failed.

“Uh, nothing much! Just helping Julie with a knitting project, that’s all!” Great plan, just lie like second nature why don’t you?

Wally gave a little laugh “No need to lie (Y/n), you can tell me! I won’t judge.”

Darn, he’s so perceptive it’s endearing!

“Okay then.” You caved in, it’s been a long day and you don’t feel like dodging anymore. “Julie thought she could find her soulmate using the red string of fate, and thought it was also a good idea to help me find my soulmate too.”

“Soulmate?” Wally wonders.

“Yeah, now if you’ll excuse me I gotta go now.” You started taking your leave, at least you tried to. Because the sudden feeling of Wally’s hand holding yours had freezing like ice.

“Wait! Can I just do something first?” Wally asks.

“Uh sure?” Still feeling a little flustered that Wally held your hand, you ended up mindlessly agreeing to his request. You couldn’t even see what he was doing because you were too busy looking down to cool down the heat on your cheeks.

“Done!” Wally announced.

“Wait, really? That was. . . Fast.”

If you weren’t red already, then you sure look like one big giant apple. Wally had tied the other end of the yarn. On his pinky finger.

“And to make it easier for us.” Wally then snapped the extra thread with the blade he uses to sharpen his pencil.

“Don’t take the string off your finger. Okay Neighbor?”

Were Wally’s last words before walking away to Home.

Leaving you flustered and quiet from where you stand.

And giving a Julie in hiding pride over the outcome “All according to plan.”

All according to plan indeed Julie.

All According to plan.

#wally darling x y/n #wally darling x reader #wally darling x you #wally x reader #wally darling #fanfic #wally x you #wally darling my beloved #welcome home #welcome home fanfic #welcome home fanart #welcome home x you #welcome home x reader #welcome home arg x reader

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astonmartingf · 1 month

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REAL LIFE RELATIONS — BREAKING NEWS

mick schumacher x reader x liam lawson

series summary— the world of motorsports is vast, yet it is also very limiting. like an intricate web of relationships, connections can get you everywhere, and underneath the pinnacle of motorsports are the secrets waiting to be unfolded.

OPENING — SCARY AS HELL BUT I LOVE THE THRILL OF IT

drama seems to follow you around— after a long time of hiding the paddock puts the pieces together about your true identity.

warnings: mommy and daddy issues, toxic family dynamics, there's a bit of mystery going around so there's that

masterlist ★ next

If you had to choose between going to a family dinner with your forsaken father and stepmother of the decade or jump out the window from your apartment, hop in a hot blondie's motorcycle and run away for the rest of the evening, you'd choose none and hide in your friend's apartment.

Your reason? The family dinner is a farce you didn't have time to deal with, while the motorcycle sounds promising, said hot blondie gets attached too quickly for your own liking. And you didn't like to get tied down.

Why is it that you're so bent on "running away"?

Simple.

If given the chance to annoy your deadbeat of a father and overbearing stepmother, would you do it? You would.

And that's where hot blondie comes into the equation— he's just convenient. Especially when you learned to wrap him all over your fingers. Yuki would be disappointed in you, both at the fact that he knows how much you'd rather stay up holed in his crib, and how you're manipulating hot blondie.

If you're so hell bent on not going, why not just go with hot blondie? The predicament you're in is— you're already stuck in the family dinner.

Stopping the urge to roll your eyes, you watch them make small talk about their day. Your father is watching your stepmother with honey dripping his eyes, further reminding you of the hot blondie's invitation.

A "get out of jail for free" card he says. This wasn't your personal cell, rather it felt like a personal hell. There are a hundred other things you'd rather do, in fact you'd rather babysit your step siblings and connect with them, but no— insisting that you come with them and catch up.

Catch up?

What is this dodgeball? Because that would be fairly entertaining, you chuckle imagining yourself throwing it in between them to catch. There's no need to catch up, not with the guards they hired to keep you in check.

A headache they said, you don't mind your father calling you nicknames knowing he has given up on you decades ago. If only your stepmother would stop being so relentless in building back your relationship with your father.

Some things aren't worth fixing— your relationship with him is one of them.

Your eyes wander around the restaurant, watching people come and go under the windy London weather. The glint of a familiar helmet caught the corner of your eyes.

A few feet away from the window of the restaurant, you see hot blondie's motorcycle lights blink, calling your attention, lulling you away from your meal. You'd give it to him though, his persistence beginning to change the train of thoughts in your head. Smirking to yourself, you halt in playing with your food, taking a few bites planning the next steps to your escape.

Placing your fork down, you wipe your mouth using the napkin. "Excuse me, I'll use the powder room for a moment."

Your father grunts, nodding his head towards the bathroom, you smile courteously fighting the urge to do anything that could trigger your father's outbursts.

You weren't tiptoeing around him per say, it's more that you'd rather keep him calm and at peace in public knowing very well that your next action might burst a vessel in his frontal lobe.

Reapplying your lipstick, you clean the edges adding finishing touches before making a beeline to the back door, to meet hot blondie where he'll be waiting and save her escape the jail that is disguised–

"Going somewhere?" The voice of your stepmother causes you to freeze. Shit. She's learning much more quickly than your father.

Slowly turning around you and putting another facade in front of her, as much as you tried to hate your stepmother, she cared for you if not more than your father ever did. But caring is not enough, not at least for you. It's not an excuse to let your father continue doing what he does the best.

If comparison is a thief of joy— then they're both thieving the joy out of you. Your father for his usual antics, and for your stepmother, whose presence only reminded you of what you'll never have.

Your silence throws your stepmother off, surely by now you'd have spoken a string of curses towards her. But this time you're silent, you learned the hard way.

In a series of unfortunate events the universe keeps shoving at you, you end up causing a scene in a restaurant, which ends up with you getting grounded. One that wasn't even your fault to begin with, but your father is not a man of reason, not that he was ever a man to you. All you could see was a weak man, with a bruised ego, who is a deadbeat of a father to you.

And it hurts more seeing him playing family with your stepmother and step-siblings knowing fully well you'll never get the same affection from him. He often looked at you like scum on his feet, the lowest of lows. Which is why you knew that you couldn't act in front of your stepmother like that, not when she's the only thing holding your family together— or at least she's trying.

"You don't have to say anything. I saw his motorcycle move to the back of the restaurant, is that how you've been leaving events and galas without us?"

You raise your brow at her statement, clearly avoiding conversation. One thing you like about your stepmother is her astute perception, at some point you found yourself enjoying her company more than your father's.

But she doesn't have to know that, and your stepmother knows her boundaries, if she wanted to keep this relationship civil, she'd walk away without saying a word.

"I'll talk to your father about it, you're free to go."

You turn your heels walking away from her, scoffing— she always has to be the hero, the good guy, and because she lets you leave, you owe her one.

Grabbing the helmet presented in front of you the moment you open the back door, you slide into the back of the hot blondie's motorcycle. Arms around his waist, you close your eyes, the sounds of the engine revving up accompanied by the goosebumps glittering around you as the cold London weather lingers atop your skin.

Relish in the moment, you keep your eyes closed, pressing your body closer to his for warmth, as your bodies cut through the wind. It was your escape.

He was your escape.

"Feeling better?" The blonde asks, grabbing the helmet from your hands as you settle in a park near the river. The weather is not as cold as you thought in comparison back to when you were in the motorcycle.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but-" You roll your eyes, scoffing at his words. One thing or another at least you know you don't have to hide in front of him, not that you are being truthful to him as well, but blondie doesn't need to know anything. As long as he's catching up on the important bits and pieces, there are still lines they don't cross.

Lines that you won't let him cross.

"Then don't. If I wanted to talk to him I could've chosen to stay in that damn dinner, but guess what I'm here with you aren't I? Or is this interrogation a part of the "get out of jail for free " card?"

The blonde male raises his hands in surrender, dropping his jacket on your legs before situating himself next to you.

"Don't you think it's better for you to stay in the restaurant."

Flabbergasted, you turn around raising your brows. "I mean look at you in that fancy outfit, it's probably 8 degrees out here, isn't it much warmer there? And with food, sure the company isn't as lovely as you want to be..."

Your eyes squint, watching him intently, "For someone so adamant about me leaving the restaurant you keep saying contradicting things. Is this a test? I want to be here, I think I am capable of choosing what I want to do blondie."

Shaking his head, he chuckles at the mention of the nickname you coined a few years back. "You've got to stop calling me that."

"It stuck around with you, I'll never stop calling you blondie."

A sigh escapes your lips, thinking back on your memories together. Life was easier then, young, naive, full of life, and free from the sins that follow the controversy of your family.

Not that anyone else knew, they worked hard to keep it out of the news, now they're just whispers, fragments of the reality. Even to you, it's all a mystery.

Somehow they couldn't keep you away from the paddock, despite all the talk and hearsay about what actually happened you chose to stay and that's all because of blondie.

You're a ghost from the past— each day as you live, a piece of you slowly gets taken away. Forced to hide away from the world you didn't choose to live in.

"Heavy thoughts there... come back down?" You blink, facing the blonde beside you, your stomach growling.

"Let's go eat somewhere before you drop me off."

In an instant, the blonde stands up wiping his hands clean before hoisting you up from the grass.

"You want fries?"

Your eyes dilate, nodding your head excitedly grabbing on eof the helmets, putting it on the blonde males pushing him to start the motorcycle.

"And tacos." You mumble under the helmet causing the blonde to laugh at your antics.

"And tacos, here we go."

His voice infecting yours illiciting a laugh from your lips. He has that effect on you.

Which is why you'd never let him cross that line, what you have with each other— no one can take. Not even your father.

Which is someone you'll have to deal with once you get home, hopefully stepmother dearest has done her best to placate his anger. You didn't want to deal with any more bullshit as is.

But a funny thing about being under the scrutiny of the spotlight is that no matter how hard you try and hide, someone is always lingering around, poking and prodding, waiting for you to fuck up and shit yourself.

amgf ★ superstars @woozarts @minkyungseokie @iienstein @eugene-emt-roe

#f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 fluff #f1 angst #mick schumacher x reader #mick schumacher imagine #mick schumacher fic #liam lawson x reader #liam lawson imagine #liam lawson fic

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balladofmyramblings · 1 year

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I’ve seen my fair share of…interesting BOSAS takes (Tigris and Snow’s relationship doesn’t make sense, Sejanus wasn’t important to Coriolanus/Coriolanus’ character, Dean Highbottom was inconsistent, people just called Lucy Gray Lucy instead of LG or something, etc) but never has one irked me as much as people saying the ending was rushed or out of character or didn’t make sense.

The ending is a representation of their whole relationship. Yeah, it’s rushed, because it lasted 3 months and they were prepared to spend their life together after that. No, it was completely in character. Yes, it made total sense, because what else would have convinced Coriolanus to go back, if not the idea that he was safe?

First off, elaborating on the rushed point, be so fr. 1, the book was getting a bit long anyways, and 2, it couldn’t have been long and drawn out. How quick their relationship crumbled and we were shown Coriolanus’ true loyalties shows so much I can’t even begin to explain it, but I’ll try.

