#that's a totally unrelated song written by me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

use-your-telescope · 5 months

Text

When Everything's Made to be Broken - Chapter 9: Something So Brand New

Summary: Theo makes good on her promise to Loki, and shenanigans ensue.

Author's Notes: So this is a longer chapter than I usually post, but given it all takes place during the span of one evening it didn’t make sense to split into two chapters. If you love Loki/Theo interactions, you’re in for a treat here. There’s also Brodinsons and Wanda/Theo friendship building as well.

I’m *hoping* to post my next chapter on December 10, but I sense that we’re about to hit a rocky patch at my job as a series of stressors all collide (aka shit’s about to hit the fan), so I’m going to give myself a one week buffer and say that the chapter will be up by no later than December 17th. It’s written, but I’ve found that I like to go back and do an in-depth editing pass before posting that usually takes at least a few hours… Essentially, I would rather underpromise and overdeliver than say I’ll post something and then just… not.

Oh, and RE: shit hitting the fan at work - I’m not worried about myself amidst the work stuff (I’m not about to lose my job or anything). I'm worried about the students I work with and how they’ll handle everything… And since my job is supporting said students, I imagine I’ll probably have my hands full. I’m intentionally being vague for privacy reasons, and in hopes that it doesn’t blow up so my concern is pointless.

Completely unrelated, but I saw The Maine live last week and they opened with this song! They put on a great live show. 10/10 do recommend.

If you enjoy, please reblog!! I'm a lil' blog and reblogs really help me out <3

Content Warnings: Alcohol/Drinking (including getting a bit too drunk).

Word Count: 9,384

Read on AO3 | When Everything's Made to be Broken Masterlist

Song: Dose No. 2 - The Maine

First breath out of a coma Over and over Oh what a lovely view of you A two step into disorder I stumble forward Towards something so brand new

“Hey, uh - some of us are going to hang out up on the roof tonight. Want to join?”

Ever since Theo relented to Loki’s begging (and though he wouldn’t admit it, he totally begged her to join them), a foreboding sense of dread hung over Theo like a storm cloud, waiting for this very moment. A night of forced socializing and feigned pleasantries as the other Avengers tried not to make their suspicions about Theo painfully obvious - Theo would rather watch paint dry.

Across the threshold, hope radiated through the smile on Wanda’s face. She stood with hands in hoodie pockets, jeans and birkenstocks completing the Scarlet Witch’s look for that day. The outfit surprised Theo - from observation, Wanda only wore pants when working out, opting for skirts and dresses in daily life. Theo would have confidently bet real money that Wanda didn’t even own a pair of jeans.

Then again, it wasn’t the first time Theo was wrong, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Every possible excuse percolated in Theo’s mind for why she couldn’t join - lying about having plans, claiming she was tired or didn’t feel well, even outright admitting she didn’t want to go – but then Loki’s voice interrupted her thoughts, reminding her about the deal she struck.

And, well, after reading about the aftermath of Ultron and Sokovia, Theo realized they had more in common than she first thought.

“I— yeah, sure.” Theo swallowed thickly, steeling herself for a miserable evening. She forced a smile at Wanda, praying that the expression didn’t look as uncomfortable as it felt. “I’ll join - let me grab a couple things first.”

Wanda’s face lit up, eyes wide as planets as she processed Theo's answer. “Great! This is going to be awesome! Uh, you should probably grab shoes, and maybe a jacket - it’s still a bit cool out.” She babbled, still gaping at Theo.

Theo held up a finger, stepping away from the door before Wanda could continue. She grabbed a thick sweater to cut the breeze, toed on some sneakers, and plopped a beanie over her hair, pausing in front of a mirror to make sure she didn’t look like a total mess.

Wanda practically bounced down the hall, constantly glancing back to check and make sure Theo hadn’t abandoned her. Theo trailed behind, listening to Wanda recount the construction of the rooftop lounge and how this was the first year they actually could use the space, and how excited they were to finally have a nice, private outdoor space to gather. At best, Theo half-listened along, her pulse quickening with every step closer to their destination.

As they stepped out onto the rooftop, it actually seemed like the perfect night to enjoy a city skyline and a cold drink.

A fully stocked bar stood along the far end of the roof, while plenty of outdoor seating offered opportunities for everything from lounging around to enjoying a meal. The space even featured a fireplace table and heat lamps for cooler nights, which already had been turned on to cut the chill. True to the Stark aesthetic, all of the furniture came in muted tones and clean lines, sharing design language with the indoor common areas.

The other Avengers had settled in among a series of outdoor sectionals, some standing around the periphery while others gathered near the bar. As they drew closer, Theo realized that the company for the evening consisted of not only Avengers Tower residents, the Avengers who resided elsewhere…

Oh god, when Theo caved to Loki’s request, she had not expected it to play out like this; she thought it would be a movie night, or going out to dinner. Not everyone and their mother staring at her.

As if she sensed Theo’s nervousness, Wanda grabbed Theo’s hand and smiled at her, pulling her towards the larger group.

With every step, Theo braced herself for an icy reception, all the while building up the courage to put on a brave face. She met everyone once, that first day when she was announced as an Avenger - maybe twice, if she counted the briefing that she crashed - so at least there were no new faces.

Small blessings, she supposed.

Wanda didn’t go of Theo’s hand until they reached the edge of the group. It only took Wanda a moment to find Vision, standing behind one of the sectionals as he chatted with Shuri about something very science-y. Vision casually wrapped an arm around her, listening intently to Shuri, who gestured animatedly as she responded.

Nearby, King T’Challa sat tall, dressed in a hybrid of western and African clothing with shoulders squared back as he conversed with Natasha about the United Nations and Wakanda. He spoke with a measured cadence that indicated he put great thought and intent into his words. On the opposite side of Natasha, Yelena slouched back in her seat, scrolling through her phone while laughing at something on screen.

Not far from Yelena, Peter Parker told Tony about school and the latest device he was building. His enthusiasm struck Theo, and she caught herself smiling as she noticed the way Peter mirrored Shuri’s animated gestures, hands flailing wildly as he attempted to describe the contraption. Colonel Rhodes listened from the other side of Tony, with open posture and head tilted to the side, nodding along patiently… It was quite the contrast, especially next to the borderline manic tendencies of Tony and Peter’s unbridled enthusiasm.

Nearby, Bruce spoke with Dr. Stephen Strange - a tall, thin man whose expression was entirely too serious and his posture uncomfortably rigid, which, if Theo thought about it, made sense for a former neurosurgeon. Sharon Carter chatted with Steve, Sam, and Bucky, laughter regularly erupting from the quartet; apparently, they were familiar with each other and had a lot to catch up on.

Clint looked at home behind the bar with Scott Lang, snippets of conversation about their kids floating over the other conversations as they prepared drinks for everyone and brought them over to the group.

Loki and Thor sat in deep discussion with the Valkyrie (or, as Loki often called her, Val) about something related to New Asgard; seeing a Valkyrie in a chunky sweater and Timbalands still threw Theo for a loop, but she knew that different people would adapt different aspects of life on Earth.

Thor noticed Theo standing there, bewildered at the sight of everyone in one location.

“Lady Theo!” Thor exclaimed, standing to greet her. “Welcome to your first family night!”

Wait - did he just say family night?

Theo could practically hear the world screech to a halt as everyone fell silent, gaping at the new addition. Her heart stuttered in her chest as she froze in place, a veritable deer in the headlights.

“Brother—“ Loki hissed, rolling his eyes as he elbowed his brother. “Do not overwhelm her.”

“Uh… hi?” Theo cringed at how pathetic she sounded. “Sorry, didn’t mean to disrupt.”

“No apologies necessary - come, take a seat.“ Loki offered Theo a reassuring smile as he gestured for her to sit next to him.

“Watch out, the prince is rescuing Rapunzel.” Tony teased, a smirk on his face as he raised a glass to her.

“Watch out everyone, Stark is jealous that a woman is not racing to offer herself up to him,” Loki retorted, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Raucous laughter came from Loki’s response; even Theo giggled as she sank into the cushions beside him. Loki, in turn, flashed a smirk and winked at her, before effortlessly folding Theo into the Asgardians’ conversation. Without needing to ask, Scott brought Theo an old fashioned, which caused a rush of gratitude to flood Theo’s veins.

The alcohol wouldn’t have much of an effect on her, but having something to occupy her hands with was always appreciated.

Likewise, the others returned to their conversations. Over time, topics shifted and incorporated other people, slowly snowballing as everyone tuned into the larger discussions.

At one natural lull in conversation, Loki went to refill his drink, leaving a vacant spot beside Theo in the process. He barely made it behind the bar when, with a whoop, Shuri leapt over the sectional and claimed the seat as her own. “Ha ha!” Shuri’s face was smug as she shimmied into the cushion, crossing one leg over the other as she stretched her arms along the back of the seat. “This will make a lovely throne.”

Despite the stutter of her heart from Shuri startling her, Theo couldn’t help but laugh when she caught T’Challa rolling his eyes at his sister.

“Excuse me, that was my seat!” Loki scowled, gesturing wildly to where he previously sat.

“Not anymore.” Shuri stuck her tongue out at him. “Besides, you speak to Theo all the time. It’s my turn.”

The latter part of Shuri’s comment nearly made Theo choke on her drink - up until that point, hardly any attention was paid to Theo’s presence. Was that about to change?

“You are lucky I like you, princess,” Loki rolled his eyes, but let out a breathless laugh and shook his head. “Or else I might banish you to an alternate realm.” His threat lacked any teeth; if anything, it came off as a joke. He offered Theo a reassuring glance and the slightest nod, as if encouraging Theo to trust that Shuri wouldn’t make it weird.

Theo masked her nerves with a sip of her cocktail, allowing the notes of smoke and citrus to coat her tongue.

If Shuri noticed the interaction, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she struck up a conversation about a funny tiktok trend that made her think of Theo, eventually morphing into a conversation about medical technology.

Seat stealing, however, was only the prelude to a series of hijinks during the evening.

It started innocently enough. A few drinks into the evening, Tony entertained the team with one of his tales about inventions gone wrong - this time, DUM-E had sprayed a visiting SHIELD agent with a fire extinguisher instead of the computer that actually caught on fire.

While he rambled, Wanda glanced over and made eye contact with Theo. Wanda rolled her eyes before mouthing, “Want to see something fun?”

Theo nodded, curious to see what Wanda was going to do.

A moment later, Tony reached forward to grab his drink and take a sip of it, only to stick his hand through the glass…

Where a nearly empty cocktail previously sat was nothing more than an illusion.

Theo’s eyes darted to Wanda, who stood behind Tony sipping his drink. Theo had to bite back a laugh as Wanda grimaced and shook her head, not a fan of whatever Tony had in his lowball.

“What the hell happened to my drink?” Tony whipped around, looking to see if someone had hidden it. His eyes settled on Loki, who glanced around at the others as he held his own drink, casually taking a swig. Either Loki hadn’t noticed, or he was really good at keeping a straight face.

“Reindeer games, I swear to god-”

“I thought we’d moved past such childish accusations.” Loki cocked an eyebrow at him, unamused.

“He didn’t move, Stark. Chill.” Bucky defended the Asgardian prince.

“Well someone took it, and it wasn’t Captain Stick-in-the-Mud.” Tony retorted, looking around the group. The glass vanished from Wanda’s hand before Tony could see it, presumably returning to the table where it started.

“Okay guys, this isn’t funny,” Tony whined, completely oblivious to his beverage’s return to the table.

To her left, Theo caught Loki taking a large drink of whatever was in his cup to stifle a laugh – he knew exactly what Wanda was up to.

Just then, Tony turned back around to discover his drink in its original location. He groaned, slouching back in his seat. “Anyone who wants to turn in their cape for stand-up comedy, just let me know.”

As he returned to his story, Wanda winked at Theo before sending her a text message– “So we have a game during family time...”

