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keerishima · 3 years

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HELLO! I saw you were a new blog that needed requests and I was wondering if you could write head-canons for todoroki, bakugou, and kiri (separately) with a s/o that has a witchcraft quirk? TY

well hi! thank you for the request, it was so cool to write! now i’m assuming you mean like a quirk that works like potions and herbs/crystals and spirit summoning and spells which is the road i’m taking i hope that’s okay?

now this boy is

excited

when he first saw the mist swirling around your fingers as you fought the robots in the UA exam, a shock went through his body

what was that?

okay he didn’t mean to stare- considering he was in the middle of an exam- but the way you moved and the glints of a crystals around your body was just so cool

time passed and he got closer to you, during the dorm competition your room was the only room he wanted to see and boy did he love it

the green ivy and plants in your room, the pots and white smoke curling from diffusers and shelves full of powder and inks organised in a neat row

your room felt like a whole new world- like magic

literally after everyone had left he was still in your room looking around like a meerkat assessing it’s surroundings

fast forward; you guys are dating and he was VERY curious as to how your quirk worked, and you explained how your spells and energy came from the crystals and jewels

each crystal gave you a different energy, which converted to your power!

kirishima literally watched in awe as you pointed at all the different coloured gems and jewels and the symbols on your walls

he even asked to touch some of them and asked where you got them

he also asked to see them in battle, and asked if you had any similar to his own quirk!

the both of you engaged in LOTS of different mock battles, which almost always ended up in a play fight rather than real training- just because he ends up enjoying watching you use your quirk too much to actually focus

once you two had engaged in a long, breathless make out session against one of the walls- what can I say? you wanted to see what it felt like to kiss kirishima in his red riot form and have him melt back to normal under your touch

yeahh...it was a bad idea to do that in the school gym, where half of class 1-B caught you two mushed together against a wall

back to the hc!

he asks SO many questions

sometimes just sits on your bed for ages and asks one after the other after the other, to the point where aizawa has to come and send him back to his side of the dorm

let me tell you now: if you are 1) planning to get anything or 2) NEED anything, don’t let him find out

you once let it slip that you were considering getting pouches to carry these crystals, and the sweet, sweet boy went out and bought BUCKETS of bags

yes buckets because he didn’t know if your crystals would be affected by material or size of the bag or- god forbid what if it did and he ruined your quirk in battle?!

he’d never forgive himself.

ever.

like literally he’d be on his knees ready for punishment of how you saw fit because of his mistake

what can i say? the boys dramatic

but its endearing :,)

it ended up being the cutest date of you cuddled up on his bed wrapped in his blankets like you were drowning in them,

whilst he sat on the floor, presenting each little bag and pouch to you, all teleshopping style.

‘and THIS 🤩 gorgeous article comes with not just 1😱! not just 2 😱! but THREE 🤯🥵🥳🥳 buttons to clip close to ensure a tight, secure hold of your 😏 special package’

yeah he made a sleazy face

yeah you threw a plushy at him

all of them were bought with your costume in mind and how could you not keep some of the bags? with kirishima watching you with the biggest eyes and slightly-pouting-lips-but-he-would-never-admit-it there was no way you didn’t keep the most useful ones

you asked him to return the extra bags so he wouldn’t have wasted his money, whilst you repaid his kindness with lots and lots of kisses and cuddles

;) or more depending on how you want it

todoroki is uhh...

emotionally constipated

but thats not his fault

#fuckendeavour

sometimes it comes off that he’s not interested in your quirk in a general sense, but it’s only because he doesn’t know how to ask without seeming pushy

he gets shy (but doesn’t show it) but with time that decreases to a sort of dry affection

i’m not saying he’s a dry boyfriend but he definitely isn't as spritely as someone like Denki might be

the way you’d see that he wanted to know more was if he asked you to come and fight with him, train with him and study

this is where he asked about your quirk

he didn’t ask to the extent of kirishima, who said everything that came to mind, he asked precise questions that gave him all the information he was desperate to know because you are so cool it makes his heart burn needed

and he also knew you would add more information as you explained, which he loved because he loved hearing you talk so passionately

this time your quirk allowed you to control people to an extent, depending on different plants and herbs you used

the plants each had a special line, muttered as you dropped the herbs anywhere on your opponent for it to activate

best believe todoroki asked for one to knock endeavour out, literally out of nowhere💀

once, one night you had been laying on your bed, and todoroki had popped over to see you. it was still quite early on in your relationship so you weren’t expecting him to cuddle up beside you and tuck into your smaller body, chin hooked onto your shoulder whilst his eyes bore into yours from below todoroki loves eye contact

‘Do your plants have meanings?’

that’s it, that’s all he softly whispered in your ear

‘What do you mean?’ You whispered back

‘Like...like roses mean love...do your herbs have a meaning linked to what they do?’

okay now he was blushing, very gently because he didn’t want to annoy you, or ask you a question you’d never thought of and make you feel silly or insecure about his quirk

YOU on the other hand were smothering a dopey grin. you knew your boyfriend and his boundaries, and you knew that him asking you in such an intimate setting meant he was trying hard for you

you also knew that he’d just given you free reign to ramble however you saw fit

so you explained, how each herb did this, how if you mixed them they did that, if you made a liquid infused with them it helped with your application in battle and so much more

todoroki listened silently, but his eyes were gleaming

literally glowing in the darkness- I mean was that even possible? it had to have been considering how todoroki looked at you that night

after you were done, he replied with a similar thing about his own quirk, and both of you had a long long chat that went from quirks, to schooling, to life, to aliens and more

todoroki had the weirdest humour, he never knew he was being funny until your quiet giggles morphed into full blown laughter- and caused a knock from the next room over because you were being too loud

he would let out his own little chuckles and smirks, seeing you enjoy his company so much

it was a while after that day when something new happened

you’d sent him a message, whilst he was sitting right next to you, and your contact name flashed on his screen suddenly, catching your eye

‘my calendula’

you looked at todoroki

todoroki looked at you

you both blinked

‘calendula?’ you asked

‘yes’ todoroki replied

‘why calendula?’

‘because,’ todoroki blushed deeply, eyes flickering away from yours

‘because you said calendula means joy...you’re my joy. arent you?’

and god help anyone who tries to say you aren’t todoroki’s joy

because you would literally throw them to the ground

your heart soared at how todoroki loved you and your quirk so much

even though it wasn’t blatantly obvious, it was the little things he did for you 😍

he originally going to call you his basil until Bakugou came round behind him asking him if he was writing the dorms grocery list. safe to say that plan was aborted immediately :D

oho

sorry I just

*pfft*

bakugo amuses me, he really does he’s so entertaining

okay sorry back to the headcanon

I headcanon you’re REALLY strong

like STUPID strong

Remember bakugos reactions to all the students quirks and he was like ‘shit I cant beat them 😨’

And his reaction to todoroki? yeah he’d literally see you use your quirk and just

no I’m joking

but I feel like as your s/o he’d be super obsessed with your quirk

he’d always want to train with you, he’d see it as an amazing part of you that he wants to help hone so you can be the best of the best

not better than him obviously but the best anyway

not that he’d SHOW all of this awe and pride to you, it’s normally delivered in a bunch of bakugo sentences:

‘oi your form is shit. do this instead.’

that means he’s realised a new way you can throw this punch, with much more force

‘tch, go train. you need the training.’

he wants to train with you. again.

‘....finally. took you long enough to learn that.’

you’ve just done something successfully and he’s trying so hard not to blush at how well you did it.

here your power is more destructive

you can create sigils using a your finger in the air and they create attack power

this with bakugos quirk makes a formidable duo, and if he doesn’t get partnered with you he will most likely throw a fit

but not a long fit more of a like ‘oi why is she over there we work better together’

but he realises as heroes you need to work well with anyone you meet, so he’s not too fussy

because of the fact that you draw the sigils, you have a habit of tracing out patterns and new symbols and any sort of designs subconsciously

this is done normally on any part of your skin, with a pen

bakugo being old man bakugo 🙄 got mad at you

he told you off for almost giving yourself ink poisoning and ruining your hand and making it all dirty drama queen

but throughout all of this bakugo had been clutching your hand, and best believe he wasn’t letting go

he used the hand he was holding to pull you along and sit comfortably, dropping his own palm into your lap and mumbling something that kind of, sort of, might have been along the lines of ‘use my arm dumbass’

now you had bakugos arm to scribble on to your hearts content.

you used this when you were stressed, worried that your nerves were causing you to forget things or simply because you wanted to hold bakugo close

in fact, bakugo himself had adopted this habit, and you’ll notice I said arm instead of hand

bakugo got nervous around you, and therefore sweaty, which therefore lead to tiny little explosions in his palms when you were near

but this habit had started to make him feel comfortable with his hands around you, it made him trust himself more

he knew his power was strong and he didn’t want to hurt you, your quirk was something that helped him with that

and he wouldn’t tell you that but he was grateful. VERY grateful

he once asked why you used pen, and not your finger on your skin considering the pen ink is toxic

you answered very quickly, by pulling out a sheet of people and sliding your finger across the surface in a sigil shape

promptly the paper burnt into a cinder :)

and bakugo never asked again

and that is the end! I hope you liked it and I did the idea of Witchcraft justice 😅 please do send some more requests!

god I loved this so much they’re all so cute :,) thank you for this request!!

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mochegato · 3 years

Text

Pixie Spy

Chapter 6

Chapter 1 Chapter 5

“What the fuck is this bullshit! Are you sure?” Chat Noir exclaimed loudly from his perch across the street from the hotel.

“Just telling you what I see, dude. There’s no Nightwing in that room.” Carapace reported with very little sympathy from his position across the street from the hotel on the other side from Ladybug and Chat Noir. “And I’m only seeing four heat signatures so I don’t think I’m just missing him. It looks like the big Bat, the little bat, and the middle bats. Basically, all the bats that were in town except Nightwing.”

“Wow! That is totally like a fuck you directly to Chat.” Rena Rouge laughed, turning to face toward Chat despite not having a direct line of sight to him.

“That matches with what the front desk staff said.” Bee confirmed as she examined her nails. The roof she was on, a few blocks from the hotel in a different direction, had very little light to help with the examination, but she was determined not to let such little details prevent her from making sure she looked immaculate. She had standards damn it. “They only saw four men checking in.”

“And you’re just telling us this now why?” Rena Rouge inquired exasperated. Even with the distance between her position a few blocks away in a separate direction from everyone else, the roll of her eyes could be felt by everyone.

“Uh, because they just reported it? Plus, there is no way to know if that was accurate. They could have been trying to sneak the other one in to surprise us.” Bee responded as though anyone who didn’t understand that without her saying it was an utter idiot.

“Sorry, Chaton. Guess there’s no kissing tonight for you.” Ladybug smirked at him.

Chat looked at her with a pout trying to hide the amused glint in his eyes. “And what about your man? How are you planning on kissing him anyway? Even once you get past that atrocity of a mask, he’s like two of you on top of each other.”

“I am not that much shorter than him!” Ladybug declared indignantly, pouting her lips at him.

“He’s not too far off. That man is huge and you are… compact.” Rena tried to offer kindly but the sardonic grin on her face was evident in her voice.

“Sounds like that puts her at the perfect height to make him really happy.” Bee smirked wickedly.

“Bee!! That is absolutely not something I want to discuss right now… or ever. We are never having that conversation.” Ladybug exclaimed trying to cool down her burning cheeks. She had a hard enough time focusing when just thinking about caressing his face or running her fingers through his hair or… or kissing his perfect, luscious, inviting lips… Where were they again? “Can we please focus on the issue at hand before they scatter and announce their presence to Hawkmoth?” She wasn’t sure if she was talking more to the team or to herself.

“Just trying to help,” Bee shrugged as though everyone listening didn’t know that was a complete lie.

“Right… so the first order of business before we attack them is you reacting to that mask, right?” Chat asked with a wide childlike grin, already anticipating the carnage.

“We’re not going to attack them. We are going to politely inform them that their services are not required and kindly return to their own territory.” Ladybug corrected him, trying to get the team to focus on the mission.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘fuck off’ in the politest terms possible.” Chat dismissed her comment.

“No need to be polite about it,” Bee cut in.

“But, first order of business, right?” Chat continued barely restraining himself from bouncing back and forth on his toes.

“Can we focus on the task at hand, please?” Ladybug muttered. “I want to be ready to stop them before Hawkmoth sees the Batfamily are in Paris and sends akumas for all of them.”

“So how are you planning on handling this? Good cop, bad cop?” Rena asked.

“How about strict but polite cops?” Ladybug offered instead.

“Boo,” Carapace said over the coms.

“No,” Chat responded quickly and a bit louder than necessary. “I want to be bad cop. They left Nightwing at home. They deserve it.”

“You just want an excuse to be a vindictive dick to someone.” Ladybug rolled her eyes at him.

“And?” Chat asked flatly.

“And we are fucking professionals and we will act like it.” She said. Chat gave her kitty eyes. She grunted and rolled her eyes, “Damn it. Fine. Bad cop, disappointed in your life choices cop. But they haven’t done anything to deserve us being assholes to them yet so reign it in unless things get hostile.”

“No, don’t reign it in. They need to know they are not welcome here.” Bee advised sharply.

“We can make that clear without creating enemies. If we push too hard, they won’t back off, they’ll push back and although we can take them, I really do not want to deal with the international fallout of permanently injuring the bats.”

“You know, you wouldn’t have to permanently injure them.” Carapace pointed out.

“No, no, I’m going to permanently injure them.” Ladybug said overdramatically. She turned toward the hotel and let out a sigh. “I’m trying to be strategic with this. So far, what they know of us is we worked with Constantine and we didn’t call them in to help. That and breaking into their Batcave are the only things they know about us. That’s it. It is natural to want more information. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. They might be assholes but I try not to be.”

“Since when?” Rena snarked.

“Fuck you,” Ladybug quipped back.

“Ugh, fine, but they are going to disguise their intentions behind innocuous questions and innuendos. Don’t hold back once they go there. Call that shit out. They are trying to get enough information so they can take over and we are well aware. They’re not that smart and we’re not that dumb. Just because we’re pretty doesn’t mean we’re stupid. They need to know it is in Paris’ best interests if they leave and quickly.” Bee stated flatly.

“Aww. You think we’re pretty?” Rena responded batting her eyes unseen.

“No, but I’m pretty enough to bring up the average,” Bee responded with a smirk.

Before a snark war could start, Ladybug interceded. “I’m aware Bee. I won’t say anything more than is available on the Ladyblog.”

“Oh damn!” Carapace swore over the coms. They could hear the wince in his voice. “That had to hurt.”

“What happened?” Ladybug demanded settling into a defensive posture.

“Your man just proved Edna Mode right using Robin as an example.” Carapace chuckled.

“Trust issues.” Bee said like a gameshow host introducing a prize.

Ladybug grimaced thinking about Robin’s costume. “Speaking of flashy and attention seeking, Rena, have you figured out what your distraction is going to be?”

“I have a few ideas. Any requests? You want big and flashy or subtle? Maybe mess with their heads and make them paranoid?”

“I want flashy. You wouldn’t do it with that last akuma. Give me this. Plus Batman is known for his dramatic entrances, but he’s on our turf now and I want to show them what dramatic really means.” Chat pouted at Ladybug’s unimpressed look.

“You were saying something about professionalism, Bug?” Bee’s voice came back.

“Are you suggesting petty grudges aren’t professional?” Carapace responded. “Because, I’m pretty sure that is the business model for most major companies.”

Ladybug lowered her head and shook it letting out a long, strained breath before she reacted, “You heard the man, Rena.”

“Flashy with a hint of fuck you, it is.” Rena confirmed with a nod.

“Movement in the room. It looks like they’re making their move.” Carapace reported.

Ladybug straightened immediately. The news rippled through the team like a flipped switch. Their relaxed postures and jovial comments were left behind in favor of vigilance. “Okay team, it’s starting. Carapace get into position. Rena, you got the distraction ready?”

“Know exactly what to do, Ladybug.” Rena confirmed.

“Perfect. Everybody in position?” Ladybug asked.

Affirmatives rang out from the three. “And remember LB, this isn’t about them, it’s about Paris. They don’t need to be happy with the results, they just need to leave.” Chat reminded her.

“Right. Understood.” She looked down and took a deep breath bracing herself for what was about to come. She rolled her shoulders back and stretched her head from side to side. She knew she could make them leave easily but she needed to do more than that. She needed to make them understand why they needed to stay away and agree to do so. Barring understanding, she needed to make them fear coming back, which was not a direction she wanted to go, which meant she really needed to make them listen. All while Jason was there, looking at her.

She was not looking forward to seeing him again. No, that was a lie. She was very much looking forward to seeing him again, just not today, not like this. She didn’t want to have to manipulate him. She didn’t want to lie to him. That’s how they got in this situation in the first place, because she had the stupid, overwhelming urge to be honest with him, to let him in. But she wasn’t in a place where she got to do that. Letting people in meant making them a part of the fight. It made them vulnerable and wrecked their lives. She tried to contain the damage to mainly her and a bit to Adrien, but everyone who joined suffered. And the thought of causing him that much pain or having to fight an akumatized Jason…

Ladybug looked back up toward the roof across the street with a renewed determination, her gaze steely and her lips set. She waited until the last of the Bats had arrived on the roof before whispering into the coms, “Rena, you’re on.”

<><><><><>

Red Hood landed on the roof last, bringing up the rear for the group. He looked out over the city willing himself to feel which direction he should go to find his Pixie Pop. He was focused intently on nothing in particular when he felt someone slap his arm. He whipped his head around to see Red Robin staring across the roof dumbfounded. He followed his line of sight and saw an odd looking fox sitting next to some pots on the other side of the roof. After a few moments Red Robin finally got his voice back and decided to use it to make a brilliantly insightful observation. “There’s a fox… on the roof.”

“How did a fox get up here? What kind of irresponsible hotel is this?” Robin demanded.

The fox hissed at him like she was personally insulted and ran toward them, rounding the edge of the pool so closely, she just barely missed falling in. Robin’s breath caught and he automatically reached in the direction of the fox, ready to rescue her should she fall into the pool. The fox continued on as though she hadn’t almost fallen in the water, increasing her speed as she ran between Robin and Red Robin toward the edge of the roof. Robin whirled around and jutted forward to grab the fox before she got hurt or fell off the roof. But the fox seemed to have other ideas, speeding up even faster and racing toward the edge of the roof before jumping off.

Robin ran to the edge to see if the fox might have landed on a balcony, but fell back, landing hard on the ground when a cloud of bats flew up into the sky at a breakneck speed from the same spot the fox had jumped. Red Robin flinched back from the bats’ sudden appearance but Batman just narrowed his eyes at them. Red Hood cocked his head to the side watching the bat-like things flying around above them before taking off away from the hotel. “What the actual fucking fuck was that!” Red Hood exclaimed.

Ladybug and Chat landed on the roof behind the bats and watched them for a few moments. They turned to each other with smug smiles. No matter what else happened that night, they were always going to remember the chaos they had caused the bats. They were counting that as their first win. They turned back toward the bats and schooled their expressions. Ladybug gave them a few moments to notice them before she stage whispered to Chat, “How long do you think it will take them to notice us?”

“Super unimpressed right now.” Chat shook his head in disappointment, leaning casually on his baton.

The bats whipped around in unison. Batman and Robin refused to show the shock they felt. Instead, Batman stared intently at them while Robin glared at them. Red Robin looked back and forth between the Parisian heroes and the space where the bats had been flying, his face scrunching in confusion as if trying to figure something out. Red Hood however focused entirely on Ladybug, squinting at her as if trying to piece something together that refused to fit, not that anyone could see it under the mask.

Ladybug and Chat jumped down off the ledge but stayed on their side of the roof, allowing the pool to mark the division between the two groups, acting as a buffer between them, easy enough to get around should they need to, but demarcating the sides. Ladybug looked between the vigilantes, her gaze lingering a bit longer than it should on Red Hood. That hurt more than she expected, to see him but not talk to him, not really, not be able to acknowledge him or see what he was thinking. Because he couldn’t know it was her and even if he did, he couldn’t stay. She moved her gaze back to Batman with a strained smile, trying to calm her erratic heart. “Hello. Welcome to Paris. My name is Ladybug. This is Chat Noir.” Ladybug introduced them politely but with an edge to her voice.

“Is there anything we can help you with before you leave?” Chat asked innocently. Ladybug pressed her lips together in annoyance but kept her eyes on the bats. Not as bad as it could be.

“Good evening Ladybug, Chat Noir. I’m Batman. This is Robin, Red Robin, and Red Hood. We would like to discuss the situation here in Paris with you.”

“You’re missing your whole team. Where’s the other one?” Chat asked nonchalantly. Ladybug fought rolling her eyes. To be fair, Chat had warned her he was going to be a petty dick, she just was expecting a bit more of a focused dickishness. They were going up against Batman. They needed to focus, to project confidence and control.

“Really, dude?” Carapace asked through the coms.

“Where’s your other one? Where is the one that makes portals?” Red Hood asked not even attempting to mask the interest in his voice, and that hurt even more.

“And breaks into secret bases?” Red Robin grumbled loudly.

“She has been exposed thanks to you, Redwood. And the rule of the miraculous is once your identity is exposed you can no longer wield a miraculous.” Ladybug responded. It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. It was longstanding rule. It was heavily ignored, but it was still the rule. It was the jaywalking of the miraculous rules; there but nobody ever acknowledged it unless the situation was really dangerous. She lowered her eyes in guilt. He hadn’t made her tell him. She had done that. It wasn’t his fault she had divulged their secret. She weighed letting him believe it was his fault so he would back off versus the guilt he would carry with him. She couldn’t let him carry that with him because of her. “She made her choice.”

“So you just, what? Kicked her to the curb?” Red Hood demanded indignant on behalf of the woman whose name he didn’t even know. How dare they use her and throw her away like that! She had risked going into a potential enemy’s base for them and they just throw her out like she was nothing. She lifted her eyes to him and studied him closer. His face was obscured tragically but his body was tense, angry. Not a good condition for Paris.

“Forget about the scapegrace.” Robin growled breaking their link. “Let’s get this over with.”

Red Hood glared at him but Ladybug cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes in concentration, studying Robin, looking for something in his face. When she didn’t see what she was looking for, she spoke up, “Chat, you speak English better than I do, was that an insult? That sounded like an insult, but I can’t tell.” Chat shrugged and gave her a non-committal grunt. She hummed in response and flashed an overly wide model smile Adrien used on the red carpet with overly pushy reporters, “I’m going to take that a compliment. Thank you for your kind words. I will let her know you send your well wishes and admiration.”

Robin growled at her. Red Robin looked down to hide the smirk that tried to push through and break his serious expression. Looking back up at the heroes, he started firing off his questions to hide his smile, “So she was using a miraculous. Which one was she using? Are you using a miraculous? Is that what your villain is using as well? How many miraculous are in play right now? How many do you have? How did you know we were here?”

“That’s a lot of questions for people who aren’t welcome here and won’t be here much longer.” Chat answered sharply.

“Chat…” Ladybug said warningly. “Polite, remember?”

“That was polite.” Chat objected. She gave him a warning look. “This is our territory they invaded and our villain they were just about to offer their services to.”

“Now you guys are concerned about boundaries?” Red Robin deadpanned.