It shows how Lucy Gray valued family and trust. She’d already talked about how much trust mattered to her, and she’d been hurt so badly before she needed it. She needs trust, and she doesn’t just need it for herself. She needs to be able to trust him, and she needs him to be able to trust her. When Coriolanus obviously lied about the third person he killed, Lucy Gray realized that neither of those things were there.

It shows how Coriolanus valued himself and the capitol above all else. He was going to, and tried to, kill Lucy Gray. The person who, just 10 minutes ago he was prepared to spend the rest of his life with. He did that because he couldn’t be guaranteed loyalty, and because he realized she definitely didn’t belong to him. Coriolanus’ view of Lucy Gray- that she’s a pet, or something just for him, is entirely effed up and he can’t see that, so he clings to it. He clings to that idea of her being his and when it’s proven false, he can’t let go of it.

Lucy Gray was there when Coriolanus lied to her about the killing, and there was only one person he could have also killed. She was wary of him then, what he was capable of, but she didn’t know for sure where his loyalty truly laid until she saw the look on his face with the guns. She knew then that the Coriolanus standing before her she couldn’t trust, and she knew what that meant, and Coriolanus knew she knew what that meant and he couldn’t deal with the fact she wasn’t completely infatuated with him.

It’s also worthy to mention how easily Coriolanus started to see Lucy Gray differently. He justified his killing of her to himself, as we see in the whole “she’s a victor, maybe Billy taupe was right, etc” page. He thinks that it may have been an act all along, and can’t deal with the fact he fell in love with someone who could turn on him so easily. So he justifies it and makes stuff up and uses all he can to convince himself of the devilish nature of Lucy Gray.

Coriolanus’ deep, unwavering faith in the capitol is shown here so clearly I feel like it’s bleeding into my eyes. He was so ready to leave her (also how he thought she’d be ok with it also proves how he sees her as completely loyal) when he realized he was basically innocent. He is only ever scared of the capitol when it could harm him.

Their whole relationship was a whirlwind, and could never have had a breakup 3 chapters long. It needed to be quick and easy, all ties cut. The fate of Lucy Gray also needed to be a mystery, because nothing else in his life is. The constant worrying of if she’d ever tell, if she’s alive or not, blah blah blah unsettles him just like he deserves it to. We don’t get an answer to if Lucy Gray came back (probably not though), we don’t even get an answer if she’s alive.

In conclusion, the end of BOSAS was very fitting, and though unpredictable and fast, it was right.

#also maybe gonna elaborate on the other takes #ballad of songbirds and snakes #bosas #ballad of my ramblings #coriolanus snow #hunger games #katniss everdeen #the hunger games #lucy gray baird #district 12 #dr Gaul #sejanus plinth #Lucy gray

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lokisprettygirl · 6 months

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Under his influence (Post Avengers! Loki x female reader)

Read chapter 35 here/ Series Masterlist

Chapter 36

Summary : Loki's torture ends as after years of separation he finds his way back to you.

Warning: 18+, HUGE Canon divergence (Just me making shit up), timey wimey stuff topics dealing with cheating and falling out of love, mention of pregnancy, infertility, gif is how he looked ;)

When Loki had chosen to fix the timeline again he knew he'd be in his own personal hell that he himself had created for the next few years of his life. When Frigga died all he wanted to do was run back to you so you'd hold him in your arms and comfort him but he couldn't.

After the events of Svartalfheim he pretended to be deceased and moved to midgard for a while until Thor had found him again.. he had promised the ancient one that he wouldn't interfere in your life and he didn't, first few weeks were the hardest for him, worst, at times he thought that he'd rather go through Thanos's torture again then go through this.

He wasn't able to sleep or do anything but he stayed strong, for you, for both of you. He missed you with every inch of his life, the only thing keeping him going forward was the assurance that each and every day was only bringing him closer to you.

Seven years was a long time, every morning as he awakened he thought of you and his heart broke in pieces as he realized that you must have been sad and lonely at times as well, feeling as if you're life was meaningless, fearing that you'd never fall in love with a man, would never feel the heat you so badly craved and he knew you'd feel that way for a long time to come. And he wouldn't be able to stop you from hurting this way, he really wished he could have loved you better than this but he felt helpless, time was never really on his side.

For a god seven years weren't really much but you were just a mortal.. and he knew with every passing year you were only losing more hope, losing more life as he just moved on with his own and did nothing..

Two years passed somehow and he knew you'd go on to marry Strange during this time period, he knew all about what was going to happen and he couldn't stop the precious love of his life as she got tied to another man.

As she became a wife but certainly not his.

....

"Happy birthday sweetheart" you heard your mom's voice on the phone , she was the only one to call you after Mrs Geller, at least they remembered your birthday because your own husband didn't.

"Thanks mom, what are you doing?" you asked her so she sighed,

"Y/n you know you are 35 now, you don't have much time left, are you both planning to have kids or not?" you groaned internally as she said that. You haven't really told her the truth yet. Sure your sex life was as bland as a weak tea but that didn't mean you didn't want kids of your own, you really did but nothing worked.

Even though your body was healthy and hospitable as your doctors had told you, you couldn't just get pregnant, you thought maybe Stephen was infertile but he was perfectly fine in that department as well, it was a medical mystery why you weren't able to get pregnant.

"Is that the only thing you think of all the time mom?" You asked her, bit annoyed by her inquiry. Well you were very annoyed.

"Of Course I do"

She answered so you rolled your eyes, once she hung up you got out of the bed and got ready for work, as you stepped out in the living room Stephen was there on the kitchen table reading a newspaper. As your eyes met with each other he gave you a smile that never really reached his eyes whenever he was around you. You didn't blame him either.

"Good morning" you mumbled as you made your way to the kitchen to make a quick breakfast for yourself.

"Morning, I'm off to Philadelphia today and won't return for a week" he told you nonchalantly so you nodded.

"Well..Drive safely" he chuckled as you said that.

"You don't have to worry about that anymore " he smirked so you resisted the urge to roll your eyes again.

Two years ago he had gotten into a bad accident that had almost ended his life. Doctors had told him that he'd never be able to operate again but then he went to Nepal and apparently found a mystic healer or something, you couldn't believe your eyes when he had returned perfectly fine as if nothing had happened to him, however you did notice a slight change in his demeanor, he was less arrogant and more sympathetic towards you.

For a few weeks your relationship with him had gotten better but then it fizzled again, your heart was never in the right place when you married him, you knew you shouldn't have married him. You shouldn't have married him because you sure as hell weren't in love with him, as much as you had all these fantasies about a magical love life since you were eight, it never really happened to you. You never found a man who made your heart skip a beat with his presence, gave you butterflies that would leave you gushing for days or made you feel heated just by his mere touch.

When you turned turned thirty two you had just accepted that not everyone was destined to find that sort of love so you settled for Stephen and he settled for you, though you didn't understand his reasons, because he sure as hell wasn't in love with you either.

A year later you finally built the courage to ask for a divorce and much to your surprise he agreed almost immediately, that's when he confessed to you that he had been having an affair with his colleague Christine, not that it gave you a whiplash or made you feel betrayed, you had a feeling he wasn't faithful to you.

You had been cheated on before and were still carrying the scars it had left behind but with Stephen it didn't even hurt, you were equally responsible for this, sure you never cheated on him but you were never really there either, he never really felt like a lover to you, there was no romantic love between you two and it was proven as you two had met at your parents' anniversary a few months later after the divorce, that's when you knew that a platonic friendship is what you needed from him.

You were enjoying a life where you weren't trapped in a forced loveless marriage but that wasn't to say that you liked being alone, you despised it, all you wanted to do was find a man who'd love you as crazily as you'd love him but you knew you weren't blessed enough to find him.

Even when you met guys who you felt a miniscule amount of attraction for -they were either too young or too old, and both didn't seem interested in you in that way, you would turn forty in a few years, your time had ended but accepting it was way harder than one could imagine.

The hopeless romantic in you just wanted to find love, it didn't want to give up but with every passing year you were losing your will to go on, you have always felt so hollow from deep within, but it only got worse as you entered this decade of your life. You still remembered crying all night on your 30th birthday, now you wanted to go back to being thirty again, that felt much better than this..

Ever since you had turned thirty you always felt as if you were missing a piece of your heart, as if someone owned it but you didn't remember who. You always felt as if there was a man out there for you but you weren't able to find him anywhere, as if he wasn't even from this planet.

Few more months later Stephen invited you to his birthday bash in NYC. You had moved back to Minnesota post the divorce so he flew you in and even arranged for your stay. A free lavish trip wasn't the offer you were going to say no to so the night of his birthday you put on a fancy green dress, the thin straps had cute hearts shapes attached to it and after a long time you actually felt good about yourself. You had been working out, taking care of yourself, doing everything you could to still feel a little hopeful in life and it worked until your head finally hit the bed at night and made you aware of how miserable your life has become.

As you reached the venue you met Christine and things were unsurprisingly good between you two, she was a good woman, she understood Stephen and loved him the way you never did. He deserved that. Also apparently he was a superhero now but you still didn't understand what he actually did or what his purpose was. Sometimes you really sucked at being a nice person and taking interest in other people's lives.

After dancing for a bit you felt very tired so you told Christine you were going to grab a drink.

You sat down next to a gentleman in a black suit, he was attractive. He probably was the most attractive man you had seen in your life, his raven hair went past his shoulders and when he looked at you, those green eyes bored right into your soul. You also felt as if you had seen him before, you felt as if you had known him for years.

Usually men such as him made you feel extremely nervous around themselves and insecure in a weird way but for some unknown reason you felt calm with him..

"Sorry i didn't mean to stare, i felt as if i had seen you somewhere" he chuckled as you said that, that mere smile gave you butterflies. What was happening to you? This wasn't like you at all. You had never felt such an intense attraction towards a man before, not this way.

As soon as Loki saw you from across the dance floor, all the feelings that he had been suffocating for seven years were threatening to explode but he kept his cool, you didn't remember him and he had to do it in a way that wouldn't make you feel scared of him. He had waited years to find you again, he could wait more.

"Perhaps you have seen me on the news, I invaded your planet with an army a few years ago" your eyes widened in realization as he said that.

"Oh my god you're Loki '' you said to him and he turned his head to look at you, his lips sipped on the neat whiskey he had ordered for himself. Gorgeous gorgeous guy you thought, of course he was, he was a literal god. You and your standards you thought.

"For a moment I was afraid my popularity had plummeted around here" you let out a nervous laughter as he said that. He had clearly caught you checking him out.

"Noo i.. I read about you at the time, saw you in the news ..my ex husband actually made me see why we were supposed to hate you" you mumbled as you airquoted your sentence, a bit ashamed by the reveal, you still remembered your first date with Stephen where he just ranted against Loki, so why was he there at his birthday party now?

"Well I hope your feelings are not the same anymore" you gulped as the intense eye contact made you feel flushed. Your cheeks felt warm so warm and all you wanted to do was lean into him like a pervert.

"So what are you doing here?" You asked him to avoid feeling those butterflies that were swarming in your belly.

"I was summoned here for a crucial discussion," he answered you.

"Ohhh" you mumbled.

"I watched you dancing over there" your ears perked up as he said that. There were so many gorgeous, young and gorgeous women at the party, why was he watching you? Men that looked like him never went for women like you.