Theo stared at the screen for a moment before typing out a reply. “Which is…?”

Wanda’s face lit up as she read the message; a playful smile pulled across her lips as she typed out a reply. “How many pranks can we pull off before one of us starts laughing.”

Suddenly, a message from Loki popped up as well. “The only rule is that no one should be harmed. Otherwise, it’s fair game.”

Oh. Apparently Loki was playing along too.

Another message from Wanda came in: “You want in?”

Tempting, but with her reputation…

“Sounds fun, but not sure…” Theo responded, “I don’t know that the others trust me. Pranking them might make it worse.”

“If anything, they’ll believe I am the perpetrator,” Loki assured her via text message. “My affiliation with mischief and trickery lends itself to suspicion.”

Not only did Loki speak like he just read a thesaurus, but he even texted like it.

Theo stared at the screen for a moment, weighing her options. On one hand, she could stand to loosen up a little and have some fun. On the other hand, pranking someone could go over like a lead balloon if the prank didn’t land well; she needed to be confident that whoever she pranked would not be upset if she partook.

By then, Sam launched into a story about his last trip to see his sister and nephews in Louisiana. Bucky had tagged along, in part because the point of the trip was to fix up the Wilsons’ boat, and Sam knew he’d need an extra set of hands. A pigeon waddled about on the roof, only a few feet from where Sam sat. Sam, however, was oblivious to the bird’s presence; he was too busy mimicking how Bucky stole Sam’s tools to fix a leaky valve instead of simply using his vibranium arm.

After over a month of listening to Julie pine endlessly over Sam and his down to earth personality, ass of a national treasure, and good-natured sense of humor, Theo swore she knew more about Sam than she knew about her own cousin…

An idea sprung to Theo’s mind. She set her glass on the table, casually lowered her hands out of sight, and whispered an incantation.

“How do you know vibranium would hold up to the steam?” The pigeon asked, cocking its head to the side as it waited for an answer.

Sam nearly leapt out of his seat as his eyes bugged out of his head.

“Wait a minute, wait just a minute – please tell me you all just heard that.” Sam stared at the others as they all gawked at the pigeon. Theo, however, snatched her glass and took a sip of her old fashioned so she didn’t give herself away. “Did that bird just talk?”

“Falcon, I did not realize that your skill set included speaking to birds.” Loki answered without missing a beat.

Theo nearly spit out her drink as she fought the urge to burst into laughter.

“Hey, just because I’m called Falcon doesn’t mean I like birds.” Sam argued, a twinkle in his eye as he settled back into his chair. He must have known there was some magic at play; if Theo was lucky, he would not know whose magic created the illusion.

“I want some of whatever he’s drinking,” Theo pointed at Sam, pretending to be oblivious about the use of magic so she did not draw suspicion. “Because that must be some good shit.”

“No,” Tony replied, “The good shit is the Asgardian stuff.”

“That stuff will knock you on your ass unless you’re a god,” Sam agreed with a toothy grin and a nod. “Even the super soldiers get drunk on it.”

“Tony, I’m assuming you tried it?” Sharon asked, narrowing her eyes at the billionaire.

“Of course I did,” he scoffed, putting a hand on his chest, “I am a connoisseur - had to see if the hype was true.”

“Until you had the hangover from hell the next day.” Natasha pointed out, a smirk dancing on her lips while she crossed her arms.

“Please,” Tony retorted, “It barely holds a candle to the frat party from hell-”

“-in your second year at MIT.” Rhodes, Sam, and Steve answered simultaneously, all rolling their eyes.

Tony must have told that particular story a time or twenty before.

“Lady Theo,” Thor called from behind the bar. “I’m about to refill my beverage. Would you like to try some Asgardian ale?”

Theo glanced over at Loki and raised her eyebrows at him, hoping he’d give her some sort of subtle cue about whether it was a good idea; he just smirked at her and winked.

Not helpful at all.

Then again, the night had gone well up to that point…

“Sure, why not?” Theo replied with a short shrug of her shoulders. She assumed that he’d take a shot glass from the bar and put a little ale in the glass - it may fuck up a normal person, but that was probably only when consumed in large quantities. A small amount of the ale wouldn’t hurt, right?

What she didn’t expect was Thor to bring over a massive mug of ale, filled to the brim.

“That’s alcohol poisoning about to happen,” Yelena cracked up as she saw the size of the mug.

Nearby, the Valkyrie cackled. “Thor, remember that Midgardians can’t handle booze like you can.”

“My liver hurts just looking at that.” Bruce commented, letting out a nervous chuckle but shaking his head.

Well, whether she wanted to share or not, the Avengers were going to learn something new about Theo.

“Oh, that’s what healing magic is for. Healing your liver after alcohol damage.” Theo quipped, earning a surprised snort out of Tony. A surge of confidence rushed through her as she winked, glanced at the deep red, clear liquid, then took a drink.

Given the ale’s reputation, Theo expected it to taste like everclear - practically straight ethanol that burned when consumed. However, a delightful, complex blend of flavors - citrus, juniper, and caramel - coated her mouth. Only a hint of hoppy bitterness accompanied, but each flavor in the unlikely combination balanced the others surprisingly well.

Theo smiled and gave Thor a nod of approval. “That’s better than I expected,” she admitted before she took another drink. “I was expecting something that burned my mouth from the alcohol content, but this is downright pleasant.”

“I bet you twenty bucks you can’t finish that.” Bucky challenged, a smirk spread across his features as he leaned back into his seat.

Bucky had no idea what he was getting himself into.

“The bet is just that I can’t finish it? That’s boring. Of course I’m going to finish it.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes. Sitting up a bit taller, she puffed her chest out in defiance and drank a large swig of ale.

“The real bet would be if she doesn’t throw it up afterwards – just because it goes into her system doesn’t mean she won’t get sick from it.” Steve pointed out, “Not that I think this is a good idea, mind you.”

Remarks like that were probably how Steve earned the nickname of “Captain Stick-in-the-Mud.”

Theo whipped out her wallet, throwing a $20 bill down on the table. “Game on. $20 bet that I can drink this and keep it all down.”

Bucky reached across to shake Theo’s hand before putting in his own $20 bill.

Shuri and Yelena whooped in support, pumping their fists in the air. Bruce sighed as he shook his head and rubbed his temples. Steve rolled his eyes, while Clint smirked and shot Scott a look of well, this should get interesting. Peter’s eyes widened, despite furrowing his brow - he looked like he was worried.

What a sweet, sweet summer child.

Theo took another sip of the ale, then spoke up. “We need some tunes playing. It’s too quiet up here.”

“Oh! I have some new music we can listen to!” Wanda jumped at the opportunity to hook her phone up to the wireless speakers. “It’s a local band that Vision and I saw last week. Theo, I think you’d like them – they sounded kind of like the music your band played.”

It was hard to imagine Vision at a concert, standing there with relatively stiff posture as other people were grooving to the music… He must have really liked Wanda to let her bring him to concerts. Did he like the same music as her?

Did he even like music?

Did androids have likes and dislikes? Or feelings? How did that work?

That was a rabbit hole to go down another day.

What sounded like some generic indie-pop music started to float through the air, but it was pleasant enough to be good background music.

Loki sent another message – this time solely to Theo. “Are you truly planning to drink the entire mug?” Theo looked up at him, his eyebrow cocked up with skepticism and his chin dipped as he made eye contact.

“Maybe I am.” Theo replied, smiling at him and winking as his phone buzzed.

Asgard wasn’t the only realm with particularly strong alcohol, and despite Theo’s small size she was no lightweight.

The group resumed their casual chatter. Wanda, Theo, and Loki continued to cast illusions and mess with the team in subtle ways, oftentimes struggling to maintain a poker face as the rest of the team grew drunker and drunker, and as a result became much easier to mess with.

Eventually, Thor regaled the team with one of his latest adventures off-planet, voice booming as he gestured grandly about some battle he fought in. As the story started to near its climax, Theo caught the way Loki’s hand moved quietly to his side and twitched as he cast a spell.

Theo’s eyes darted around as she tried to figure out what changed – it wasn’t until she looked up at Thor that she found her answer:

Loki transformed Thor’s mug so it was shaped like a giant penis… while Thor drank out of it.

Wanda, who stood beyond Thor’s line of sight, lost it, face beet red and shoulders bouncing as she doubled over in silent laughter.

From what Loki previously shared, Thor reveled in sharing stories where he prevailed as the savior of the day. With that in mind, the choice to make Thor look absolutely ridiculous as he drunkenly extolled his heroism seemed like it was as much a jab at his self-importance as it was just plain old hilarious. Theo hadn’t taken Loki to be one for juvenile humor, but she had to hand it to him – it was well-played.

Even better, Thor didn’t even notice the change – he set the mug down on the table as he continued his story, and later on picked it up to take a swig to wet his throat.

It didn’t take long before the others started to notice the mug’s new shape. The Valkyrie looked like she about to keel over; her shoulders shook so hard from silent laughter that if Thor turned around he’d know something was off. Natasha had to bite her finger to stop herself from breaking into laughter. Steve and Peter shared wide-eye, startled expressions, leaning away from Thor… who still hadn’t noticed.

The more time that passed without Thor noticing, the funnier the spectacle became.

Finally, Sam finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Wow Thor, you’re really swallowing that ale like a champ.”

Tony choked, then spat out his drink while the people around him recoiled from the spray. Steve turned downright crimson with secondhand embarrassment, hiding his face behind his hands.

“Yeah, you’re really gripping the shaft of the mug like it’s your job.” Bucky added, trying and failing to keep a straight face as Thor looked over at Tony and Steve, confused.

Theo’s eyes watered from trying not to laugh, and her jaw hurt from the muscle tension involved with maintaining her poker face.

“Dammit, I’m biting my tongue so hard to stop from laughing that it’s bleeding.” Wanda’s message popped up in the group chat, while Loki still effortlessly maintained a completely straight poker face and relaxed posture.

“I thought you were a bit too high-brow for a good dick joke…” Theo added, fingers tapping the screen furiously as she replied.

“I know not of what you speak,” Loki answered innocently; he glanced over at Theo and winked, then followed his message with an eggplant emoji.

Wanda nearly spit out her drink when she got that message.

Thor finally put two-and-two together as he looked down at his mug, then glared at his brother; however, he was laughing despite the glare, giant shoulders bouncing up and down. “Why must you taunt me so?”

“I hold no responsibility for this madness!” Loki protested, though the sparkle in his eyes told Theo that Loki knew he wasn’t going to convince them otherwise. “God of mischief I may be, but I’m hardly the only capable sorcerer on this team.”

“Well Theo’s been too busy downing some Asgardian ale,” Bucky commented, “And Wanda… Wait a minute. Wanda?”

They all turned to look at Wanda, who gave a deer-in-the-headlights expression as she pretended to be horrified. “The fact that you could imagine me doing this is mildly offensive,” she exclaimed, silently glaring at Loki. “Besides, Strange can cast spells too.”

Everyone looked over at Dr. Strange; one unamused eyebrow raise was enough to dispel any thoughts that he’d been the one behind it.

“Let’s be real – Reindeer games would be the one to make that joke.” Tony pointed out, “Which… well played, I’ve gotta say. Not much makes me spit out my drink like that.”

Loki smirked, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “You need to raise your standards, Stark.”

Steve, who was still mostly sober and desperate for a change of topic, looked back at Theo and noticed her nearly empty mug. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about finishing the ale.”

In turn, Theo downed the remaining ale and placed the mug on the table. “Yeah – It was good. But I’ve gotta say, for all the talk about how it will get me drunk, I still feel pretty sober. Are you sure you weren’t messing with me? This isn’t some fraternity-style hazing thing to bring a new team member on board?”

“No, my lady,” Thor confirmed, “That was genuine Asgardian ale. I must say, I’m impressed.”

Theo cast a glance over to Loki before sending a text. “You didn’t mess with this, did you?”