“We came here to find out more about the situation here.” Batman stated loudly bringing the attention back to him. “We were only recently made aware there was a situation and we would like to learn more about what is going on.”

“I’m sure you would, gothboy,” Bee growled over the coms.

Ladybug looked down to hide her smile. Getting her focus back, she asked, “And you needed almost your entire team to ask a few questions?”

“We weren’t sure of your receptiveness to visitors. We wanted to be able to protect ourselves in case you attacked.” Batman stated logically.

“Reasonable.” She nodded absentmindedly. “Better to be prepared than caught unaware. Although, it’s cute that you think you would stand a chance even with your whole team.” Ladybug said confidently. She wasn’t inviting a discussion on this and she wasn’t threatening them. She was stating a fact, one they should be aware of. Okay, maybe she was a bit more condescending than she had to be. But the bats had to know, they were not the power players in this group. The miraculous team were.

“You presumptuous, little feist. You have no idea what we are capable of, what we’ve done.” Robin growled. Batman’s hand on his shoulder cut his lecture short.

“Oh Sweetie, we are well aware of what you are capable, of what you have done.” She responded lowly, fixing him with a dark glare that had Robin faltering and Red Robin gulping. “It’s why we’ve made a point of keeping you away from this situation. You are the ones who don’t know of what we are capable.” A thunderclap sounded in the sky as though to accentuate her point.

Chat pursed his lips so hard to keep himself from laughing that the pink could no longer be seen. He was going to buy a drink for Alya after that.

A tense silence fell over the rooftop until Batman finally broke the tension. “You are correct, we do not know what you are capable of or what the nature of the situation here is. Could you give us a bit more information? We just want to see if there is anything we could do to help.”

“And not to take over because you think you can do better?” Ladybug asked with a raised brow.

“Clearly we could do better. You’ve been fighting the same villain for 5 years.” Robin scoffed at them.

“Robin!” Batman admonished him.

“Ignore him. He’s being a jealous little prick. He is physically incapable of being anything else.” Red Hood implored.

“When’s the last time you fought half a million enemies at the same time, little one? And defeated all of them?” Ladybug asked throwing out the comment on his age and size knowing he would take it as a slight. “Because that was last week for us. One million was the week before. Not particularly impressive, I know, but it’s been a slow month.”

“Also, how’s the Penguin doing? You’ve been fighting him for over a decade now, right? You can’t even stop a fucking flightless, cold water bird.” Chat scoffed.

“You realize he isn’t an actual bird, right?” Red Robin asked wryly.

“Wait, What!? I have been sorely misinformed.” Chat gasped dramatically and brought his hand to his chest. “I completely take it back. It’s much less unimpressive that you’ve been fighting with billions of dollars of support and technology against a single person with no super powers for a decade.” He said dryly.

“Honestly would have been more impressive if it had been an actual bird. Significantly cooler too.” Carapace over the coms.

“We’re not here to fight.” Batman said calmly.

“Could have fooled me,” Chat grumbled.

“Probably, doesn’t seem like it’s too hard to do.” Robin scoffed.

“Oh, that little… next time I’m coming too. Give me just 5 minutes with that little gremlin.” Bee growled through the coms.

Ladybug crooked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes, “Yeah, non-hostile is definitely the vibe we’re getting from you.”

Red Hood held out his hands trying to placate them, “We found out about the situation from the other woman and we want to help. She said things were bad. She said you needed help.”

“That seems highly unlikely,” Carapace scoffed.

“What the hell did you say back there?” Rena asked skeptically.

“She told you we needed help? She said she wanted you to intervene, Redwood?” Ladybug questioned him incredulity in her voice.

Red Hood furrowed his brows and huffed, “Red Hood.”

“What?”

“It’s Red Hood, not Red Wood.”

She furrowed her brows in confusion, “I meant Redwood like the tree? You know, the… the tree…” she motioned indicating something tall. “Is that not the word for those really big trees in America? Redwoods?” She asked Chat uncertain.

Chat looked at her wide-eyed, “Did you… did you make his name into a pun?”

She looked back at him horrified, “No! Why would you… oh, yeah, I see it now. Shit.” She looked over to Chat with desperation in her eyes. “That nickname never happened. We all forget that happened and we never mention it again.”

“No, no. That’s the only way we are referring to him from now on. I’m spreading the word.” Chat grinned at her.

“Word is spread, dude.” Carapace responded back. “He is now dubbed Red Wood the Dancer.”

“How’s that professionalism looking right about now, Bug?” Bee asked with amusement clear in her voice.

“I hate you,” the ‘all’ went unspoken but everyone on her team heard it.

“You know I’m still here, right?” Red Hood spoke up.

“Yeah, but your opinion of what we call you doesn’t matter.” Chat shrugged.

Ladybug let out a long suffering sigh, looking back to Red Hood to continue the conversation. She immediately squeezed her eyes shut, “And could you not wear that thing while you are talking. It’s extremely distracting. Who designed that for you and what dishonor did you inflict upon them and their ancestors to cause them to punish you with it, and thereby the rest of us?”

“I… this helmet serves a purpose.” Red Hood defended himself.

“To terrorize your opponents?” She asked skeptically.

“That’s part of it.” Red Hood confirmed.

“Mission accomplished, but not the way you intended, I think.” She said narrowing her eyes at him. “Seriously, it’s like looking at an elementary school play about Hellboy.”

Red Hood was left gaping, grasping for words. “Disappointed. You could have done better, Dudette.” Carapace said through the coms.

“I expect a follow up to that next time you see him,” Rena added.

“I changed my mind. I think I’m warming up to them.” Red Robin grinned.

Red Hood glared at Red Robin, “Back to the original question, no. She said Constantine was helping. She said people were suffering, children were suffering. I want to help end that. We just want to help.”

Robin shot a condescending grin at them, “Of course if you want to keep allowing the people of Paris to suffer because you’re too proud to accept help you so desperately need, yet too incompetent to end it on your own…”

“Excuse me? What! Oh no, I was totally wrong about him. Go for it. Take him down, Dudette.” Carapace growled.

“So to be clear, she said she was already getting help and you heard her tell Constantine you weren’t supposed to know about the situation let alone welcome in Paris and you came anyway.” She stared them down, letting her words sink in. “You need to leave now. You can’t be here. Leave in the morning or we will force you.” Ladybug says grimly.

Robin glowering at her. “As if someone like you could”

“Without breaking a sweat, Sweetie. The warning is purely an attempt to keep things friendly. And with all due respect…”

“Which isn’t much,” rang out from all four members of team at the same time.

“…I assure you, if we have to remove you, things will be considerably less friendly and you won’t even know what hit you.” Ladybug stated coldly.

“You contemptible, duplicitous, mendacious, cretinous, Jezebel!” Robin raged.

“Robin, if you do not shut your fucking mouth right now,” Red Hood growled as he stalked toward him only held back by Red Robin, “I will personally toss you right the fuck after that fucking fox without your grappling hook.”

“You might want to apologize, Robin, or my arm might give out and not be able to hold him back anymore.” Red Robin hissed.

“Boys!” Batman thundered. “We are on a mission.”

Ladybug crooked her head to the side again, “I know you haven’t been doing this very long so a piece of advice for you; I understood very little of what you said. As a result, I am not nearly as offended as you wanted me to be. Look, I understand that Pompous Asshole is the only language you speak, but it may enhance your effectiveness if you were to work on bettering yourself in the communications area. It’s hard to intimidate someone if they have no idea what you are saying.”

Robin turned red at the suggestion he was inferior in any area, especially intimidation. He was to be feared not belittled. He had been trained as such since he was born. “See, I turned you redder than my suit solely using words you understood.”

Red Robin turned slightly toward Red hood with a huge grin and said quietly, “I’m definitely warming up to them.”

“Not to mention you are letting your anger undermine your stated purpose for being here. To make it clearer to you, you are messing it up for your team because you are incapable of controlling your emotions, so interested in making us feel like failures that you are causing your entire team to become one.” Ladybug broke it down sternly but softly, like she was speaking to a child, which she was. Despite what he thought of himself, he was a child.

Robin tensed to jump at them, reaching for his sword but stopped when Batman placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard giving him a hard stare. “We are not suggesting you haven’t been doing a good job.” Batman stated. Robin scoffed. “We did not come to fight, I promise.”

“Wise move, but I think not everyone on your team got the memo.” Ladybug said coolly.

“It’s a shame he doesn’t have parents to teach him manners.” Chat stated casually as though he was thinking out loud. “Or maybe they’re more like mine, too invested in their own interests to actually invest in parenting their kids.” He turned a sharp gaze back to Batman, “Anyway, I digress, you were saying something?”

Red Robin grinned at the ground again as Red Hood interceded, attempting to change the topic. “We are all here to get more information and if you aren’t willing to give that then… then that’s fine. Can I just speak with the other woman, please?”

“Hood…” Batman warned.

“Ooo, LB. He’s got it bad.” Rena smiled.

“I assure you, you won’t get a different answer from her.” Ladybug responded plainly, forcing her eyes to stay sharp instead of softening like they wanted to do. He was not playing fair and he didn’t even know it. He was messing with her heart making it speed up and stop and skip beats all at the same time. It wasn’t fair.

“That’s fine. I just want to talk with her.” Red Hood asked, a touch of desperation leaking through his words.

“I think she has said quite enough talking already. She won’t be doing any more, not with you, not anytime soon.” Ladybug responded harshly. She still felt guilty for letting herself expose them to him like she had and needed to remind herself.

“What did you do to her?” Red Hood asked warily.

“She’s fine. We don’t harm our allies.” Ladybug said pointedly throwing a glare over toward Batman. “She does not want you here right now either.”

“You don’t speak for her,” Red Hood growled at her.

“Right now I do. She agrees the situation is too dangerous to have the Justice League here. It’s too dangerous for her and for you to be here until we have ended the threat.”

Red Hood desperately looking for some way to recover this. He couldn’t go back without getting some clue about her, without getting closer. He needed a chance, just one chance to get closer. “Cat guy, you going to let her speak for you?” Red Hood tried instead.

“Oooh, that was the wrong move.” Rena winced.

“Dude’s desperate give him a break. He’s looking for anyone who’ll give him a different answer.” Carapace offered weakly. He was rooting for him and willing to give him a break on one desperate, stupid attempt.

“Me? Yeah, that’s the way it works. She does the talking, I do the destroying.” Chat glared back at him then whispered “Black Storm” causing a black ball of condensed misfortune to appear between his hands. “Unless you’d really like me to take over…” he said rolling the ball between his hands like a magician’s floating ball.

“We are trying to help you dolt. We have experience and training, which you are sorely in need of.” Robin shouted at them.

“And excellent control over your emotions clearly. Tell me class why is that combination, NOT a benefit in this instance? Anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller? Bueller?” Chat taunted him.

“Listen here, you and your entire team, including that cat thieving hussy…” before Robin could finish the sentence Red Hood yelled, “Can you shut your trap for 3 seconds so we can have a conversation. We have a mission here and you are blowing it.”

A realization suddenly hit Chat, he pointed at Robin and looked at Ladybug wide eyed, “Oh it was his cat.” He turned back to Robin, “it was your cat. That explains the…” motions towards him and the hostility rolling off him in waves.

“You stole a cat?” Rena asked.

“Can’t wait to hear that story.” Carapace grinned.

“Interesting,” Bee said thoughtfully.

“That’s it. Taking the com out now. If there is anything important, announce it.” Ladybug said quietly pulling out her com.

“Sorry about that. Cats just really, really like her.” Chat motioned toward Ladybug, “I can attest. But we returned him to you little man, so… all good, right?” Robin glared at him and opened his mouth to speak but was cut off.

“Why don’t you tell us why it is a bad idea?” Batman interceded, attempting to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand. It had not escaped his notice that they had been speaking for a while now and had yet to get any information on the situation in Paris. “We would appreciate more information on the situation.”

Chat was done with this conversation, with the false promises, the hostilities, and the disrespect. “Huh, where did all that confidence and bravado go? Just a second ago I swear I heard something about knowing how to handle the situation better than us because we were so utterly, helplessly incompetent and yet here you are asking us what the situation is and for advice on how to handle it. Well here’s the advice; Get Out. Your interference will make Bialya look like a success.” Chat growled. Ladybug put a hand on his arm again warning him to back down on the hostility.

“Bialya was… an unfortunate event.” Batman conceded.

“That is putting it mildly. But the Justice League always knows better, right?” Chat hissed.

“Chat! Robin insinuated the incompetence not Batman. Batman is asking why we think it is a bad idea for them to stay and we want them to understand that, remember?” Ladybug offered attempting to bring down the hostility and suspicion on both sides. She was still well aware of Batman’s true intentions and he needed to be called on it, but they were edging to pushing too hard.”

“We just came to find out what is going on. Offer assistance if you needed it. NOT take over.” Red Robin repeated, looking directly at Ladybug. Chat was looking for a fight, but Ladybug appeared willing to talk. She was willing to work with them, at least a little. She was the one they needed to focus on.

Chat scoffed but Ladybug tightened her grip on his arm stopping him from continuing, “We appreciate the offer but we will kindly have to decline it. We have considered the options, researched the players, and we have decided at this point in time having members of the Justice League, or affiliated organizations, in Paris is too dangerous for us and for Paris.” Ladybug stated diplomatically, ignoring what she was sure were angry cries coming over the com in Chat’s ear about her being too nice.

“We would like to see if there is room for us to offer assistance. We would be negligent if we just took your word for it.” Batman said sternly not giving an inch.

“Already doubting our word and trying to force your way into the situation I see.” Ladybug quirked a brow but kept her voice light. “You can get the information you seek from any of the many online resources available.”

“Those aren’t available outside of Paris.” Red Robin pointed out.

“Well then I suggest you download the contents of the sites before you leave in the morning. You could also call up business people here to discuss the situation under the guise of investigating whether adding a Paris branch to… a company,” she just stopped herself from exposing their identities. Even if she was confident there were no cameras up here, it was still good practice. “…would be dangerous. Not to mention the files in your possession that we copied. They contain more than enough information to give you the insight you desire.” She suggested well aware of the fact that even with decryption software working full force, they would not be able to decipher the Grimoire texts. “There are options other than being here and exposing yourself to our villain.

“The abridged version is we have a villain that takes advantage of people’s negative emotions to possess them. It allows him to use that person’s knowledge, combined with his own against us. As a result, having people in Paris who are experts in combat or people who would go to any length to find out our identities is extremely dangerous to us and could tip the balance in Hawkmoth’s favor. That’s a double strike for you.”

“We don’t need to know your identities. We can help you without knowing them.” Red Robin assured them.

Ladybug cocked her head to the side, her voice dripping in skepticism. “Can you honestly say none of you would try to figure out our identities and how to defeat us? That you don’t have files on everyone you work with, on how to take them down, their weaknesses, where to hit to have the strongest impact, including discovering their identities with or without their permission?” Thank you to Constantine for that little tidbit. “Our identities are secret by necessity. We don’t even know each other’s identities,” a small lie, but a necessary one. It still made her uncomfortable to say it, she curled her fingers and straightened them back out in response to the uncomfortable feeling. “Imagine that information in the hands of Hawkmoth.”

“Like we would let someone take it.” Robin sneered at them.

“Like you could control it.” Chat sneered right back at him.

“Regardless of intent or actual physical possession of the files, as I mentioned before, our villain takes advantage of people’s emotions to turn them into supervillains with their own superpowers. He takes over their minds. Any negative emotion makes you susceptible. Have you ever felt sad? Mad? Frustrated? Guilty? Desperate? Then you’re susceptible. Tell me who in the Justice League would be immune to that?” Ladybug looked them in the eyes, refusing to back down or soften this blow.

“I’ve seen the moon destroyed and the world annihilated. We’ve seen the city flooded and a super volcano half the size of the city bubbling away instead of our suburbs. We’ve seen the very air turned into sulfer dioxide. Have you ever heard children screeching in more pain than any human should ever have to experience? Have you heard hundreds at the same time? Have you had to listen to the inhuman sounds they make? We have and we relive it every single night. Have you had to dig through your partners’ blood to find their miraculous after watching them die in front of you, get beheaded next to you, in order to finish the fight? He has.” She said gesturing toward Chat. “Those were people with newly acquired powers but no training. Imagine what would happen if one of the Justice League became akumatized, familiarity with how to wield powers and strategic training with new and unlimited power… It was not a risk we were willing to take.”

Red Hood stared in horror. That was why his Pixie Pop was so angry at the gala when she thought Constantine was messing around and wasting time, because that is what she had to deal with and any delay meant the people of Paris had to deal with more of it. That was what she was so desperate to stop, Hell on Earth, constant agony. And every additional second they had to bear it was torture.

Red Robin stared dazed at her for a few moments but then narrowed his eyes realizing an inconsistency in her story, “The city looks amazingly unharmed, considering all you claim to have seen.”

“That’s my power. I fix miraculous related damage.” Ladybug responded tiredly.

“Convenient” Robin quipped.

“Not nearly as convenient as preventing it from happening in the first place, I assure you. The cure fixes the physical damage but it doesn’t fix the psychological damage done. It doesn’t take away the memories. Everyone remembers what happened to them and to the ones they love.” She turned to Batman with soft eyes, “I understand that you want to get as much information as humanly possible so you can feel like you have some control over this situation but you don’t. You won’t. You can’t. The help that would be most valuable to the city of Paris is if you could convince Bruce Wayne to send fleets of therapists. I understand you have a unique relationship with him.”

Batman stared silently, letting the description settle in. If what they were saying was true, then the situation was worse than he had anticipated. They were handling it but heroes had died. She was right that therapists would also be advantageous, not only for the citizens of Paris but for the heroes as well. It was a miracle they hadn’t had anyone break from the stress yet. If anything, it solidified his resolve to get to know everything he could about the situation so they could step in when one of the heroes inevitably did succumb to the pressure.

“We could help in other ways. We could offer support from a distance. We could help, we just need to know more about the miraculous and how they work, what their strengths and weaknesses are. We can work together.” Red Robin offered.

“Is that what you would do? Made a deal with a group that has a history of betrayal and violence towards allies? We know Batman would and has. Would you? And trust them to keep their word? Give them all the secrets and insights on how to undermine us or neutralize us? Trust them to stay out of Paris and not ‘know better than us how to handle it’? Not get us to trust you so you could find out more about the miraculous and take it so you could keep it better protected?” Ladybug asked in a dubious tone.

Batman stayed silent in response to the obvious suggestion. Not denying it. Red Hood and Red Robin shot Batman glares from the corner of their eyes, not wanting to make it completely obvious that she had deduced the plan they had been arguing over earlier.

Ladybug took note of their silence and hummed in response. “I thought so. It sounds like we made the correct choice after all.”

“No, please. It sounds like you have a lot of issues with B here. That’s fine, I understand. I do too. Let me stay and help.” Red Hood took off his mask revealing his face, no domino mask to preserve any semblance of secrecy. He wanted to lay everything out in the open. He moved closer to Ladybug and Chat until he was halfway between them and his family. He needed them to see how earnestly he meant his words. Ladybug’s breath hitched looking into his eyes shining with sincerity as he plead with them. She wanted to look over to his family to see how they were reacting but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Red Hood’s.

“I can act as intermediary, support, nothing more. B and his team stay out of the city. Justice League stays out of the city. And I help train you and help you track down your villain. I’m a damn good detective. I can help.” Red Robin stared at him incredulously and Robin glared at him. Batman’s look was indecipherable.

He started to say something but is interrupted by sound of “Akumas incoming, multiple” coming from the areas of Chat’s baton and Ladybug’s cord around her waist.

“Dammit,” Ladybug yelled. “5 minutes! 5 fucking minutes! And honestly it could probably be any of them.” She pulled a familiar set of glasses out of her yoyo and threw them to Chat. “It's time for you to leave. Longg, Tikki, Unify.” She commanded as the necklace she was wearing glowed and she was washed in a golden light causing her suit, mask, and hair to change transforming into Dragon Bug.

Chat grabbed the glasses out of the air without looking, keeping his glare settled on the Batfamily. “Looks like you managed to endanger all of Paris in all of 5 minutes. Congratulations, you’ve surpassed our already low expectations for you.” Chat sneered at them putting the glasses on and yelling “Plaag, Kaalki, Unify!” allowing a teal light to wash over him and change his suit, mask, and hair as well transforming him into Cheval Noir.

“Wait, what is an akuma?” Red Robin asked in defensive stance ready to attack whatever it was coming at them.

“It’s what turns you into unstoppable monsters. It’s why we didn’t want you here.” Ladybug snapped. “How long do we have?” Ladybug yelled searching the sky around them. The sound of “Maybe two minutes, if you’re lucky.” came from her waist. She nodded and focused on the pool.

There are many advantages to becoming an adult. Suddenly a person can participate in the government, vote, drink, buy a house, get married… But for Marinette and Adrien, the most significant advantage was they could expand their existing powers and unlock new powers. The moment they turned eighteen they were able to do new and exciting things with their miraculous. Their time limit was now nonexistent, they could call on their powers multiple times without recharging, and they could access new powers, powers like Black Storm and Tidal Wave, assuming they had been trained on how to call on them, or had access to and knowledge on how to read the sacred texts that described them, which they now had thanks to the files they had pilfered from the bats.

“Tidal wave!” Dragon Bug yelled moving her arms slowly. Everyone on the roof stared at Dragon Bug wondering what that command did. Their eyes were drawn to the pool when they noticed the water begin to move, slowly at first, swirling like a lazy current under the surface. The movement became faster as the water started to swirl around and rise above the edges of the pool. The bat family and Chat watched in disbelieving awe as the water rose out of the pool in one solid mass, swirling and twirling around and back into itself, and heading straight toward the bat family.

The bats on the other side of the pool moved back a few steps but didn’t move fast enough in their stupor to escape the water. “What the hell?” Red Robin exclaimed quietly as he and Robin were swept up into the vortex that was now moving too fast for them to fight the current. Batman had managed to fight against the water for a few moments, but Robin and Red Robin, whose bodies were much lither were swept up immediately. The water carried them around again at a faster and faster velocity, on their second trip around the vortex, they collided with Batman, knocking him off his feet and forcing him to be at the mercy of the current.

Chat was so mesmerized by the water show he forgot he was supposed to create a portal. Staring instead in wonder at the new power Ladybug had somehow mastered in a few hours. He found out about Black Storm yesterday and still could only roll it around a bit. He still had no idea what it would actually do if he used it. “Chat! Portal to the Batcave now” Dragon Bug screamed at him.

“Right! On it!” Chat exclaimed waking up from his stupor. “Voyage!” he called out motioning toward the water, creating a portal behind it. Ladybug pushed the water through the portal. She flicked her eyes over to Red Hood and hesitated.

“Got about 20 seconds at most, Bug. If you’re going to do something, do it now!” Carapace yelled.

“Are you leaving on your own or do I need to make you?” She asked with pleading eyes. She did not want to make him. She needed him to understand and believe in her enough to do what she asked, even if he didn’t know it was her.

Red Hood looked between her and the portal. He turned back to her, “Please just let me help.”

Dragon Bug looked at him with a conflicted look in her eyes. “It isn’t safe right now and we can’t deal with the akumas if I’m worrying about you too. We just don’t have time to prepare. I need you to go.”