"You did?" You cleared your throat as you spoke,

"You have a way with your hips don't you?" Was he flirting with you? Oh god it's been years since a man this attractive had flirted with you. A man you actually wanted to flirt with you.

"Ummm well i wanted to be a dancer once" you mumbled and suddenly felt like a fool.

"I can tell, makes me think of other situations where you could show me how those hips could work" you bit on your lips as he said that. Loki's entire self grimaced as he was clearly being obscene with you, but he was pretending to be the confident asshole he was known as, however as he noticed the way you had blushed he found himself craving your touch. It's been seven years for norns sake.

He placed his fingers on your chin to make you look at him and brought his lips to your ears, if he was some other guy you would have pushed him away by now but for some reason you felt hypnotized by his mere presence, everything about him enchanted you, you felt as if you were under his influence, his cologne attacked your senses and all you wanted to do was kiss him.

You had never felt such scorching heat with someone in your life, you never thought you'd ever get to feel it either, you didn't think it existed for you.

"Care for a dance?" He whispered in your ears and you could only whine in response which he took as a yes. His fingers laced with yours as he dragged you to a secluded corner of the hall.

Baby, you can

Ride it, ooh, yeah

Bring it over to my place

"Nice song isn't it?" He whispered in your ear so you hummed in response, it existed because of you and you didn't even know that, you were the one to send the lyrics of the song to Mark Johnson in the hope that it'll get sent to the artist. Apparently it did.

You moved slowly with him to the rhythm of the music, he placed his hands on your lower back and the action made you gasp, dipping you down slowly before he pulled you up, smushing you so close to him in a moment, your chest were pressed to him, you were too close to man you barely knew.

And you be like

"Baby, who cares?"

But I know you care

Bring it over to my place

Your hips rolled in circles and hands curled around his neck, what was this feeling? Your lips were so close to him but he wasn't kissing you, even though you wanted him to just kiss you desperately.

You don't know what you did, did to me

Your body lightweight speaks to me

I don't know what you did, did to me

Your body lightweight speaks to me

"Goddd" You whispered and a small smile curved the corner of his mouth.

"There you are i have been looking for you"

You heard Stephen's voice so you pulled away from the man you had met a few minutes ago. Even after the divorce was finalized you still felt weird about being close with another man around him.

"What happened?" You looked at him and he snickered in response.

"I was talking to him, I called him here to discuss something important"

You directed your attention towards Loki and he smiled at you before he looked you up and down from head to toe then he leaned into you to press a goodbye kiss on your cheek,

"See me again sometime later?"

You nodded as he said that, he walked towards your ex husband and went along with him, his smell lingered around you still and you had to sit down in order to calm down your nerves.

You had never felt this way before, you had lost all hope of finding a man you'd feel this level of attraction for and now you were almost thirty seven and a literal god was showing interest in you. A god. You wanted to scream because you knew he was unattainable, maybe he was just looking for a one night stand, of course he did. Guys weren't really looking to marry you at your age. At Least not men like him.

Strange had invited you here but he was missing from his own party so after a while you made your way upstairs to tell him that you were going back to the hotel as you felt tired, or maybe that was just another excuse to see Loki. Not it wasn't, you weren't that desperate for a man you had just met. You had never been that person. Right?

As soon as you reached the room you knocked on the door and took a deep breath, much to your delight Loki opened the door instead.

"If I didn't know you any better i'd have made an assumption that you came here for me" Your face flushed again as he said that, the smirk on his beautiful face was apparent.

"Well You don't know me Mister. Is Stephen here?"

He smiled and stepped away so you could get in the room but as you got in you noticed that Strange wasn't there

"He went away for a moment" Loki said to you so you sighed and turned around to look at him

"Umm okay..will you please tell him that I am tired and going back to the hotel? I'm staying at the Ritz"

"Sure would my lady, I'm sure he knew that already or perhaps the invitation is for me?" He asked you and you felt your face heating up again but instead of getting nervous you got bold instead, you didn't know where it came from..

"Maybe it is"

"What room?"

Lord, was he going to visit you?

"143"

He nodded his head as you said that and you walked past him to leave the room.

"Do you even know my name?" you suddenly turned around to ask him and he gave you a soft smile in response,

"It's y/n..isn't it?"

"He told you, didn't he?"

He didn't know why his eyes teared up at the question, he had been holding himself back from just wanting to grab you and kiss you at the moment.

"He did"

As soon as you were out of the room you took a deep breath, how come you had bumped into the sexiest man you had ever laid your eyes on? Not just that but he actually seemed interested in you. Things like that just didn't happen to you so it felt a little weird. What did he want from you? Perhaps a night of debauchery? That was your best guess, only half an hour later you heard a knock on the door so you opened it and found him on the other side,

You invited him in so he looked around before he diverted the attention back at you.

"Ummm you want something to drink? I have like ummm let me check" you walked towards the mini refrigerator to rummage through it "There's coke, some alcoholic beverages, I don't know if you consume that" He chuckled as you said that.

"Don't they charge heftly for that?" He asked you curiously.

"Well my ex is paying for the room so you know" he chuckled as you said that. Norns he had missed you and all your little quirks.

"I will have whatever this Coke is supposed to be" you smiled nervously as he said that. You grabbed a can from the mini freezer and passed it to him, you were shocked a little when he opened the can without even using his fingers,

"It's a charm" he said as he found you looking a bit starstruck.

"I see.. I mean I know..you're also magical and all" He smiled as you said that, he walked closer to you and your breath quickened as he continued to reach closer and closer to you with every step.

"Have a sip lady y/n" he pressed the can right over your lips and it made you gulp.

"It's okay…I ummm" you stuttered on your words and he couldn't help but enjoy the sight of you squirming like that. It boded well for his ego that he had such an affect on you even though you didn't even remember him just yet.

"I insist, it would be rude of me to not offer" you pressed your lips on the opening of the can and he raised it up a little so you could take a sip. After you were done with the sip, he brought the can back up to his own lips and drank from it, all while his eyes stayed glued to yours. He noticed the residue of the drink on the corner of your mouth and all he wanted to do was lick it off. His thoughts were filthy. It's been seven years, that was two thousand five hundred fifty five nights of him just touching himself to your memories .

"Uhhh so how was the meeting with Stephen?" You asked him to cut through the tension..

"Atrocious, he so badly needed my assistance but the arrogant arse took a while before he admitted it" you chuckled as he said that.

"Well you should have seen him years ago before ahhh the accident..he was way worse"

"Mmmhmmm?" He walked closer to you and placed the can down on the dresser behind you "Makes me wonder why a sweet woman like you would ever hitch herself to a man such as him" He whispered, his voice remained low and husky.

"Well I thought it was the right thing to do at the time" you looked down and he figured you couldn't even look in his eyes for longer than a few seconds.

"Is that so? Did it feel right?" He put his fingers on your chin and made you look up at him, every inch of your skin began to tingle with his touch. What was he doing to you and why?

"Not really..if the divorce wasn't enough of an indication for you then let me tell you that I do regret that decision everyday of my life"

He smiled as you said that. The forest green slip dress you had on made you look delectable, there were two heart shaped ribbons attached to the top of the straps that kept the dress hanging on your body, he found it really adorable. You let out a moan as his thumb brushed over your lower lip.

"Lokiiii" the sound of his whispered name made his cock harden in a jiff but he used the charm to keep himself from showing it, he didn't want you to think as if he was there for just a night of fun.

"Apologies little one, I got carried away" He took a step back and he noticed your heavy breathing. You weren't making this any easier, he remembered the dream he had about you two before where he lived the same scenario, he knew what you were going to say to him, it always started this way between you two, with friendship, a relationship that was built in such a way could have only lasted forever, there was no other way around it.

"It's okay I just… I am still dealing with the divorce and I just.. I don't know what you thought would happen tonight and I know I invited you here basically but I ..I'm just not ready for ..you know" your eyes teared up as you mumbled, that wasn't the reason why you didn't want to sleep with him, you didn't care about the divorce, you just didn't want him to think of you as someone he could have fun with for a night and leave, his own eyes softened as he noticed the anxious look on your face.

"Whatever it is that you desire from me tonight, I will give you that darling" he said firmly so you smiled before you chuckled slightly in disbelief.

"Really? So if I tell you that I barely have any friends and I want you to be my friend first, would you be my friend?" You asked him, he could sense the mockery in your tone, he didn't blame you, he knew his reputation wasn't the best especially because of how promiscuous his brother was on midgard he figured you must have put him through the same judgment, you didn't remember him after all.

"I would love to be your friend, I do not have any either"

Your eyes widened as he said that.

"Okay so ummm okay we can be friends i guess" he smiled as he grabbed your hand and placed a formal kiss on the back.

"My lady, I won't disappoint you i promise"

He kissed your forehead and as you looked up at him all of a sudden he just felt so familiar, as if you knew him in some other life, he felt like home and you couldn't really describe why.

That night as you both stayed up and talked you found yourself getting more and more attracted to him.

Days passed and turned into weeks but he never stepped out of line or asked you for things you never wanted to do, all your life you had felt a certain emptiness in your soul, even when you felt happy at times you found yourself thinking about the missing piece of your heart, you had always felt as if you were born with half a soul and for once in your life you were starting to believe that he was it. That he was the one you had been looking for, that he was the answer to all those questions. But he felt too good to be true.

How could someone be so precious as he was?

You had no idea how complicated your relationship was with him but you were going to find out the truth on your coming birthday..he was going to change your life forever, it would never be the same again.

And that is exactly what you had wished for all your life.

🥹💚🥹💚🥹💚🥹💚🥹💚🥹💚🥹

Taglist

@annoyingsweetsstranger @mcufan72 @nixymarvelkins @stupidthoughtsinwriting @fictive-sl0th @eleniblue @violethaze @anukulee @ladymischief11 @12-pm-510 @wolfsmom1 @whylokiissocute @pics-and-fanfics @daddylokisqueen @olivertwistrabbit @blog-the-lilly @prettylittlepluviophile @vanilla-daydreaming @somewiseguy @yaaamadaa-blog @dragonmurray @elthreetimes @gruftiela @thenotoriouserg @greep215 @yallgotkik @janineb86 @sflame15-blog @nyxlaufeyson @lokidokieokie @purplekitten30 @nikkig496-blog @frozenhuntress67 @qardasngan @rosecentury @lokiswife-dark-fox-queen @hrefna-the-raven @jennyggggrrr

@cosniffee @lotsoflokilove23 @oreo-cream @aesonmae @salvinaa

#loki x female reader #loki #loki x reader fluff #loki x reader #loki x reader insert #loki x reader fic #loki x you #loki x reader angst #post Avengers loki

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ace-and-the-rpg-horrors · 4 months

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Shizurui's feelings for each other headcanons (can't believe i've not done this yet, i should have my badge revoked, honestly-)

- as i'm pretty sure all us like... five Shizurui-ers agree, Rui definitely fell first

- minor celebrity crush ever since he was introduced to MMJ! that he didn't think would mean anything. but then after he properly spent time with her on the school trip?