“I would never deny someone the opportunity to get drunk.” Loki looked dead serious as he sent the message, so she took his word for it.

“Well shit,” Bucky replied, his words slurring ever-so-slightly from his own alcohol consumption. “How about double or nothing – we each drink a mug of ale, and whoever is more sober at the end of the night gets $40.”

Steve tried to cut in. “Bucky, no –“

Bucky, yes.

“Deal.” Theo shook his hand again, confident that she was about to become $40 richer. Not only was Bucky already more drunk than her, but the Asgardian ale would only exacerbate the difference in their sobriety levels.

He probably wouldn’t end up with alcohol poisoning, so it’d be fine. Maybe a hangover, but not alcohol poisoning.

“Now here’s the thing -” Bucky began, “- Before your mug can be refilled, you have to do the Asgardian call for another drink.”

“Which is…?” Theo arched a wary eyebrow, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.

With perfect timing, Thor finished his beverage and demonstrated by throwing his mug down on the ground, shouting “ANOTHER!” as the glass smashed against the concrete and shattered into a million pieces.

Theo gasped and nearly flew out of her seat from the noise, heart pounding in her chest. She looked at the glistening fragments of glass, then up at Thor, then back down at the glass.

Thor failed to stifle his laughter as Loki rolled his eyes in the background; with a flick of his wrist, the shards of glass vanished in a flash of emerald light.

“Yeah that’s going to be a hard pass from me, dude.” Theo shook her head, stood up and walked over to the bar to refill mug. While she was behind the bar, she also pulled out a fresh mug for Bucky.

“Oh no, you don’t get to pour – we need someone neutral to do it, so we know it hasn’t been messed with!” Bucky called out, shaking his head at her as he moved to join her at the bar.

“Well I can certainly be the judge of that.” Loki volunteered, his voice a cool contrast to the rambunctious shouting and cheering that echoed from the rooftop.

“You’re really letting loose tonight,” Loki’s message appeared on Theo’s phone. “It’s nice to see you relax a bit.” Theo blushed and cracked a sheepish smile.

Loki strolled behind the bar, took both mugs and filled them up. Once satisfied that each mug contained the same amount of ale, he handed one mug to Bucky and the other to Theo. He then filled a mug of his own before returning to the rest of the group.

“As the judge, I reserve all right to document any embarrassing moments for blackmail in the future.” Loki told everyone quite seriously. Shuri cracked up and added that if Loki didn’t capture the evidence, she certainly would, and with how the Princess of Wakanda held her phone at the ready, Theo fully believed her.. Theo returned to her seat, noticing Shuri had saved her place; Bucky trailed close behind.

“You say that like I’m going to do something embarrassing.” Theo teased, holding her mug up to Bucky and Loki as if to suggest a toast. “To Bucky making one of the dumbest bets he’ll ever make.”

“To the new girl finally gracing us with her presence,” Bucky replied with a wide grin, “and not realizing she’s about to lose the bet!”

The rest of the group held up their glasses and clinked them together, after which Bucky managed to drain about a quarter of his mug in one swift drink.

“I didn’t realize this was a chugging contest.” Bruce commented with a nervous laugh as Bucky set his mug down.

Theo, recognizing that rapid alcohol consumption would not help Bucky in the bet, snickered. “You can’t enjoy it if you chug it, you know that right?”

Bucky offered a coy grin in response, his cheeks flushed pink from the alcohol in his veins.

He really had no idea what he was in for.

And I feel alright (Feel alright) Yeah I feel alright, Alright… I let go This is something spiritual When I say so Give me life, give me love Leveled up on a higher dose No sorrow (baby this is chemical) Hit just like an antidote (can’t come down, down) Adios (give me, yeah give me) Give me life, give me love Leveled up on a higher dose

This was certainly a different side to Theo than Loki had ever seen.

Her guard wasn’t up in the same way it was at Stark’s party, nor was she silent and reserved, as if it were a mission briefing or meeting. The relaxed, easygoing demeanor that Loki eventually uncovered after multiple interactions made its debut amongst the others, and for the first time since the infamous briefing, it seemed like Theo wasn’t afraid to be the center of attention.

In truth, Theo’s decision to join in the evening’s activities surprised Loki. Though Theo agreed to stop declining the invitations from Maximoff, Loki had expected that this would not be the occasion which Theo relented, as the large group could be rather intimidating. Instead, he anticipated that Theo would wait until she could verify that it would be a small gathering with ample opportunities to depart, should she grow uncomfortable.

Instead, the sight of Theo trailing behind Maximoff as they crossed the rooftop brought the first of many pleasant surprises in the evening. If the expression Theo wore when Thor addressed her provided any indication, Theo had not anticipated such a robust gathering, and for a moment Loki feared she might teleport away from the immense attention suddenly focused on her.

Luckily, that had not been the case. From time to time, Loki caught Theo glancing towards him with a silent question in her eyes, usually as if trying to assess the situation, but as the evening wore on the questioning glances decreased, replaced by smirks and thinly veiled attempts to refrain from laughing at the others.

Perhaps the greatest surprise in the evening came when Theo agreed to not only try some Asgardian ale, but challenge Barnes to what one might consider a drinking contest with the aforementioned ale. Given Barnes held two significant advantages - his substantially larger size and the physiological changes from the super-soldier serum - the odds seemed stacked against the sorceress. If anything, Loki suspected that hubris fueled Theo’s decision.

However, he was far too curious about the outcome to consider intervening unless things turned sour, and up to that point he saw no cause for concern. Theo seemed fine, continuing to engage in conversation while working through her beverage. Occasionally, Loki caught himself staring at Theo’s petite hands, her dainty fingers wrapped around the massive mug of ale. If he could be honest with himself, The juxtaposition was rather adorable.

Barnes, unsurprisingly, was the first to finish his ale. Theo, however, was not far behind.

“I have a proposition.” Banner spoke up, looking between the empty mugs with a twinkle in his eye. “I think we should give these two a field sobriety test and see who is more sober… For science, of course.”

Loki, unfamiliar with the test Banner mentioned, hesitated. “And what exactly does a Midgardian sobriety test entail?”

“Oh, it’s easy.” Theo assured him, standing up and stretching both arms overhead. “You just answer some questions and do some basic tasks, like walking in a straight line and balancing on one foot for a while.”

Loki studied Theo with some doubt; when she didn’t notice, he messaged her. “Are you certain it will be so simple?”

Theo typed and sent her reply without even looking at her mobile’s screen. “Bucky’s about to get destroyed.”

Barnes swayed the moment he stood up, nearly tripping over his own feet as he made his way towards the area where they set up the test. He hadn’t even walked half of the line marked out before it became clear as crystal that Barnes was utterly toasted.

Theo, meanwhile, seemed only lightly buzzed. She easily completed the straight line test… while walking on her hands.

“A woman after my own heart,” Romanoff laughed, clapping as Theo finished the test. “It’s not often we have team members who are able to move like that.”

“Girl, you’ve gotta teach me how to do that,” Shuri exclaimed, “That’s dope as hell!”

Theo gracefully returned to her feet, pausing for just a moment to adjust her clothes before she feigned a curtsy and smirked at Barnes, who simply groaned from where he sat.

From what little Loki knew of Theo’s background, the ability to walk on her hands came as no surprise - she had formal training in acrobatic maneuvers, and her goaltending demonstration highlighted her agility. Yet, she did not seem like the sort who would walk on her hands for fun… Though from what he had seen, she certainly was the sort of person who would do so to prove a point. Quite frankly, It was the kind of thing that Loki might do if he were in her position.

All things considered, it seemed like Theo might share Loki’s penchant for mischief and trickery.

“Normally gods are the only ones who don't get knocked on their ass by Asgardian ale.” Stark commented, brow furrowed and eyes narrow as he studied Theo.

“Asgard isn’t the only place with abnormally strong liquor,” Theo casually explained, shaking out her shoulders and stretching her neck. “There really are some places with nothing better to do than drown your sorrows!”

Loki couldn’t help but laugh at her comment, though the choice of words piqued his curiosity. Of course there was the realm she refused to speak of, yet it sounded as if Theo referred to more than one location. Had she visited other realms as well?

Surely, she was exaggerating.

“You’re talking about Michigan, right?” Stark teased.

“No, I’m talking about spending time with you.” Theo deadpanned, winning a lively round of jeers and laughter of the group.

Not done showing off, Theo proceeded to balance on one foot for five minutes while casually discussing the merits of different types of alcohol that she’d encountered and how the Midgardian body metabolized alcohol, far longer than the 30 seconds that were required for a field sobriety test (at least, according to Doctor Banner). Gesturing vivaciously as she spoke, Theo’s eyes lit up with amusement as the others laughed along with her commentary.

As someone who was an expert at embellishing stories, Loki could tell when Theo added flourishes or exaggerated details. However, any talented storyteller understood that the best tales required a bit of panache, and Theo was no exception. While the others may not have noticed, to Loki, it was painfully obvious that Theo knew she was putting on a show.

“Okay, I think at this point there’s a pretty clear winner.” Rhodes snickered as Barnes laid down on a sofa, complaining about the way the world spun..

Theo happily took the $40 that Barnes previously threw down on the table, smirking as she dramatically tucked it into her wallet.

“Is anyone hungry? I could go for some pizza right about now.” Maximoff asked, looking around at the others.

“FRI, you heard the lady!” Stark lifted his head as he spoke up to no one in particular. “Well… I was actually thinking we could go out for pizza?” Maximoff suggested, shrugging her shoulders as she pointed behind herself towards the elevator.

Frankly, after such lively conversation and company, Loki was nowhere near ready to turn in for the night… Even if “going out” was not his preferred activity, perhaps it was worth accompanying the others on their venture.

“As much as I’d love to, I should probably make sure Bucky gets to bed in one piece.” Rogers replied, his point amplified by Barnes’ unintelligible grumbles.

“Yeah, it’s getting late –” Banner glanced at his watch before he stood up. “I’m ready to call it a night.”

“I’d join you.” Loki nodded at Maximoff, lightly shrugging his shoulders.

“Pizza sounds like fun.” Belova pushed herself up from her seat. “I’d go.”

“I’m down!” Shuri added, stretching as she rose to her feed.

Theo had yet to respond, eyes darting between the others as they responded. She didn’t seem tired, but experience indicated she would not opt-in unless clearly invited to attend

“The night is young – why not enjoy some excellent company for a little longer?” Turning to Theo, Loki offered a wry smile as he offered a hand to help her up. “Would you care to join? I suspect Maximoff would even let you select the pizza place…” He shot a knowing glance to Maximoff, who grinned and nodded.

“Sure, I suppose I can come along.” Theo perked up, mirroring Loki’s smile as she accepted the gesture, and allowed Loki to pull her to her feet. “I’m not sure what my options are for pizza around here, so I would defer to someone else to choose.”

Loki felt a bit of heat creep up on his cheeks - he ought to have remembered that Theo only recently became a resident of Midtown, so her knowledge of local eateries would be limited at best.

“Oh, there’s lots of great options nearby!” Parker exclaimed, bouncing up from his seat. “My favorite is–”

��She didn’t tell you to pick a place,” Shuri held a hand out to stop him as she smirked.

Parker replied with a pout, crossing his arms to make a point.

“If you tell me what place you want to go to, I’ll suggest it,” Theo winked at the spiderling.

“That’s not how this works!” Shuri protested, turning to Theo and covering her heart with mock offense.

“Okay, okay,” Theo held up her hands, laughing as she shook her head. “Wanda, pick a place since you wanted pizza and I have no idea what’s good around here.”

“I can do that - Vis, you coming?” Maximoff beamed at Vision, reaching for his hand.

“I shall accompany you.”

And off they went, in search of pizza.

Mic check - say hi to LoLo Goodbye to normal Welcome to your mad world Where you can forget About your boredom From this day forward Well I will give you love on every level

If anyone had asked Theo that morning how she expected her evening to go, drinking a supersoldier under the table and then going out for pizza at one in the morning with some of the Avengers would not have come to mind. Yet, in another edition of “my life is stranger than fiction,” that was exactly how Theo’s night played out.