Red Hood stared at her uncertain. “Please, we don’t have time.” Dragon Bug begged him again. He relented and walked backward toward the portal. She let out a grateful breath turned her attention toward the incoming akumas.

“There’s the first one,” Chat yelled. Red Hood whipped his head to where Chat was looking just barely seeing a butterfly over his shoulder as he picked up his pace and started running toward the portal, jumping through just as it closed behind him.

Chapter 7

Tags:

@loveswifi @mystery-5-5 @dreamykitty25 @ira-sairain @wannajointhecrabcult @susiej1118 @our-preciousss @casual-darkness @ertyzeta @mandy984 @darkthunder1589 @chez-pezeater @emilytopaz @elements1999 @nik-nak-3 @mermaidreject @dramatic-squirrel @thenillabean @alysrose-starchild @phoenixperegrinebitch @nickristus-dreamer @goblinwhoships @no-username2544 @i-wanna-be-a-ninja @valeks-princess @2confused-2doanything @redscarlet95 @icebluedolphin2365 @inarachi02 @unrepentantgeek @maybe-nonsense @theymakeupfairies @smolplantmum @moongoddesskiana @thehufflepuffranger-blog @fusser90 @spyofthenightcourt @jayverca @animegirlweeb @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @consumeconstantly @lozzybowe @novicevoice @random-fandoms7 @acoolspacegirl @laurcad123 @dast218 @frieddonutsweets @maribat-is-lifeblood @g-arya @fantasiame @lilkymilky @corabeth11 @fc-studios @roselynfey @babylovebug18 @pepelachanel @atramentias @jalaluvsu @nathleigh @iloontjeboontje @spicybelladonna @kokotaru @zalladane @zebrabaker @bee-wrecker @too0bsessedformyowngood

Full Disclosure: I came up with the Redwood nickname WEEKS before I realized it could be a pun. I was just looking for names indicating very large things. Chat has a much better ability to spot a pun than I do.

And it is my personal headcanon for this story is that Adrien is a bit like Dick. He likes to keep things light and jokey but if you want to go there, Bitch, he’ll go there with you. His lightness is a self-defense mechanism. Without it, he will go to a dark and scary place and he will take you there with him.

And also, I’m pretty sure this is before Duke was brought into the Batfamily. I think Damian was older than he is in the story when Duke appeared. Otherwise, clearly Duke would be the most rational person to send to Paris.

#Pixie Spy #jasonette #maribat

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joezworld · 3 years

Text

More Sodor Shenanigans

Not every prank on Sodor involves strategically used F-bombs. Sometimes your appearance is enough...

2015

“No! An’ that’s final! I hate paper mache an’ you know it!” Douglas said finally as Henry rolled into the shed.

“What is it now you two?” He asked - hoping he wouldn’t be involved in yet another daft argument about some intricate Scottish custom.

“The daft basterd over here disnae’ like my idea of a halloween costume!” Grumbled Siobhan. She’d been driving Donald and Douglas since the early 90′s, and the trio were so used to each other that they acted like they were fathers and daughter rather than engines and driver. Including the arguments.

“What costume?” Henry asked, wearily - he really didn’t want to be the replacement for Donald in tonight’s bickering.

“I wan’ to do this wit’ him or Donnie and they both think it’s daft!” Siobhan stuck her ‘smart-phone’ in front of Henry’s face. A looping video was playing, showing an engine dressed up as a “ghost train”. The costume was quite frightening, and looked like it would scare children and adults alike.

Henry told Siobhan this and she threw up her hands in irritation. “It’s a halloween costume ya great green wedge! O' course it’s supposed to be scary! People are supposed to get the piss scared out o’ themselves!”

“Well, I don’t think that sounds very fun.” Henry said finally.

“Lands sake! You’re all a bunch o’ sissies!” Siobhan finally gave up and went home, grumbling the whole way.

Douglas chuckled as she left, and went to speak to Henry. Before he could so, he was rudely interrupted by the arrival of James and Gordon, who had decided that ‘waiting until they got into the shed to start an argument’ was out of date, and were therefore already bickering as they pulled in.

The details of their argument were so mind-numbingly stupid that they don’t bear repeating, but they managed to keep going all through the night.

Douglas and the other engines managed to eventually tune them out, and fell asleep around midnight.

Henry, on the other wheel, was a very light sleeper on a good day, and was acutely aware of exactly when the Dynamic Duo stopped arguing.

It was at 2:30 in the morning.

The Flying Kipper left at 3:15.

As Henry blearily backed down onto his train at the docks, he began to plot an idea for revenge.

Later that morning, Henry cracked open an eyelid as Siobhan wandered in to raise Douglas’ fire.

“Siobhan - about that Halloween costume...”

October 30th

A good prank was not done alone, and Henry made sure to rope in Bear to ensure maximum efficacy.

He chose the diesel hydraulic because unlike Edward and BoCo, who both had massive reserves of Tact and would therefore skimp on the truly messed up scary stories, Bear had no opposition to scaring the unprepared into a frightened, whimpering, traumatized stupor.

It was actually a quite horrifying story that Bear ended up telling - about an (hopefully fictional) engine that was caught in a chemical spill, and was forcibly mutated into a ghostly monster as result - and Henry had to school his expression so as to not appear like a psychopath when he gleefully realized exactly how scared James and Gordon were.

Halloween

On the night in question, everything was ready. Siobhan and her husband had spent most of the last week manufacturing a large amount of decorations that could be mounted to Henry’s boiler and tender, along with a giant, skull shaped mask that fit over Henry’s smoke box. It had red lights in the ‘eyes’ and belched ‘smoke’ from a fog machine under the jawbone. Henry saw himself in a reflection and agreed with the stationmaster’s assessment that he looked like he’d escaped from the bowels of hell.

A whistle had been sourced from America - a loud, deep, “hooter whistle” that the ‘ebay listing’ had said could be heard for miles.

Finally, as the sun fell, Henry was ready.

Siobhan had managed to get Henry on an empty stock train from the Crovan's Gate Works all the way to Arlesburgh, meaning that they’d pass through Tidmouth just as the other engines were returning for the night. (Dulcie and Isobel were thrilled to take part, and assured the pranksters that they knew how to scream and wail like they were being eaten - much to Siobhan’s delight!)

Just as the sun set, the signal dropped, and train 666 left the works, bound for Arlesburgh via all 7 Circles of Hell.

Their first “victim” came much sooner than they’d planned - roaring around the blind curve near Kellsthorpe Road station in a whoosh of steam, a high-pitched scream could be heard from the ‘up’ line. As his vision cleared, Henry could see a line of High-Speed coaches roll by, and realized that he must have given Pip or Emma a huge fright.

“Sorry!” He whistled to the other power car - he thought it was Emma - as he went by.

Of course, Henry hadn’t realized exactly how frightening his new whistle was, and proceeded to scare Emma just as much as he had Pip.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” Was the only response he got as the HST sped up and raced out of sight.

Henry felt a little bad - he had no quarrel with the HST - but Siobhan, who could barely see through her laughter-induced tears, thought it was hilarious.

Next up was Wendell, the works diesel.

He had been hauling a rake of hoppers back to the works, and saw something coming towards him on the ‘down’ line.

It whistled hello at him in a deep, demonic pitch, looked at him with beady red eyes, and whooshed smoke at him as it rolled by.

Wendell stopped where he was - and neither he, nor his trucks, nor his crew, said much of anything for the rest of the night. The rescue engine sent out for them tried to get answers out of them, and only got: “I saw the devil, and he greeted me like a friend...”

At Knapford, Daisy was taking part in the station’s annual trick or treat festivities, when The Train roared past.

The children were delighted to see an engine taking part in the costume competition, and immediately decided to award the ‘scariest costume award’ to the mystery engine.

Nobody noticed until much later that Daisy had been so frightened that she’d burst an oil line.

Tidmouth

The station’s annual Halloween celebrations were in full swing, and the humans were enjoying themselves.

The engines? Not so much.

“What a bunch of hoopla over nothing!” Grumbled Gordon. “Why would anyone ever admit to being scared?”

“And why would anyone ever want to hide what they look like?” James said, clearly more horrified at the thought of people being unable to see his shiny red paint and dashing facial structure.

“Because not all of us are emotionally bereft sticks-in-the-mud like you two.” Said Bear thinly. He had dressed up - in full British Rail Diesel Locomotive Green with the Double Arrow logo - and was very annoyed that none of his coworkers had noticed.

“Aye.” Said Donald, who was eying the festivities with suspicion. Siobhan hadn’t made an appearance yet, meaning that she either wasn’t showing up - a statistical improbability - or she’d found someone to rope into her daft ‘ghost train’ idea.

“I will say, Gordon,” Put in Duck. “For someone who speaks so definitively on not being scared, you seemed very frightened last night.”

“Stow it.” The blue engine snapped. “You were scared too!”

“Yes I was, and I admitted it.” Duck said. “Although I believe you just admitted it as well...”

“Why you!” Gordon wheeshed and dissapeared in a cloud of steam.

On the platform, The Fat Controller (the third) stared at the engine yards.

“I do wish that more of the engines would get into the spirit of things.” He said to his wife, who was struggling to contain her mirth at the clash between her husband’s dour face and his absurd clown costume.

“Just leave them Stephen,” She said. “Halloween isn’t for everyone.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re r- what the dickens?!”

He was cut off as a very loud whistle sounded in the distance.

It was long, it was low, it was loud, and it was ghostly.

It stole the attention away from everything else in the area, and drew eyes to the station throat.

In the yard, most of the engines began babbling to each other about something - they were inaudible over the confused murmuring of the crowd. Stephen noted that the only ones who didn’t seem frightened were Bear and the Scottish twins, who seemed eager and disbelieving, respectively.

As they passed through the final signal before the station, Siobhan couldn’t help but keep a smile on her face. “Ready Henry?!” She said as she pulled down her skeleton face mask.

“Let’s do this!”

“Atta boy!” She crowed as she hauled back on the whistle cord, allowing the American whistle to bellow its haunting note across Tidmouth.

Her fireman grabbed the paint-pot full of sawdust and chucked it into Henry’s firebox, while Dulcie and Isobel began screaming like banshees.

Henry, overcome with the absurdity of the situation, began cackling like an engine possessed as he rolled into sight of the platforms.

It was a train. Right?

Right?

Stephen Hatt couldn’t be sure as the demonic, skull-faced, fire spouting monster rolled through Tidmouth. It was cackling madly, and hauling a train of the damned that squealed and shrieked as it went by. The monster, crewed by skeletal beings, rolled through the freight platforms without stopping, its glowing red eyes casting odd shadows on the terrified partygoers.

He was sure that people were screaming, but the beastly whistle emanating from the ‘train’ was so loud that he couldn’t be sure.

When it finally passed, disappearing into the distance like the Flying Dutchman of old, dead silence reigned over the platform.

Then, a child somewhere on platform two spoke up: “That was bloody amazing!”

The platform broke out in cheers, and Stephen collapsed onto a bench.

“Did you plan that?” His wife whispered in his ear.

“No!” He said at last.

The shed

Gordon and James eventually stopped screaming around midnight, falling into a whimpering fugue state before finally passing out.

Duck was paralyzed with fear, and the next morning he had to be hauled out of the shed and pushed onto his train before he started moving again.

BoCo - who had been sleeping in the back of the shed, woke the next morning and told his co-workers about the horrible nightmare he’d had that night. When he was informed that it was no mere nightmare, he left the shed a wide-eyed, quiet, and subdued engine.

A visiting diesel from a mainland freight company who had been parked by the diesel pumps said nothing for the remainder of his time on the island. When his story was confirmed by an equally frightened Pip and Emma in Barrow the next morning, he left the island, never to return. His tale of the ‘Ghost Train of Sodor’ spread far and wide across the British Isles.

Donald and Douglas, who noticed that the ‘demon train’ looked a lot like Henry, said nothing that night. The next day they privately told Henry that it was the greatest prank they’d ever seen, and never turned down one of Siobhan’s Halloween ideas again.

Bear was amazed to see one of his scary stories come to life, and was practically beside himself with pride at a job well done.

Arriving at Arlesburgh about half an hour later, Henry was greeted by horrified screams from Oliver - before he passed out in fright - and astonished looks from the small railway engines, who immediately knew it was Henry and demanded to know how he did it.

Siobhan showed their controller the video she’d based the costume on, swore the small engines to secrecy, and was able to remove most of Henry’s decorations before Oliver woke back up.

Isobel and Dulcie laughed themselves silly at a prank well pulled, and all parties settled down for a well-deserved sleep.

The next day

“I can’t help but feel like I’m forgetting something...” Henry said to Siobhan as she drove him down to Tidmouth the next morning.

“Me too.” She said as they pulled into the passing loop at Haultraugh.

A very pale looking Duck rolled in with the morning’s train. He whistled a weak hello to Henry, and practically jumped off the rails when Henry’s ‘hooter’ whistle replied.

“WHERE Did yOU geT ThAT?!” He demanded shakily.

Henry now knew exactly what they’d forgotten. “I found it on the ground.” He said quickly.

Duck looked more horrified than before. “It was REAL!” He said, scuttling away in terror.

Fin.

Henry’s appearance is based off of the following ideas:

https://youtu.be/8grHpQAB1jA?t=205

https://youtu.be/zBm-ONvNhS4

https://youtu.be/ZB1rTgUesDc?t=64

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naturepointstheway · 3 years

Text

Frozen - Domestic Assassin (Crack AU) Masterpost

This is a Masterpost of all the fanfiction I’d written (all on Tumblr) based in @ultranos’ Domestic Assassin crack AU which was hilarious for a fairly good-sized group of us! And from what I”ve seen in my notifications, people are still enjoying and finding fics of mine in this AU even to this day, which is great!

I’ve basically dug into my previous fanfiction pages and pulled them out year by year, so because it’ll be way too much work to try and arrange everything by title, I just went by year. At least Tumblr keeps the links when I copy and paste.

Since there are so many, you’ll find them under the cut. Enjoy!

Pre-2016

Air Mattress Prompt

An exhausted Anna returns home from a hot night with Kristoff only to accidentally make her sister fly off the air mattress when she flops down on it for a sleep.

“Am I supposed to be alarmed by the moon tonight?” prompt

Elsa is so exhausted she gets confused between the sun and moon apparently.

“Can we please stop fighting and talk about the koala in your room?”

Elsa adopted a koala, much to Anna’s exasperation.

“Can you pull this fake cobweb across the door?” Halloween prompt

Anna wants to play a prank on Elsa...

Cell Block Sniper (M - violence and strong language)

Yes. Yes. It’s a crossover. A crossover between “Cell Block Tango” song from Chicago and this AU.

“Do you realise what this means?” “That you’re a really bad shot?”

Elsa is NOT having the best of time trying to instruct a new trainee.

Domestic Assassin AU prompt: Hans’ POV (pre-reveal)

Hans has a visit from Elsa when he dumps Anna.

“Don’t touch that!” (Healthcare writing prompt, Snow Sisters)

Elsa was bound to fall out of a tree at some point and end up in hospital. Anna takes care of her.

Elsa and Weselton prompt

Elsa refuses to let Weselton in the door.

Eyes That Glisten

Anna knows how to persuade Elsa to do whatever she wants.

“God you’re such a grumpy bags in the morning aren’t you?”

Elsa is not a happy camper after a long night where everything just goes wrong. “Holy shit. Most realistic Dementor costume ever.” Halloween prompt

Turns out, Elsa just looks like that most of the time.

“I can’t help being a geek about my vital signs!” prompt (Elsarik)

A crossover between another AU (Shardsverse)

“I don’t think I should tell you what we’re dressed as.” (Halloween Prompt)

Somebody think of the children!

“I dropped my cookie :’(”

Elsa cries when she drops her cookie.

“I feel like a T-Rex”

Anna is too lazy to just grab the goddamn stepladder and get the jam herself.

“I wish I could drive you out of my life with a sword!” (Hans and Anna, prompt)

Anna is NOT a fan of Hans...

“Maybe you should go as an assassin. Oh wait, you already are one.” (Halloween prompt)

Anna is a sarcastic little sister to Elsa.

“No one unfollows like Gaston!”

Anna overhears Gaston boasting about how he unfollowed someone because of a disability. She is not happy.

Ruined Dinner Party

After an hour of waiting for her sister to come to the party, Anna finally spots her with “ketchup” all over her top.

Part 2 of “Ruined Dinner Party”

Of course it wasn’t ketchup. Duh. Anna is NOT HAPPY.

Sleepyhead (drabble, Snow Sisters)

Elsa, going to the kitchen for midnight munchies, spots Anna sprawled on a couch, textbooks all around her.

“So. Many. Triangles. Help me here!”

Anna, not being a maths-y person, gets frustrated with geometry, and Elsa offers to help.

“So you’re going as yourself for Halloween.” Halloween prompt

Elsa is not keen on dressing up as Halloween.

“Tell our parents my Tumblr URL and I swear I will make your death look like an accident” prompt.

Elsa practically threatens Anna when the latter demands to explain her Tumblr URL (of course she quickly forgives her little sis.)

“That mask is all kinds of creepy. I like it.” Halloween prompt

Elsa practically shits herself when Anna scares her while wearing a terrifying mask.

Things you said at 4am prompt

Anna gets a call at 4am on her phone from Elsa, who accidentally sniped the wrong guy..

Those Poor Birds

Elsa mistakes a pair of birds’ mating antics as fighting, much to Anna’s amusement.

“Wait, you’re yelling at a movie?” (Snow Sisters, writing prompt)

Elsa is very confused to find that Anna’s yelling from the lounge is at a movie. Not at an invader.

“Was it really necessary to shoot my pumpkin carving?” (Halloween prompt)

Anna is NOT happy when Elsa decides to use her pumpkin carving for shooting practice.

“What do you mean it’s a sunset…?” prompt

Elsa wakes up only to find that it’s already after sunset, not sunrise.

“What the hell? You gave out alcoholic chocolate to trick-or-treating kids?!” (Halloween prompt)

Anna discovers that her German chocolates had been opened by Elsa, who’d handed them out to kids.

“Where did you leave the spare copy of that book?” (Elsarik DA!verse, prompt)

Crossing over with another writer’s AU with her OC, Alarik. Elsa can’t find that one specific book she needs, and she’s sure Alarik has it.

“You once asked me what I’d do if I had only one day left.” prompt

Anna will most definitely NOT be spending that final day of her life with Hans.

“You did what?!” prompt (Elsa and Kristoff)

Elsa does not appreciate Kristoff’s concern over her having WAY too many cats for one house.

“You mean a line segment.” prompt

Elsa is a huge geometry nerd, even waiting in line for takeaways.

“You should go as an assassin. Oh wait. You already are one.” prompt

Another one where Anna suggests Elsa goes as an assassin for Halloween, only to be all “oh wait, you are one.”

2016

Accidental shooting

Elsa accidentally shoots someone she did not mean to shoot in a library’s basement.

Amuse Me

Elsa’s having one of those blah days and Anna’s there with bad puns all ready to go.

“Bittersweet and Strange” (not based on a prompt)

Elsa explains exactly how she likes her coffee to Anna. Turns out Elsa is also a huge fan of marmite.

“Can’t I at least take this baby koala home?”

Anna, no, you cannot take a koala home from Australia, no matter how cute it is.

Cat Gallery (not based on a prompt)

Kristoff discovers Elsa’s huge photo album of her cats.

“Did you lose your main point…”

Anna hears something about money and bills and wait what now.

“Do nurses ever fall asleep on the night shift?”

Anna visits Elsa in hospital and inevitably someone has to wonder this. Elsa’s adorbs when she’s pouty and Anna can’t help but annoy her on this count.

Fight Me

One sister challenges another to a fun boxing game.

“How did you get these bruises?”

A crossover with another writer’s canon OC, Alarik (”Elsarik”) where he asks how she got some bruises while on the job.

“How many cats are in bed with you?”

Anna marvels that there are nine cats in bed with Elsa.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to have the whole packet at once.”

Do not eat a whole bag of coffee. Do not.

I Have Found My People (not based on a prompt)

Elsa has discovered that certain Scandinavian countries drink the most coffee in the world and wants to migrate there right now.

“I know you don’t want this but it’s for your own good…”

Kristoff is rightly concerned when he finds that Elsa had thirty cups of coffee in 48 hours. Do not do this at home.

“I, uh, kinda dropped it in the water.”

Elsa calls Anna to tell her there’s an emergency: she dropped her wallet in the sea and all the fish now have her personal information.

“I want a Venusian day…”

Elsa tries to explain to Anna why she would not want to live on Venus. Anna doesn’t give a fuck. More hours in the day what’s not to love about that?

Of Cat’s Paws and Adopting Stellar Systems (not based on a prompt)

Elsa is enthralled by a photo of the Cat’s Paw Nebula she has found on the laptop.

Of Monkeying Around and Going Ape (not based on a prompt)

Anna comes home to discover that Elsa has adopted a monkey that had been neglected by its owner. Even Anna is almost (I said, ALMOST) tempted to keep the monkey but her common sense reigns.

“Oh so you were in my bed this whole time?” (nsfw)

Dontcha hate when you’re in the middle of coitus and your goddamn cat has to interrupt you? (Elsarik, with another Frozen writer’s (@patricia-von-arandel) OC for Elsa)

“Once we start tickling, we can’t stop!” (nsfw)

Another steamy one with an old abandoned OC of mine (Jannike), where they find themselves having a quickie while the boss is away.

Rubbish Day (not based on a prompt)

Anna is horrified to find a rubbish bag gone and trails of what suspiciously looks like blood leading outside. Turns out some meat thrown in there leaked inside.

“The best way to get rid of your ex…”

Anna didn’t think that Hans Westerguard would ever end up on Elsa’s targets to “take care of”. Until he does.

The One Time Elsa Caught Anna “Studying” (not based on a prompt)

Anna uses the mirror in the bathroom to practice distinguishing teeth for a medical exam. Elsa suggests alternatives.

“What is this owl doing in our bathroom?”

Of course Elsa would adopt an owl and want to keep it in the bathroom. Of course.

“Who dances in the rain anyway?”

Elsa comes home to discover Anna dancing in the rain.

“Why is there an otter in our kitchen?”

Anna comes home to find that Elsa has “adopted” an otter from a “client”. As you do.

“Why would you wish to be at a backpackers?”

Elsa and Alarik (Shards AU, Elsarik) decide to stay at a backpackers together for some private time.

“Yes, yes the cold doesn’t bother you…”

Anna is not impressed with Elsa standing in the snow when she has a major cold.

2017

The Blood of White Men (not based on a prompt)

As Elsa’s favourite song goes, he had it comin’ all along.

Is the Earth Broken? (not based on a prompt)

Elsa is confused about why the day she thought it was today...actually isn’t. She convinces herself the Earth has somehow broked.

“It won’t be high tide you said…”

Elsa needs to learn that reading yesterday’s newspaper’s high tide times is not helpful.

Kittens on Saturn (not based on a prompt)

Elsa hopes there’s actual giant kittens on Saturn after seeing a graphic manipulation on an astronomy news site.

Of Singing Humpback Whales and Rock Trolls

Kristoff visits Elsa in hospital while Anna’s busy with other things. It...does not go as expected. Poor Kristoff.