- kaboom, cue falling head over heels queerplatonically <3

- disaster. absolute disaster, he is. he's so obvious about it despite his best efforts not to be

- during W x S rehearsal, Emu'll be chatting about her school day and who she talked to- everyone else catches on to how Rui seems more interested in her rambles immediately after Shizuku's name's mentioned

- even Leo/need finds out about it through Tsukasa and Emu and are gossiping about it. a bit of Shiho has withered away and died at the thought of her sister getting close with Tsukasa's somehow even more chaotic friend /silly

- Shizuku doesn't realise SHE likes him more than an acquaintance, let alone being aware of the other way round

- she subconsciously tries finding excuses to spend time with him <3

- "oh dear :(( i broke the microwave again :(( i suppose i'll have to call Kamishiro-san :(( and he'll spend time telling me how to fix it :(( such a shame... :)"

- it helps that all her friends now direct her to Rui when she has tech issues since they're aware the two know of each other's existences now!! they all reckon it's a miracle they met, since he's the rare one who won't ever get tired of explaining anything related to tech again and again <3 (especially since it's her)

- she definitely takes advantage of that without meaning to. whattt, just wanting to talk to him? as far as she knows, she's just mysteriously become more aware of how often she struggles with computers and appliances!!

- Tsukasa unintentional, oblivious wingman?? TSUKASA UNINTENTIONAL, OBLIVIOUS WINGMAN!!

- "ahaha, Shizuku!! absolutely wonderful show last weekend, we all went to see it and agreed it was marvellous!! especially Rui, actually, i recall him murmuring that you looked "ethereal," haha!! i'm sure he was quite impressed by the stage lighting then!!"

- rest in peace, Rui Kamishiro, he died too young

- 'tis all well though, since Shizuku, OF COURSE, believes he was just on about lights. (and was totally NOT disappointed when she heard Tsukasa's conclusion, nope, not at all, that would be so silly, to expect Rui was complimenting HER and not just the technical aspect of the show, wouldn't it? these idiots /most affectionate)

- Nene makes fun of Rui endless

- once she (almost immediately) pieced it together, she started doing shit like playing a Shizuku focused song to grab his attention when he's absorbed in tinkering and completely tuning everything else out. and then she loses her mind when it WORKS

- "oh, so THAT makes you finally look up?"

- Emu, the most emotionally intelligent character in the game, in my (correct) opinion, also just knows instantly and definitely thinks they're adorable and is VERY straightforward about it

- "Rui-kun, Rui-kun, i have the most WONDERHOY idea, wahahahaha!! you and Hinomori-senpai should TOTALLY go on a DATE over there, at the Ferris Wheel!! :D "

- "...!!"

- "ehhhh?? are you okay?? you look like your heart went crash-bam-boom!!"

- "... Emu-kun, we are very lucky i had paused eating just now because i do not believe you are quite vertically gifted enough to perform the Heimlich maneuver on me."

- Emu wingman number two? Emu wingman number two!!

- it actually gives Rui so much stress that Emu goes to the same school as Shizuku, cause you just know she might let something slip without even meaning to. not like Shizuku would catch on in the vast majority of cases though

- you could have all their friends waving a massive sign at her reading "RUI KAMISHIRO LIKES YOU" in gigantic, lit up letters and she'd be like "aww~ that's so very sweet, i didn't know Kamishiro-san was such a passionate fan of idols!! hehe, i'll remember to thank him for supporting our group so much...!!"

in conclusion: one of them is as oblivious as one can possibly get while the other gets to be nothing of the sort, thanks to his friends constantly reminding him of his feelings at every chance!!

#ace's random thoughts :)#project sekai #pjsk #shizurui #shizuku hinomori #rui kamishiro #shizuku project sekai #shizuku pjsk #mmj shizuku #rui project sekai #rui pjsk #wxs rui #tsukasa tenma #nene kusanagi #emu otori #shiho hinomori #pjsekai #prsk #proseka

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spacexseven · 1 year

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Though, imagine if subordinate reader improves their talents as a member of the port mafia out of pure spite (and mostly because they want to be away from Dazai) and got promoted to a executive. I feel like Dazai would be pissed and try to sabotage reader in their missions but I don't know. What do you think?

hi! i was thinking about what if there's people in the port mafia willing to help subordinate darling? like verlaine, koyou...i think they would stand a chance against dazai, no?

okay so i'm combining these asks for a little alternate pathway :> while i doubt darling could become a executive that quickly, i think as long as they become more useful to the pm, they have a chance out ^^

cw: yandere themes, violence, kidnapping

dazai was surprisingly easy to distract.

all it took from your side was a few carefully staged conversations mentioning that you were scheduled to go out of the city with chuuya, just enough to spark the jealous fires that burned fiercely in dazai. and then, dazai—that fool, he didn't even bother to check before going on a furious hunt for the other executive. dazai may find sick satisfaction in constantly calling you stupid, but hiding your strengths was always in your survival plan.

while he was busy chasing a red herring, you got to work. you only had so much time before he caught up with chuuya and realized that you were always on base, after all, and it was vital you used this precious time alone well. thanks to your previous careful observation and planning, you were progressing pretty well. apart from the regular exercise, you found unexpected help from within the pm—koyou, who appeared at random like a guardian angel with softly whispered and valuable advice, the man in the basement, who always seemed amused at your predicament but was more than willing to teach you to take and give a good beating. all of that combined with your sheer resolve and desire for revenge got you very far—not that dazai had a clue.

it was even easier to deceive him, especially when he was so confident that he was always right. to dazai, you would forever appear helpless; a pathetic heap of bones and flesh dumped at his feet to use as he pleased. and you never proved him otherwise, if only because you knew the truth would not please dazai. there was someone else who needed to know about your abilities—someone who could take you away from under dazai's foot. you had long come to terms with the fact that you had to stay in the pm. unless a mysterious organization came to recruit you, or the underground of yokohama collapsed, it would be impossible to leave. but that didn't mean you had to suffer such humiliation the whole time you were there. all you needed was to prove that dazai would only hold you back, and you would be one step closer to freedom.

the moment mori acknowledges your efforts and you're reassigned somewhere else, however, is when you learned how petty dazai could be. it ranged from intentionally setting you up, interfering with your orders from higher up, to even selling you out to your targets—anything he could think of to scare you off this path and back into the familiarity of his shadow. but when your hatred for him ran deeper than your fear, none of his tricks worked. until he finally seemed to lose his patience, and you found yourself tied up painfully with only dazai in the room...

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whetstonefires · 8 months

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The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

#hoc est meum #in real life things happen that you have no good reason to expect all the time #but in real life we know they happened for some kind of reason as in #causality exists and even in situations where we can't dig into the chain #we have cause to understand that it's there #in fiction they happened because they'd be convenient #so the rules of what information can be available and how you frame new information being revealed exist #to keep the audience from feeling jerked around #you have to earn people's trust and if you lose it #that limits the kind of results you can get #when writing fiction one of your tools is the reader's mind #if you give them reason not to allow you free use of it your composition contracts #screenwriting #shazam #and like in this case there's a profound betrayal of the protagonist and thus of the audience who connected with him wrapped up in it

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penny00dreadful · 4 months

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Spies AU - Part 14

Part 1 Part 15 AO3

19th November 2015

The plan was simple.

As simple as a super fucking complicated plan could be.

Get the kids in on it, send them out to protect Eddie’s people, have Robin coordinate them all and as soon as Steve was given the signal that it was safe to proceed, he’d go in and put a bullet in Creel’s head.

At least, that was the farthest that both he and Eddie had gotten in the planning process before they got… distracted.

Neither of them could help it.

It was just so fucking nice to have a… a partner around in his space.

To get lost in kisses or have a body pressed up against his back while he made them something to eat. To sit in front of the television with something on that they both had agreed to watch, only to end up not watching it at all because they just couldn’t stop talking.

The only other person Steve had ever had such an easy time talking to for hours was Robin.

It was like he had never understood how two people could click so quickly before her.

Within, like, ten minutes of knowing each other they were sharing in-jokes and gossiping about their hometowns.

With Eddie it was similar.

Different but similar.

While they had known each other for a number of months now, they had barely had enough time to talk to one another without flirting up a storm or running.

Eddie was so easy to talk to. He was charming and weird and a little childish and sharp and while it was different to how he and Robin clicked, he and Eddie clicked just as well.

Steve honestly couldn’t wait for the day he could introduce the two of them and just stand back and watch, like it was going to be some tennis match, seeing them bounce off each other.

All of that was fantastic.

It was magical.

Steve was…

Steve was so fucking in love.

He figured there was no point in denying it to himself anymore.

He could feel it radiating out through every one of his cells.

He was in love with Eddie Munson and he was so fucking happy to be there.

He was pretty sure his lack of nerves about it came down to the fact that Eddie did very little to hide his own feelings.

Steve could sense it off of him that he felt the same.

They hadn’t said it to each other.

Despite how long they’d known each other already, they had only just had their first date.

If Steve could call an undercover mission to an enemy gala and then having to be snuck out by an enemy assassin that he was in love with a ‘date’, but he figured it qualified.

He couldn’t see a reason why it wouldn’t.

And then there was the sex.

Oh, holy hell, there was the sex.

Though Eddie had been well and truly worn out by Steve the night before, he was too sensitive and it would just be a little too far on the wrong side of painful to go at it exactly as they had, that didn’t mean they didn’t explore each other in the exact ways they had wanted to for the longest time.

But this time they could take things a little slower.

And they could switch it up.

After a conversation, when Eddie strapped him down to one of his dining chairs in much the same way he had back in July, Steve thought he was going to blow his load in record time.

But Eddie had no intentions of letting that happen.

Steve was forced to sit, with his arms tied behind his back, ankles tied down to the legs of the chair with his legs slightly spread while Eddie grinned down at him.

“Are you gonna answer my questions?” He asked, leaning down to plant a hand on either of Steve’s knees.

Steve was a lot less composed than he had been last time, when they had done this for real and so his response was less biting and more breathy than he had wanted it to be.

“Depends.” He exhaled, his hips twitching up. “Are you gonna answer mine?”

Eddie’s smile turned sharp, more of that dark and mysterious energy taking over him again, causing Steve’s heart to thump loudly in his chest and a dribble of precum to spill out, making its way down his cock before Eddie swiped it up with the barest of touches, using just the very tip of his tongue and Steve whined.

“You’re gonna be a handful, aren’t you sweetheart?”

Steve didn’t know how long he ended up being edged for. Light brushes of Eddie’s fingers and scant, fleeting moments in his mouth were all mixed together with biting and flirtatious words, leaving Steve a red-faced and desperate wreck who could barely string a sentence together.

He had the option to tap out if he needed to, of course he did. Both of them knew the rules but Steve had never had it quite like this before and though he was aching with the need to cum, he was going to keep going for as long as he could.

By the time Eddie finally took him the whole way down to the back of his throat in one go and sucked, Steve was at a razors edge and he came so hard he didn’t make a single sound, all of it caught in his throat while his entire body seized up, even his fucking lungs stopped working for a second.

Eddie was the sweetest in the aftermath as well, his hands were gentler than Steve ever thought possible for someone who killed so easily.

He untied the ropes around him with a soft touch, taking his time to slowly knead the muscles in his legs and arms, rubbing down his shoulders, getting the blood flowing again and keeping him cared for, whispering sweet words to him all the while, uncaring for the dampness seeping through his own pants.