The pizza place Wanda recommended was fairly close to Avengers tower - down an alleyway and through a side door, the restaurant sat tucked in the basement of a bar that Theo recognized because she played a couple shows there a while ago..

When they first walked in, the atmosphere practically screamed “hole in the wall.” The lights were kept low - low enough that it was easy to hide the dirt permanently coated on the floors. The smell of cheese and cheap beer lingered in the air. Even at the late hour, the place was packed. Perhaps the low light was to their advantage - no one seemed to notice the group of superheroes as they made their entrance, which was a relief. It took Theo back to the midnight hours in Durham. Her friends drunkenly crowded into booths for food after spending the night getting guys to buy out the bar for them. Theo had to play along in those days in order to hide her magic and its effects on her body - however, the lack of drunkenness meant she was still able to recall the exact way the place felt. And this… this felt all too familiar.

When they found an empty booth, they wasted no time claiming it as their own, even if it meant they had to squish together so everyone fit. With the way they packed themselves together, Theo couldn’t help but notice Loki’s body against hers, steady and firm without encroaching on her personal space. Loki may have been her first friend among the Avengers, but that didn’t mean they were ever quite so close. From Theo’s observations, Loki seemed like he avoided physical contact whenever possible, recoiling from Thor’s touch and carefully distancing himself when anyone else drew near. Really, Theo couldn’t remember ever having made any physical contact with him that wasn’t an accidental brush of the hands when they handed items to each other.

Despite feeling a bit thrown off by the touch, she wasn’t uncomfortable… If anything, it was actually kind of nice.

Not that she was going to say anything, because that would absolutely make it weird.

The effortless, lighthearted conversation that started on the rooftop continued the moment they sat down, even as everyone made quick work of the first round of drinks and the pizza, continuing to the extent that it wasn’t long before they ordered another round of drinks.

After the waitress delivered the second round of drinks, Wanda swallowed the bite of pizza she had been chewing, then spoke up.

“Thank you.” Wanda paused, considering her words. “For coming out tonight, that is. This has been fun.” She beamed at Theo. “I’m glad you have a sense of humor. The pigeon was well played.”

Theo blushed, biting back a smile. “Thanks for letting me in on the fun… though I have to say, I think Loki took the trophy home for best prank of the night.”

This time Loki didn’t try to deny it, grinning with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “It is important to remind my brother to stay humble… ‘Tis best to not allow his ego to overtake him. Do you agree?”

Theo let out a laugh, just barely tinged with melancholy as she thought about her sister. “That is part of a sibling’s job description, isn’t it?”

“Am I remembering correctly that you have a sister?” Vision asked Theo. “I recall mention of a sibling in your file, though you’ve not spoken much on the matter.”

Theo flinched, though the motion was barely perceptible. Loki’s eyes flickered over at her - he must have still noticed.

“I do… but she’s presumed dead, like my parents. We got separated when we ended up in the other realm” Theo shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage, but the way the expressions in the group softened told her that they picked up on her discomfort around the topic. “My Mémère – err, my Grandma – raised me after that, and she raised my younger cousin, Max; he’s practically my younger brother.”

“There’s no reason to be nervous; family is a complicated subject for pretty much everyone on the team.” Wanda assured her.

Theo flashed a thin, yet grateful smile. “Yeah, I gathered that was practically a prerequisite for joining the Avengers.”

Loki snorted at her comment.

Wanda took the opportunity to change the topic, launching into the recap of the last band that she saw in this particular place. Apparently this was one of her favorite spots to go when she wanted to blend in and have some fun, especially since the poor lighting made it hard to be recognized.

As Wanda spoke, Theo noticed a young couple making out next to a jukebox and couldn’t help but smile at the sight – they may have assumed that the poor lighting obscured them from view, but their affection was sweet. Another wave of nostalgia from her days in Durham washed over Theo.

It occurred to her that everyone in the booth had lived vastly different lives from her own: a literal princess sat next to a kid who grew up in Queens; an orphan sat next to an android, who sat across from a frost giant/literal god, and on Theo’s opposite side was someone who trained to be a spy since before she could walk. However, Theo didn’t feel like a fish out of water. On the contrary, she actually felt like she belonged there, sitting in this cramped booth with six other people who knew what it was like to be different. And the best part was, she didn’t even have to hide what made her unique.

Her heart warmed at the thought.

By the time they finally left the pizza place, it was nearing three in the morning – the sun would rise in a few hours, however Theo was still wide awake. Wanda must have sensed that Theo was still ready for an adventure because she paused outside, looking in the direction opposite the tower.

“So where are we going now?” Theo inquired, looking between the others.

“Given you have a high alcohol tolerance, I think we should do some bar hopping,” Wanda offered, “This is New York, after all, the city that never sleeps. We might as well make it a proper night out!”

“The princess is out of her tower and there are some fine establishments nearby.” Loki added, a smug expression curling over his lips as he crossed his arms. Shuri cracked up, entirely aware that Loki was referring to Theo and not to her.

“I don’t know why you’re calling me a princess when we have a literal princess with us.” Theo offered a playful scoff in response to his joke, pointing at Shuri.

“The literal princess had a great time, but she’s gotta go back to Oakland tomorrow.” Shuri smirked and took a bow. “So I’ve gotta call it a night.”

“Yeah, I have a biology exam I need to study for tomorrow, so I should get some sleep.” Peter agreed.

“I head out for a mission bright and early,” Yelena sighed, “So I should probably go too.”

“They may be ditching us, but I’m down to go check out the bars,” Theo offered. “But I hope you don’t make the same mistake Bucky did - that might not go as well, since you aren’t a super soldier.”

Wanda laughed freely, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Oh no, I’m not about to try and match you drink for drink. Consider this our way of giving you a tour of the neighborhood!”

Vision, of course, was also fine with bar hopping; as long as Wanda was there it seemed like he would be happy.

After bidding goodnight to Shuri, Peter, and Yelena, the remaining four Avengers departed for the first bar. The cover of night provided protection from the stares that Theo expected to get walking down the street, though it was likely helped by the decrease in people out and about at the odd hour.

The quartet moved between local bars seamlessly. The sight of the Avengers didn’t draw the looks Theo would have expected most celebrities to draw - the other three, apparently, were regulars. They chatted with other customers and joked around with the bartenders, always making a point to casually slip an introduction to Theo in the mix without making it awkward. More often than not, the other customers would buy a round of drinks for the group as a way of welcoming Theo to the team, and before Theo could respond either Loki or Wanda would accept on her behalf.

If Theo didn’t know better, Loki and Wanda were on a mission to see just how much alcohol it took to get Theo drunk; frankly, as long as Theo wasn’t the one footing the bill, she didn’t mind the opportunity to loosen up a bit.

As the sun crept over the horizon, Theo felt the warm buzz that came with mild inebriation, having consumed enough alcohol to finally overcome her obnoxious tolerance.

Loki had a slight flush to his cheeks and a hint of glassiness in his eyes – there was no way that he could become intoxicated from what a human would drink alone, but between the Asgardian ale he consumed earlier and the other drinks, he seemed more relaxed than usual. Up until that point, Theo noticed that even when relaxed, Loki always had this air of being immensely composed, but that night it seemed like he let some of that properness fall away and let his guard drop ever-so-slightly.

In contrast, Wanda was comfortably drunk, allowing herself to hiccup and giggle freely while slurring some of her words. Not messy drunk by any means, thanks to Loki and Vision switching out some of her drinks for Shirley Temples when Wanda wasn’t looking (given how easily they managed the feat, Theo guessed it wasn’t the first time they had swapped her drinks so she didn’t get sick).

Vision was the only one who was sober, but that had to be a normal occurrence… Not shockingly, it was impossible for an artificial intelligence system to process alcohol. Theo found it odd to watch Vision eat and drink like a normal person, since he didn’t actually digest food and that he didn’t even need to eat to function. The sight was even more jarring when he camouflaged himself to appear like a person and not an android, which he did anytime he ventured into public.

Still, it wasn’t the weirdest thing Theo had ever seen…

With the sun peeking over the horizon, bringing with it the impending arrival of the morning, the group agreed it was time to return to the tower. While there was nothing on their agenda for the day that they had to prepare for, by that time everyone had been awake long enough that they were more than ready for bed. Vision and Wanda led the way, Vision wrapping his arm around Wanda to help her stay steady as she giggled and cooed endlessly at him, utterly lovestruck each time she looked at her partner.

Behind them, Loki and Theo strolled beside each other in comfortable silence. As they moved, Theo discreetly observed Loki. His normally upright, regal posture had softened. His eyes gazed out into the distance, though it didn’t seem like they had a fixed point of interest. He kept his hands in his pockets, and his expression reserved - just the slightest hint of knitted brows adorned his expression.

The man beside her was different from the Loki that Theo first met, or the Loki she saw earlier in the evening – the sharp, charismatic, and sarcastic prince was replaced by a much quieter, introspective man. Even with the faint warmth of the alcohol in Theo’s system, she could sense storms swirling in his mind that were locked away from public view. She couldn’t help but wonder how often he allowed that side of him to show.

When they arrived at the tower and made their way up to the residential floors, Theo couldn’t help but notice the way that Loki held the elevator door for her, and how he placed his hand on the small of her back as she passed by. It must have been the way that Loki was raised that made him do those things - as a prince, he must have been taught these types of gestures as a part of proper etiquette - but the feeling of his touch lingered long after his hand left her back.

No one else was around, which meant that it was either too early for the others to be up, or those who were already awake were off doing something else. Those moments of stillness were rare in the tower, and after a long but fun night out, Theo was grateful for the peace and quiet. Up ahead, Wanda giggled and squealed as Vision patiently coaxed her towards their suite. It didn’t take long for them to disappear behind the door, leaving Loki and Theo to themselves. The pair’s comfortable silence continued as they made their way down the hall, pausing outside the door to Theo’s suite.

“This was a lot of fun,” Theo commented to Loki, a shy smile on her lips as she took hold of the door handle, but refrained from opening the door.

“Indeed,” he nodded, sticking his hands back in his pockets and shifting his weight back onto his heels as he gave her a nervous smile. “I’m glad you’ve come out of your shell a bit more – it is nice to spend time with you.”

They both stood there, biting back smiles as they looked into each other’s eyes. In the peace of the tower and the sun rising, there was almost a special sort of peace that fell between them - a moment frozen in time.

Eventually though, that moment had to end.

Theo cleared her throat, a rising heat now present on her cheeks. “Well, I should probably…” Theo trailed off, gesturing that she was going to head inside. “Uh, good night Loki.”

“Right,” Loki blushed, looking away as he dipped his head. “Good night Theo.”

Theo found herself reflecting on the night as she got ready for bed. Yes, Loki, the little bastard was right - the Avengers, for all their initial assumptions and hesitations, genuinely did want to be her friend.

And despite every reason why Theo shouldn’t want to, at the end of the day… She wanted to be their friend too.

I let go (I let go) This is something spiritual (something spiritual) A vibrant soul (a vibrant soul) Give me life, give me love Got me hooked on a higher dose No sorrow (baby this is chemical) Hit just like an antidote (can’t come down, down) Adios (give me, yeah give me) Give me life, give me love Leveled up on a higher dose

29 notes · View notes

ender1821 · 7 months

Text

Do you ever have brainrot about mcyt and a particular song at the same time, then before you even realise it hours have passed and you have a written idea for how an animatic would go? No? Oh. Uh. Me neither…

Anyway uhhh totally unrelated there’s a written animatic idea below the cut for shiny duo and the song We’re In Love by boygenius

This involves a lot of pov/smp switching (and some headcanons of mine…), so for the sake of convenience I colour-coded scenes happening in different smps

Hermitcraft s8 - green

Hermitcraft s9 - blue

Traffic life series - red

Empires s1 - yellow

Empires s2 - orange

Cross-smp/non-smp specific/headcanon - white

#mcyt #trafficblr #empiresblr #hermitblr #shiny duo #god. I am soooo normal about shiny duo (lying through my teeth)#geminitay #pearlescentmoon #I hope someone sees my hyper specific visions about these two and this song #ender writes #(technically???)