“Proboscis Monkeys look ridiculous…”

Anna’s exasperation at Elsa rescuing a Proboscis monkey is still not so great that she can’t help but wonder what would happen if you honked their nose. Anna NO.

“She’s going to kill you.”

Kristoff knows his days are numbered when he spills carrot juice all over Elsa’s brand new rifle. Uh oh.

“There’s a perfectly good reason for all these kittens.”

Turns out Elsa decided to adopt some kittens left on the side of the road when they’re already over-run with cats.

“This is extreme, even for you.”

Elsa is so addicted to her coffee she’s begun pouring them into wine bottles, as you do.

2018

Elsa brings home a parrot

Anna discovers that Elsa has “rescued” a very large, very loud parrot from one of her, ahem, “clients”.

Elsa’s Back Up Cat, Mushu

Anna discovers one of the cats apparently reading a book, and much to her consternation, Elsa explains he’s for back up.

“Oh what a circus!” photo prompt

Anna takes her still-bewildered-after-five-coffees sister to the circus. This may or may not turn out to be a great idea.

#Frozen #Domestic Assassin AU #DA!verse #Frozen DA!verse

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backtobackbakubabe · 4 years

Text

Baby its Cold Outside (PART 3)

Bakugo x Reader

Snuggles fix everything right?

Angsty fluff? Idk.

Words : 1703

PART 1 HERE, PART 2 HERE, PART 3 HERE PART 4 HERE PART 5 HERE , PART 6 HERE PART 7 HERE PART 8 HERE PART 9 HERE PART 10 HERE PART 11 HERE PART 12 HERE PART 13 HERE PART 14 HERE

*****************************************************************************************************

Telling your hero agency wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be. Apparently this happened pretty often. In fact your boss looked almost bored as you told him. You had built a pretty close relationship with him since getting to the agency, giving him the loving nickname boss man.

“Congratulations Bakugo... you finally found someone who could tolerate your bullshit.” He turned his attention to you, “And y/n my deepest condolences to your eardrums. As I’m sure you already know those temper tantrums of his aren't exactly quiet.”

You gave him a knowing smile, “Oh sir I’m very aware. I’ve been at the receiving end of those tantrums for years.”

You could see Bakugo’s ears tint pink as he rolled his eyes, “Yeah yeah, I yell, whatever. What about our patrol assignments? Will we be assigned new partners?”

Boss man narrowed his eyes at you both... “No I don't think I will..” He ignored Bakugo's startled expression. “And I’ll tell you why. See Bakugo while you are likely the most talented hero at this agency you aren’t exactly a people person. In fact the only person you said you’d be willing to work with on your intake form was y/n. And luckily she has more patience in her pinky than most do in their whole body because she puts up with you. She keeps you centered and you keep her motivated. We’d be crazy to split you two up.”

You gave him a smirk. See you and Bakugo had been adamently opposed when it came to splitting up as partners. You thought it was a stupid idea and Bakugo while he hated the idea of not being there to protect you, he also thought it was the only way he could focus and do his job.

Katsuki stood up from his chair, fists clenched. “Sir with all due respect... WHAT THE FUCK!” You slipped your hand around his wrist trying to get him to calm down. His eyes met yours and he did seem to reign it in a bit. “Sorry what I meant to say is... please reconsider. I honest to god cant focus on anything besides her safety when were out there. That has to be a conflict of interest!”

Boss man scoffed, “That right there is why I cant split you up.You start to blow up and all she has to do is touch your hand and you become a reasonable human.”

You could see his shoulders tense up as he was bracing himself to lose this battle. He gave you one last last pleading look that tugged oh so hard on your heart strings.

Sighing, “Listen Boss man, I understand why you want to keep us together. Really I do. I don't want us to split up either.. but if this is what Bakugo wants then I think you should at lest consider it. You say he has the most talent in this agency right? I’m sure there’s tons of better suited partners for him than me anyways...”

Boss man knit his eyebrows together, “Now I won't have any of this self depreciating bullshit y/n. We’ve had this talk before and I think you are incredibly gifted...” He pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to fight off a headache, “But if this is truly something both of you want... than I guess I’ll fill out the paperwork.”

Bakugo’s eyes widened, not expecting you to step up to help him. But before he could say anything you gave him the ‘we’ll talk about this later’ look.

The walk home was quiet. Bakugo could tell you were upset and he was still new at the whole being nice to others thing so he didn't know how to handle it. He finally settled for holding your hand. You usually talked his ear off, but now you wouldn't even look at him. You couldn't possibly be mad at him could you?Hell you even had his back in the meeting... He will never understand women.

You both stepped into the elevator and to his surprise you hit the button for your floor.

“Oi what gives? You just did laundry I know you don't need clothes..”

Pulling your hand out of his, “What I need is space Katsuki... Before you freak out... I’m not mad at you. I understand why you don't want to work with me anymore. But you have to understand that I am very sad right now. I just need some alone time.” You gave him a gentle peck on the cheek before exiting on to your floor.

Fuck... he didn't like this. On one hand he thought you were being ridiculous. You will still see him every day! You practically live with him for fucks sake. But on the other hand he knows you’re upset and he knows that he's the reason why. He hates it.

He practically slammed his door after entering his apartment and threw his keys harshly at the couch. How was he going to fix this. He walked over to the freezer to see if he has any ice cream. It was something he only started buying once you two started dating. It seemed to be a staple in your diet. He pulled out a tub of cookies and cream and spoon not bothering to put it in a bowl.

He walked back to the main room to binge eat and mope when he heard that precious sound of air whooshing in. He turned the corner to see y/n in one of his shirts curled up on the couch, “I was alone for maybe 5 minutes before I remembered how much I hate being alone... So can I be alone... but like with you...?”

His nose scrunched up, “What the fuck does that even mean?” He handed you the ice cream and sat next to you pulling your feet in his lap.

You accepted the ice cream greedily, “Exactly what we’re doing now, except we turn on the tv and just like don't talk to each other... Just give me some time to process that we’re no longer partners...”

He pulled a blanket over the two of you and handed you the remote. He knew you'd end up picking something awful like a Disney movie or a romantic comedy but if this is what you needed then he’d do it.

Three hours and eight episodes of Avatar: the last Airbender later you were passed out. Sometime between the third and fourth episode you had decided you wanted your back scratched so you scooched over and without saying a word laid on top of Katsuki, picked his hand up and placed it on you back and moved it back and forth until he got the idea.

That leads him to now. You were asleep with your head on his chest. You were so cute when you were asleep. He was content. He could have fallen asleep himself. He probably would have too except his phone buzzed in his pocket. It took some expert maneuvering to get it out of his pocket without waking you up but he managed.

He had received an email from the agency with a list of available heros for the two of you to choose from. He opened it up and low and behold the first available hero was fucking Deku.. well that was enough for one night. He closed the email before looking at any other candidates.

There was no way in hell he would ever work with Deku... but maybe... maybe he’d let you. As much as he hates to admit it, Deku wasn't the weak ass nerd he used to be. He knew first hand how powerful he was, but more importantly he knew how loyal he was.

He threw his head back exasperated. Was he really considering this. It’s not like he had the right to pick his replacement, that was totally up to you... but maybe he could ask. Fucking Deku...

He could feel you stirring awake so he put his hand in your hair and ran his fingers through it, earning him a soft moan of approval from you.

“I think I’m ready to talk about today.”

You didn't make any move to look at him and he didn't make you, “Oh yeah?”

You nodded and rubbed your eyes trying to wake yourself up. “But I only want to talk about the positives. Like for example... apparently you requested to work with me on your intake form?”

He could feel your soft giggles vibrate against his chest. Usually he’d be annoyed but knowing this made you happy was enough to make him get over it. “I knew that didn't slip past you. And just so you know... I didn't request you... I said I don't work with anyone and then in parenthesis I said (but if I absolutely have to then I’ll only work with y/n.)”

“Oh so it’s your fault that we got paired together! And here I thought you hated working with me all this time.”

He kissed the top of your head, “I did at first. But not for the reasons you’d think. I hated that you never looked before running into things. I hated that your costume was so tight and every guy we walked past got to see you in it. I hated that because of your quirk you could always beat me to the scene of a crime, meaning for a few minutes you'd always be alone with a villain without me there to help. But most of all I hated how every day it got harder and harder to pretend that I actually didn't hate you at all.”

“PPPPPFFFFFFFFT” You couldn’t help it you just started laughing.

“What the fuck it so funny eh? I’m pouring my heart out over here and you’re fucking laughing at me?”

“I’m sorry babe! Its just that sounds like the speech from one of my favorite movies and its totally a rom com so I know there’s no way you’ve seen it but it’s still just so funny!”

So then you just had to show him 10 Things I Hate About You, and to your surprise he actually enjoyed it.

*****************************************************************************************************

Thanks for reading! I know this chapter was kind of slow but shit gets real starting in part 4! Buckle up!

#bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n #bakugo #bakugo katsuki #bakugo imagine #bhna #bhna bakugou #bhna x reader #bhna imagine #mha #mha bakugou #mha x reader #mha imagines #my hero academia

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ty-talks-comics · 4 years

Text

Best of DC: Week of February 26th, 2020

Best of this Week: Batman: Curse of the White Knight Book Seven - Sean Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth and AndWorld Design

Batman is Dead.

The last issue of Curse of the White Knight gave us the last in the story of Edmond Wayne and revealed that the man that Bruce thought was his ancestor, turned out to have been the family to Jean-Paul Valley instead. Bakkar of the Order of St. Dumas killed Edmond after betraying and stealing Gotham from under him, thus assuming the name of Wayne and forming the city to his vision. With this newfound information, Batman has found himself a man with a lineage of thievery, especially after finding out that Gotham’s Elite have been funding their crime through Wayne Enterprises.

This issue begins with a somber flashback to a moment before the funeral of the Waynes. Bruce cries and blames himself for their deaths because he wanted to see The Mask of Zorro. He had always wanted to use the rapiers that his father kept on display and figured if he learned to use them from the movie, then he would be able to impress his father enough. Alfred, always so caring, tells him that if he’s able to go to the funeral, then he can hold a rapier. He then vows to teach young Bruce how to use it for the next danger he may face.

Matt Hollingsworth colors this flashback in a cool blue hue, emphasizing both the sadness and the hopefulness of the moment. Murphy portrays Alfred as being caring and shows that even with the tears, Bruce shows his ability to rise up and become the hero that people need. Though the rapier is far too large for his kid body, Bruce holds it firm in hopes of protecting Gotham in the future.

As we cut back to the modern day, Bruce faith in himself and his dreams of becoming Gotham’s knight are shaken. He was never a Wayne by blood and he sees himself as part of Gotham’s cuse. Many would be right to see him as such given Gotham’s crime initially started off as petty stuff and eventually escalated into battles with The Joker, Two-Face and others with Gotham being caught in the crossfire every time. He didn’t even know that his company was being used by criminals because of his singular focus on fighting crime.

Murphy draws Batman as being tired and ashamed of himself for only just now understanding Jack Napier’s vision and why Batman is just as bad for Gotham as The Joker was. His expressions are melancholic, Murphy makes excellent use of shadow to try to hide some of his shame and body language to make him look like an old man that’s been sitting on a lawn chair for eighty hard years. Harleen Quinzel acts as his voice of reason during his pity party and actually shows concern for him.

Harleen has been a central character in this world since the very first issue of the original White Knight and that doesn’t change here though her own personal arc is over. The last issue saw her do her best to bring Jack Napier out of Joker’s mind for one last time for information and to save her children. In the end, she had to shoot Joker in the head to let Jack rest and rid herself of the monster that had been plaguing her for years. She still finds herself at Batman’s side as one of his most trusted friends.

Bruce still has one thing that he can do to make sure that Jean-Paul doesn’t get away with his crimes and Harley convinces him that Gotham will forgive his transgressions like they did for the former Joker in Napier. At the same time, Azrael is still out there and Murphy and Hollingsworth give readers an AMAZING shot of the villain in his updated Knightfall costume. He grabs onto the nds of his cape as he soars backwards into his hideout. The lights of the city contrast with his blacks, yellows and blues to just give us a pretty damn good shot of how powerful he feels in the suit.

This is contrasted by the next few set of panels where he’s puking out of his mask after escaping from the GTO (Gotham Task Oppression Unit). This version of Azrael has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and as such needs medicine to live and suppress the symptoms. With little dialogue and some telling panels, we see that Azrael has empty bottle after empty bottle of pills in his cabinet. He’s starting to look a bit more gaunt than the first time we saw him. He’s withering away slowly and only has one more pill to spare for his coming battle with Batman.

I love the details that Murphy and Hollingworth add here. There’s blood in his vomit and it maintains after he pukes on his leg. His ribs are starting to show and we’ve seen just how jacked he was in the issues prior. His hair doesn’t appear as long as it did, even pulled into a bun/ponytail and there’s just something so final about the “shit” he gives after finding out that he only has one more pill left. In that singular moment, his mistakes come back to haunt him after killing his, admittedly, treacherous employer.

Soon after, Bruce makes amends to Barbara Gordon after inadvertently causing the accident that almost saw her completely lose use of her legs and effectively getting her dad killed. Barbara has always been resilient and we all feared that that issue #5 would be yet another Killing Joke, but here she is, using crutches to try walking again. The scene takes place during the bright Gotham day and this signals a brighter future for their relationship.

Bruce had always gone to Jim Gordon for advice on what route he should take, but without him, Bruce is missing one of his moral compasses. Barbara is the next best person because she has always been smarter than her father and Bruce has a ton of guilt to get off of his chest and Barbara handles everything like the mature adult that she is. She doesn’t blame Bruce for what happened, even though she said horrid things in anger, but can anyone blame her? She cries at the mention of her father and embraces Bruce, encouraging whatever his decision may be.

Of course, with this being the penultimate issue in this particular storyline, it only makes sense that we see a grand revelation come out of it. Murphy and Hollingsworth set the stage with Hollingsworth coloring the afternoon skies of Gotham with an orange-red kind of hue. We see various shots of different places in Gotham from public libraries to the streets themselves as Batman appears on the giant monitor of Gotham Square. Everything feels hot and sort of uncomfortable.

Bruce gives his appreciation and thanks to the people of Gotham for allowing him to serve as their protector and we continue to get these various shots of people. There’s auto mechanics watching the broadcast in their shop, people in a bar and kids watching on a cell phone with their dog. Murphy uses this to illustrate that Gotham is far larger than we think it is and that there are many people that Batman has saved from every corner of his beloved city, but he hasn’t done enough yet. So what’s the final step?

Batman reveals himself to be Bruce Wayne and dismantles WayneCorp.

Bruce finally becomes the knight that Gotham needs by giving back to the people. By destroying his company, he gives back to the people of Gotham by giving all of his money to nonprofits, schools, homeless shelters etc. It’s everything that Batman detractors have been saying Bruce should have done for ages. In doing so, he offers Gotham a better future than he could have as Batman, but he only asks them to stay off the streets of Gotham for one night while he takes care of the Azrael business. Murphy shows Bruce holding his cowl one last time, standing tall by his heroic decision.

Back at the GCPD, he gets lambasted by Commissioner Montoya for going off and doing his own thing again, but counters by saying that he trusts in the people of Gotham and they all formulate their battle plans. It’ll be his last time taking the reigns before he turns himself in as well, so he might as well make sure that everything goes according to plan.

As Montoya tells Batman that Azrael destroyed most of the other Batmobiles in his assault on bruce in Book Four (I think), she reveals that one survived and I see that Sean Murphy is a Batfan after my own heart. The Batmobile that survives is the badass one from the Animated Series, what this book is supposed to be the “sequel” to. It's sleek and well designed thanks to Murphy’s own love of cars. From the presentation, readers can tell that this is one of the pages he took serious time with as the Batmobile is given so much respect.

After a short conversation with Dick about what Bruce is going to do when he catches Azrael, Batman drives away, leaving his sidekicks concerned about his state of mind and we get one last splash page of Batman standing in the middle of Gotham Square without his cowl and the sky is a blood red. The Batmobile looks sexy in the background and this was all just so amazing.

Sean Murphy is a comic book treasure. His art and his writing truly made this an experience and a Batman story worth standing the test of time. It had the action, the drama, the stylish sequences and several twists and turns that make a story great. He’s made Batman his own in a grungy style much like how Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have in a heavy metal manner. Murphy’s Gotham is a masterpiece in crustpunk with social problems that Batman’s always had in the periphery of his character and every issue has been better than the last.

Matt Hollingsworth brings it to life with his perfect colors; Whether they’re making use of the blues of Gotham’s clear skies or the light purples of the night sky, Hollingworth makes Gotham look distinct no matter the time of day. Scenes are given hues to match the tone of the pages whether they’re full of intense anger or incredible sadness, Matt Hollingsworth sets the mood no matter what

I really enjoyed this series, but I can’t wait for the next and final issue of it just to see that confrontation between Batman and Azrael. It’s been a long time coming and the fallout from Bruce’s decision as well… it’ll be too much, but yeah High recommend!

Also, support me on Patreon:

patreon.com/TyTalksComics

#batman #curse of the white knight #azrael #barbara gordon #harleen quinzel #sean gordon murphy #sean murphy #matt hollingsworth #dc comics #dc black label

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legedsrebornamyheroacademiastory · 4 years

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Legends Reborn Chapter 6

Chapter 6: To Detroit

(Disclaimer!)

Deku and Uraraka were fast asleep in the bed.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Miroriya, let’s get a move on,” Aizawa said, “We’re about to head to the next city, so get dressed.”

Deku slowly opened his eyes.

“Man, I haven’t slept this well in years,” he said to himself.

Uraraka started to slowly wake up.

“I hope you feel better,” she said.

“A lot,” Deku told her.

“Come on Deku we gotta get moving before all the good seats are taken!” Tsuyu said, “And Uraraka, I know you’re in there. Don’t have too much fun.”

The two of them begun to blush madly.

“Tsuyu that wasn’t really necessary,” Aizawa said, “Just ignore that you two.”

He carried her away.

“Oh before I forget, a package came for you Midoriya,” Aizawa said, “You’ll find it outside your door.”

Deku took the package and opened it.

“Its finally here,” he said.

He showed Uraraka what it was.

“Whoa…..” She said amazed.

After a few minutes they stepped out fully dressed.

Something was wrong.

“Where’s Mina?” Uraraka asked.

She was nowhere to be seen.

There was some kind of letter on her room.

Mina woke up and found herself in some kind of secret area tied to a chair.

“So glad you finally woke up,” said someone.

It was the Quirk Monger looking right at her.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“Let’s just say I’m somebody you use to know,” he said, “We were supposed to be part of a club together but something happened that prevented it. Remember?”

He removed his mask.

“How about now?” He asked

Mina started to remember.

In her earlier years she accidentally disfigured his face leaving him scarred.

Because of it, he considered himself an outcast and wore a mask to shield himself from the outside world.

“Yusuke?” She asked.

“In the flesh,” he said, “With you here, I can lure All Might’s successor and take his place as the true hero.”

She gasped.

“Deku….”

“So that is his name,” he said, “Finally, a worthy opponent.”

“Listen, this is between you and me,” Mina said, “Just leave me out of it!”

“On the contrary, this involves your friend Deku as well,” Yusuke said, “And once I have him in my grasp…..”

He smashed a monitor.

Aizawa was reading the letter.

“Looks like he’s got her held captive in Detroit,” he said.

“Looks like we’ll have to bring a search party there, get her back, and put a stop to the Quirk Monger’s plot,” Deku said, “Beta, we can use your radar quirk to find the exact building where she is.”

“And then some of us can go and save Mina, while the others fight off Quirk Monger.”

“Well only one question remains,” Aizawa said, “Why are you wasting time talking your plan over with me?”

He passed Iida the keys to the van.

“Good luck,” he said.

“Let’s go guys,” Deku said.

He grabbed the package.

Iida was driving the group to Detroit.

“Iida can’t you make this piece of shit go any faster?!” Bakugo said.

“You wanna drive?”

Beta was in a meditation pose trying to find Mina’s chi.

Tokoyami was astonished by what he was doing.

“Its like he’s in complete focus.”

Quirk Monger noticed them coming.

“Send them out,” he said.

Some thugs in trucks were heading right at them.

“We got company!” Bakugo said.

Amii jumped out.

“I’ll handle them,” she said.

She flew at one car and shot an energy blast at it.

Iida was busy keeping the car away from any harm.

He suddenly stopped.

“Dude what the fuck!?” Bakugo asked, “Keep moving!!!”

The light turned green and he sped up.

Amii was still fighting off the thugs who were trying to slow them down.

“turn left,” Beta said.

Iida did as instructed while turning his blinker on.

“Are you serious?” Bakugo asked, “That’s it, move!”

He took the wheel and sped up past 60mph.

“Everybody buckle up, its gonna be a bumpy ride!”

Deku was putting his costume on.

“Bokugo I hope you’re not just trying to impress people again,” Kirishima said.

“Not really, but I’ll settle for scaring the shit out of you,” he answered.

Another car came by and he did a drift losing them.

“Eat that punk-ass!” He said.

Amii was following them while blasting away at the cars.

“These upgrades really did the trick!” She said.

They finally made it to the building where Mina was being held.

Deku stepped out all dressed in his hero costume.

Everyone stepped out in their hero costumes ready to fight.

“Guys let’s go and save Mina!” Kirishima said, “I get first dibs on the punk that kidnapped her.”

They all started walking in.

Kirishima busted the doors down.

Deku saw Mina tied to a chair.

“Mina!” Kirishima said rushing towards her.

Beta noticed something.

“Kirishima wait, it’s a…..”

He was too late.

A trap door opened and almost the entire team with the exception of Deku and Uraraka fell down.

“Guys!” Uraraka said.

“Don’t worry about us,” Kirishima said, “Just go stop him!”

Some of Quirk Monger’s henchmen surrounded them.

“Listen creeps, I’m getting my girlfriend back and you’re not gonna stop me!” Kirishima said starting his quirk.

Deku and Uraraka were racing to the top to find Quirk Monger.

Some thugs were trying to stop them, but Deku used his new techniques to blow them away.

Kirishima was fighting off the thugs.

Beta used his quirk to create weapons such as shurikens and small knives.

Jirou was making small soundwaves.

Everyone was doing their best to fight them off.

A scream was heard.

One of the thugs had Mina in his hands.

“Stand down, now!” He said, “Unless you wanna see your pretty friend die.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kirishima said.

The thug had a knife near Mina’s face.

“Put the knife down,” Kirishima said.

“Kirishima, stand down,” Bakugo said.

“I’m not playing!” Kirishima said.

“Kirishima!”

He knew he had no choice.

“Shit.”

He stood down.

“Now you all are gonna stand quietly while I bring her to my boss,” the thug said.

“I don’t think so,” said someone.

It was Aizawa.

He had the thug wrapped in tape.

Mina rushed into Kirishima’s arms.

“You came for me,” she said.

“Of course I did,” he said.

Deku and Uraraka made it to the top of the building.

There was also a news helicopter picking up all of the footage.

“It seems that some heroes are on the way up to stop the mysterious Quirk Monger from wreaking havoc on Detroit,” said a news person, “From what I see, he seems to be the successor to the late All Might!”

Quirk Monger looked at them.

“So you finally decided to show up,” he said.

Deku got in a fighting stance.

“Your reign of terror ends here, and it ends now,” Deku said, “I am here!”