After that they ate, they talked, they relaxed together, the both of them trying to ignore the looming shadow of time ticking down until the inevitable moment that Eddie had to go.

They lingered by Steve’s front door for nearly a half an hour.

Every time they let go of one another, it only lasted for a few seconds before they were inevitably drawn back, the both of them finding it much, much harder to say their goodbyes this time than it had ever been at any point in the past.

They had a plan to meet up at a different location in a couple of weeks.

Plenty of time for Steve to organise his mini-spies and send them out to do their parts.

Plenty of time for Eddie to work out Creel’s next movements and report back on where would be best for Steve to strike.

Plenty of time.

And then they would have all the time in the world.

It didn’t make it any easier.

Steve hated the idea of Eddie stepping foot back into that life again, even if it was just for a short time.

He was desperate to get him out, but they couldn’t do anything by halves.

It had to work.

So Eddie had to leave.

He had to go back to that life and pretend nothing had changed.

As much as Eddie hadn’t liked it when he’d said it, as much as he insisted that it wasn’t worth it, Steve swore to himself he’d get Eddie out if it killed him.

20th November 2015

Steve watched with a nervous air as the kids all piled into his apartment, gravitating towards their favourite spots around the room, on the couch or the armchairs like they always did whenever Steve had them over.

He had claimed it was just a usual hangout, some line he’d always give them to have them over but they all sobered up when he opened the door, his body language and expression telling them that this wasn’t their usual kind of hangout, this was something more serious.

Many pairs of eyes bounced from Steve to Robin who was standing next to him, her own face steely and determined, hoping that maybe she would be able to provide some more answers.

But Steve saw her shake her head subtly at them out of the corner of his eye, letting them know that he had to be the one to talk about this.

Steve stood there in silence for what was probably too long, trying to figure out just how to start. Dustin, Max, Lucas, Will, Mike and even El were all here, even though El was not an Agent, but where Max went, El went, only really separating when they absolutely had to and regardless, El was one of his kids. He’d been thinking about suggesting to Robin that she might work in an analyst's position at some point in the future.

As he looked around at all of them, he decided he’d have to start now, whether he’d found the right words or not, otherwise he’d never start at all. He walked forward, standing in front of the TV, facing all of them with his hands on his hips.

“I’m sending you out on a mission.”

“Together?” Lucas asked at the same time Mike said “All of us?” and Dustin frowned.

“We haven’t received any kind of info pack on a new mission.”

Steve held a hand up, both a little surprised and proud when the kids fell silent, recognising that this was more serious than arguing over the remote.

“Not exactly together. Same mission, different locations. Yes, all of you apart from Ellie, obviously. And The Agency hasn’t given you an info pack on this because The Agency doesn’t know about it. This is personal. This is something I’m asking you to do for me, not for them.”

He paused, waiting for questions or demands for more info or outright refusal, but none of it came.

“You can refuse.” He said, making sure they knew it was an option, though he really fucking hoped none of them would. If they did, keeping Eddie’s people safe had just gotten a lot more complicated. “This could go badly for all of us when The Agency finds out, because they will find out, I just hope it’s after we’ve done what we need to do. I don’t know how Hopper will react to this.”

“He trusts you, Steve.” El spoke softly but confidently, having been safehoused with Hopper while Brenner was being hunted down in the year between her escape and his execution.

They’d gotten very close and were still very close after all these years.

Steve felt the corner of his mouth pull up in a little grin despite his attempts to keep things serious. Hopper would probably scream at him until he was blue in the face once all of this was over but at least Steve wouldn’t be losing his head.

Probably.

“Why doesn’t The Agency know?” Dustin asked.

Steve looked at all of them individually,taking his time to read their faces, their posture, their nerves. Like he was expecting to, he found nothing. He knew he wouldn’t. There was no way one of the kids was the mole.

“We think it might be compromised.”

“It’s a spy agency.” Lucas was looking incredulous. “Doesn’t everyone always think it might be compromised?”

“No?” Mike answered, whipping his head around to stare at him. “Do you think that?”

Lucas looked surprised. “Do you not?”

Steve raised his hands again just as Dustin opened his mouth to interject and though he tore his eyes from Mike, he didn’t stay silent as he looked back up at Steve.

“And this potential mole or double agent or whoever is related to this mission you’re sending us on?”

Steve sighed. “You don’t have to do it-”

Max rolled her eyes. “Of course we’re going to do it.”

“Yeah, duh, of course we’re going to do it.” Dustin matched her with an exaggerated eye roll of his own. “But you wouldn’t be hiding this from The Agency if there wasn’t a reason to and it makes the most sense the mole and this secret mission would be related.”

“You’re right, they’re related.”

Dustin gave himself a little fistbump with a delighted grin on his face.

“What kind of mission is it?” Will asked..

“Protection.” Steve glanced around sighing to himself when he realised he’d forgotten to bring them out. “Ellie, there’s a stack of photos on my desk in my office, can you get them for me?”

El nodded, getting up and quietly slipping out of the room.

“There’s four people we think are being watched by the enemy, lying in wait for orders to harm or potentially kill them. I need you to eliminate that possibility.”

“So is it, like, spy versus spy?” Mike asked.

Steve nodded. “Something like that.”

“Do we get to leave America?” There was a little bit of hope in Will’s voice at the possibility of being able to see some more of the world on the job.

“Unfortunately not, bud.” He replied with a grimace. “Kinda the opposite. You’re going to be going to Bumfuck Nowhere Indiana-”

He was cut off by the sound of the photos scattering across the floor and he snapped his eyes up to find El standing stock still in the doorway, white faced and terrified, staring down at the photo clutched in her shaking hand.

“Steve,” she whispered to him and he was over to her in less than three strides, stepping through the other photos on the floor. “Who is this man?”

He looked down, blinking confused and worried because why was this particular photo freaking her out so much?

It was a photo of Wayne, taken through one of the windows of his trailer with a telephoto lens. He was relaxed back in his armchair, hooked up to his dialysis machine, laughing while his nurse Connie grinned at him, warm and easy, her hands over Wayne’s arm where the tubes had been inserted, checking.

There was nothing off about the photo, there were dozens more like it in the stack, video files and audio files on Steve’s computer showing their companionship. They had an ease between each other that told him they’d known each other for a long time. Probably since he first started his treatments. She might have been the first and only nurse he’d dealt with after all.

He looked back up at El’s face, she was staring at him with a kind of half scared, half determined intensity.

“This man,” she said, her voice steady despite the shaking of her hands, “is in grave danger.”

Steve felt his eyes widen, his heart kicking up in speed. How could she possibly know that just from this photo alone?

“The woman-” El swallowed and oh fuck. Was she dangerous? But how could El know her? “She’s… she was… Dr. Brenner…” She shook her head, taking a deep breath in.

It was so difficult for her to talk about her time before, before they got her out, when she was stuck in that place, Steve knew it, he’d seen the nightmares, the panic attacks, the terrors. He felt a small thread of white hot anger course through him at just the name of that man.

“Brenner’s dead, Elllie.” Steve muttered, putting a hand on her shoulder and stooping down to meet her eye. “I put the final bullet in him myself. And then a few more for good measure. I checked. I made sure. He’s dead.”

“I know.” She whispered back, with a small smile on her face. “I know. But he had… There were people working under him. His favourites. The ones he had to do different things for him and…” She tightened her fist around the photo again, crumpling it. “She was his most dangerous.”

“She..?” He looked back down, taking a big breath, trying to calm his racing heart, his racing mind. Most other people would have said El was mistaken. That she was misremembering or had gotten confused but there was no way. El didn’t forget faces. Ever. Especially after the shit she’d been through.

So Connie was an undercover agent of some kind? She must be. But she had apparently also worked for Brenner. And then Brenner’s whole operation had been taken down by Steve himself so there was nothing of it left.

Could she be working for Creel now?

Fuck, how would that have even happened? Did he seek her out? Was she another whispered name amongst the underworld, someone Creel wanted on his side? But then why was she stuck on guard duty, keeping an eye on Wayne?

A very close eye on Wayne.

A very close, very dangerous eye on a very vulnerable Wayne who could conceivably die quickly from some ‘unfortunate’ dialysis complication if she got the call.

Creel must have put her over Wayne because… because he knew that Wayne was the most important one of the four to Eddie.

So he put his best next to him, to watch over him, to keep Eddie in line.

And Eddie had no idea how much danger Wayne had truly been in this whole time.

Jesus Christ, okay.

“Connie Frazier. She was his…” El shook her head. “I don’t know what the word is. She did his big jobs for him, got people to obey, tracked them down or got them to talk… all that kind of stuff. Steve, every moment she’s with him he's in danger.”

“Fuck, okay. Okay. Well I had kinda guessed he was being watched but at least we know by who now-”

“Oh my god…”

He whipped around to find Max crouched amongst the photos, her face slack with shock before morphing into anger.

“What?” He asked, keeping a hand on El’s shoulder as they both moved closer to her.

“What do you mean, what?” She asked, her tone incredulous, her face angry, shoving the photo towards him. He could just make out Gareth’s impressive head of hair and the garage in the background while she shook it around in his face.

“That’s Billy.”

“What?!” He snatched the photo out of her hand, holding it up close to his face to examine it.

Holy shit.

He’d cut his hair and wasn’t covered in double denim like he usually was, but Jesus Christ that was him. Steve had never seen him in person, never met him, never fucking wanted to, but he’d seen his intake mugshot.

What the fuck was this guy doing out?

Max’s douchebag gangland brother, standing there in the flesh next to Gareth, in the same overalls, the same grease and dirt over his hands and up his arms, helping him with the finer movements he couldn’t quite manage anymore because of his hand.

Had Billy dropped the car on Gareth’s hand? Had he been the one to crush it? Make it look like an accident? He would have been there, he’d been at the garage just as long as Gareth had.

How could he have missed it? How could he have missed this? What the fuck else had he missed.

“Shit, okay.” He dropped to his knees, rifling through the photos, getting back to his feet when he had a few of Jeff and Grant sorted into his hands, holding them out to the rest of the kids. “Recognise anyone else here?”

The boys all looked at each other before taking a few into their hands, Robin looking over their shoulders.

“God damn it.” Will muttered, holding up a photo to Steve, pinched in between his thumb and forefinger.

It was Jeff, sitting in the staff room of the school with the [student teacher] at his side. It looked like they were in the middle of some good natured debate.

“That’s James Dante.” Will said, scowling.

“And this,” Mike turned his own photo around, the guy who owned the flower shop next to Grant’s studio was delivering a fresh bouquet like he did every morning, “is Troy Walsh.”

“Are we being targeted or something?” Dustin asked, glancing in between all the photos. “Why are they all related to people we’ve dealt with in the past?”

Robin shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s that. There’s been some chatter over the last few years about this. Creel likes to have the best under his belt. Other crime lords and gang bosses bitching about the fact that anyone they do approach to come work for them has already been snatched up by him. Once one pillar falls, Brenner for example, he swoops in to take his people and with it he gains their power, their influence.”

“Then why does all this seem to be localised to us?” Mike asked. “And who are these people anyway? What have they done to piss Henry fucking Creel off so much?”