33 notes · View notes

emaistome · 7 months

Text

Through the years, the A song of Ice and Fire Universe has blessed us with amazing, and nuanced characters. But there are some of them who are purely evil, and I’m referring to characters like Euron Greyjoy, Geoffrey Lannister and Ramsey Bolton. Our question for today is where does Aegon II from HOTD stands in between them all?

Aegon is the first son of King Viserys Targaryen by his second wife, Alicent Hightower. From the day he was born, everyone expected him to be name heir, but his father kept his older sister, the princess Rhaenyra Targaryen the heir to the Iron throne, despite the Andal Tradition and the precedent established by the Great Council of 101, stating that the succession would follow absolute male primogeniture.

He was neglected by his father, who was sick at the time and didn’t really love or care about his four children with Alicent. And his mother was physically abusive, meaning that she used to slap him when he did wrong things. Aegon did a lot of wrong things. Like raping servants, drinking, and watching children fight in the pits of Flea Bottom. He is also aware that he is not loved by his parents, which is partially true and says that he tries a lot to make them feel proud of him but it never works. The people around him forced him to usurp the throne, which was rightfully his sister’s.

I think that Aegon is a badly written character simply because the writers want to make us feel bad for him while simultaneously presenting him as pure evil, or at least they do very little nuance him as a character. Aegon does unarguably the worst things someone could do in the first season of the show, we are not told why he did, and there’s no balance between some good things that he may have done and all the disgusting things he does. He doesn’t have any goal that might make people feel interested about the things he might do in the future. Even the things he says that he tries to do to please his parents are not shown.

In fact when he says all that, it feels more like gaslighting because the discussion was not about him being lazy, or not trying hard enough, it was about him raping a young girl, but he tried to turn the discussion about this totally unrelated subject. Even if we consider what he says about trying hard, the context of the discussion just proves that he was lying. Because it’s not very difficult to not rape the maids in the castle, and just go to a brothel, like he does all the time. On top of that he’s the last person to wake up in the castle, even the little children that he has, have already woken up, and there’s an important meeting that he doesn’t even know about.

It’s not even the worst thing that he does; personally, I think that watching children fight to death is worse. And there’s no build up to it, again we just have accept that he does just like watching children die. He is objectively evil, with no redeemable quality. I know his parents didn’t like him but it is not written in a way, that it could explain why he is the way he is, or at least the writers failed to frame it that way, especially considering that he’s a prince who was raised and pampered in a castle.

As a character he makes me think of a failed male version of Pearl. They have a lot in common:

• Their very religious and conservative mother;

• The sick father;

• The need to leave the place that they live in;

• The fact that they seem to be born evil, even though only Pearl recognizes it.

The first difference is that the movie was about Pearl, her life and her feelings, while Aegon had little screen time in a show that discusses mainly the struggles of women in a feudal and patriarchal setting, and he iss a rapist who doesn’t face the consequences of his crimes because the system protects him. He’s the antagonist.

Second of all, Pearl has all the things that might make you sympathize with a villain, she does good things by taking care of her sick father and working hardly in her family’s farm. On the other side Aegon seems so lazy, and is always bored, he does wrong things and it’s all he does. We can’t feel bad that his parents don’t love him, because the bar is literally in hell, he still can’t touch it.

Pearl has goals, she wants to become famous and leave the place she leaves in, but Aegon doesn’t have any goal, any purpose, he wants to leave his family but it’s mainly to avoid doing anything serious in his life, while his family might die if they don’t take the throne for themselves, and crown him.

Lastly Pearl does arguably the worst things between them two, she kills all her family but every death has an emotional weight to them.

• She kills her mother because she wanted her to feel as bad as she made her feel about herself;

• Pearl kills her father because she couldn’t leave him all alone in the house, and because she loves him;

• She kills the projectionist because he lied to her, and wanted to abandon her;

• And she kills Mitsy because she thinks that Mitsy is privileged by being younger and blonde, and got the role she wanted.

But Aegon does horrible things just because he finds pleasure in doing them. He doesn’t draw any emotion from the public, outside of disgust and outrage.

In the end, Aegon as a character is like an empty shell. He has nothing to appreciate, and this characterization will have an impact on things that he will do in the future, or how he will react to events like Blood and Cheese. How him going mad after this event will make sense if he never cared in the first place?

In Fire and blood, his characterization was more alike to that of Robert, minus the good humor, but in House of the Dragon, he seems to be an annoying, and whiny type of Geoffrey.

However I still think that Aegon plays some roles in the show quite perfectly:

• Being the embodiment of everything wrong with the feudal system;

• Being a foil to his brother, who thought that he was much better than him but won’t get the throne, because Aegon was the older brother;

• Serves in the development of characters around him especially Alicent who still loves him despite his very bad actions.

His biggest enemy was the time jump, because the writers seriously want us to believe that all his troubles come from his relationship with his parents when he was younger. But the only time we saw him as a child he was still being loved by his father and mother, so it doesn’t seem like they did anything wrong to him. When he grows old Aegon looks like he has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). And for this part I’m gonna extrapolate a lot from what is presented in the show and make a lot of assumptions, because there is little source material to work with

People with BPD, have an unstable image of themselves, difficulties to regulate their emotions, causing an increase in impulsivity, they are thus subjects to intense mood swings, feelings of emptiness and fear of abandonment. Generally important factors in the development of this disorder are from bad parenting styles.

His upbringing seems more that of a quiet type of BPD as there are four types, the impulsive, the petulant, the self-destructive and the quiet. But I digress. The quiet type of BPD is quite different from the others. As the quiet BPD are often overly dependent to their caretakers and in Aegon’s case this caretaker is his mother, Alicent. It is mainly small details that show his dependence to her, like the fact that when they all grow up, he’s the only one to wear green, the color they all wore when they were children, Alicent’s color. For Vaemond’s petition Haleana wore a golden dress and Aemond was dressed in black. But he was wearing green as if he was still dependant on her. In addition at the age of twenty she was waking his up, when everyone had already awoken by themselves. And it may not seem relevant but a lot of times, commentators who try to understand him talk about him as if he was some kind of teenager.

The lack of identity is linked to his position as the only first born son, in his period to not inherit their father’s position. From a societal point of view, if he’s not his father’s heir, what is he going to be? And there is no one to help him find another purpose. His father is often lost in poppy dreams and even when he is not, he cares more about Rhaenyra’s children than his own. On the other side his mother believes that he is going to be king but not because he is deserving of anything or because she loves him, but because she believes that he is going to die if he doesn’t. There has never been anyone around him interested in him as a person enough to show love or appreciation. I mean, they were preparing a coup in order to put him on the Iron Throne and he wasn’t even consentant, he wasn’t event present.

The caretakers also don’t encourage autonomy and erase the child’s sense of self efficacy; the child’s needs are neglected in favor of those of the caretakers. We saw Aegon being belittled by Alicent when he was fourteen, and at the same time she was forcing kingship onto him, and forced him to mary his sister, while all he ever needed was love and appreciation from his parents. He even knows that he is not suited, and doesn’t deserve anything, it’s probably the reason why he wants to leave, and maybe he thinks that everyone’s life would have been better if he wasn’t there.

People with this type of BPD are often somber, moody, quiet, clingy, and very angry on the inside. This is not at all how I would describe book Aegon, who is more impulsive, but it goes quite well for Aegon in the show.

People with BPD often experience feelings of emptiness, and often exhibit very hardcore behaviors in order to fill the void. They are always in search of pleasure, and adrenalin. And for Aegon it is blatant that even when he was only a teenager, he went farer than other children, like masturbating in front of a window, developing drinking habits and using sextoys (dildos). The more time passes the farer he goes, he drinks more, and rapes servants and watches children fight to death, all to fill the void left by the absence of his identity. These are traits that are most likely to be found in a self-destructive Borderline person. They come from quite explosive environments, and have a lot of repressed feelings, mostly anger from never getting their needs met. And it often creates anxiety and depression. This type is like the other, they are simply vacillating, between obedience and recklessness, impulsivity and indecisiveness. And I think that we will get more

In conclusion, out of all four of Alicent’s children Aegon is possibly the one who resembles her the most. Anyone barely shows love or interest towards them for who they are, they are both forced to marry people they don’t like and take responsibility for things that they don’t want. The biggest difference is that by being a man, and a prince, Aegon is allowed to fill the void in him as he wants, because he still enjoys the highest of the privileges. While on the other side Alicent was a woman, and daughter to a second son, who had a name, but no land, and had to cling to other people and be more careful in order to stay relevant. I think that Aegon is a little hill made of suppressed needs and emptiness that come back as anger, self loathing, and an insatiable need of pleasure. Although it can appear to work it doesn’t, because his characterization is like a scenario where Georges R.R. Martin started Tyrion’s, story with all the things that he did in the later book, without all the build up to it. The cracks will inevitably appear in s2 when he will have to show more emotions, like care for his family, while he lets his bastards in the pits, and doesn’t care about his wife and children. The only interesting things about him are his relationships with Alicent and Aemond.

36 notes · View notes

gonzo-rella · 2 years

Text

I Will | Frenchie (ft. Jim Jimenez)

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Relationship(s): Frenchie x gn!reader (romantic), Jim Jimenez x Frenchie (platonic), Jim Jimenez x gn!reader (platonic)

Summary: A series of mostly unrelated vignettes loosely based on a face-value reading of I Will by Mitski; when you’re trapped aboard Blackbeard’s Revenge as part of his new crew, your relationship with Frenchie develops.

Warnings: Typical pirate things, non-sexual nudity. (Let me know if I need to add any)

Word count: 1.2k

(A/N: There’s not enough fics for Frenchie on here so I’m going to try to change that. I wouldn’t say I’m a hero but... well, what other word could you possibly use? I threw in some platonic!Jim because I can’t help but wedge platonic things into my romantic fics. I’m guessing my interpretation of what is currently known as post-canon will one day be completely disproven when season 2 comes out, but let’s forget about that because I loved writing this. I’ve been listening to the same three Mitski songs over and over (Washing Machine Heart, Nobody and, of course, I Will), despite wanting to actually explore her discography more, and I’ve even started writing an Izzy x OC fic where their dynamic is going to be kind of like those songs (though I might also write some reader-insert fics based on those bops too, since my OC fic’s going to borrow from some of the stuff I’ve written for this blog anyway). [Insert obligatory begging for OFMD requests here])

It took you a while before you fully adjusted to sleeping in a bed (specifically Oluwande’s old bed), which was partially because you shared it with Frenchie. It was made for one person, but neither of you had wanted the other to sleep on the floor (despite the fact you both were more than used to it). Though, the two of you soon realised that you quite enjoyed sharing a bed, or the sentiment of closeness that came with it.

The physical reality of sharing such a small bed was a self-conscious nightmare, at least to start with. The idea of waking the other up with one wrong toss or turn was mortifying. Somehow, though, neither of you minded when you’d wake up with the other’s arms secured around your waist, or the other’s head resting on your shoulder. It was actually quite nice. Thanks to the relatively close friendship you’d developed while aboard the Revenge, neither you nor Frenchie thought it really meant anything, until it actually started to…

That bed was where the terror of being aboard Blackbeard’s ship could melt away beneath the moonlight until the sun came up and Izzy came banging on the door. And, soon enough, it became the only certain place that you and Frenchie could explore and express these strange, new feelings that had been awakened.

━━━━━━━━━

Frenchie’s knee bounced up and down as he sat on the edge of your shared cot, which his hands were gripping tightly. He turned around to look at you once again. You were still unconscious, even hours after the raid.