“I see you admire All Might.”

He remembered the day he saw All Might defeat All for One.

“He was a fool to have fought someone who gave him the quirk he possesses,” Quirk Monger said, “All for One turned him into a champion, and this is how he repays him.”

He faced Deku and Uraraka.

“Now I’m gonna return the favor, by sending you back to him….. in pieces.”

Using Uraraka’s quirk he summoned tons of debris and hurled it at them.

“Look out!”

They both jumped out of the way.

Deku went in using a Detroit Smash.

Quirk Monger analyzed the move and jumped out of the way.

“When are you gonna learn.”

They came close at hand to hand combat.

Kirishima and some of the other students made it back to the bus watching the fight at the tower.

“Come on Deku, kick his ass!!” Kirishima said.

No matter how many attacks Deku threw, Quirk Monger was able to evade them.

He did a back flip and kicked him to the side.

“Deku!” Uraraka said.

Quirk Monger grabbed her and pinned her back to a wall.

“Well, this was going to end without an unnecessary beating but….” Quirk Monger said before turning to Uraraka.

He was about to use her own power against her, but Deku swooped in and saved her.

“You threaten my best friend one more time,” he said, “And I’m gonna lose it.”

Deku did his trademark move to blow a gust of wind at Quirk Monger.

He opened his eyes to see Deku coming at him with a kick.

He then did a combo attack of various punches and kicks pushing him against a wall.

Iida jumped up and found Uraraka.

“You’re safe,” he said.

“Thanks to Deku,” Uraraka said.

“Come on, we need to go now,” Mina said grabbing her hand.

Quirk Monger attempted to grab Deku in a hold using Aizawa’s binds, but Deku moved quickly evading capture.

“Is that all you got?”

“Not quite, but I appreciate the ask,” he answered.

He used Iida’s rocket quirk to speed up against Deku attempting to hit him.

Deku blocked.

“Detroit SMASH!”

He punched him hard and he landed on the ground.

Quirk Monger chuckled and got back up grinning.

“While I don’t consider the word fun while collecting quirks to become the ultimate hero, this does put a smile on my face,” he said, “The opportunity to fight and eliminate All Might’s successor.”

He wiped his cheek.

“After all that, all you managed to get from me was a small drop of blood.”

He charged at Deku again forcing him down, then started beating up on him.

People were watching from the big screen, even Uraraka.

“Deku come on…… Get up,” she said.

Deku kicked him away.

He then launched a barrage of Delaware smashes at him.

Using Amii’s cosmic powers, he shielded himself from even flinching.

When he got close enough, he punched Deku hard.

“Even All Might wouldn’t stand a chance against me,” Quirk Monger said, “You’re NOTHING!!!”

His costume was torn to shreds from the beating he endured earlier, but he didn’t back down.

He attempted to punch Quirk Monger but he quickly caught his punch.

He then used Plasma Ninja’s plasma power and stabbed Deku.

Everyone gasped in horror.

“DEKUUUU!!!!!!!” Uraraka shouted.

#dekuraka #izuocha #izuku mydoria #deku my hero academia #deku and uraraka #ochako uraraka #kirimina #mina ashido #mha kirishima #bakugo #my hero academia iida #legends reborn #MHA legends reborn #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

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botslayer · 4 years

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Top Ten games of the 2010′s

This trend seems to be doing the rounds at the moment and seeing as I’ve been gaming for about as long as I can remember, It just feels right. So, let’s get into it. But first, worth saying: These aren't really in any specific order, it's just the games I've personally had the most fun with overall, but it's pretty hard to decide what the hard numbers on things you enjoy for different reasons are if that makes any sense. 10. The 2010's weren't exactly the best time for anyone, I think. For me they were a slog of finding myself and learning things I wish I didn't. Amid all those things I wanted some levity. The world needs something and stupid. We got a lot of it ion 2013 but I feel like we could have used it scattered around a bit more. In that spirit, allow me to show you one hell of a pick me up:

Saints Row 4

Saints Row 4 does not give a fuck. It is aggressively demonstrating that the entire time you play. It doesn't care in the slightest what you think or why, It just wants to show you cool, if juvenile, and interesting, if weird shit. It's the finer points of Ratchet and Clank's arsenal, SR3's humor, And superpowers that genuinely put Prototype and Infamous in a blender and tell you to go ape shit with them. The soundtrack isn't top shelf, it's the roof of the building the shelf is in. Saints Row Two had a better story overall but SR Four's was just plain fun and a solid enough story to still be invested.

The DLC was just as irreverent and madcap, Featuring everything from an evil Santa Clause to evil Gimps on Game of thrones chairs made of dildos Or Tropey-ass costumes and weapon reskins that I'd be genuinely surprised the game dev didn't get sued over. It has earned its place in my top 10 and I will die by that decision.

2016 saw the advent of a new genre. They blended TF2 and MOBAs, and we got hero shooters in their first AAA forms, Overwatch and Battleborn. But neither of these games is on this list, much as I liked them. Partly because the whole time, I kept thinking of one simple question: "Why do I keep thinking of...?"

Anarchy Reigns

Anarchy Reigns is my favorite Platinum game. Full Stop. The Story mode is interesting and has genuinely good character moments, the characters themselves are completely mental, ranging from a mercenary with a bionic cat leg that secretly has a gun built into it to a giant cyborg bull-man with a jet-powered hammer. The soundtrack is mostly angry hip-hop, making every song a banger and fittingly speedy for things like random bombing runs from jet fighters that come from absolutely nowhere.

There are giant monsters, cars with mounted flame throwers, giant robots, and the online is still pretty sweet because even when abandoned, loading it up with bots still rules. I regularly have more fun with this than I ever did with Overwatch, and I don't care how insane that sounds.

Some games want to make you feel something and fail. Some games make you feel some things accidentally, for example, a desperate need to laugh. This game made me feel like a human blender. Like a Chthonic god of mangled flesh and raw destructive power. Nyarlathotep ain't got nothing on me. I speak, of course, of...

[Prototype] 2

There's no end to the absolute destruction you feel like you're causing in this game. It feels more fluid than the first, the main character is a pinch more relatable, and all the body horror, superpowers, zombie hordes, and big old monsters make for some of the most memorable and fun moments and fights in gaming. The DLC is also pretty solid, adding new fun side challenges, and new powers and weapons that elevate you from "Flesh god" to "Screw physics, I made them" Omnipotent. Best god/monster simulation of all time.

Sometimes some games are at an honest tie in your mind. Be it that you like them for essentially the same reasons, or for completely different reasons, but the overall total joy or entertainment they bring is roughly equivalent. Here, we have a case of the former:

Furi/Cuphead

Both games have a tight focus on giving players a unique, boss-centric challenge, both have interesting, somewhat minimal narratives, and both are absolute eye candy.

Furi has a more "Samurai Jack" Quality to me. A complete badass on a relatively simple quest with a somewhat minimalistic art style learning some things as he goes.

Cuphead on the other hand, nails that rubber hose animation style, and the fun levity of such animations while still making the player's ability to interact with the world damn impactful and fun.

They share a spot in my soul, games I love everything about but will never be able to finish. Hats off to both dev teams.

Now here we have another tie. Mostly because the games are so close together, they need to be evaluated more or less as one product IMO, not enough changed for me to consider them separate games, fortunately, that is the furthest thing from an insult it can be in this situation. I present to you, my next pick(s).

Costume Quest 1/2

Now, This might seem pretty random considering my other picks, but honestly, I love Halloween, I love creative madness, I love subversion, I love good characters, and I love cool action, these games have all these things by the bucketload.

The first game is a wild ride through Halloween in multiple very lively locations and the second, slightly confusing as it is, is pretty awesome for the things it introduces, including time travel. Other elements, like the battle stamps, the truly epic forms of everything in the fights, The ability to customize your costumes, etc. they blur together in a pretty big way, but again, there's not a thing wrong with that when both games rock like crystal candy.

Now, if you hadn't noticed, all of the games on this list have had some hard action at their core, and while I don't HATE calmer games, a lot of the time, so many are kinda dull to me in that with the exception of easter eggs of some sort, most farming sims, for example, just have you doing normal farm stuff with very few twists, may as well start a real farm in that case. My most chill entry is a game that tosses that to one side, asks you to grab a suck cannon, and start harvesting gelatinous monster poop.

Slime Rancher

While you don't spend a lot of time actually interacting with other characters, they just talk at you, the story of the game is pretty effective, the player character of Beatrix has left Earth for a simpler life of Slime Ranching, which entails the raising of alien crops, delightfully derpy and colorful chickens, and going all around in an attempt to farm new breeds of slime for their genetic material to sell off or trade-in for the creation of gadgets while being surrounded by a cast of interesting characters. It's all very wholesome family fun.

The game looks great, has great ideas, and is genuinely the best farming game I have ever played. @ me all you want.

The 80's are almost fetishized nowadays. Given all the property reboots, games that go for the vibe and aesthetic of the time, etc. It almost seems as though the eighties vibe train ain't gonna stop rolling any time soon. But we owe it to ourselves to remember the first big swipe of madcap neon-colored actiony B-movie bullshit and how mind-meltingly epic it was. Ladies, Gents, and whatever else, I present:

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Blood Dragon's story is relatively simple, you play Sargent Rex "Power" Colt (A name said in full so many times I thought his last name was "Powercolt" for the longest time), a former "Omega force" cyborg. Rex and his friend "Spider" were sent into a secret island base to investigate the supposed defection and treachery of their old commander, Ike Sloan. It turns out he has gone rogue and taken an army of "Mark 5" Omegaforce cyber-soldiers with him. What follows is a long story of betrayal, science fiction of the highest nonsensical level, comedy, and brilliantly cathartic action.

The collectibles range from data on animals, to research notes from a scientist, to literal VHS cassette tapes that have full descriptions of movies that I would legitimately watch if I could. "You may now kill the brides" is not a real film and I am angry for every day that that is true. Anyway, play Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, I dunno if it's on PS4 but it's one game I'd buy a new/old console for.

A lot of superhero games NEED to railroad you. Your goals MUST be to save the lives of the people and help the weak and all that. But one dev asked the simple question: "What if it didn't?" "What if the player chose how to use their power? What if the player could be as evil or as good as they damn well pleased?" One game gave you the powers of thunder and lightning and asked what you'd do with it. It's sequel asked you the same, but against more... interesting forces.

InFamous 2

InFamous 2 is a game about making choices, just like the first one, also just like the first one, it can have an effect on gameplay. That effect went from "What does this particular power do in this allignment?" To "Which new set of NEW powers would you like?" The forces of the last game went from “Three flavors of gun-toting whackos” To “Possibly an allegory for the Klan, Swamp monsters, and Ice-powered super soldiers.”

This was, and still is, the best game in the whole series, The powers felt distinct from anything else and still do, the story is solid as a rock, and the enemy types were still varied enough to be interesting, I miss the Reapers from the first game, but that's about it. Everything else was a massive step up. If you have something that can run it, play it.

Action is something I think we can all appreciate on some level. We can understand when it does or does not work, we can understand when we do or do not like how it feels when we are the ones partaking in it. EX: Any schlep can tell you when the weapons in your game lack impact, or when your character moves too slow for the game to be fun. The following game is something I can't say anything of the sort about. And it's kind of like Wolfenstein, when you have enemies this bad, who the hell cares how many you kill?

Doom 2016

Y'all are lying if you say you didn't expect this one. It's DOOM 2016. This game is made of hate and fuck. AND I LOVE IT. You move so fast, you may as well be half cheetah and half sports car. You slaughter the dregs of hell by the dozens and even the biggest, baddest things this game throws at you can be beaten with the starting pistol if you have the stones for it. It looks amazing graphically, the demons all look appropriately threatening, and even the Multiplayer is a great deal of fun in my book.

Something worth noting: The story presented by default is pretty barebones, but that's where supplementary material fills in the gaps, the difference between supplementary material in most games and supplementary material here is the material is till IN THE GAME. You're free to ignore most of the plot as it happens around you, and even interesting tidbits of the lore like how certain demons function. Not only are these things missable collectibles, prompting continued play to find them, they are also pretty interesting reads. So yeah, just about everything you could want in a sequel/remake, builds the on lore and gameplay very organically.

And here we are, the last game I'd put in this category. An entire decade, and here, we end on the last game that left such an impact I'd put it in my top ten. But first, let's talk about expectations and delivery: When you say a game is coming out, there are certain expectations you have for gameplay, EX: I say "Ratchet and Clank" and you expect a TPS with platforming elements and crazy guns. I say "Gears of War" and people expect something to do with lumbering about in big armor, dismembering things with a chainsaw gun and otherwise shooting them to paste. We might also expect changes to things, better graphics, innovations in grenade variety, something as that franchise goes on.

After the last game in this series was released, there were tons of people who felt let down and disappointed by it. Then they released the still somewhat disappointing special edition of it. They were both still fun, but neither really felt like the full next step in the series. After a failed reboot, they returned to the original story and the lot of us rejoiced. And when it finally came out? It was a step up in most, if not, all regards, to its predecessors. You know what this last one is. Please, give a warm round of applause to:

Devil May Cry 5

A game that was not only a return to form, but a major escalation in gameplay for one character, and a new style of gameplay all together by way of yet another new character. It didn’t exactly hurt that the story kicked ten kinds of ass and that the game looked spectacular in both the design of everything and the actual graphical fidelity.DMC 5 is, like DOOM, Like InFamous 2, Like [PROTOTYPE] 2, everything you want in a good sequel. It built very well on already solid foundations and it was generally just a fun, slightly goofy, massively stylish, and ultra badass ride. I recommend this, and all these games, to anyone.Good night everyone, have a great 2020. And the rest of the decade, for that matter.

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screensirenfic · 5 years

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Black Leather - Chapter 3

“Come and Get Sheetfaced.” Clever wordplay, if you were in fourth grade. The crude illustration of what was supposed to be a tipsy ghost did little more to advertise the marketing genius of head cheerleader and reigning bitch queen Tina.

She’d shoved the neon orange monstrosity into my hand with all the finesse of a football player, cornering both me and Steve on our way out of third period Chem.

“Hope you’ll both come.” She chirped, though I wondered how much of her enthusiasm had been aimed at me, and how much was for my much more agreeable compatriot.

I never liked Tina. Not since she stuck gum in my hair in sixth grade, forcing my dad to get the scissors to my hair when peanut butter failed. It was okay though; I rocked a Mohawk. She’d always been a bitch, but that was fine; she thought I was one too. At least we understood each other.

So; for the sake of appearances, and the almighty sacrifice of actually getting along with some of the populars, I took the damn flyer, determined to dispose of it at a more convenient time.

“So Tina’s throwing another Halloween bash. That should be cool.” Commented Steve, rushing up to walk beside me with his flyer in hand.

I just gave him a look, because Steve already knew what I thought about Tina and how little her boozefests appealed to me.

“Come on, Lo. It could be fun to let loose a little...” He continued to try and convince me with one of those easy smiles that worked so well on Nancy. On me; not so much.

“Drink a little, dance a little. Get crazy!” He grinned, wide eyed with his hands in the air, as if he could embarrass me into relenting.

“Speak for yourself. I’ve had enough crazy in this past year to last a lifetime.” I half joked, but it came off flat. We’d both seen what Hawkins was truly capable of. The kind of horror movie tropes that didn’t even belong on the midnight feature.

Steve’s smile had fallen a little; his happy-go-lucky attitude more forced as of late. It had me wondering how deep that night had really cut him; how many nightmares had him staying awake in the middle of the night.

I’d seen my fair share of shit; been pretty much born into the middle of it. It took a hell of a lot to faze me, and some weird Venus flytrap looking monster wasn’t going to be the thing to send me overboard.

Steve was different.

He was born into the life of perfect privilege; his dad a highflying lawyer in some fancy business firm, his mom a bonafide 50s catalogue housewife. He was a picket fence away from Nancy Wheeler level of holiday special suburban dream, but I suppose being filthy rich stretched some of the parameters substantially.

Sure; he had his problems. The fact that his dad was having an affair on his mom was Hawkins worst kept secret, but his mom was no idiot, and kept Mr Harrington on a tighter leash than a Rottweiler in heat. That meant Steve had his first taste of independent living, with a bachelors pad that could rival Hugh Hefner.

What Steve could see in a girl like me was a mystery. I guess I was pretty; in a drug addict kind of way, and my jokes weren’t too bad once you got past the fact that my humour was drier than the panties of an eighty year old virgin.

Still; Steve could do so much better. He had Nancy, and Tommy, and Carol and a whole list of populars who were just lining up for a minute of his time.

King Steve; they said, though I guess every court needed an outcast. A black sheep to do the dirty work and keep the king’s confidence when his crown got a little off kilter.

“Please don’t make me go to this alone.” He asked; and the honesty in his voice was almost enough to break me entirely. It was easy to forget that being royalty could be draining at times; even for someone as naturally charismatic as Steve.

“You won’t be alone. You’ve got Nancy.” I remarked, honing in on the one indisputable point in my argument for playing hooky just this once.

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same...” Steve argued, though his tone was still light; eyes trailing up to the ceiling as if he saw something interesting up there.

“She doesn’t scare people off half as well.” He joked and I couldn’t help but chuckle, because Steve had the vanity to glance at me to see if he’d won on such cheap shot.

“Steve Harrington; are you asking me to be your bodyguard?” I asked; a smile still stretched across my face because I could play his game too, and fuck; if I wasn’t gonna beat him at it.

“Bodyguard’s a strong word. More like assassin. You can stop me from saying something stupid before Nance kills me for it.” He retorted, and despite our conversation resting firmly in joking territory; I couldn’t help but hear some truth in there.

“Think the word you’re looking for is babysitter.” I corrected him, because I wasn’t quite ready for this conversation to turn serious again just yet.

“Well; you always did say I was immature for my age.” Steve concurred, because only he could make self deprecation seem like a winning strategy.

“So will you come?” He asked; all jokes aside, because I could only dance around the question for so long.

“Steve; I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.” I replied, my voice soft and sincere.

As much as I liked to joke otherwise; he really didn’t need me to hold his hand through everything. He was more capable than me; at least when it came to social settings. I just lurked in the background with a drink in my hand, looking every inch the outsider in my muted shades of black leather.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want you there.” He countered, and it brought a smile to my face.

After all this time things hadn’t changed. He was still Happy-go-lucky Harrington; dumb perky rich boy with too much hair and not enough sense, and I was still Hellfire Hopper; bitter as a sour ball and twice as hard to stomach. Times changed but people didn’t; not when it came to the things that mattered.

“I’ll think about it.” I offered sincerely as I opened my locker, because that’s the best he was gonna get out of me without blackmail; and we both knew I had far more on him than he had on me.

Steve just nodded, accepting the compromise as a starting point before hurrying off to basketball practice.

He was sweet like that; quick to trust, and quicker to make a fool of. We’d really have to fix that some day, by for now I was thankful.

I screwed up Tina’s party invitation into a satisfying ball that rather festively resembled a pumpkin, before tossing it into the depths of my locker, soon to be forgotten in a mess of colourful cafeteria receipts.

Steve could grill me about it later, and as it was; his grilling was more like a light toasting; thank god for small mercies. His forgiveness was easier to get, and you know what they say; better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

—————————————————

I tried to stand my ground; I really did, but when Steve dug his heels in about something, it would take more than hell or high water to move him. For a teenage boy; he really did nag more than a neglected housewife, and I was finally understanding why my dad never remarried.

I’d almost made a clean getaway, right up until the last bell before final period when I’d opened my locker and that perfect shaped ball of orangeness decided to fall at the feet of one Steve Harrington. He’d unscrunched it, despite my insistence that it was a used cafeteria napkin and probably had something gross like chewed gum in it. Then his face fell, and it hit me like a punch in the gut.

Steve didn’t pick many hills to die upon; always was more of a lay down and roll over kind of guy, but when he picked them; he’d hold them valiantly. Honesty was one of those noble qualities that Steve valued so highly, and was one of the things I could definitely live without.

In the Hopper household; dishonesty was a proud trait held up with the likes of pettiness and just pure grit. If it didn’t kill anyone; it could go without saying, and if it did; well, we’d dealt with that before too.

With Steve, my dishonesty had always been a point of strain, testing our friendship in a way that was usually reserved for married couples.

I lied to him. He knew that. Whether it was to save his feelings, or just to save face; I’d lie more than a politician on Inauguration Day, and with far more credibility. Usually Steve never took it to heart; understood it came with being friends with a compulsive omitter who avoided social responsibility at all costs, but this time was different.

After having chewed my ear off for the better part of study period; he’d relented, but only after the promise that I’d go to Tina’s stupid party, if only to drink her parents booze and maybe tp that obnoxious rose bush in her front yard, but of course I never told Steve that.

So with a very crinkled flyer in tow, I offloaded my books into my locker, very much not looking forward to going to Melvald’s to pull together a costume that said “I’m here under duress.”

“Hey Lola...” Called the unnervingly upbeat voice of Nancy Wheeler, because only she could make Halloween a day of sunshine and rainbows.

I turned to her, noting Jonathan standing beside her with yet another one of Tina’s orange monstrosities in hand. Was everyone going to this party?

“See; even Lola’s going...” She said to Jonathan and I was suddenly aware I’d walked into a conversation I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of.

“What?” I asked, thinking that if this conversation was about what I think it was, Nancy was being awfully presumptuous.

That, or Steve had a far bigger mouth than I gave him credit for. Scratch that; Steve did have a big mouth.

“I was just telling Jonathan that he should totally come with us to Tina’s party.” She informed with such conviction; I half believed that Steve had somehow managed to talk me into some pseudo double date neither parties had an interest in going on.

“Actually, I was thinking of skipping this year instead and staying in with my dad.” I peddled in with the lamest excuse in the book, which wasn’t entirely a lie.

I was planning on staying in; with Eleven, not my dad, but the night’s itinerary would be roughly the same; too much candy and bad horror movies.

“What?!” Nancy exclaimed, and for a minute she reminded me of Steve.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” She lamented, as if the idea of anyone shunning the moral wasteland of a popularity contest that was Tina’s Halloween party was foreign to her.

Jonathan got it; his smile was testament to that.

Ever the social outcast; sometimes I felt like he was the only other person who had no desire to be involved with the social niceties that came with being part of the in crowd.

“Sorry Nance. Looks like some people aren’t interested in getting sheet faced” He joked; and I laughed because I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that pun was total trash.

Nancy soon realised her approach wasn’t working; the social outrage over the rejection of the party of the year hardly a relevant motivator to those who’d already accepted their place at the outskirts of society.

Instead she took a new angle; putting those optional classes on investigative journalism to good use.

“Okay. You’re gonna go trick or treating and you’re gonna be home by eight...” She began, realising Jonathan was the easier target and taking advantage of that as we strolled towards the school exit.

“Listening to... The Talking Heads... and reading Vonnegut, or something...” She plucked the words out of thin air, summarising Jonathan’s existence beautifully in a a harsh combination of vain existentialism and edgy romanticism, because maybe he was a cliche; but so was me, Steve and Nancy if we were being honest.

Jonathan just shrugged, unfazed at her attempt to highlight his predictability.

“Sounds like a nice night...” He commented, and I laughed, because I could see what he was doing there; and it had nothing to do with his love of American New Wave.