“Because,” Robin stepped around the kids to stand beside Steve who was having a little bit of trouble forming words at the moment, forming thoughts.

Eddie’s family was in so much danger, much more than they’d ever thought and he had no way to tell him, no way to let him know. Fuck, he had to do something. He had to get them out. This was no longer just about Eddie it was about them now too and his skin was practically crawling with the urge to jump into a fucking car or a plane or a god damned helicopter if it got him to them quick enough.

Robin’s hand slipped into his and he was brought back down, just a little bit, just enough to tune back in.

“The people you were all up against before you came to join The Agency were some of the best, or the worst depending on your point of view, in the country.” She continued. “That is why you are such successful Agents and why these guys are the guys watching over our targets. Because you are the best of the best and they are the worst of the worst.”

“Okay.” Mike crossed his arms, a furrow in his brow, thinking. “That makes sense, but again, what the fuck could these small town nobodies have done to piss Creel off?”

“They didn’t.” Steve said. “They didn’t do anything. They’re collateral. They’re being used to keep someone in line.”

“They’re being threatened?” Max asked, her face hard.

“Yeah. Their lives are on the line and they don’t even know it. This person… I’m trying to get him out from under Creel. But to do that we need to secure his people first. We need to remove the threat over them.”

“Who’s the person?”

Steve looked over at Robin who squeezed his hand and raised her eyebrows. “You’re gonna have to tell them eventually, babe.”

He sighed, looking out at all the kids' expectant faces. Fuck, he kept calling them kids. It was too easy to see them that way, the small thread of anxiety in his stomach at the thought of sending them out, but at the same time they’d been doing this for years. They were competent, they were skilled, they could do this but he didn’t think he’d ever be able to stop seeing them as their younger scared selves, like they had been when he’d pulled them out of their various situations.

“It’s Kas.” He said, feeling the deja vu taking over him, it felt like he’d been through this a hundred times before already.

Mike snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Okay.” He looked at Robin, expecting her to be sharing some kind of secret smile with Steve about the joke, or giving it away by trying to keep her face straight but when he found none of that, just agreement in her expression, he faltered.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Super-seriously.” She answered.

“Like… like Kas? The Bloodyhanded?” Dustin’s eyes were bugging out of his head.

“Yep.” Steve nodded. “The Bloodyhanded, the Shadow of Hawkins, the Demon of Dresden all of them. That Kas.”

“You can’t be fucking serious.” Lucas shook his head in disbelief. “Kas is like a… he’s like a fucking ghost story-”

“That’s another of his names, actually. The Ghost.” Steve interjected but Lucas barrelled on.

“He’s real? And he wants to leave? Are you sure… like…” Lucas ran a frustrated hand over his hair, “Couldn’t he take care of this himself? He’s Kas. How do you know you’re not being, like… I don’t know how to say it without sounding like an ass.”

Steve gave him a small smile. He understood. He’d be worried in the same way about the kids or Robin if they came to him with this information but he wasn’t quite sure how to make them all believe he wasn’t being tricked.

“I get it, man. I do. But this is for real. You’re just gonna have to trust me here. These,” he shook the photos in his hand and gestured to the photos in the kids hands, “are Kas’ people. They’re being used to keep him under Creel’s power. We need to secure them, take out the guys watching them before I can strike at Creel.”

“Jesus Christ.” Max threw her arms out in frustration, pinning Steve under her glare. “You don’t do anything by half measures, do you?”

She was worried about him, worried he was getting in too deep, he could tell. And maybe he had. Maybe this was a suicide mission and he would end up dead by the end of it, but as he said to Eddie, it would be worth it if it freed him.

“No, I don’t. And I’m gonna be honest, finding out who has been watching over Kas’ people has changed things. I understand if none of you wanted to-”

“It changes nothing, Steve.” Max growled. “We’re still going in. Because there’s no way you’ll let this go and if we refuse you’ll just try and do it yourself and definitely get yourself killed. We’re not little kids anymore. We can handle it.”

He looked around at the rest of the kids, all of them nodding, all of them determined. God, Steve loved them so much.

“Fuck, okay. Let’s get into it, then.”

4th December 2015

Steve’s leg bounced up and down, rapid and constant as he kept his eyes peeled, gazing around the park.

His nerves were so frayed, his anxiety was spiking and it was only getting worse as the hours passed.

He was freezing his ass off here, the metal bench was painfully cold under him, despite they layers he was wearing but in all honesty he was having difficulty paying attention to the temperature because his mind was fucking spiralling.

He didn’t dare move from his spot.

Even as the daylight began to wane, he didn’t dare fucking move.

He was probably conspicuous as hell.

A lone man sitting nervously on an icy park bench for hours, surrounded by dog walkers and joggers and kids in the playground and skateboarders, never once moving from his perch.

But he couldn’t move until he was sure.

Because Eddie was late.

Hours late.

Steve was desperate to see him.

He needed to update him on everything because so much had happened and Eddie hadn’t been in contact.

Not only had they discovered who exactly was watching over Wayne, Gareth, Jeff and Grant, but the kids had been there for about a week now, observing from afar, learning their schedules, finding their openings to take them out.

All they needed was the go ahead.

But to do that, Steve needed to see Eddie., needed to tell him, needed to talk it out.

And Eddie wasn’t showing.

God, what had happened to him? Was he okay? What if it was worse than last time?

Or what if Eddie wasn’t battered and bruised and broken, coming to him for safety? What if Eddie never turned up?

What if he was locked away somewhere in some deep dark dungeon of Creel’s? Steve would go and get him out, of course. He’d destroy everything in his path to get Eddie back, to keep him safe, to have him here and whole and free.

But what if he wasn’t locked away somewhere?

What if he was out there somewhere, lying dead in the cold? What if he had died on some mission Creel had sent him out on? What if he had been dead for days now? What if Creel killed him?

And Steve would never know.

He’d never know.

He’d spend the rest of his life not knowing.

No, he refused to let it be that, it couldn’t be that.

There was no way.

Creel had to have him somewhere. Or he got caught up in a mission somewhere. That had to be the reason.

There was no way Eddie had just… not shown.

There had to be a reason.

And Steve was going to find it out.

He stood, groaning to himself, feeling the painful cold stiffness in his hips and knees, rubbing his hands together to try and get some warmth back into them.

He was determined, he needed to get back home, back to his office. He needed to track Creel down, track Eddie down.

He needed to find out what the fuck was going on.

“Birdie.” Steve said, shouldering his way into his apartment building and flipping the switch on his communicator.

“How did it go?” Robin asked, “I would have expected you to be more out of breath after all the kissing or whatever it was you got up to in a public park.”

“He didn’t show.”

“Oh, Evie.” Robin’s voice was sympathetic, hurt for him but he wasn’t hurt.

He wasn’t upset that Eddie hadn’t shown.

He was fucking worried.

“Something has to be wrong.” He said, stepping into the elevator and jabbing a finger into the button for his floor. “He wouldn’t just not show up.”

Robin was silent for a little bit, he could almost hear her work things out in her head, trying to decide if he was making excuses for someone who didn’t deserve it or if he knew what the fuck he was talking about.

“Okay.” She said, quietly but firmly.

She always had such confidence in him.

“I need to find out what it was. If he’s caught up somewhere on a mission, that’s fine, I can’t fault him for it.” He shook his head as he stepped out of the elevator, making his way towards his apartment. “But if something has happened to him… then I need to find him.”

“Evie, have you thought this through. I mean, I love you, you know that, but if the case is that he’s been locked away somewhere then this could be super fucking dangerous and-”

“I know, Birdie, I know.” Steve ran a frustrated hand through his hair, placing his hand down on his front door handle and pushing his way into his apartment when the one lock clicked open. “But I can’t leave him out there. I won’t. I promised him I’d get him out-”

“I get that, Evie-”

“Steve.”

Both he and Robin stopped talking at the sound of a third voice coming from Steve’s couch, reverberating around the apartment like a gunshot.

He froze in his tracks, taken completely off guard, like a deer in the road.

He knew that voice, he knew that figure, he knew that hair.

Eddie was here.

But something was wrong.

He was… It was… Steve couldn’t remember the last time Eddie had used his name. He couldn’t remember the last time Eddie had called him anything other than sweetheart.

Eddie turned his head to look at him and it was different from all the other times before.

Different from when he had glared at him from across his bed, feeling betrayed by the discovery of those photos.

Different from when he had looked at him with so much love and adoration the last time they had seen each other.

Eddie was looking at him and his face was blank.

There wasn’t a hint of emotion there.

No anger, no condescension, no mocking pout, no care, no love. He was completely closed off.

Steve blinked, at loss for words, unable to make anything come out.

Eddie stood, turning his body towards him and Steve’s eyes instinctively flicked down.

He was holding a gun, loose and casual in his hand but even from this distance Steve could see the safety was off.

What… What was happening right now?

Eddie followed his eyeline down, looking at the gun like he had only been vaguely aware of it up until then.

“Evie, what’s happening?” Robin asked, her voice was a little panicked. His vitals were probably lighting up her computer screen like a Christmas tree in his panic and confusion.

“Oh. Yeah.” Eddie said, lifting the gun to look at it a little closer.

His voice was completely flat. There was no emotion in it whatsoever.

He looked at Steve and his eyes were dead. There was no warmth there. No fire, none of that beautiful spark of cheeky, mischievous energy.

He was like a fucking zombie. Just empty, cold, closed off. He’d locked every bit of emotion in his body down, shuttered it away.

His eyes were sunken in, the purpling bruises underneath telling Steve of numerous sleepless nights before today.

Steve took a step closer to him, waiting to wrap him up in his arms, hold him close, comfort him, make it all better.

But he had barely taken that step when Eddie pointed the gun at him.

Steady.

Sure.

Professional.

Steve shook his head, more confused than anything.

Eddie wouldn’t hurt him.

Eddie would never hurt him.

“What the hell is going on?” He asked, feeling his heart in his throat.

“This is how it ends, Steve.” Eddie said monotone, the gun pointed directly at Steve’s chest. “This is always how it was going to end for us. I’m not leaving Creel’s syndicate. It was a fun idea, but unrealistic.”

“Evie. Evie, do something please. Does he have a weapon? Evie, please don’t let yourself be killed like this. I can’t listen to you be killed like this.” Robin begged him over the communicator, miles away, her voice cracking.

Steve shook his head, trying to figure everything out.

He just needed a moment.

He just needed to think.

He needed to find a way to get them out of this situation, whatever was going on.

He looked back up, right into Eddie’s eyes and took that step closer, so close that the muzzle of the gun was hovering less than an inch away from him.

“Baby.”

There it is.

Something in Eddie’s bottom lip twitched. Gone in a flash but Steve had seen it.

“Not now!” Robin snapped, pissed off and unsure and not directed at Steve. “Hey! What the fuck- get off me!”

There was the sound of a struggle before a clatter told him her headset had been dropped down to the desk.

“Birdie?!” Steve felt his eyes widen in panic, and he would have brought his hand up to his ear to try and press his communicator closer, but Eddie’s grip on the gun tightened, like he thought Steve might be moving to grab a weapon, so he froze, he stopped moving despite the panic.