He’d done everything he could: tended to the wound, wiped the grime off your face, brushed away your stray hairs. Now, you just had to wake up.

He grabbed your limp hand and stroked your knuckles with his thumb.

Jim glanced up, still sharpening their knife.

“They’re gonna be okay. Captain Bonnet survived worse, even when he wasn’t exactly built for it...”

“It’s not just that.” he sighed

Jim watched as Frenchie gazed at you worriedly.

“The Captain’s not gonna throw them overboard ‘cause of this. He won’t let Izzy do it either.” Jim insisted. “They both seem to think they’re a shit pirate, sure, but they know they’re the most efficient worker on this ship. Without Y/N, odds are this ship’d be a total shithole. That counts for something.”

Frenchie’s uncertain eyes met Jim’s.

“If they were planning on killing them, the Captain wouldn’t have bothered telling us to patch ‘em up or gave them time to recover. And, if either of them ever do plan on killing Y/N-” They twirled their knife in their hand. “I’ll sure as hell have something to say about it.”

As if on cue, you stirred, groaning as your eyes slowly opened. A sigh of relief escaped Frenchie’s nostrils, while Jim couldn’t help the small smirk that tugged at their lips.

“Frenchie?” you mumbled hoarsely. “How long was I out?”

“Most of the day.” he shakily replied. “It’s night now, so…”

You shifted in an attempt to sit up. Finally letting go of your hand, he gripped your upper arms to help you.

“I’ll go get you a drink, yeah?”

Before you could agree, he had already pecked you on the forehead and left the room.

Jim chuckled.

“Oh, hey, Jim.” you greeted weakly.

“Hey. How’re you feeling?”

“Pretty good, considering I got stabbed a few hours ago.”

They snickered.

“Eh, well, at least you get a couple days off.”

“I do? That’s suspiciously merciful.”

“Nothing to do with mercy.” Jim shrugged. “Frenchie told the Captain he’d cover for you for a few days, and the Captain decided he’d rather you get better than worse.”

You smiled to yourself.

━━━━━━━━━

“You really don’t have to do this.” you muttered as Frenchie rolled up his sleeves again.

“I know.”

His fingers gently combed through your damp hair as he knelt behind the bathtub that neither of you had ever really been able to fit into in all your time aboard the Revenge.

You rolled your head back slightly beneath Frenchie’s soothing touch, a quiet sigh escaping your lips. You couldn’t help but shudder when your exposed, water-soaked skin brushed against the cool night air that had seeped below deck into the room Stede once generously referred to as the ‘state of the art ensuite’. It didn’t help that the bathwater was already lukewarm, having already been used by Jim (who had long since retired to bed) and Frenchie; Captain Blackbeard had decided that if the three of you could share a cabin, then you could also share bathwater.

“You alright?” he asked softly.

“Yeah. Just a bit cold is all. I’ll live.” you answered lightly.

He chuckled weakly. The comfortable silence that followed wrapped around you like a blanket.

After five or so minutes, he reached for the (also shared) towel that had been discarded on the floor not long ago and gently ran it over and through your hair, but he soon paused.

“Not being too rough, am I, dear?”

You grinned and suppressed a giggle at his endearing sincerity. It felt as though you were being tickled by a swarm of cliche butterflies in your stomach.

“No, love.” you assured him. “Feels quite nice, actually.”

You turned your head to face him (a manoeuvre that proved difficult and painful in your narrow, metallic container).

“Thank you.”

After a moment of hesitation, you placed a hand on his cheek and stroked it with your thumb, then leaned backwards to press a quick kiss to his forehead. You turned back around before you could see his smile.

He continued to wipe away the moisture from your hair until it was dry enough.

“There.” he declared as he finished.

He rose to his feet, draped the towel over his arm and, having made his way around to the front of the tub, extended his hand to help you out of the tub. As you stood up, he averted his gaze and handed you the towel.

You scrubbed your wet skin with the towel.

“You don’t have to look away, you know.” you stated. “I mean, you can, if you want. Just don’t feel like you have to for my sake, is all I’m saying.”

He glanced over at you, keeping his eyes on your face. You smiled at him, and he shyly returned it.

“Could you pass me my clothes, love?”

“Yeah, sure.” he nodded.

He crouched down, gathered the pile of your clothes on the floor and held them out to you. The towel fell to the floor and you grabbed them from him.

“Cheers.”

After you had tugged on your clothes, Frenchie held the door open for you. You bowed at him jokingly and he chuckled. Making sure no one was around, you pressed a quick kiss to Frenchie’s cheek, grabbed his hand and led him back to your shared quarters. It took a moment for his awestruck expression to be replaced with a grin.

━━━━━━━━━

Frenchie wrapped his arms around your waist as he pulled you closer to him.

“Night, darling.” he whispered.

Carefully, you rolled over in his arms and looked at him with a smile.

“Night, love.”

You reached up and cupped his cheeks, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. He grinned. You then lowered your hands, slid your arms around his torso and burrowed your face into his chest. Absently, he stroked your hair and kissed the top of your head.

Both of you drifted off to sleep with the same small hope: one day, you’d be able to share your love, without worry, outside of this bed.

#frenchie x reader #frenchie ofmd x reader #jim jimenez x reader #frenchie #frenchie ofmd #jim jimenez #ofmd x reader #ofmd #our flag means death x reader #our flag means death #x reader #x gn!reader #x gn reader #x gender neutral!reader #x gender neutral reader #izzy hands #blackbeard #edward teach #stede bonnet

165 notes · View notes

thatonebabybat · 1 year

Text

Okay. Long rant ahead, but... I'm bothered by those ppl who use "SaYiNG GoTH IS A MUsIc SuBCULtUrE IS ABLEISt BC DEaF PeOpLE CaN'T LIStEN TO It--" as a reason for why they think they can call it an aesthetic or a fashion style. Like.

1. Blind people can't see aesthetics so what are you getting at here exactly?? Is liking aesthetics bad because some people can't see them? Your own logic is working against you here tbh..

2. The people saying this generally aren't deaf and therefore probably shouldn't be speaking for the deaf community. (I don't intend to either, so if you're deaf and reading this and there's something you'd like for me to correct or work on, please feel free.)

3. I'm sure most goths would be chill w a deaf person hanging out w them as long as they understand the history and are participating in the community in some meaningful way. Like, they might not be able to hear the music, but they may still be able to read/appreciate the written lyrics, or maybe they can't hear the music but they still enjoy clubbing and like participating in goth nights… And there are still deaf music artists so that's always an option too- Plus, some deaf people can still like music on occasion bc hearing aids have gotten really advanced, so to lump them all together as being completely unable to enjoy it at all is strange… There's a lot of ways a deaf person could still be able to chill in a music subculture. I don't think anyone is intentionally excluding deaf people from the scene. I would like to think most people would be understanding in that specific scenario.

..Doesn't explain why an able-bodied person with access to as much music as they could ever possibly want through the internet gets to totally ignore it though. I think it says a lot that these people are aware of their privilege to be able to listen to music and participate in the community in that way, but instead decide to use disabled people as a shield for why they shouldn't have to put in even a tiny bit of effort before claiming a 40+ year old subculture for themselves. They don't actually care about making goth more accessible, if they did they'd be subtitling music videos, or posting the lyrics and translations of goth songs to lyric sites, or making more efforts to make goth events more comfortable for disabled people… But no. It's just about them.

4. Even if someone decided being goth wasn't for them because they were deaf and couldn't hear the music, no one is saying you're a lesser person or "bad" somehow for not being a goth. Like. Deaf people can be goth. But becoming a goth isn't a requirement. If it's not your thing it's not your thing, but it does mean a lot to the people who have been in the subculture for a long time. If you like the fashion and not the music, just use another word for it (alt/darkalt is a personal favorite of mine, but there's other tags you can use too) and call it a day, no one's judging you for that. It's not like people who don't like goth music can't express themselves with fashion or moodboards, I'm fine with that. I like doing that myself. Just don't call it goth if it doesn't have anything to do with goth music. Don't flood a music tag with completely unrelated content. It's rlly not that hard. Idk why people get so hung up on NEEDING to use this one word for things that have nothing to do with that word. It's absurd the lengths people will go just to take over someone else's label when it's totally unnecessary.

I'd love to hear thoughts from the actual disabled community on the topic though. What do you think goths could do to make the space more accessible? How do you feel about these kinds of arguments?? I'd like to get to know more about the subject.

73 notes · View notes

willgrahamsbecoming · 7 months

Note

hiii anon again i need to check out your fic!!!! any chillywilly fics in particular you recommend as a seasoned pro? i’m looking for like canon-divergent multichapters ideally it’s just all the unrelated fics in the tag have put me off………

aajalkd yea a lot of fics use frederick as a means to a hannigram end so it gets a little complicated in there

let's see what i have... a lot of these are drabbles and total AUs so i'll have to dig

i found my reach exceeds my grasp by brian_zeller - oneshot (13k), set early s3 where will doesn't follow hannibal to europe. they go fishing and it's cute

in forty-nine hours by xevinx - 6 chapters (19k), set post-digestivo i suppose? will and frederick's flight/s get cancelled and they're forced to road trip together

rising like a boat from the mist by paisleycowboys - oneshot (11k), honestly i forgot what happens in this but it's bookmarked and it's a yakimono divergence

open up your hands and let me see the things you keep in there by littleblacksubmarine - 12 chapters (107k), explicit, set post-digestivo i think? will and frederick both end up teaching at the same university following hannibal's arrest

things we lost in the fire by carolinelamb - 20 chapters (60k), explicit, i've forgotten the plot of this but i know it's at least post-yakimono divergence (skimmed the first couple of paragraphs and it mentions being shot), gets bonus points for being named after a bastille song

confines by trekfaerie - 22 chapters (15k), explicit, frederick stays yakimono au again, written pre-s3 so very au from that point. margot and freddie are there

i might just trust you, maybe by percivalderolo - 10 chapters (46k), very very canon divergent soulmate au. once again i have forgotten most of the plot beyond this

and because i absolutely love this one and can't pass up recommending it, an au:

like voices on a string by captaineifersucht - 9 chapters (32k), explicit, will has the same job but frederick is a radio show host

goes without saying to make sure you read the tags/summaries first of course!

i have all my chillywilly bookmarks tagged as such here (i hope that link works) (there's a lot of smut there. proceed at your own risk i suppose)

OH AND MY FIC ::

quid pro quo by alexandelliot - very much a wip (2 chapters <3) but i'm still working on it i promise. wildly au! edwardian but only in vibes because i dont care for making it perfectly historically accurate. probably won't be explicit because i can't be bothered. fredsquared are childhood best friends (though that shows up in chapter 3)

uhm yea that's it ok grooversome thank you for asking ✌️

#ask #anonymous #chillywilly #willton #fic recs

12 notes · View notes

darkcircles4lyfe · 2 years

Note

You've written about queer rep and implied queer rep in MHA so I was wondering what are your thoughts on Aoyama? In the beginning of the series most of the audience assumes that he's gay or queer because he's feminine or not traditionally masculine, and I also assumed that his line about being 'different' was a not-so-subtle reference to him being gay. But flash forward!! That 'different' line is actually foreshadowing him being quirkless. I personally see this as Horikoshi playing with people's expectations and assumptions again. The joke was on the audience for assuming that behaving feminine = gay when there's really no way to 'behave gay', it's just social norms. Aoyama got a plotline with flaws and conflicts beyond what the audience initially assumed and it has nothing to do with being queer at all. He could still be queer, but the rep is casual just like Tiger. Horikoshi disguising quirklessness with perceived queerness caused the audience to miss the foreshadowing from a mile away. It's also interesting how Aoyama and Deku are supposed to be compared since they're both quirkless kids. Aoyama, the guy the fandom perceives as queer, being paralleled with Deku... perhaps another hint to Deku being canonically queer as well? I really wanna hear your thoughts on this haha

You know that song, “Gay or European?” Haha. Anyway.