“Sure does; could you use a plus one?” I teased, aiding him in his attempt to drive Miss Nancy Wheeler wild with incredulousness.

“Come on guys! Don’t be a bore!” She griped, because she knew reasoning was getting nowhere, and immaturity may be more Steve’s thing; but my god; if it wasn’t effective!

“Okay, Okay!” I relented, only because I’d agreed this much with Steve, but Nancy didn’t need to know that.

However, she did need to know the very strict conditions of my attendance which I wouldn’t budge over.

“But if the new guy so much as looks at me; I swear to god I’ll...” I began, but couldn’t quite finish before I was swept up in someone’s arms.

Normally being hoisted two feet up in the air would be a cause for alarm, and the shriek I let out was far too feminine for me to pass it off as anything else.

Of course; when the raucous laughter of no other than Steve Harrington was muffled into the back of my jacket, the shock quickly wore off.

“Jesus Christ, Steve! Don’t do that!” I lectured as soon as my boots touched the floor; reaching out to slap him on the shoulder, just in case he got any other ideas for unwelcome surprises.

“Why? You loved it when we were kids...” He countered, releasing his grip around my waist so he could look at me with that dumb too-happy smile.

“Yeah; when I was twelve and you were at least a foot shorter...” I snapped back, because of course; Steve would still act like we were in middle school; immature little shit that he was!

Still; my chastisements always fell short when it came to Steve; his smile just a little too bright to be dimmed by something as dull as maturity and personal space.

Instead; he just beamed down at me, still resembling that lanky kid who’d give me piggybacks all those years ago. Same old Steve.

“And how is the most beautiful girl in the world?” He asked; his attention finally turning to his actual girlfriend, who was waiting far more politely for him than I’d have in her shoes.

“Who? Me?” She asked incredulously; a teasing lilt in her tone, only emphasised by the exaggerated hand on the chest routine. “I thought you were talking about Lola.”

Despite her slight dig, there was no love lost between the pair; teasing giving way to pure gooey eyes that would’ve made me barf from anyone else.

Steve And Nance were lucky I liked them enough for it to be endearing. Then they started kissing and all bets were off.

“And that’s our cue to leave...” I commented, grabbing Jonathan by the arm and towing him away before tongues came into play.

#stranger things #stranger things 2 #original character #stranger things oc #strangerthings oc #fanfiction #fanfic #stranger things fandom #strangerthingsfanfiction #strangerthingsfanfic #steve harrington #jim hopper daughter #hopper daughter #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #Billy Hargrove #Nancy Wheeler #jonathan byers

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iamkatehardy · 5 years

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Haven (Alfie Solomons x Reader)

A/N: This was supposed to be a One Shot, to answer one of the requests I have, but given my current situation, I’ll publish what I already have as the Part I of a kind of drabble.

Part II will come when I feel good enough to write again, and fulfill the request ❤ Hope you enjoy it because it might be my last work here! You guys are amazing.

PS: Don’t let this fool you, this story is supposed to be fluff, I just can’t imagine Alfie being nice on the first time he meets someone 😂

Copycats, if you can’t read without stealing, then don’t read, please!

Haven - Part I

With the end of the First World War, the prosperity and peace had returned; but not to everyone. The Roaring Twenties were a time of contrasts, but a burning rage to live represented a common factor between the blessed, who just wanted to carelessly live their lives to the fullest, and the damned, who desperately wanted to forget the atrocities they once had witnessed. Many men were lost on the battlefields of Flanders; those who didn’t lose their lives, clearly lost some parts of their damaged souls; and you had a hard time until you learnt how to deal with them.

Gaining independence, something you longed for, came with a price; the price was being bold enough to move to another town, finding a rather unusual job, and adjust to all the new circumstances that surrounded you. The pace of life, the weather, the people, everything was completely different from what you once were used to.

You worked at The Rampant Barbarian, one of the most famous and crowded pubs in Camden Town. There was never a dull moment under The Barbarian’s roof: men rose their glasses, while the room echoed with their oaths and drunken shouts; they guffawed, stamped their feet, and banged the tables with their fists. Dealing with drunken men was no different from dealing with children, they were needy and demanding at the same time, but somehow you handled all of it shockingly well; not even the most heartless henchman in Camden Town could resist your ability to smile easily, no matter how hard the day had been for you. Working there wasn’t only peaches and cream, though; of course that when everybody was fueled by too much booze, mixed with too much testosterone flying around, a fight seemed imminent. From time to time it was unavoidable; they threw some punches, or used chairs and bottles as weapons to crack heads, starting a real clusterfuck. The fistfights were often interrupted by the sound of you banging pots and pans, in order to draw their attention and offer a round of snacks on the house, the only reason why they would stop fighting.

It was hard to keep count of all the cheap spirits you poured, the comfort food you served, the wounds you cleaned, how many people you took care of, how many confessions you heard, or how many advice you gave; but you did it heartily every single time. You treated costumers and the owner just like family, even though you had just arrived.

David, your boss, was a recalcitrant conservative Jew, like most of the men that hanged around the pub, but you knew that deep down he had a good heart, and cared for you. Although he gave you an earful about the dumbest things, he did it for your own sake; most of the customer base was a bad lot of fellows.

The front door swung open, with its distinctive squeak; as soon as the drunkards laid their eyes on the individual that was approaching, their chatter instantly stopped. The man was greeted with a certain degree of awe; he had an intense look, and his chest stuck out with pride, mixed with authoritativeness and dominance. This was the first time you saw him, but you could tell he was pretty intimidating; his eyes so cold, deep, piercing, glimmering a greyish blue so deep they appeared black in the dim light. No wonder why everybody watched him in silence. His cane clacking against the hard floor, like a plaintive melody, was the only thing to be heard.

The pub was always packed on Saturdays night, that day was no exception. Alfie wasn’t exactly the social type, so he wasn’t willing to share the table with his fellow gangsters. What would someone like Alfie do? The answer was pretty simple for him: kick out whoever was at his usual table, and have it. Being fairly new in town, you weren’t used to Alfie’s reign, so when he started acting like a thug you instinctively called him out, thinking you were preventing one of the usual riots.

“Hey!” – You said indignantly. Alfie turned around, facing you; he blinked quickly a couple times, giving you a dismissive look and continued. He looked dangerous, but his attitude enraged you, so you put down the tray you were carrying, and started walking furiously towards him.

“Girl, you must have a death wish! “ – David grabbed your arm, stopping you before you reached Alfie, and whispering. - “You’re new in town , but here’s a valuable lesson: almighty Alfie Solomons is not be messed with. He’s nasty, and dangerous, the kind of guy you’d like to have around when shit is tough, but at the same time he’s the fucking madman you wouldn’t want to have as enemy.”

“Listen, I don’t know who this Alfie fucking Solomons is….” –Your stiff finger was pointed at David, almost glued to his face. All of a sudden, the color drained out of his face and he swallowed hard; it couldn’t be the mere fact that you retorted.

A shape behind you moved swiftly and silently; all you heard a deep sigh as it walked over to you stayed. You knew you were in trouble when you saw another dark shadow on the floor, alongside yours and David’s. Alfie let out a deep low grunt before his arms folded and his lips pressed. After a short awkward period of silence, he ran his fingers through your hair, tucking a strand gently behind your ear.

“Oh, you do know him… I am Alfie fucking Solomons, sweetie.” – His tone was somehow husky, and breathy; you couldn’t figure out if he was introducing himself, or just trying to intimidate you, but the way the whisper of his breath brushed your hot skin made you shiver. Alfie interpreted your silence as compliance.

“Slicha (I’m sorry) , Alfie…” – David stuttered. His reverence and fear for the man were noticeable.

Alfie raised his hand for silence, scrunching his face.

“Ze beseder. (It’s nothing.) “ – After he gave you a dirty look, his dark eyes darted to David again. “I’m having a meeting tomorrow night, an important one, aye? It would be risky to do it on the bakery,so… “ – He straightened up the towel that hung from David’s shoulder. – “I need you to close the bar for me, a’ight? “ – His eyes moved from the white cloth to David’s eyes. – “I’m counting on your good will, and hospitality, a’ight, my friend? ”

“Sundays are pretty busy, wouldn’t the snug be enough for your meeting?” – You tried to argue. Usually clients asked for the snug in order to fulfil their needs in sinful ways, so you wonder what kind of meeting he would have, to want the whole bar all to himself.

“Yeah, I’m taking the snug, pet, that’s for sure…But in my branch of business, we like full privacy and caution. “ – A vein popped up his neck – “David?“

“Of course, the bar is yours.” – His face was clouded with fear, and he nodded quickly.

“Good, good…” – Alfie turned around and grabbed his cane from the table he was before. – “And David?”

“Yes, Alfie.”

“ People who question or wonder a lot are no good for business…” – He drew his lower lip between his teeth, giving you one final dismissive look before he walked out the door and disappeared into the night.

#alfie solomons #alfie solomons x reader #alfie solomons x oc #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons peaky blinders #peaky blinders au #peaky fookin blinders #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders imagine #drabble

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reignmyworld · 6 years

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Where have you been? SongFic - Roman Reigns x Reader

Summary: You are working for NBC, having to take one your business partners to a WWE event, although you hate big crowds and would rather stay in the comfort of your own four walls. This might change, however, when none other than Roman Reigns approaches you after his match as you had caught his attention.

Warnings: none

Pairing: Roman Reigns x Reader

Note: This is Part 1 of my Rihanna SongFic Series.

Tag List: @iwritewwe @trixdeee @alexisbagans143

Rihanna - Where have you been?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBxt_v0WF6Y

I've been everywhere, man Looking for someone Someone who can please me Love me all night long I've been everywhere, man Looking for you, babe Looking for you, babe Searching for you, babe It was a Thursday evening and Roman was just getting ready for his match in the backstage area although he didn't really feel like working a match today. He was not exactly feeling well. Not necessarily due to health reasons but there were quite a few personal issues, that have kept him distracted for the majority of the day already. He just hoped that he was able to ban those thoughts for the next 30 minutes, so he could deliver a decent match against Cesaro without botching any moves. "Yo man, you're alright?", he suddenly heard a voice and he didn't even have to look up to know that Seth had a worried look on his face. "Yeah I'm alright, I'm alright. Just mentally preparing for the match", he mumbled. Roman was quite sure that Seth didn't buy the lie but if he was honest, he didn't even care... too many things were keeping his mind busy in that moment. Before Seth could reply anything, one of the backstage workers came to pick Roman up and lead him to one of the many doors leading to the arena, so he could get ready for his entrance through the crowd.

While making his way there, there were already a lot of fans backstage that tried to talk him up and tried to take pictures with him, but he just mumbled that he doesn't have time now as he had to get ready for his entrance. As he was waiting for his music to hit, the backstage worker signaled him that he had 10 more seconds until he would have to make his way down the stairs to the ring. Suddenly his entrance theme started playing and once he stepped into the spotlight he could not only hear the cheers but a lot of booing also. The latter one of course was nothing new and although he was always playing it cool, he had to admit that it hurt nevertheless. Who wants to get booed whenever they're working their butts off? He was glancing into the crowd, building the tension a little bit as he heard Jojo Offerman's voice introducing him with her usual words: "From Pensacola, Florida weighing 265 pounds... Roman Reigns." That was his key sentence to make his way down the stairs while a lot of the fans were reaching out their hands, either in order to fist bump him or to clap his shoulders. Once he reached the hall just metres away from the ring he stopped in front of the barricade in order to look around, protracting the moment before he would jump the barricade and move into the ring like he always did.

You just happened to have your seat next to the stairs, where Roman had been coming down, sitting first row ringside. You were not too keen on being here. Of course, you loved wrestling but you weren't really too fond of so many people surrounding you. However, since you were working for NBC in the marketing department and you were taking one of your business partners to the event as a costumer restraints action, you had no other choice than to be here this evening, although you would have preferred watching the event in the comfort of your own four walls. Your business partner, who was further accompanied by one of your collegues, seemed to enjoy everything about that evening so far and that was the most important thing. Not only for you, but even more so for your supervisor as well as your business relationship. As your colleague and your mutual business partner were deeply trapped in a conversation before the next match started, you let your eyes wander, realizing once again that you didn't like huge crowds.

Where have you been? 'Cause I never see you out Are you hiding from me, yeah? Somewhere in the crowd Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Where have you been? All my life, all my life

You couldn't help but feel as if someone was staring at you and when you looked to your side, your breath automatically hitched as you saw none other than Roman standing next to you, looking you up and down. He had always been one of your faves and you had to admit that the Samoan looked even better in person than on TV. His black hair was wet and falling in long waives over his shoulders, his whole body towered you, making you feel tiny while his almost black eyes captured yours, a warmth in them that you hadn't expected. First you thought you had imagined it but he was indeed winking at you before he started moving again, jumping over the barricade in one swift move before he stepped into the ring, where Cesaro was already waiting. "Wow being that beautiful should be illegal", you mumbled to yourself as Roman was raising his arms in one of the corners of the ring, showing one of his most irresistable smiles.

As Roman was waiting for his match to start, he couldn't help but glance over to you from time to time. He already had wrestled countless shows be it in NXT, FCW or in WWE and he sure as hell had met countless people and had seen countless faces. However, never had he ever had the feeling before of finally meeting someone, that he didn’t even know he was searching for. When he saw you in the audience he was immediately drawn to you and he couldn't even tell why as he didn't even know your name. But it nevertheless felt as if he had unknowingly been waiting to meet you someday. He knew how dumb that sounded but that didn't wash away the feeling that he wanted to get to know you and he swore to himself that he would try to chat you up once the match was over, hoping that this was somehow possible.

As soon as the match between Roman and Cesaro started, you had to admit to yourself that the evening suddenly became less horrible for yourself. For the majority of the event the thought of finding a good excuse to be able to head home occupied your mind. Now, however, you actually found yourself enjoying the evening as both men were showing their signature moves in the ring, causing the audience to cheer or boo them and chanting for them. You held back on that, however, as you just weren't extroverted enough, but your colleague as well as your business partner made up for that by yelling alongside the crowd. You really didn't try to stare but you caught yourself focussing mainly on Roman before urging yourself to pay attention to Cesaro as well. As they were throwing each other through the ring, one sending the other one to the mat, the whole fight suddenly changed when they were leaving the ring, wrestling outside of it instead. They vanished on the other side for a bit, causing you to shift your eyes to one of the screens so you wouldn't miss too much of the match. You snapped back suddenly as you heard your co-worker exclaim "Holy shit" as Cesaro and Roman were moving over to your side to continue their fight there, fake slapping and pushing each other although it looked extremely real. Suddenly Cesaro came running towards Roman hitting him with an European Uppercut, sending him into the barricade right in front of you. He was just inches away, so you could have touched him, slamming against the barricade with what looked like full force before crashing to the floor.

Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? I've been everywhere, man Looking for someone Someone who can please me Love me all night long I've been everywhere, man Looking for you, babe Looking for you, babe Searching for you, babe Of course you knew that everything was staged but this action nevertheless looked extremely painful to you. The crowd errupted and you were expecting Roman to get back up to his feet any second but he didn't. Roman knew - according to the training - that he had to stay on the ground for up to a minute to increase the effect of Cesaro's attack. So he stayed in the position he was currently in, laying on the floor face down, appearing for the audience to be unconscious. As he waited for the time to pass, so he could get back up, he suddenly heard a voice asking: "I know that this is all just for show but that looked rather painful. Are you alright? If you're not allowed to move at least give me a slight thumbs up." Roman was slightly moving his head into the direction of the voice. When he peaked up lightly he could see your concerned face while you leaned over the barricade to study his silhouette.

He answered quietly so only you could hear him: "Don't worry doll, I'm alright. Just staying down here for the dramatic effect." He gave you a little smile that instantly made your heart flatter before you answered: "Good. It would be a shame if you were hurt for real." With that you smiled at him before plumeting back down to your seat, asking yourself what the hell you just did there. Roman tried to focus back on the match, trying to hide that stupid grin he had on his face since you had talked to him. As enough time had passed he got back up and was immediately back into the match, pushing Cesaro back into the ring where he attacked him with the Samoan Drop before he speared him to the mat, pinning him and winning the match while doing so. Although there was still a lot of booing, the majority of the audience cheered for him and his victory over Cesaro. When Roman turned his attention to the audience, letting his eyes wonder, he noticed that you were clapping for him as well, making him grin on the inside like an idiot. As the match was over for good Cesaro and Roman were jumping out of the ring to make their ways around, taking some selfies with the fans and signing some stuff, that was being held out to them. Since they were the main event with no other match to follow, they took an extra amount of time to pose for pictures in order to make as many fans as possible happy, exchanging a few sentences here and there.

Where have you been? 'Cause I never see you out Are you hiding from me, yeah? Somewhere in the crowd? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Where have you been? All my life, all my life

You were already grabbing your jacket in order to leave before the masses would storm to the exits when you reminded yourself that you weren't alone and you basically couldn't leave before respectively without your guest. "Shall we leave?", you asked in the hope that you didn't sound too desperate as you were already slightly panicking as you imagined being trapped within the huge crowd. Your colleague gave you an innocent smile as he answered: "Let's wait for a few more minutes Y/N. They aren't even done with the their round and I certainly don't want to miss out on the possibility of a picture." You tried to calm yourself by shooting a questioning look at your guest, who immediately agreed with your colleague, causing you to take a deep breath before you were sitting back down. You tried to embrace yourself for the task at hand before reassuring yourself that you could wait until the majority was gone - even though that would mean that you had to stay in the hall longer than expected- but at least you could avoid the masses there.

As you were trapped in your thoughts you didn't even realize that Roman had come over to your side, posing for a selfie with your colleague. As he was done, he was turning his attention to you, studying your face as he realized that you were paying no attention to your surroundings. He once again had to admit that you sparked his interest like noone else had done ever before. Of course talking you up in front of all thse people was not the perfect conversation starter but if he didn't want to miss that opportunity, he probably had no other choice. "Would you like to have a picture as well?", he asked, realizing in that moment how dumb and arrogant that must have sounded. As you were raising your head, he gave you a bright smile, trying to somehow safe the situation. When he saw the smile on your face he felt slightly relieved, this feeling vanishing, however, as you said: "Thank you that's really nice, but I think I'm going to pass." Roman cursed himself on the inside. That really didn't go according to plan, but he wasn't willing to give up that easily as he replied: “I guess I would have said no as well after hearing such a lame sentence.” He winked at you, causing you to blush slightly before he added: “By the way, thank you for asking whether I was alright before. That happens rarely." You couldn't help but laugh as you answered: "Yeah probably because every other fan knows that it is just an act and doesn't need to be reassured due to a light panic attack." Roman had to laugh as well upon hearing your honest answer.

Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? Where have you been all my life? You can have me all you want Anyway, anyday Just show me where you are tonight Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah He held out his hand in order to introduce himself as he was saying: "The name's Joe by the way." He must have noticed your confused look as you were taking his hand in order to shake it, mumbling: "I'm Y/N" He didn't let go of your hand as he chuckled: "Don't give me that confused look, I probably still wouldn't talk to my parents nowadays if they named me Roman Reigns for real. But as a ring name it works just fine." You laughed out loud as you replied: "Yeah I can understand that. That would have been extremely mean of them indeed." Both of you didn't care too much that there were still people around you, that might have noticed by now that he gave extra attention to you. As he let go of your hand, he said: "Listen Y/N, I know this sounds pretty desperate, but you have caught my attention as soon as I stopped right next to you. Would you do me the honor of letting me invite you on a drink? I would really love to talk to you in a less crowded place." Your thoughts were racing. Was Roman Reigns really just asking you out?

I've been everywhere, man Looking for someone Someone who can please me Love me all night long I've been everywhere, man Looking for you, babe Looking for you, babe Searching for you, babe

You gulped hard as you replied: "To be honest, I don't know whether that's such a good idea." He chuckled lightly, saying: "I'm not asking you to marry me, you know? I'm just asking you to let me show you that I'm a pretty nice guy outside of the ring when I don't have to beat people up for a living." You thought about it for a little bit. You had no idea whether you would regret it at the end but with a bright smile you answered: "Sure. A drink in a less crowded place sounds great." With that Roman told you to wait for him at a certain exit before he gave you another wink as he was high fiving a few kids, that were cheering for him as he made his way out of the hall. You were not even caring that you would have to send your co-worker and your business partner off alone, being way too excited for your date ahead. “That evening didn’t seem to be so bad after all”, you happily thought to yourself as you were making your way to the exit, waiting for the Samoan to meet you, more than just curious how the man behind the character would turn out to be in real life. You certainly couldn’t wait to find out.

______

Jump to Part 2.

#roman reigns imagine #roman reigns x reader #roman reigns fanfiction #roman reigns #roman reigns songfic #roman reigns songfic series #roman reigns story #roman reigns fanfic

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whydidireadthis · 6 years

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Dark Reign...a brief look.

Events.

The word alone is enough to make a superhero comic reader fight their understandable gag reflex.

In the 80s, confronted with a capricious market, the genre powerhouses Marvel and DC experimented with “events” -- limited crossovers of numerous characters for a singular storyline. DC had been doing this annually as a tradition, typically between the Justice League and the Justice Society. However, their company crossovers were cranked up to eleven around the mid-80s, and Marvel decided to give it a try.

Both companies decided that events were the thing of the future. The main reason for this is because they could very easily make series seem to tie into the main crossover’s storyline and, thus, wring out a few more bucks from hapless readers who didn’t know any better. It’s also worthy of note that this same initial period is the period where the expression “red-sky crossover” comes from.

If you didn’t know what that meant, it means “a book advertised as being a part of an event that only includes some superficial aspect of it”, which specifically refers in its name to the many “crossovers” of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Many had nothing really to do with the main story, which was ridiculously dense and a massive clusterfuck that could have used decompression into other books; instead, the labeled “crossover” would feature something like the red sky from the main Crisis books and have someone comment on it, then the rest of the story continued on as normal.

Classy.

But after that little bit of setup, let me just segue into saying that Civil War was the event to end all events. And by that, I mean it was the absolute nadir for the superhero genre and unequivocally the worst “event” ever conceived, figuratively and literally destroying countless characters and making it impossible to repair the genre into what it should be: super-powered champions in iconic costumes fighting back against evil, villainy, and oppression.

Days of Future Crap

Civil War took an old, tired X-Men plot (which was probably why the X-Men were largely absent from it) and decided to rehash it one more time, except worse somehow. And as much as I hate the “Marvel cinematic universe”, I have to admit -- without it coming along to build some characters back up, they would have been completely and utterly unusable after Civil War made them into nasty little fascists...the exact thing most superheroes love to punch right in the face, for good reason.

But after Civil War tore the real Marvel Universe apart, alienated longtime readers in droves, and brought extremely short-lived sales boosts that petered off almost instantly, Marvel found themselves stuck for what to do. Eventually, they went with the sure bet of Skrull fuckery, because Skrulls could change shape. That worked, right? Sure! Even if it did completely ignore or contradict decades of established continuity in so doing, as with garbage -- which you would rightly clock as garbage from the title alone -- like Skrull Kill Krew.

And after the yawn that was Secret Invasion, which was basically just an excuse for more graphic violence and “shocking” twists, then came the brusque push into Dark Reign.