“Baby, what is going on?” Steve practically shrieked desperately while Eddie swallowed, like there was something harsh in his throat, though his eyes stayed empty.

“It was fun while it lasted, Steve.” He said, his voice shaking a little, his hand starting to shake too. “I’m sorry it had to end like this.”

Steve could only blink at him in disbelief, finally making a decision.

He moved closer, pressing his sternum into the muzzle of the gun.

“You won’t hurt me, baby.”

Then Steve closed his eyes, deciding to put his complete trust in the man he loved and make it obvious that was what he was doing.

The last thing he saw before he did was the tremble of Eddie’s bottom lip and the pain breaking clear as day into his beautiful eyes.

There was silence in the apartment for a moment, but just for a moment until Eddie pulled the trigger and the sound of a gunshot cracked through the air.

4th December 2015

Miles away, in a mansion with gold veined marble floors and stolen ancient Grecian statues, a man leaned back in his office chair. His fingers tightened at the lip of the opulent mahogany wood desk as satisfaction curled itself around his shoulders, the zing of the control he oh so loved to have lighting his brain up with joy.

A wide grin was splitting his face, revelling in the pain he’d just caused, nearly making him giddy.

He stared at the flatlined vitals of the Agent on his screen. No doubt his analyst was screaming along with them.

Delicious.

He lamented the fact that he couldn’t have been there in person but a hacked communicator was the best he could do under the circumstances he’d been given.

The Agency was good.

They had gotten their hands on it in July, and had only managed to break through recently.

Still.

It had allowed him to overhear the slight shake of his assassin's voice as he was forced to learn his place, relearn who he belonged to.

Heartbreak was always such a fantastic cocktail.

Creel leaned forward again, dragging a finger across Agent Harrington’s flat heart rate on screen.

“Good boy.” He hummed to himself.

Part 1 Part 15 AO3

@geekymagicalpotato @estrellami-1

Divider by firefly-graphics

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for the magnificent beta work and to the @strangerthingswritersguild for their motivation

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #penny00dreadful #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #fanfic #pennys anniversary event #spies au #spy steve harrington #robin buckley #guy in the chair robin #cat and mouse spy fic #assassin eddie

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teaandtoastandthyme · 8 months

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Lockwood & Co - Books vs. show preferences

First, things about Lockwood & Co that I like better in the books. (Book and show spoilers abound in both these lists.)

The timeline. I'm actually very confused about what the timeline in the show is supposed to be. I could see a somewhat condensed timeline making sense for screen adaptation, but I felt like the show didn't give the characters enough time to know each other as well as they supposedly did.

Which boy drew his rapier first in the Archives. In the show, Lockwood draws his rapier first to defend both Lucy and himself against Kipps' nastiness. In the books, Lockwood draws his rapier in quick defense against Kipps' rapier, having used his words rather than his sword to provoke Kipps. I just like that bit of character portrayal better.

The scene at the Combe Carey well. I think Lockwood's "No, Lucy. That's not the way it's going to be." is such a powerful foreshadowing line about how they help pull each other away from the call of death. And it would have fit so well with some of the other scenes they added for the show.

The Skull's dialogue. Certainly most of his best sarcastic lines are in later books, but they didn't set his character up well to make those remarks. While the tone of the show is a bit different than the books, it seems they could have kept at least a little of his ridiculous nature.

The plan (or lack-thereof) for infiltrating the relic auction. While certainly the trio (plus Flo) are plenty chaotic in this part of the books, they DO have a pretty well-thought-out plan to get into the auction and get the bone glass. They're not just winging it. There are several minor plot holes and/or convenient plot devices in the show that wouldn't have had to happen if they had kept the Winkman auction scene a little closer to the books. And it would have highlighted that these kids actually are smart. (And that Lockwood is actually good a making plans sometimes.)

And now, things I like more about the show adaptation:

George's physical characterization. The books' use of Lucy's voice to disparage George's appearance can be overwhelming to the point of distracting sometimes. I appreciate that the show allowed Lucy and George to have some conflict without it involving making fun of physicality in any way. There's enough of that already in the world. That is literally my least favorite part of the books. (Though at least Lucy does mature a bit over the series in this respect.) [Edited to clarify: I have nothing against George in the books or the way he looks, just the way the others talk about it!]

The expansion of Norrie's role. I think this was a brilliant move to highlight the trauma Lucy experienced and heighten the stakes a bit. And it was also the perfect device for explaining parts of the world in narrative form.

A deeper exploration into mental health and suicidality. The books contain these themes, but I love the way the show brought these characters' experiences of trauma and mental illness more fully into conversation with each other and with the story. It was masterfully done, without romanticizing or preaching or toning down.

Lockwood giving Lucy the diamond necklace before the party. When I first watched this scene in its entirety, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. I am so used to male characters telling the dressed-up scrappy female character how stunningly beautiful she is, and I hate it. I hate the way it shifts the agency and purpose of the woman's appearance. I've said before in other posts how much I appreciate that Lockwood just lets Lucy be in this scene. She doesn't need him to compliment her appearance because her appearance is not for him. And then, of course, the necklace can be more about connection and relationally rather than approval or beauty.

Clues about Lockwood's parents and the nature of the Problem a little earlier. It ties the stories together into one larger mystery a bit sooner and quite effectively, I think.

What about you? What are your favorite changes in the show, and what do you like better in the books?

#lockwood and co #save lockwood and co #lockwood & co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #george cubbins #save lockwood & co #jonathan stroud #lockwood and co spoilers #lockwood netflix #lockwood and co tv show #lockwood & co books #comparisons #book vs show

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alchemicaladarna · 1 month

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Demon Royalty AU part 3

I haven't really thought that much about other characters' roles in this story, so for now the only eggs that I've fully fleshed out the story for are Em, Dapper, Pomme, and Richas :D

Empanada: Vampire

Co-adopted by Bagi and Niki and taken care of by her clan when she was a very small child (4-5)

A group of rogue and wild vampires that fed on humans, demons, etc. massacred a human village and fed on all its inhabitants

Bagi and Cellbit arrived at the village almost too late as there was only one survivor that hasn't been devoured or turned into a rogue: Empanada

The little girl's parents were dead and she was on the brink of death too

The only way to save Em was to turn her into a vampire and she had to drink Bagi's blood to complete the transformation and save her.

Niki would also often care for Em, as Bagi's right-hand

Keep the wild/rogue vampires in mind because they'll most likely be important later

Richas: Vampire

Wild vampire child that was found running in the forest by himself when he was only 4

Had to fend for himself by feeding on animals until Cellbit, Pac, Mike, and Felps found him while hunting for food

No one knows who his parents are/were- it seemed as if they just left him to survive on his own

Was missing a leg since birth and was likely left behind

Cellbit's clan adopted Richas of course- it took a while for Richas to trust or be able to communicate properly with them at first

Was found 2 years before Em

Children typically aren't vampires because they would need to have vampiric venom in their blood and they'd have to feed on blood too. If they do become vampires as children, they still grow up normally, but stop aging in their 30s.

Dapper: Demon

Son of Bad, Prince of Death

Rumored that Dapper's other father was the Prince of Diamonds from the Overworld, a gem golem- no one dares to ask Bad though, he never gives a clear answer or dismisses the question entirely

How? Use your imagination d:

Dapper loves exploring the Nether and is very fascinated by magic, alchemy, science

Encouraged by her father to pursue her studies of the Nether Kingdom

Also studying as a reaper apprentice

Rare occassion Dapper can go to Overworld when Bad must collect souls as the grim reaper and train him for the job

Gives Bad a heart attack when Dapper would wander off when they're in the Overworld

2 years older than Pomme

Demon children can be born in different ways because there are many types of demons, but regular low-class demons are mortal and age normally living up to 300 years max. Royal blood demons grow up normally but the older they get, the slower their aging process becomes because they have longer lifespans than regular demons. Dapper has a much longer lifespan because he's the son of a demon and what is basically a diamond.

Brief intermission to talk about the French kingdom/land/it's a working title XD:

Leaders aren't monarchs, but have titles called "Royal Governors" that represent the people in a council

They have sub-regions that each leader represents- but the people are also included in discussions relating to the kingdom- their respective leaders just represent them during the meetings

The Council leaders: Étoiles, Aypierre, Antoine, Baghera

All have close ties to Bad and the Nether Kingdoms

Pomme: ???

This girl's origins are a complete mystery because like. No one really knows where she came from?

She was found in an ancient city in the Deep Dark. A baby, barely one, just sitting in ancient ruins, surrounded by cornflowers

Pomme was found by Étoiles and Aypierre during an expedition into the ancient cities

The crazy part is she wasn't crying until the two found her, so they had to bring her to the surface very quickly

Brought her to the kingdom, back to Antoine and Baghera- they all loved her instantly

Soon, they noticed her powers get very out of control, and it's difficult for the Overworld leaders to manage alone- especially since she covered the kingdom in darkness and almost single handedly brought a plague upon them at one point

They know nothing about her powers so they visited an old friend who might have some answers: Bad. He has a lot of knowledge about the Deep Dark, but he's never encountered a baby just- mysteriously surrounded by cornflowers in an ancient ruin

The Four asked Bad to watch over her as well because Pomme was truly an anomaly and they needed his help

He hesitated for a bit because he already has Dapper, but eventually agreed to adopt her too

They agreed to have Pomme stay in the Nether with Bad until she was 17 and she can fully control her powers, and Antoine, Baghera, Pierre, and Étoiles would visit her regularly too

I thought about writing Chunsik as another demon child, but I remembered his parents, right now, are only Acau and Jungryeok. He hasn't met YD yet, and also something else to keep in mind is YD being a demon is still just a headcanon.

#qsmp #qsmp pomme #qsmp dapper #qsmp richarlyson #qsmp empanada #qsmp bagi #qsmp etoiles #qsmp aypierre #qsmp antoine #qsmp baghera #qsmp badboyhalo #qsmp niki #demon royalty au #These characters arent super important to the bagina story (em mostly is) but i wanna talk abt them anyway #because i can branch it out easily to other characters' stories in this au

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lostcauses-noregrets · 4 months

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not late to the fandom, just really not updated. last time I was on the ackerman bond between Levi x Erwin was canonically proven, but I have seen people in the tags and some other comments say it was disproven later on. would you mind explaining to me what the hell happened? thank you very much for your existence in this eruri fandom <3 you are doing the titan's lord works!

Awww thank you dear <3

Okay not so short summary…

The bond between the Ackermans and their lieges was first mentioned by Isayama in the Answers Guidebook which was published in 2016, the same week as chapter 84, Midnight Sun (boy was that a head fuck). In the book Isayama said:

Isayama With the heroes of American comics, conflicts dealing with the situation “with great power, comes great responsibility” have been depicted. In Levi’s case, if he had no power, he would probably have been an ordinary person with no responsibilities but, as a consequence of having power, that he became a person excessively burdened with responsibility. Kenny talked about “everyone… was a slave to something…”, when he put the question to Levi “what is yours!?”, Levi himself too perceived it. That he himself too was a slave in regard to his own strength. The sense of duty that “I must become a hero”. …the same thing can be said of Mikasa too but…, for the Ackerman family, in the service of their master, there are many people who are able to manifest their power to its maximum. —Eh!? (surprise) About that, isn’t this information that hasn’t been talked about in the original story!! Certainly for Mikasa it’s Eren, for Kenny it’s Uri that is the lord/master-like existence… Isayama In Levi’s case, it’s Erwin. As the existence who surpasses him, he has acknowledged Erwin or how should I put it. That is the Ackerman lineage or rather, the instinctive part probably.