I’m glad you brought this up because it appears to be yet another example of Horikoshi planting an obvious looking trope, only to subvert our expectations. And it’s funny because it worked perfectly. If you ask the average cishet fan, they would most likely concede that Aoyama is not straight. Even a homophobe would agree. And thus we all had to deal with the excuse, “Deku can’t be gay! Look! *points to Aoyama* this is how The Creator draws gay people!” He’s the Gay One. End of discussion. But I’m sure Horikoshi’s intent was mostly on disguising Aoyama’s angst about being quirkless and a traitor, like you said. I think it’s cool that his backstory ends up being totally unrelated to his potential queer identity. It laughs in the face of those who wrote him off as a flat stereotype.

When you think about it that way, Horikoshi must have made the connection that the angst around being quirkless is similar, and can even be seen as a metaphor for queerness. He’s aware of the double entendre. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there is also queer coding involved in comparing Aoyama and Izuku for their similar backgrounds. For the longest time, we were led to believe they have something in common, but were not told what that was. Of course Horikoshi must have known how that sounded.

That’s why I’m not so sure he used Aoyama to intentionally deflect attention away from other potentially queer characters. Idk, but the idea doesn’t sit right with me. People made this assumption that if he made some characters obviously and explicitly queer, then he wouldn’t try to be sneaky with others. But that’s kinda disingenuous. Aoyama definitely does still service the whole general picture of the manga seeming predictable at first glance, though. I just don’t think Horikoshi was like “I’ll make this character obviously queer so no one suspects Izuku” because again, he makes an effort to draw attention to their similarities. It goes over the cishet audience’s heads, but it’s there for anyone who is familiar with the more nuanced intentions and methods of queer coding. Maybe that’s the whole genius master plan, to fool the straights, but do a little wink wink nudge nudge for the rest of us so we’re in on the game.

#asks #lin speaks #bnha meta #aoyama yuuga #midoriya izuku #bkdk #bakudeku #dkbk #dekubaku

86 notes · View notes

christlois · 6 months

Note

//I just wanted to say, back in my Black Butler days (Which was WAY back like 2009-2019) I used to be a HUGE fan of Ash/Angela in particular, they were my first muse and for that, they still hold an EXTREMELY special place in my heart and sometimes I honestly kinda wanna go back to writing them lol //They were my favourite chracter, and Alois is/was a close second, I wrote cringey fanfic, had based and created a whole OC off a kinda "Combination" of them who I still use today, and also RPed him for a time back on a few ancient forums and Google+ when that was a thing still (I'm ancient lmao) //but overall the former ESPECIALLY barely had ever gotten any content - especially good, genuine content made from love rather than half spite "Look at this asshole" - and putting aside my surprise that the Black Butler fandom is still alive and kicking, i just stumbled across your blog and while I'm not sure entirely what Christlois is about (Please do feel free to give an explanation!) I just wanna say, a combination of my favourite things from my Black Butler days: Being Ash/Angela, Alois, THAT SEASON ONE AND TWO GET SOME ATTENTION, SERIOUSLY THEYRE STILL SO FUCKING GOOD!!!! ill be honest the direction it took with season three onwards kinda was a part of why i fell out of love with the series and just the existence of catholicism/priest aesthetics as a whole lmao) //For the longest time the memory of the Black Butler fandom had left a VERY bitter taste in my mouth since being around in it's heyday as an Ash/Angela RPer was certainly an experience lol, but just looking through your blog, though I don't exactly know what it's about, is such a sweet taste of nostalgia that while I don't exactly find myself missing the community, I miss the characters and story established by the first two seasons greatly. :,) It's kinda odd to say but I was almost certain that Ash/Angela would just fade into obscurity with offhand mentions at best, no one to love and care for them, and so glad to see that someone is caring for them where I couldn't anymore! //While I still find myself coming back to the priestisms (Leonard's 1.3 verse.... *Cough*) after all these years, it's honestly been a nice reminder on just how much these Ash/Angela and Alois have impacted my writing, both in muse writing and creative! Either way, thank you so much for your care put into this and please pardon the long message sfkdhbfkhkdfh

HI HELLO THIS IS SO SWEET OH MY GOD!!!

Where do I even begin? First of all THANK YOU!! I love these angels so bad, and YOU understand. They're a fascinating evil and a very interesting character concept. It's really cool that you roleplayed with them and I bet you had a ton of interesting headcanons and developments, more so than we got from the show! Because the thing is there is not a character as neglected by the fandom and the media as Ash and Angela. For their presence in Season 1, they are never talked about...

And that's not fair! They're so fascinating!! And thank you so much for the ask, genuinely, lenght doesn't bother me at all, and it's nice my mildly sacreligious blog brought some feeling of nostalgia.

ONTO THE INFO DUMPING! You're going to love this!

So Christlois is basically the universe of one specific fic, that being this one , written by me and co-written by @eemoo1o . It's basically a story about Alois turning his back on Claude and instead being swayed to Ash's side, becoming Ash's little puppet as opposed to Queen Victoria. It's mythological, theological, philosophical, and also really really disturbing JFJKSDF there's sebaclaude, sebastian being ciel's weird dad, alois being in-characteredly toyed with (poor boy), and ashgela being a total bastard.

here are some other goodies you might have seen, some animatics about it: part 1, part 2, and an anime opening, and an original song piece (I know...I'm very intense about this hgshdf).

Oh, and this! its unrelated but also I think you'd enjoy it!!:

youtube

#christlois #asks #thats so kind of you omg

8 notes · View notes

my-shields-are-down · 1 year

Note

Karaoke 🎵

#one word prompt # Chenford one shot

Congratulations Anonymous! I had two ideas pop in my head for this prompt. So you will get TWO shots for the price of one prompt.

+++++++++

#1 Because Jackson loved 90s boy bands

Lucy looks around the dive bar and instantly thinks of Jackson. “I go there to practice songs before doing them in more public spaces” he had told her the last time they had talked about karaoke. “I sing a lot of church music, r&b classics like Teddy Pendergast and Marvin Gaye. But I also come here to sing the songs, I would never sing in public - this crowd doesn’t care. They are usually knee deep into their own pain and grief they don’t hear me singing boy band songs. You know which ones are my favorites. I’ve always loved me some semi-successful boy bands.”

Lucy felt the tears begin to fall as she walked over to the song list and chose the song Jackson loved. A song that could speak to her loss of Jackson - appropriate given today was the anniversary of his death, as well as a song that could speak to her loss of Tim - he’d told her to “move on” three weeks ago. Yet here she was, covertly back in LA when everyone thought she was in Sacramento loving UC school.

She actually hated UC school, hated the premise of going deep under cover for long periods of time lying to everyone in the hopes that maybe, you’d get some intel on a crime worth sacrificing everything and everyone you loved. She didn’t want to sacrifice Tim, despite him clearly not wanting her. She missed him so much and she was beginning to realize and accept how important he had become to her.

Noah, her UC buddy, was somewhere in the dimly lit bar filming her, in her triad get up, crazy nails and make up. Filming this assignment of being one person in a sea of completely unrelated people doing something outrageous. She and Noah had been Clippers fans, in Clippers jerseys, at a Lakers game against Denver, cheering for the Clippers game they were watching on Noah’s phone while court side during the game. With their black hoodies and sunglasses, the news crews thought they were some celebrities punking an ex boyfriend of hers because they kept glaring at the Lakers bench. Mission accomplished.

Singing the a one-hit wonder from a former kinda-sorta-successful boy band member in a dive bar less than a mile from Tim’s house, where every song in the jukebox was written before 1980 should do the trick for her as well.

What she didn’t know was that Tim was in the bar, hunched over his 3rd whiskey trying to fill the void left by Lucy. Tim was at this bar because he had heard Jackson mention it to Lucy and if he got too drunk, he could easily walk home. Yes, ok, Tim totally eavesdropped their conversation and he came here to drown his sorrows and listen to some surprisingly great singers practice. Tonight had been too quiet. Too many of his thoughts festered in his gut.

Normally, there were songs to distract him, but tonight he just missed her. Lost in his thoughts and whiskey, Tim didn’t notice the hooded couple enter the bar. He didn’t notice the guy next to him discretely filming the girl now stepping up to the microphone. But his awareness clocked on, and Tim clocked in, cop eyes fully aware, when she spoke and then began to sing.

“I’m Sava. Tonight I sing for Jackson… and Jake. The two great men I’m missing and longing for tonight. Jackson - this one is for you.”

The first notes of melancholy from the sad song began to play, and as Tim watches out of the corner of his eye, the woman who clearly is not Lucy begins to sing.

Tim doesn’t recognize the song but is locked onto the singer… the voice.. he knows that voice…He flashes back to the aborted American Idol audition….despite what he told Lucy, he had heard her and had been mesmerized. Something in her tone or timbre called to him and locked him in place. And this singer sounded the same. The exact same.

Tim tuned back into the song during the bridge and felt the heartache and imagined it was Lucy, longing for him. And the pain eased slightly.

“Falling faster, barely breathing, give me something to believe in, tell me it’s not all in my head

Take what’s left of this man, make me whole once again..

Cause I want you and I feel you, crawling underneath my skin

Like a hunger, like a burning, to find a place I’ve never been

Now I’m broken and I’m fading, I am half the man I thought I would be

You can have all that’s left, Yeah yeah yeah, what’s left of me..”

And then, moments later, the song ends to a surprising smattering of applause and the grungy guy next to Tim ambles forward, wraps his arm around Sava and they go, leaving Tim alone with his whiskey, longing in the dark.

#chenford #tim bradford #lucy chen #the rookie #tim x lucy #i love them #i'm in chenford withdrawal #one word gets you one shot #karaoke #version 1 of 2 #what’s left of me - nick lachey #is the hiatus over yet

21 notes · View notes

marypsue · 5 months

Note

don’t let the sun go down on me continues to live in my head rent free so any DVD commentary of that you can spare would be much appreciated 🙏🏼

[from this meme]

Thank you very much!

don't let the sun go down on me

Before I start, I have to thank @trulyalpha / scoutshonour's we have the time, the inspiration, the blueprint, the OG Steve/Nancy/Jonathan vampire fic. Without it, this one wouldn't exist.

"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" is an Elton John song, but the place I first encountered it (and what I was thinking of when I used it for this fic) was Roger Daltrey's cover for The Lost Boys. So. There's that.

The first chapter was written and posted in a feverish haze in June of 2021. It was meant to be a one-shot; I never had any plans to continue it. And then in 2022 Season 4 came out and while I'm generally not impressed with it, I got absolutely obsessed with the idea of vampire trueforms modelled off the Vecna design and things...escalated quickly.

Chapter One

One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received about writing was that the story starts so much later than you often think it does. Especially when I'm writing oneshots, I try to cut right to the the part where the story I actually want to tell starts. In this case, there's a whole leadup of Steve hearing or seeing something in the woods and going to investigate and discovering a monster and some kids seemingly being menaced by the monster and going to the rescue and a whole fight scene that I decided I didn't want to write, because the story was about Nancy and Jonathan being vampires and Steve falling in love with both of them. And honestly, I don't feel like the story is lacking for not having that monster fight in it. A few sprinklings of exposition in the narration and dialogue takes care of it quite nicely.

I love giving vampires eyeshine.

Sometimes, it takes Steve an eternity to understand how things fit together. And then, sometimes, his brain makes lightning-fast connections between random things without his even asking it to.

Steve Harrington ADHD. I don't care what the show says. It just makes sense.

(On an unrelated note, OG Season 3 Robin Buckley also ADHD. I am getting off the soapbox now.)

“That’s my kid sister.”

There are two aspects of Jonathan Byers' character that felt indelibly important to me to preserve even in an AU: he is a big brother, and he is deeply protective of and materially supportive of Joyce. Turning her from his mom into his little sister kept both of those things intact even with the change in timelines. I felt particularly proud of this one.