In many ways, Dark Reign kind of exemplifies the worst tendencies of the superhero genre since 2000, that period of over-the-top violence and flagrant disrespect for beloved characters and teams, but also tries to include some genuinely good ideas and concepts. There’s good stuff in there, which is far more than anyone could say about, for example, Civil War or Secret Invasion.

Unfortunately for Dark Reign, it also stuck around just short of for-fucking-ever, and it gave us remarkably little in return for our investment of time. And money, because over 200 issues, at a very reserved estimate, carried the Dark Reign tie-in label.

And that’s really its biggest problem: it was an idea that was conceived with no scope in mind. Marvel editorial wanted, they claimed, to get away from the concept of “events” as essentially limited series storylines with tie-ins, which came and went relatively quickly.

Well cry me a fucking river, since they started that shit in the mid-80s and rode it for over twenty years while readers complained every god damn time an “event” came along and derailed the story and characters to tell its comparatively stupid one.

Ahem. But I digress. The main problem was that Dark Reign was an event, without actually being an event. It’s a lot like my feelings about superhero stories that are totally superhero stories, they know they’re superhero stories, but they act like they’re too good to admit that and look down on superhero stories, constantly sniping at and avoiding genre staples out of contempt. Fuck you. Call a spade a spade. You’re not some amazing auteur because you wrote Superman without a costume.

And that’s really the big problem here: in trying to avoid making Dark Reign seem like the usual type of event, it’s a vague, nebulous mass of barely-related issues where the villains of the piece may only pop in at one point to twirl their moustaches, and nothing can actually be accomplished because, at the end of the day, it is an event and its plot will not advance until the event is resolving. It’s virtually impossible to figure out where the story starts, where it advances, and there’s no real order to it. Multiple would-be authorities on the subject have put forth their proposed reading orders, but it’s all conjecture at this point. The only order you have is when there is a limited series specifically tied in to the event (and there were several) or when an already-running series has tie-in issues that go in sequential order.

What makes it even more complicated and frustrating is when you have tie-ins only sometimes. For example, with the then-running series of War Machine, issues 1-5 and then 10-12 are the only ones considered part of Dark Reign. They’re the ones that directly pertain to the Dark Reign plot. But there are a lot of times in the various series where the issues with the Dark Reign label cut off before any real resolution...making it either poor organization or just poor planning. Some series, like War Machine, just abruptly end with the end of that tie-in, as if that was the only thing keeping them going. In War Machine’s case, that may have been true.

But it’s a huge mess. Even if you were to decide “oh hey, I’ll just grab the trade paperbacks, that’ll be easier to read them in order”...not really. Sure, it’s all collected, and in order. But not always a coherent order, and not always including all of the parts of the story that you need to have it actually make sense.

For example, one of the high points of Dark Reign is the X-Men leaving San Francisco and establishing an independent sovereign island nation of Utopia. However, for whatever reason, it’s ridiculously difficult to find any of those issues included in any collection. Maybe it’s Marvel’s stupid rights mismanagement with the X-Men and Fantastic Four, but it’s just as likely to be a really tremendous lack of organization with regards to the event.

And I’m not giving them a free pass on this, either; the Utopia storyline suffers from terrible inconsistent characterization and oftentimes, just painfully bad writing, like Daken’s inexplicable voiced contempt for female fighters...which had not previously appeared and never popped up again afterwards. It had some great moments too, though, like Emma making a strong showing but still remembering that she had a heart and feelings, as well as being an excellent strategist and tactician. It was also nice to see that Sentry, for all his overblown bullshit, wasn’t a match for Namor and Rogue, on the rare occasion she’s written well, is able to hold her own against serious heavy hitters.

But I’ll come back to the Sentry later. Oh yes. He’s not getting out of this unscathed.

The Un-Crossovers for the Un-Event

The thing is, everything feels adrift in a sea of crossover labels. Oh, this book’s part of Dark Reign! Well that’s cool...too bad it doesn’t have much context beyond the basic premise of the event, and almost nothing in any story ever seems to have any consequences or repercussions beyond that individual story! It’s this feeling of futility that really makes it hard to enjoy Dark Reign, especially since it was conceived with no scope in mind. They really wanted it to feel less like an event, and more like just something happening in the world of the characters. And that’s cool and everything, but...

It doesn’t work.

The reason why events even work at all is because, love it or hate it, once it’s over, things are going to continue on without having to tie into it. People will be relieved, they’ll pick their series back up, and they won’t be constantly bothered with some extraneous story that doesn’t focus on the character or team they really care about. Plus, the company can compile the event into a couple of trade paperbacks and wring a little more profit from them, since that’s why they did the event in the first place anyway.

When you have an event so nebulous and yet so ubiquitous, it really shows the weakness of the event mindset. Stories function better when the villains, who are built up as being detestable -- you want to see the heroes get one up on them, you want to see the big bad guy punched in the gut and brought low -- are defeated before they become too much and it just becomes depressing and miserable.

When a story drags on for over a year, readers become used to it. It becomes a new normal, and that’s a depressing reality, especially when the villains are constantly being built up for readers to hate them. You have to give readers something, and that something increases in scope with every evil, detestable act the villains commit. You have to balance it out with victories, even small ones, so that hope can be maintained and it doesn’t become a drudgy slog.

And I’ll say this too: Alan Moore was right in the fundamental message of Watchmen. Which I will also say I hated as a story, I think it’s overrated miserable crap, and it’s fodder for the endlessly pretentious to harp on when they think they’re too good for superhero comics. Like I said before: fuck you. Call a spade a spade and be done with it.

But the fundamental message was this: it’s better for superheroes to fight supervillains than it is for there to be no superheroes or villains, because then all you’ve got are politicians and shitty regular humans constantly trying for a pathetic little bit of what they think is power over each other.

And fundamentally, we read superhero comics not to see bureaucracy, politics, or the inherent shittiness of people. We read them because they are a modern mythology, of heroes we vicariously identify with, whom we join on their adventures through the medium of comics. We see them at their high and low points. We join them in their moments of tragedy and triumph both, and we delight in those highs and understand those lows.

When we are enjoying superhero comics, we can fly above any unhappiness or inadequacy that our real lives give us, and in those moments, we are invincible. It is because of this that superhero fans are so passionate about their heroes.

There has always been some element of things like government and military shit in superhero comics. The fact that they really kindled as a genre during World War II is not lost on me. But since shortly after 2000, Marvel tried really hard to militarize superheroes and brought in a heavy governmental angle too. SHIELD was promoted and became more overblown than it was in the age of the superspy. Suddenly, everything had to revolve around one or the other, and it was not a wise or welcome turn.

So I will say this for Dark Reign: it illustrated very well, especially in tie-in storylines like Avengers: The Initiative, why militarized superheroes and government lies are not a good thing to have around. Sure, we shouldn’t need to have it spelled out for us, but it’s nice to have that precedent set that no, superheroes shouldn’t be government-controlled, no matter who is in power, because even if we have an administration that isn’t overtly malevolent, that won’t last. Inevitably, someone will get power that doesn’t deserve it, which is something especially painful to say in this day and age.

But having Norman Osborn be constantly, repeatedly built up to be even more of a piece of total shit than we already knew him to be...was a huge mistake. Because we knew that, despite everything, despite Marvel’s tendency for that 2000s “kill-’em-all” attitude and despite their unending contempt for readers, shown very well with Civil War alone...

We knew nothing was going to come of it.

We knew Norman Osborn was going to get the easy way out, survive the whole ordeal, and be locked away somewhere until someone wanted to bring him back as the Green Goblin or something.

And you can’t do that with this kind of storyline.

You can’t make it a shitty, real world-feeling storyline like this, mired in politics, bureaucracy, militaristic bullshit, and the bad guys winning, not to mention taking things way too far in tone with everything from rape to cannibalism, and not have the big bad guy die to resolve it.

You cannot, with the unlimited scope of superhero comics, leave someone like that alive. They have caused, directly or indirectly, horrific things to happen, and they committed crimes that are completely inexcusable; if you want them to stick around, if they’re the kind of “love to hate them” villain, then you have to do less to make them the kind of person that even the best and most heroic would say “yeah, nothing of value would be lost if you just offed that guy.”

Because it’s pretty fucking unsatisfying and pretty god damn smug when you try to have the good guys act like they’re the better people for not just ending evil -- and this is a fictional evil, so it’s absolutely, completely, and objectively evil -- but every reader of every age knows that doesn’t do anything at all to fix the things that person did. It doesn’t bring back people from the dead, it doesn’t undo their trauma, it doesn’t heal their injuries. It doesn’t repair the damage done to the world at large.

When you have someone who essentially steals a position of great power and influence, they must have absolute accountability. Which...is also pretty relevant to modern life, but painful to have to spell out.

The thing is, with Dark Avengers, they could have balanced this out a bit. The characters in that series (who were almost invariably as written completely different people in any other series) were pretty fucked-up, but they were often treated as more nuanced, three-dimensional people, with only a couple of exceptions. I’m looking at you, Sentry.

In Dark Avengers, even the team of villains and grey area antihero types didn’t know how to deal with Norman. Which was a bit stupid, since any one of them probably could have destroyed him effortlessly, but it made for a more psychological conflict. Unfortunately, the glue holding it together was the Sentry...one of Marvel’s worst characters and worst character ideas, who comes off as a bad idea somebody had while stoned, but who became a high-profile character anyway.

He’s not altogether the worst idea ever, but he’s up there. Conceptually, it’s pretty interesting to examine a high-powered superhero everyone somehow forgot about, but in actual execution, the Sentry is just a crazy twat. He’s impossible to like, he’s uninteresting because he’s overpowered, and nobody knows how to write him well, because his fundamental premise is one of not understanding his character. It’s obvious that whoever thought up the Sentry was someone who didn’t understand how to write Superman, didn’t know what made Superman great as a character, and thought it was ludicrous that such a character could exist in the Marvel Universe.

But it’s not. There are cosmic-level characters all over Marvel’s whole cosmos. And while superheroes are all about the action, that’s not all there is to them. How hard a character can punch something isn’t really what the character should be about, despite superheroics tending to revolve around resolving problems with fighting and powers. If you don’t have a context for those fights, it’s just meaningless, hollow visuals. If a character doesn’t have a motivation to do something that tells you something about that character, you probably won’t care about that character.

How hard does Superman punch? As hard as he needs to. How much can he lift? As much as he needs to. What can he do? As much as he needs to. That’s why Superman is an excellent character who has stood the test of time, and the Sentry is a terrible character who only pops up when people think they have something clever they can do with him.

His function in Dark Avengers, as in Dark Reign, is Norman’s imagined ace in the hole. He uses Sentry as a bully, to just casually destroy anyone or anything that gets in his way, and he constantly holds that threat over everyone...except when the story needs him not to do that, which it does often. Sentry is fairly easy to take out, but when it matters, he’s impossible to get rid of, and for no reason that really develops him as a character or makes him more interesting. He’s a schizophrenic idiot and contributes essentially nothing to the story. He is a placeholder until or unless he’s used as a deus ex machina, when he becomes insufferable because he’s nothing but a crutch for weak writing.

The worst and most glaring part of it is that Norman is batshit crazy, and it’s frankly unbelievable that he is somehow able to handle the Sentry, by using Sentry’s crazy against him. It’s just unbelievable, and it’s ridiculous that it goes on as long as it does -- a year, which in superhero comics is an eternity.

Sentry has no pathos and no real levels to him. All the depth he has is manufactured, artificial, and wholly “who cares” at every point. The one series that ever managed to make me care about him was the whimsical series The Age of the Sentry, done in a spirit of fun and real, palpable love for bygone eras of comics, and that was a series of stories told about the character and of dubious veracity.

In Dark Reign, he’s written like Superman when Superman is badly written: a crutch to quickly resolve stories the writer has no idea how to get himself out of, or alternatively the one that has to be taken out as soon as possible because the writer can’t write, usually because he wants to show that the person doing it is a serious threat. Either way, it doesn’t work.

Cul-de-Sac Reign

In a similarly dead-end sort of way, most of the tie-in stories are nothing but plot cul-de-sacs. They can’t actually advance the plot appreciably until editorial wants it to advance...so instead, they just end up being prolonged exercises in futility.

For the same reason I hated The X-Files, in which the protagonists were constantly prevented from accomplishing anything by increasingly ridiculous plot devices, I hate pointless stories. The Young Avengers miniseries is pointless, for introducing characters who all but came from nowhere and vanished back there, in a worthless plot where characters were inspired into complete inaction despite having a resolution to the entire event available. Similarly, the Elektra miniseries takes the widely-hated horrible joke of a character, makes her somehow more unlikable, and wastes everyone’s time with a story that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing but character destruction, mainly of Elektra and Wolverine.

Who is, by the way, now absolutely complicit in multiple premeditated murders of people justifiably pissed off at Elektra being a complete piece of shit. Not that they bring this up with any of the gravity it should have -- just look at any time Rick Remender writes Wolverine or, for that matter, anyone in any series. Or don’t. No one should have to read Remender’s pretentious garbage.

Even the Punisher, whom I can’t stand, is dicked around by Dark Reign’s insistence to avoid having things happen. It’s pretty shitty when multiple issues of his title advertised him going after various members of the Dark Avengers to take them down, and he wasn’t even able to make any significant impact with anything he did. He couldn’t even take down Norman, who had no believable excuse for being able to escape mortal danger! You know, for all I give superhero comics shit for killing off characters needlessly, having the Punisher actually take out Norman -- or Sentry -- would have actually been shocking, and that could have led to so much more interesting conflicts and storylines about what this means, if it was right if the other heroes were thinking about it (and they were), and they could have had the Dark Avengers scrambling to try and hold onto their legitimacy and almost make it...but be defeated by the good guys, who prove their goodness and show the public what they bought into.

And can we just talk about the animal cruelty that popped up from time to time? It seemed really overt and conspicuous, and it’s absolutely not okay. Extreme violence is never okay, even in superhero comics (or maybe especially in superhero comics), but animal cruelty is really going a step past a step past too far.

Get your shit together, Marvel.

To say nothing of the inherent lameness of the Hood, probably the absolute worst character to be introduced and featured prominently in these past couple of decades of superhero disaster. It’s some lame whiner of a shit garbage character that dresses in everyday clothes but wears a red cloak over it and, of course, dual wields guns. Because that doesn’t look stupid or anything. And of course his background is basically the one thing I despise more than almost anything else in tired-ass writing cliches: straight people baby daddy issues. Please go fuck yourself. Nobody cares about the asshole who knocked up some bint who shit out a kid and became a by-the-numbers deadbeat dad. Because they’re lame.

The underlying basic concept, that of someone finding a magical cloak that gives them powers, is wondrous and fun. It’s just that the Hood himself is the exact opposite of wondrous and fun. He comes off, every time, like some asinine mary sue author insertion character you hate the moment they’re introduced. It’s cool when Doctor Doom shows that he’s not only a scientific genius, he’s also a skilled sorceror. It’s not so cool when some asshole dumbasses his way through magical power because of some cape he found randomly that anyone could have found.

It makes him seem even worse, and even more of a character almost metaplot levels of desperate to intimidate that he keeps trying to spook the people around him because they don’t take him seriously. Here’s an idea: create an imposing costume. If you can’t do that, you really can’t expect to be taken seriously. If you can’t even make imposing fashion choices or bring together an ensemble that will impact others, you have no business expecting them to just take you at face value because you’re wearing a red cape that you have matched with literally nothing else you’re wearing.

Plot, Unmoving

But none of it really adds anything to Dark Reign, and it really pisses me off to see stories where direct resolution was available, but heroes couldn’t actually do what they would logically or reasonably do...because editorial wanted to stretch out the event to make it seem like it wasn’t an event.

The whole concept of “Dark Avengers” is made even more stupid by the fact that they’re wearing obviously outdated costumes. As cool as Moonstone looks in Ms. Marvel’s old outfit, she also looks like she just stepped out of a disco. And while the different lineups of Avengers have sometimes been really strange and seemingly random over the years, you can’t expect me to believe that literally nobody noticed how awkward this one was, and how their costumes were almost all completely out of date and out of touch with the figures who are well-known public figures.

There’s also this weird aversion to the actual heroes confronting the people masquerading as them, because Norman’s good at PR spin. I’m sorry?! This just doesn’t make sense, and it keeps making less sense when some of the heroes are actually willing to strike out on their own to kill Norman, rather than to actually make it public that they are being impersonated...which makes it even more ridiculous when you consider that some of the people being impersonated have public identities.

The Dark X-Men team was actually was more plausible, in large part because much of the public didn’t know the X-Men well, and also because there actually was an actual X-Man in the group. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to have Wolverine really in the Dark Avengers, and maybe have the X-Men or some other group have to work with his dangerous and unpredictable son Daken to get one over on him and take him out, thereby reducing the power level of the team significantly?

But no, they couldn’t have that. The X-Men had to have their own inane events, and Wolverine, despite being a dumpster fire of a character at this point, is somehow sacrosanct for vicarious dick-waggling of insecure writers who live through him just like the same pack of wankers do for Batman.

There’s also this bizarre insistence that somehow, despite people overtly getting plenty of proof that the “Dark Avengers” aren’t who they say they are, and some of them are committing pretty serious crimes in costume, in a day and age where everyone has a camera and a microphone and there’s recording everywhere...nobody gets any real dirt on them until they write it into Spider-Man for Peter Parker to do it.

I think it’s great Peter does it. But at the same time...how exactly is it that a top-level investigative journalist isn’t able to do it for a small eternity, and how exactly is it that it doesn’t have more serious repercussions in the public eye? It may just be the chaotic nature of the incoherent narrative, and I’m just not seeing it in any sort of cohesive order, but it sure seems like one of the many plot elements that doesn’t really matter until editorial decides it suddenly has any bearing on anything.

And I’ll just address the elephant in the room: the Dark Avengers lineup is not, to be totally honest, the most powerful or able he could have assembled. Most of them being mentally unstable doesn’t exactly help the plausibility. Given, the Marvel Universe tends towards more street power level and less cosmic, but there are plenty of real hard hitters that have been in the Avengers’ membership over the years, not to mention their foes that a villain supposedly so resourceful should have been able to recruit.

It’s basically just a sort of take on the Masters of Evil or the Sinister Six or something. And I have to say again that having an actual hero, or even a fallen hero desperate for redemption, would be a vast improvement. Instead, we only have elements like that in side stories or tie-ins that go nowhere and are easily missed by the central narrative.

Additionally, Norman Osborn is not the most believable as a long-term leader, even if he does use strongarm tactics, blackmail, and manipulation to get his way. He’s just not that smart, certainly not as much as he’d have to be in order to keep his team of people together and not killing him, and incidentally avoiding anyone else outside the team and thus his control similarly killing him. This is where I’ll bring Doctor Doom up again, since when he gathered a group of people together, he had a damn good reason and, as a reader, you could believe he could actually control them...or at the very least, keep them from posing a serious mortal threat to him.

Members of the Dark Avengers fight other teams and heroes, but rarely do they ever bother to clash en masse with any other group to any narrative end. There’s such a feeling of futility that pervades it all, that if you read any story supposedly tying into it, you start to expect it to go nowhere and accomplish nothing. Because even if it seems to actually make a difference, everything it does is either handwaved, ignored, or somehow doesn’t work into the next story you read under the Dark Reign banner.

Dark Reign is an event, make no mistake. It has a central storyline that we should be seeing unfold with every tie-in and every crossover. Instead, Marvel’s complete aversion to admitting what it is leaves us with a meandering, disjointed tale that promises something unique and superior and instead leaves us thinking of what it could have been, and probably should have been, instead.

#dark reign #marvel comics #writing critique #comic review #critique

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zpidey-sense · 6 years

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spooky surprises [Peter Parker x Reader]

Description: a Halloween night full of spooky surprises and a masked hero.

Warnings: curses, not a lot but definitely some curses. So if you don’t like that, oops sorry lmao.

Word count: it’s long 5.740!

Note: 👻🎃happy Halloween! I love Halloween with my whole soul 🖤and so after some time thinking I decided to make a Halloween themed imagine. I hope you like it, and again I hope the pronoun they/them is okay for everyone, I think this fandom is more diverse and it defo needs more representation! Btw this is my second piece of writing I ever publish here!

Also, creds to the one who did the gif. I found it on google!

And! Here is my masterlist! if you’re interested

(And I know I’m so late but I tried to upload on Halloween and yesterday but my internet and my tumblr didn’t let me, it didn’t even let me safe the changes I did. So here it is anyway! Anyway if you miss Halloween already here you have this and Happy Fucking Christmas’ Eve lmao)

People around me were laughing and being a bit too loud for my liking, so I was pretty annoyed at the same time that I was trying to not pay attention at my surrounding while trying to find my chemistry book in my locker as well. At this right moment I was definitely overwhelmed by the loudness around me, but simultaneously I couldn’t help but feel excited, and that was just because today was Halloween and that could mean only one thing.

For today, I could be anything I wanted to be.

And that was just what I was doing.

‘’Boo!’’, the one and only, MJ said on a kinda soft way while laying her back in the locker next to mine, smiling just a bit and letting me see a glimpse of something that looked like vampire fangs. I couldn’t believe it.

‘’Woah!!’’, I let out definitively surprised ‘’am I really seeing fangs there?’’ I ask with a smile. Now truly glad to have MJ here, because now I could focus on a conversation instead of how terribly and obnoxiously loud the people around us were being.

But I wasn’t just glad of that, also because she was actually in a costume. In all the years I’ve been friends with MJ she has never been something for Halloween, not even when we were kids... well except that time when she lost a bet against me and I obeyed her to be the Robin to my Batman.

But that was different.

‘’Yep, you’re really seeing this’’ she said, then proceeding to smile really wide to let me see her fangs better, I couldn’t help but smile bigger and look at her from head to toe now. She was dressed all in black, with a shirt that read Dracula’s Child in red and shinny font, she was even wearing a black velvet cape with red on the inside.

MJ looked just amazing. She even had black lipstick on, something that looked perfect on her. Fuck, she really nailed her look.

‘‘Whadaya think?’‘ she asked after I took a better look at her costume. She was now chewing some gum, which to be honest made her look like a total bad bitch. But on a good way.

‘’You... woah, I just- you look amazing MJ!’’ I said with a little smile closing my locker after I finally found my chemistry book. ‘’Why didn’t you tell me you were going to dress up for Halloween? You look terrific!’’

‘’Uhm... I wanted to surprise you Y/N, this is your favorite festivity after all. So, surprise!’’ she said while shrugging, I couldn’t help but smile again. Dressed like that she looked like one of those super cool-laid-back teenagers you see in movies, even her attitude was right, but to be honest that was just MJ being MJ. ‘’So, do you really think I look good, nerd?’’

‘’Yeah! Of course I do, I think it’s completely amazing, you look even better than me!’’, but as soon as I said that she started to say no at the same time a bubblegum exploded on her lips, I just smiled at the image.

‘’Oh please Y/N don’t be ridiculous, I know I look good but you... damn, you always reign on this kind of stuff’’ she said, making me blush instantly as we started to walk down the hallway that was full of people dressed up as many things. Even if I hated how loud it was, I loved to see everyone having a great time. ‘’I mean come on! Look at this’’, MJ said pointing at my costume and then taking the mask off my hands.