This became known as the “Ackerbond”, though that is a term that was made up by the fandom. There is no explicit mention of the bond in the manga until chapter 112 when Eren tells Mikasa that she is a slave to her Ackerman instincts, who is compelled to follow her host’s orders without question. (Cue lots of hand wringing about the “abusive” nature of the Ackerbond.)

However later in chapter 130, in an extended flashback, Zeke tells Eren that there is no such thing as Ackermans having “ingrained behaviour” or “compelled instinct” to protect their “host”, and that the real reason that Mikasa shows him so much kindness and affection is that she loves him.

For once, Zeke is right, as this ties in exactly with what Isayama went on to say about the Ackermans in the Answers book:

— Regarding Mikasa and Levi’s Ackerman family mystery, we’re also receiving more clarity! Can we say that Mikasa, Levi, Kenny are all part of the same Ackerman bloodline? Isayama: They are all part of the same Ackerman bloodline. However, their reasons for protecting their respective counterparts don’t have anything to do with the bloodline itself - it’s just their nature (laughs). Within the story, Mikasa and Levi almost have the guardian/knight-like roles, right? That’s because they encountered the existence of a “boss”-like individual, and the desire to work for that person is very in line with their personalities.

So there you have it. The so-called Ackerbond isn’t mysterious blood magic that forces Ackermans to obey their host, however it is in their nature to devote their strength to an individual they choose, whose “existence surpasses them”. Put in broad terms, Eren “surpasses” Mikasa because he gives her courage, safety, family, all things she has lost when they first meet. Uri surpasses Kenny because he has unlimited power and compassion and sees the good in everyone. And Erwin surpasses Levi because he has a cause to fight for, one that Levi can dedicate his strength to. I once read someone describing the relationship between the Ackermans and their significant others as a particularly selfless form of love and a deep seated desire to protect, which seems to hit the nail right on the head.

If you want more info about the Ackerbond I have many posts here: Ackermans Master Post and Ackerbond / Ackerbonds, and @tsuki-no-ura has helpfully provided a translation of the relevant passages of the Answers book here: Answers Guidebook Interview about Levi and Erwin.

[All translations by @fuku-shuu (x), @ningen-suki (x) and @tsuki-no-ura (x).]

#asks #ackermans #ackerbond #levi ackerman #erwin smith #eruri relationship #zeke yeager #hajime isayama #snk

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pccyouthleader · 8 months

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Hedgehog Hodgepodge: A Story of Espionage, Confusion, and an Evil Plan Gone Haywire

Chapter 17: Stricken

“Have you seen the news this evening?” Amy asked Sonic as he returned from a long run on the beach. She was sitting in bed with a multitude of fluffy pillows behind her back. “I’m beginning to get worried.”

It hadn’t even been a whole day since Aurora left with Shadow, and the whole village was coming apart.

Sonic sat on the edge of the bed unlacing his shoes. “You know I hate watching the news.” The main reason for that was Soar the Eagle. That bird-brained reporter was years past his prime, and needed to hang up his press badge.

“This is serious, though,” Amy chided. “People all over the village have become ill, and nobody knows why! Just this afternoon, the receptionist at the museum had to leave early.”

“What are the symptoms?” Sonic asked, becoming only mildly interested.

“Feeling drained, loss of appetite, pale appearance,” Amy read from a news crawler on the TV screen. “Some people are complaining of a strange rash.”

“Well, I feel fine,” he said, doing a turn for her benefit. “How about you?”

Amy shrugged. “I’m feeling the drained part, but I think that has more to do with the baby than this mysterious sickness that’s going around. Apparently it started a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s spread all across the village!”

Sonic stared at her in disbelief. How were they just now getting this news? “I’d better check in with Tails,” he said, pressing a few buttons on his wrist communicator. “Hey, Tails!” he said aloud into the receiver. “You doing okay?” There was some garbled noise over the tiny speaker, then the staticky voice of his best friend came through.

“Sonic! I…” *kkkrrrrrrrtttt* “…trying to reach y…” *kkkkrrrrzzzzz* “…not what…”

“Tails! You’re breaking up! Are you okay?” Sonic yelled.

“…fine!…” *kkzzzzzzrrtt* “…weird that it’s not…” *kkkkrrrttt* Then the signal went out.

“He sounded okay, didn’t he?” Sonic asked, his brows knit together in concern. “He’s fine,” he finally determined.

As he stared at his silent communicator, Amy had another idea. “Why don’t you try Knuckles and Rouge?”

“Good thinking!” Sonic pressed a few more buttons, then started calling for Knuckles. “Hey Knux! Can you hear me?” But he was greeted with nothing but silence.

After a few minutes of waiting, Amy spoke up. “Well, they did go on a cruise. Maybe they aren’t within a signal range or something.”

“Yeah…,” was all Sonic could say. He didn’t particularly have a terrible feeling concerning his friends; it just would have been nice to know something for sure. But his hands were tied - he didn’t know their exact locations, and he couldn’t risk leaving Amy alone to go track them down. He finally resolved that they must be doing fine and could take good care of themselves.

After washing up, Sonic joined Amy in the bed to watch the coverage. He had a nagging feeling that everything was connected, but couldn’t begin to determine how.

Suddenly Amy sat up, another look of concern washing over her face. “Has anyone checked on Sticks?”

—

Sonic yawned and stretched as he prepared to trek over to Sticks’ burrow. At least Amy had acquiesced the night before when he explained that it was too late to barge in on someone. But she was anxious for him to check on their friend, and had nearly shoved him out of the bed at daybreak.

“We really should have checked on Sticks before now,” Amy fretted as she readied herself for the day.

“You know, if she’d wear her communicator, we could have checked on her before now,” Sonic grumbled.

Amy gave Sonic a withering look before continuing. “I can’t even remember the last time we laid eyes on her! What kind of friend ignores another when the outside world is in utter chaos?!”

“It’ll be okay, Ames,” Sonic reassured her. “Sticks is a loner anyway. I can’t imagine her even getting close enough to someone to catch something.”

Amy nodded. “I guess you’re right. I’ll just feel better when you’ve had a chance to talk to her.”

Sonic knew that was his cue, so he brushed Amy’s cheek with a kiss and gently patted her tummy. Then he took off at top speed, going over the placement of Sticks’ booby traps in his mind. The absolute last thing he wanted on this journey was to become a hedgehog kabob.

Upon arrival, Sonic thought Sticks’ burrow had been deserted. Leaves had blown against the door, and weeds had grown up around the various trinkets she had collected and placed in her front yard. There were no birds chirping or insects buzzing.

This is weird, Sonic thought as he moved quickly towards the door. He just missed being impaled by a wooden pole covered in slime.

“Sticks!” he called, rapping loudly at the round wooden door. For a long time, all Sonic heard was silence. Then something fell and clattered within the burrow.

Sonic immediately spin-dashed and exploded through the door, surveying the mess within. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he searched the rooms of the small home. There in the kitchen lay Sticks, crumpled on the floor by the table.

Sonic wasted no time. He sped over to Sticks, scooping her up in his arms and gently placing her on the sofa. He zipped back to the kitchen to grab a rag and wet it with some cold water to lightly sponge over her forehead. After what seemed like ages, Sticks’ eyes finally fluttered open.

“Sonic?” she croaked, barely above a whisper. Her face was pale and thin, and her hair hung limply on her shoulders.

“Sticks, what happened to you?” he asked, bewildered.

Sticks lay silent for a long time, just laboring to breathe. Then she spoke in a raspy voice. “It’s the black smudge.”

“What?” Sonic asked. “You’re going to have to be more clear.” He was well-versed in Sticks’ strange ideas and conspiracy theories.

Sticks mumbled something incoherent. After taking another ragged breath, she clearly said, “Shadow,” before passing out again.

Fear crept over Sonic. Could Shadow have done something to hurt Sticks? He thought of Aurora, alone with him and with no way to contact her family. As his mind began to run wild with the memories he had of Shadow’s early attempts to destroy him and his friends, panic surged through his veins.

Sticks began to stir once again. She tried to speak, but her words dissolved into a coughing fit. Sonic ran to the kitchen for water, then helped her sit up to sip out of a mug.

“If Shadow’s done something terrible to you, I’ll-” Sonic began, but his words were cut off when Sticks shook her head. After several more body-wracking coughs, she was finally able to explain in a scratchy voice.

“Not Shadow… the black smudge… the trees…” *cough* “Shadow saw it.”

She then lifted her arm to show Sonic a bubbling black rash. It appeared as if the skin there was in a state of necrosis. He stared in horror at the breakout, then slowly lifted his hand.

“Don’t touch it!” she screeched, pulling her arm away.

“Sticks…” Sonic began, lost for words. “How long have you been like this?”

Sticks attempted to shrug her shoulders, but it took too much effort. “A month?” she responded, barely above a whisper. Her energy completely spent, Sticks lay back down and fell asleep.

Guilt ripped through Sonic as he remembered Amy’s words: “What kind of friend ignores another when the outside world is in utter chaos?!” If only she could see Sticks now.

“I’m sorry,” Sonic said with a catch in his voice. Tears began to flood his vision. “I’m going to figure out what’s going on and get you some help.”

Pushing up from the side of the couch, he took one long, last look at Sticks’ sleeping form before walking out the door. As he headed away from the burrow, his brain was awash with different scenarios, and he breathed a sigh of relief that Shadow wasn’t the miscreant he feared.

Picking his way through the wooded jungle, Sonic went over in his head what Sticks had said. How he wished he could contact Shadow to find out more! What had she even meant by “the trees”?

Suddenly he stopped. He didn’t want to, but Sonic lifted his face to look at the jungle around him. There, smeared on every tree in sight, was a black substance that looked like liquid metal. The dread that had floated just out of reach since he had found Sticks began to surface. Looking up, Sonic was able to move just before a big blob of the sticky goo dripped onto his head. With great haste, Sonic darted out of the jungle, anxious to tell Amy what he had discovered.

Bolting through the door, he ran into the house shouting for her, but there was no answer. Sonic sat heavily in a chair at the dining room table and rested his head in his hands. It was just too much to absorb all at once.

An hour later, Sonic barely heard Amy come in the front door. She approached him to give him a big hug from behind, but stopped, a curious look on her face.

“Sonic?” she asked.

“Yeah, Ames,” he answered flatly.

“What’s that black stuff on your shoulder?”

#Y’all!!!!!!! The brain juices are definitely flowing!!#It’s goin’ down #I’m yellin’ timberrrrrrr!!!#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonamy #amy rose #shadora #sonic fanfiction #hedgehog hodgepodge #aurora belongs to e-vay #sticks the jungle badger #sticks the badger #miles tails prower #tails the fox #knuckles the echidna #knuckles x rouge #rouge the bat

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