She then just started to examine it, turning it backwards and looking at every single angle of it. I smiled again while we just kept walking through the sea of dressed up people, well this Halloween I was dressed up as Spider-Man. Our friendly neighborhood superhero, and by personal choice, my favorite one.

And I loved it.

‘’Oh come on, it’s not t...’’, but she interrupted me immediately with a fast no no no no, making me giggle.

‘‘Whatever you’re gonna say just hush... I now you’ve been working really hard on this whole thing the whole month. And to be honest, is amazing Y/N’’, I just smiled while I felt how the warm in my cheeks started to grow again, God I knew I looked like a fucking tomato now. ‘’It looks a lot like the real one, and when I say a lot it is a lot!’’

‘’Thanks MJ, it really means a lot to me!’’, I said on a funny way taking back my mask and looking at it, maybe it didn’t have the bionic eyes spidey had on his suit, I didn’t have that kind of technology but MJ was right, it still looked pretty cool.

So I smile softly at MJ and she smiled back at me, then just looking in front of us and starting to make our way to the classroom without talking much. As we kept walking many people kept complimenting the both of us and as MJ just smiled at them, I completely blushed and gave them a kind of weird grin as an answer.

I wasn’t used at all to this kind of attention, but again it was Halloween so I lowkey loved it. But it was still pretty weird.

‘‘So what?’‘, MJ said finally on the classroom while taking her usual seat next to mine.

‘‘Of what?’‘ I asked leaving the books on the table and looking at the front door just as a guy dressed as Bubbles from the Power Puff Girls made its way in. I couldn’t help but smile again, fuck I really loved Halloween.

‘‘What are we going to do this Halloween night? I was thinking on a horror movie marathon at my place, with lots of candy and fast food you know, like every year’‘ but I just blushed thinking about it. I mean I still didn’t have the heart to tell her I couldn’t make it for tonight, that’s why I’ve been avoiding this conversation for the past week.

‘‘I-’‘ but she interrupted me without hesitation.

‘‘What? God Y/N you’ve been acting super weird every time I tell you something about our plans for tonight... just tell me what’s up in your mind’‘, she said being really direct about it.

‘‘Uh... I-I well, okay. Don’t kill me! But I can’t really make it for tonight, I’m so sorry’‘

‘‘What? Why?’‘ MJ let’s out, more sad than disappointed, as I thought she was going to be. She was even making a little pout and to be honest she looked adorable.

‘‘I am so freaking sorry! I’ve been trying to find ways to tell you but my dad has a date tonight and it is with this person that he doesn’t stop talking about, and you know how he has been since you know... my mom and all that shit... and that’s why I have to take my brother to ask for candy, because my dad is really excited about the date and in the other hand Matt is really, really excited about the candy since October started as well and he was even more when he saw me as Spider-Man this morning and... I am so sorry’‘

‘‘Awww Y/N, why didn’t y-’‘

‘’Oh my god, Peter look!’’ I suddenly hear Ned shout, making me turn around as MJ suddenly stopped talking.

Damn, he was right there and now he was coming. Oh my god. Why he was coming? Oh my god.

‘‘Woah!!! Y/N I didn’t know you liked Spider-Man!’‘ Peter Parker said now standing right next to me, directly in front of my face. And so fucking close to me. I suddenly couldn’t say anything else.

A, really cute by the way, Peter Parker dressed as a Stormtrooper started to talk immediately since I didn’t say anything for some seconds and just kept staring at him without even moving. ‘‘I-I mean there is nothing wrong if you like him. I actually like him a lot as well... b-but I mean not on that way... but I’m n-not saying neither you like him on that way! Erm, but what I really wanted to say is that you look so dope! This costume is totally out of this world, did you make it? Cause it’s totally dope and... I said that already, right? Oh god...’‘, he kind of looked at MJ and blushed. ‘‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you two, I-I just saw you and thought I needed to say something because you know, you look totally great! and-’‘

God he looked fucking adorable when he was rambling like that, I couldn’t help but smile at him.

‘‘Parker, is alright, calm the fuck down’‘, MJ lets out kind of rolling her eyes, meaning that she was done with his rambling which only made me find this situation even more funny.

It’s not that MJ hated Peter, it’s just that he could really freak her out. And right in this moment, he was doing it.

‘‘Yeah, it’s okay Pet, you didn’t interrupt us at all. And yeah! I totally like Spider-Man, that’s why I decided to be him today’’, I said as I blushed.

‘‘I think the term ‘‘like’‘ is short for how much you actually love Spider-Man, Y/N’‘, MJ just blurts out casually, making me blush even more.

‘‘Michelle’‘, I whisper at her at the same time I hit her arm with my elbow, which only made her giggle.

‘‘Wh-what? Are you... erhm, are you serious about that?’‘, Peter let’s out now all blushed meanwhile Ned was totally freaking out, for some reason I didn’t get, next to him.

‘‘God, alright yeah’‘, I say rolling my eyes. ‘‘But don’t tell anyone, please’‘, I say suddenly placing my hand above his.

Something I wouldn’t do if I was on my right mind. God, why did I do that? I asked my self as I started to feel more nervous now.

‘‘Yeah! Yeah, sure don’t worry about it Y/N!’‘ he let’s out on a kind of high pitched tone, making me smile because that’s how I knew he was actually really nervous as well.

I just smile and slowly let go of his hand, just as Ned starts to talk. ‘‘So, do you guys have any plans for tonight?’’, he asks with a huge smile.

‘‘Apparently, nope!’‘ MJ says then looking at me with a smile, letting me know that she totally understood it. ‘‘I mean I think I’ll just watch horror movies in my room while stuffing myself with some candy’‘.

‘’That sounds fun!’’, Ned says with a huge smile. ‘’What about you, Y/N?’’

‘‘Yeah, well I’ll just go with my little brother to ask for candy and probably get some candy myself’‘, I say actually hoping for it. My brother always hated to share his candy with me, even though my dad always made him cause ‘‘too much candy was bad for him’‘.

‘‘Great, I’ll probably see you two, you know... or maybe Aunt May will, yeah’‘, he said with a smile. Peter lived in the same neighborhood as me so I was probably going to be asking around his block.

And maybe if he was around, stay some more minutes over his apartment just to do a little chat.

‘‘Sure, I hope!’‘

‘‘Great!’‘, and then after some seconds of saying nothing he just kept walking to his usual spot with Ned walking behind him, as he kept whispering something on Peter’s ear.

‘‘Hey Peter! By the way, I really like your costume, I love Star Wars’‘, I say with a little smile, making him blush instantly as he turned around again to look at me.

‘‘And I really like yours too, Spider-Man’‘ I just smile and then turn around, MJ was looking at me on a really funny way.

‘‘God, you guys are so fucking obvious.’‘, she said whispering mostly to herself while now opening a book.

‘‘About what?’‘, I asked her starting to open my notebook.

‘‘You guys so like each other, the whole school, including the teachers know about it’‘, she said as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

‘‘What?!’‘ I blurted out immediately, in a tone a bit too high for my liking. ‘‘No, we don’t!’‘ I shout-whisper at her after seeing that some people turned around just to look at me.

‘‘Sure, Jan’‘ MJ lets out and then just laughs when I hit her arm at the same time I let out a soft fuck off Michelle, because she knew I hated that meme. I was going to ask her about what did she mean by all that, but then I just shut up when I see our teacher entering the classroom.

Miss Ramirez just started to write something in the board as she started to speak, but it was just a reminder that our next quiz was supposed to be the next week. But I already knew that so I couldn’t help to look back and find Peter already looking at me. He blushed and kind of looked away a bit ashamed, so just before turning back again I just smiled at him, making him smile back at me which made me feel... weirdly good.

Well, maybe MJ was right... maybe I did like him.

God, and maybe it was a lot.

‘‘Look at all this candy!’‘, Matt said taking a lot of candy with his little hands and then just throwing them in the air, getting hit by them while falling on the floor of his room. I couldn’t help but giggle at the view.

He was so freaking excited and happy, and I was so glad.

‘‘Amazing, right?’‘, I asked now sitting on his bed and taking my bag of candy before he did. I didn’t want my candy to be flying around in his room. ‘‘You had fun, bud?’‘

‘‘I had the best of the nights tonight!!’‘, he said looking at me and then smiling eally wide, showing me how his two front teeth were still missing. He looked just adorable. ‘‘Thank you so much for taking me to ask for candy, Spider-Man’‘

I couldn’t help but laugh at the Spider-Man, he has been calling me like that ever since this morning and he was totally convinced that I was the real Spider-Man, which was actually really nice if you think about it.

‘‘You’re really welcome, Matty’‘, I just smile and take a piece of chocolate from my candy bag, while eating it I just look at him and smile having an idea that I knew he was going to love. ‘‘So... what do you think about watching a movie before going to bed?’‘

‘‘Really?! But it’s school night’‘, he whispered the last part as he didn’t want anyone else to listen, making me giggle.

‘‘So what? Dad is not here’‘, I say raising a bit my eyebrows. ‘‘Come on, I’ll let you pick the movie!’‘

And just as I said that he took the iPad immediately, starting to look for movies in Netflix, I just smile and get out of the room to the living room to fix the couch so we could watch the movie on a comfortable way. Some minutes later he just storms out of his room while waving the iPad in the air and screaming ‘’this one, this one, this one!!’’.

God, he was going to drop it and then break it, so dad then would kill me. So I immediately take the iPad and look at the movie he picked, and then back at him a bit incredulous.

‘‘It?’‘, he then just starts nodding really fast, making me giggle again. I think the sugar was starting to kick in. ‘‘It? Are you serious, Matthew?’‘

‘‘I’m totally serious spidey! Everyone at my school talks about it, especially in my grade’‘, so I just raise my eyebrows at that. Matt was only 8 years old and if the parents of his classmates were really letting them see that kind of movies then... Damn.

Bad parenting and nights full of nightmares right there.

‘’Really?’’

‘’Yes, really!’’, and that’s when I knew he wasn’t going to stop bugging me about it until we saw this movie.

‘‘Alright boy, but I don’t want any nightmares or you telling dad anything about this. Okay?’‘, so he just takes my pinky on a really cute way and interlaces it with his.

‘‘Okay, I promise’‘, so I just smile and sit on the couch, letting him sit next to me to watch the movie. He was already on his Pj’s meanwhile I was still wearing my Spider-Man costume.

So after covering him with a blanket I just start the movie, I left the lights on just in case he got too scared, which was probably going to happen because well it was It, and actually everything was alright the first 2 minutes of the film... then it happened, what was most likely to happen.

It started with Matt covering up one of his eyes, then minutes later him raising his legs up so they wouldn’t be anywhere near the floor. Then he started to whisper stuff like, ‘‘the music is too scary’‘ or ‘‘that clown is scaring me Y/N’‘, but I didn’t say anything.

He then covered his eyes completely while he kind of hid his face on my abdomen, just watching for a few seconds but actually watching none of it which just made me giggle. He was actually totally freaked out but after like an hour of it he didn’t say anything else, or even moved.

Some minutes later I noticed that he was actually totally asleep so I just paused the movie and took him to bed, he was just 8 so he was really easy to lift. So I put him on his bed and cover him. I left his door open so the light from the hall could come in just in case, because I didn’t want him to freak out if he suddenly woke up in the middle of the night.

And also I really didn’t want my dad to be woken up by screams and then my brother admitting him what I just let him do. My dad would ground me for the rest of my life!

So before I leave I take my bag of candy from the table and walk out to the living room again, to continue watching the film which was, being honest, one of my favorite films ever. I was really into it and since I watched it for the first time I was obsessed.

I wasn’t paying attention to anything else but the screen and the movie, the volume wasn’t that high so it wouldn’t wake Matt up or anything like that, so I was really paying attention to it. I even put my phone on night mode so anything could distract me from the TV.

There was this scene that really disturbed and intrigued me at the same time, so I was really paying attention to it when suddenly I hear a little tap in the window next to the couch, making me stop caring about the movie as my whole body got covered in goosebumps.

God, what the hell?

I really didn’t want to watch but the tap was there again like two more times, so after some seconds of convincing my self it was just my paranoia and imagination I finally turn around, finding the silhouette of someone looking right at me from outside the window and standing right there in the emergency stairs.

And just when I saw it I couldn’t help but scream as high as I could, turning on the lamp with my shaky hands and finding out instantly that it was in fact Spider-Man standing right there and not a fucking murderer clown.

‘‘What the fuck’‘, I let out a bit too loud, looking at him now totally confused. Just what the fuck.

‘‘H-hey! I’m so sorry, did I scare you? I’m so sorry, that wasn’t my attention at all’‘ Spider-Man said then kneeling down in the floor of the stairs so I could see him better. ‘‘I’m really sorry!’‘

‘‘Wha-what?’’, it was the only thing I could say while I tried to calm down a bit, my heart was racing because for some reason I really thought that was fucking Pennywise.

‘’Oh my god, are you okay?’’, he asked a bit more loud at the same time the eyes of his suit got wider. He sounded actually worried.

‘’I-I yeah, yeah I am okay’’, I let out finally saying something. ‘’God... I just- I was watching It and... I thought you-you... Pennywise... agh, nevermind’’ I say to him as I show him the screen and then look at him again. ‘’What- uhm, I don’t want to sound rude or anything, but what are you doing here?’’, I ask totally confused.

He then just nods as if he just remembered why he was in my apartment, ‘’oh yeah! Someone told me you really admire Spider-Man... I mean me! You really admire me, that much that you even made a costume of me for Halloween! And I just happened to pass by on my night patrol and... well, just... hello?’’, he added the last part on an awkward and cute way, which just made me giggle.

‘’Are you fucking serious?’’, I said now really excited and not scared at all, finally getting up and walking to the window, opening it a bit better so he could come in if he wanted to.

‘’Yep!’’, he said now putting his hands above his hips and doing that typical ‘’superhero’’ pose. ‘’Oh! and I also came here to offer you a swing across the neighborhood... I mean, if-if you wanted to, you can say no if you don’t want and that’s totally alright...’’

But I just stopped him, ‘’oh my god, oh my god, are you serious?! Of course yes!’’ I scream not that loud getting out of my apartment through my window and standing now in front of him. He was just some inches taller than me and he looked really, really strong.

I never thought I could be this close to a superhero, let alone this close to freaking Spider-Man! And it never ever crossed my mind the thought of him actually coming to my house just to ask me if I wanted a swing through my neighborhood.

God, this must be a fucking dream.

‘’Oh, alright! Then perfect!’’, he said then taking me by my waist and holding me closer to him, which to be honest was everything I wanted right now. ‘’Hold tight to me!’’

And then without saying anything else he just fell down the stairs with me by his side, webbing a building in front of mine and then swinging across the street just like he did every night when he was patrolling the city. I felt like wanting to scream, but I didn’t do it... I wasn’t scared, I was feeling really weird and then after some seconds I just realized I actually felt free, as the cold wind from Halloween hit my face and made my hair fly on a wild way.

Fuck, this was amazing. There was no way to describe the feeling.

So I just hugged Spider-Man even more tight and kept looking around us as we passed my neighbor’s houses and cars, and as we flew by the trees and just everything that was in our way... it was amazing. I could feel him looking at me under the mask, which just made me smile even more.

After some more minutes of web-swinging for some blocks he just took me back to my apartment, holding me still as we got back to the emergency stairs in front of my window. We were already on the ground and safe from falling, and he was still close, but that wasn’t something that bothered me at all. Actually... I loved it.

‘’That was... just amazing. Woah Spider-Man! I can’t actually believe you do this every single day, it’s just freaking amazing!’’ I started to say while he was still holding me close.

‘’I know right!’’ he said in the same tone as me, actually even more excited than I was.

‘’Yeah! It’s just... Woah!’’ I said and then we just fell in a little silence, him then taking his hands off my waist on a rather awkward but cute way.

‘’I’m really glad you liked it!’’, he said now slowly starting to walk a bit away.

‘’I’ll make sure to tell Peter how thankful I am for this!’’, I said immediately making him open the eyes of his suit on a really wide way again. I noticed that I really liked when he did that, it was just really cute.

‘’Wha-what? Peter? How do you know it was Peter?’’ he said stuttering a bit, which someway reminded me of someone I knew.

‘‘Yeah! I guess it was Peter Parker the one who told you about me and my costume... right? I mean, because of the Stark Internship and all that’’ I said as if it was obvious, seeing how the muscles of his shoulders relaxed instantly as I said that.

‘’Ooohhhh yeah! The Stark Inter... I mean Peter’’, he said starting to nod immediately as he pointed at me. ‘’Yeah! That’s right, he told me everything about it this afternoon, yeah! He is such a nice guy though... you’re his friend right?’’

‘’Well... yeah! I could say that’’ I say kind of looking down. ‘’I mean, I wish we were more like real friends and not just classmates, you know? I don’t even have his number... and well, he seems like a really nice guy’’

‘’Well, he totally thinks the same about you!’’ he said immediately, a bit too excited and again reminding me of someone but I really didn’t know who. ‘’I mean... I think you should totally talk to him more’’

‘’Do you think?’’, I asked with a little smile.

‘’I don’t think, I actually know’’, he then just nods and walks a bit more away. ‘’So huh... I think I should go back to my night patrol and all that... that was really fun Y/N...’’, Spider-Man started to say while caressing his head a bit as he kept walking backwards, but I just stopped him.

‘’Wait!’’, I said smiling and walking closer to him. ‘’I actually got plenty of candy and... and maybe you would like to eat some and maybe talk a bit? After all my dad won’t be home after midnight and I don’t really feel like finishing It anymore’’, I nodded saying no and then looking back at my house, which was just as I left it. ‘’And I don’t really feel like sleeping neither’’

‘’I-uh... well, yeah... yeah, why not?’’, he said then walking again next to me. ‘’I don’t think there is nothing to patrol in Halloween Night besides teenagers running around annoying each other’’ and what he just said made me smile.

‘’You’re right... uhm... would you-uh... would you like to go to my room? After all here it’s a bit chilly and well, I don’t wanna get sick’’, I just shrug, already getting inside my living room again. He didn’t look that sure at first but after some seconds he just got in.

‘’And... uhm, why isn’t your dad home?... or your mom?’’ he asked immediately, looking around the house.

‘’Yeah, my dad is on a date and my mom... well, she hasn’t been home for the last 5 years, so whatever’’ I just turn around and make as if I was looking for my phone, blushing just because I sounded too hurt.

Of course I was hurt, I just didn’t like to show it with anyone.

‘’I’m really sorry’’, he lets out as I picked my bag of Halloween candy and my phone from the couch.

‘’It’s fine Spider-Man, it doesn’t matter now’’, I let out while smiling a bit. ‘’Now follow me, but let’s be quiet’’ I said as I start walking to my room, passing by my brother’s room and looking at him sleeping fine just as I left him.

We finally get in my room and I turn around to look at him, he was looking around while detailing every single thing he could with his bionic eyes. I just looked away and sat down in my bed, feeling a bit ashamed for some reason.

‘’I like your room Y/N... its like y... like really, really cool!’’

‘’Thanks spidey!’’, I suddenly let out and then just blush instantly. ‘’A-are you okay with me calling you like that? I feel like Spider-Man is way too... formal’’.

He let’s out a soft giggle, that somehow reminds me of someone again, but I just let it pass. ‘’Of course, spidey is totally alright’’, he nods and after some seconds he just sits down a bit away from me.

We awkwardly sit there for some minutes while he just looked around at my room and I ate some candy, me trying to stay calm and not freak because The Actual Spider-Man was in my fucking room meanwhile he looked way too chill. He then just suddenly looks at me and then down at the candy bag.

‘’Ca-can I?’’, he stutters on a way that I find cute.

‘’Of course! Get whatever you want’’, and he immediately gets a fun-size Twix, then kind of rolling his mask up till his lips were free to eat.

‘’You have no idea how much I love this candy!’’, he said already having a bite of it.

‘’Are you kidding me!?’’, I ask taking one as he did. ‘’This is the best candy ever made!’’ he just looked at me and nodded, completely agreeing with me.

After that nothing was awkward anymore.

It was actually really easy to talk with Spider-Man, because after some minutes I quickly realized that under that mask there was this typical teenager with not such a typical life. But still really relatable, in a weird way.

At first I was really surprised to find out that he was a teenager just like me, but I didn’t really comment on that so he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable about his secret identity and all that.

But we could talk about pretty much everything, we started with something simple as what were our favorite movies and music, then we moved on to our favorite soundtracks and eventually the series we liked the most. It turns out we had a lot in common but after some digging I found out he hasn’t watch Stranger Things yet, and I couldn’t believe it, so that was the only thing I kept kinda bugging him about the whole night.

After we got more comfortable in the bed we even listened to some music and it turns out, again, we pretty much loved the same artists, but that still didn’t stop me from showing him some new ones as he did as well. After the music was already over we kept talking about school and our favorite subjects in it.

He told me a secret I’ve always been curious about, that he actually made the webs of his web shooters and that he was really good in chemistry, I wasn’t really surprised because he seemed really smart. And after that I couldn’t resist to ask him about his superhero duties, which he was totally fine about answering.

He had millions of stories to tell me about, but to be honest my most favorite one was the churro lady one, and how he helped her to find the way to the place she needed to go. It was just adorable.

But after that we just kept talking about random and stupid stuff, and some time later he just admitted that he finally got the courage to ask me about my parents, and finally for the first time ever I could talk with someone about that that wasn’t MJ.

But just in the middle of my ramble I heard my dad unlocking the door and coming inside the apartment. And as Spider-Man and I were laying in the bed facing up the ceiling and totally chilling out, we just kind of panicked, he immediately jumping outside the window some minutes later.

So when he did that I just turned off the lights and hopped on the bed, covering my self with my blankets just some seconds before my dad walked inside my room just to check, but like I was ‘’asleep’’ after some seconds he just left. I carefully heard how he got in his room and closed the door behind him.

Just as soon as he did that I just got up from the bed and walked to the window. seeing how Spider-Man was hanging there from the wall. I couldn’t help but smile on a funny way.

‘’Are you alright, spidey?’’

‘’Yeah, yeah! What about you? Are you alright?’’, he asked then pulling down his mask again and kind of getting closer to me. Hanging like that he looked like a real spider.

‘’I am alright’’, I just smile and then kind of bite my lip. ‘’I think our talk... we could maybe leave it for later?’’

‘’Maybe... tomorrow?’’, he asks not that sure about it.

‘’Perfect’’, I say nodding.

‘’Then perfect’’, he nods. ‘’I think it’s time for me to leave now, and you should get some sleep Y/N’’

‘’You too spidey’’, I say as I suddenly get close leaving a kiss in where his cheek was. ‘’As my lil brother said earlier, I had the best of the nights tonight... thank you’’

‘’I-I... it... yeah! This w-was totally a great night! I rea-really enjoyed it Y/N, thank you too!’’, he kind of looked at me and then nodded. ‘’This was a great Halloween’’.

‘’This was definitely a great Halloween’’, I smile.

‘’I know’’, he then just nods and webs the building in front of mine. ‘’Now have a great night, darling!’’

Darling, I just repeat mentally while I feel how my knees got suddenly weak.

‘’Happy Halloween Spidey!’’, I kind of shout just as he swings across the street. I could hear his small giggle resonate in the cold air.

‘’Happy Halloween Y/N!’’, he shouts back a bit too loud.

And yep, it definitely was a happy one.

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