...and wow, there is something about her saying his name with blood all over her face that Steve is going to just pack away in the back of his mind for later.

It was very important to me and to making this whole thing work that Steve is just wildly, unabashedly, maybe a little bit confusedly but totally wholeheartedly horny for the whole vampire deal. He's discovering so many new things about himself over the course of this fic, and a fetish for fangs is just part of the package deal.

He doesn’t want to be a vampire. There are probably a lot of very good reasons for that, and the fact that the only one coming to his stunned mind is that vampires probably don’t get basketball scholarships means nothing.

This just made me laugh when I thought of it.

“Oh shit, is it bad?” Steve turns to look at Jonathan. He sounds like he’s less likely to try to sugar-coat it. “It sounds like it’s bad. ..."

"Son of a bitch, Lucas, is it bad?!"

The whole idea of vampire thralls and Steve maybe becoming one was something that was on my mind throughout the rising action in we have the time, but never came up in that fic. I wanted to dig into the concept, and also, it seemed like a good excuse to force Nancy and Jonathan to have to pull Steve into their investigation of the events of Season 1.

Nancy and Jonathan basically forgetting Steve's there so they can rehash an old argument (and also drop some exposition because I'd never expected to continue this fic but I had backstory I wanted to sneak in) is so funny to me, one of the ways I wanted to show they were an established established (read: old married) couple, and also quite possibly the moment Steve fell helplessly head over heels for both of them.

His mom’s sleeping with Prince Valium tonight

Lifted this line from Beetlejuice because I think it's criminally underrated. Also because, as I mentioned in my other post, my go-to characterisation for Steve's mom is just Delia Deetz. Also, also, it unintentionally became good foreshadowing.

Just because he keeps deciding to do what he thinks will make the prettiest girl alive happy – Oh. Shit. She’s not alive, though. Is she.

When I first started writing this, I had Steve referring to Nancy as 'the prettiest girl in the world' before he knew her name. And then I realised I could do this if I made one little change.

Jesus. Steve hadn’t even asked if they kill people.

Yeah, I don't think he ever actually does end up asking that.

Chapter Two

As mentioned above, in about September 2022 the bug bit me hard and I resurrected this fic from the dead, with 'vampires, but make it Vecna-inspired and explicitly Upside-Down-related' on my mind and a half-formed thought about a murder mystery. I thought this fic had maybe three chapters in it, total, counting the original oneshot. I thought it would be quick and easy to wrap up. Hahahahahaha.

I did actually start writing this chapter back when I wrote the original oneshot - the scene where Steve finds the obits at the library, specifically up to the part where he's looking at Nancy and Jonathan's yearbook photos, was written in 2021. I decided to cut off the fic the night of Nancy and Jonathan's visit because I didn't have a direction to go in to continue it, and it felt like a complete thought. Also, I was only adding onto it because I wanted the mental image of Nancy and Jonathan in fifties styles.

And then, in 2022, I stumbled upon a direction to go in to continue it.

"...Why am I out in the woods at night with a bobby soxer who wears a virgin pin?”

Shoutout to @marzipanandminutiae who was talking about fashion history and popular fashion myths, and brought to my attention both the fad of circle pins for girls in the fifties and the myth that wearing them on one or the other side of your cardigan meant that you had or hadn't had sex / whether you would have sex. Fearmongering about silly teenage accessory trends having to do with secret sex signals didn't start in my youth, apparently. (Anybody remember jelly bracelets? I was a full adult before I found out those were supposed to be a kind of playground handkerchief code.)

I looooove writing ominous horror scenes where Something Bad Is Lurking and the characters are starting to realise it too but they will not know until it's too late. New favourite thing. Love tension. Love when everybody's thinking the same thing but nobody dares to come right out and say it.

You heard Chief Keller.

Yes, I have been watching Riverdale in fascinated horror. It's just...it's so audaciously bonkers. And so fully committed - at least for the episode or two each of them lasts - to its bits. I have to respect that. And it makes me feel sooooooo good about my plotting and pacing capabilities.

(Also, Chad Michael Murray giving an actually pretty thoughtful and nuanced performance as a charismatic high-control group leader, only to throw it all out the window when he got told 'oh btw your character dies next episode' and start gnawing through backdrops like the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar while doing three costume changes in two scenes and then trying to Evel Knievel his way off a building in a homemade rocket only to get unceremoniously and undramatically shot dead offscreen, not even by a main character, is something I never knew I needed in my life. This show makes so many choices and all of them make me want to take the tops off the writers' heads and dissect their brains.

But I digress.)

Usually when he’s on the receiving end of that stare, Hopper’s digging for something to tie him to anything from the giant GO TIGERS spraypainted across the courthouse to the beer cans and partygoers hastily hidden all over the house behind him to the rotten eggs splattered all over the side of a police cruiser, and the best course of action is to look wide-eyed and innocent and only say ‘No, chief, I have no idea about that’.

Just given who they are and what their respective roles in the community have been up until this point, there is a deep, rich vein of hilarity in Hopper and Steve both ending up in the Upside Down crew (I'm still pushing for 'fellowship' to refer to everyone who Knows, it's thematically and textually appropriate!) that has yet to be mined.

Happened the same year they opened up that lab south of town.

I'll be honest, I avoided saying much about how the events of canon went down in this 'verse on purpose. Partly because it's Season 1 and our POV character is Steve, who never gets told anything until it's much, much too late, but also partly because I didn't finish Season 4 and don't care enough to seek out spoilers to know what happened. And I think that what Season 4 tries to establish as Lore could have some serious bearing on what would make sense for the backstory to the canon events in this story. So. Please fill in the gaps as appropriate.

Steve drums both hands against the desk, and the librarian gives him a flat, unimpressed look that’s almost the twin of the one Hopper gave him in the reading room. Apparently he just has this effect on adults.

Steve Harrington ADHD.

Jonathan’s so busy sawing at the last of the vines still wrapped around Nancy’s ankle that he doesn’t notice the thick central stalk of the plant…thing pushing back up through the crumbling ground behind him.

I wrote a post about this and now tumblr won't let me find in search on my blog, because it won't show me basically any original posts I made between about June of last year and now in search on my blog, for some fucking reason. But. The way I conceptualised it is that this thing Nancy and Jonathan fought is the most stripped-down, basic trueform of a vampire in this 'verse. The two of them got infected while they were fighting it. Basically it planted seeds or spores or whatever it uses to reproduce into their bodies, and then grew throughout those bodies, intertwining its central stalk with their spines and its vines with their nervous systems so it could animate the bodies even after its intrusion killed them. Jonathan and Nancy both still have intact (or mostly-intact) brains, intact senses of self and memories. But they've also got new biological needs and new, compelling instincts that can overtake their higher brain functions in the right circumstances. And if you stripped away all the meat and muscle, you'd find something that looks an awful lot like this evil plant that tried to eat them growing on a trellis made out of their bones.

Vampires in this 'verse are a kind of parasitic fungus. (Which is also why ingesting their blood can affect the behaviours and brain functions of other people, and even make others like them.) I think this is the coolest shit and I will not stop talking about it. That is all.

(Also. Steve's still hot and bothered about it. That's important too.)

Nancy’s not sure how long they sit there, together, clutching each other and just trying to breathe.

Neither Nancy or Jonathan can see much of what's going on around them at this point, so I'm pretty sure this is where Brad found them. And how Brad found them.

Nicole’s not bad-looking, and she’s a fun time at parties even if she is kind of a nerd. And they’re both single right now. Steve’s not sure why he suddenly wants to pull away.

It's because you're already hopelessly in love with two other people. Hope that helps.

I can kind of understand how and why the fandom sort of collectively forgets Fred existed. I wouldn't say he was the biggest standout of Season 4's crop of cannon fodder for me, either. But you show me a weedy little nerd of a character who's using a prickly sarcastic sense of humour to deflect from a truly monstrous baggage of survivor's guilt and blame around unintentionally hurting someone he cared about in a way that can't ever be ameliorated or forgiven, and then be like 'yeah everybody in-canon and in the fandom kinda forgot about him lmao', and. Well. Now I gotta do something meaningful with him. I gotta.

Also, he made a good red herring suspect.

He thinks about Nancy’s apologetic smile as she said she thought she’d enthralled him, about how Jonathan had said or you’d lose your mind, and wonders, for the first time, how they know.

I also got to this plot point by writing Nancy and Jonathan's turning, stopping, realising they would not know any other vampires, and wondering, myself, how they heck they'd know all that stuff about blood and thralls. The answer that presented itself was: firsthand.

When she tries to raise her arms, to pull away the covers that have somehow gotten wrapped over her face, she bumps into something flat and cold and solid barely a few inches above her.

I learned after writing this that apparently the fridges in a morgue are like one big open space with all the rolling trays sliding back into it, not like a narrow slot for each tray with top, bottom, and sides. Oh well.

Nancy pulls the letterman jacket she’d been wearing from the plastic bag full of her clothes that they’d found in the trash. Her expression is mournful, almost stricken, as she takes in the ragged slashes torn through the leather of the sleeves, the frankly astonishing size of the rusty red-brown stain surrounding a single puncture in the back. It makes the tiger applique look like its snarling mouth has just taken a bite out of some fresh prey.

Have I mentioned lately that I love heavy-handed visual symbolism?

...the dingy little trailer he calls home.

Okay, so in the fifties, as I found out after I'd finished writing this, the mobile home park was still more in the 'new and exciting' category than what it would have been in the eighties. Think less Trailer Park Boys and more tiny home. However. I did not do extensive research before writing this, because I was most interested in the vampire part. And it seems to me that the kinds of people buying or renting holiday trailers to live in year-round would still have been people who thought it made more financial sense than buying a permanent building. It's also possible that Jonathan and Joyce's family were in a better position at the time they moved in than the one they're in as of this fic.

It’s been made clear to Steve on multiple occasions that one of the few rules he actually has to follow in this house is don’t bother your father when he’s in his office.

I talked a lot about what I think of Steve and his parents and their relationship and how a lot of it boils down to 'they're rich and self-centred and they're raising him the same way'. This is part of that - Steve's internalised that there are some rules that apply to him, and some that don't, and that that's just how things work, some rules apply to some people and not to others, some rules don't matter and some rules do, and it's all a matter of whether someone more powerful than you will punish you if you get caught breaking them. It seems consistent with his Season 1 characterisation, and also, it's some foreshadowing, in that it shows how the person who taught him this thinks.

Everybody knew old Gower drank like a fish.

Yeah, this name was lifted from It's A Wonderful Life. It's not actually relevant to the story, just a fun fact.

She can feel the tension in Jonathan’s arms, before she lets go. But he doesn’t raise them again. Trusting her completely.

...

Nancy doesn’t resist. She doesn’t protest. She just lets Jonathan pull her away from civilisation and deeper into the woods. Trusting him completely.

Parallel presented without comment.

“You didn’t tell me you dated my dad.”

...

“In Dracula. The vampire’s servant is named -”

...

"And from how you both apparently think humans are just here for you both to mess around with ..."

So, in case it's not clear (because Steve hasn't realised it yet, so it's deliberately oblique), this whole fight is actually about him feeling envious over Nancy and Jonathan's relationship, and between the two of them together and finding out about Fred and about Nancy dating his dad, feeling like he's not actually important to them in the way he'd kind of let himself think he was, but only one in a string of people they've used and abandoned. Steve's feeling like he cares way more about them than they do about him, and also maybe he's a little scared by how much he already cares about them. And also he doesn't have the emotional intelligence to identify correctly how he's feeling and why, so he takes it out on them both.

This is not a recommended course of action for dealing with monsters than can tear you open as soon as look at you, by the way.

“Steve,” Nancy says, like Steve’s a dog who’s just pissed on the rug.

He is really not feeling valued in this relationship, folks.

Also, like in canon, Jonathan will take anything mean anybody says about or to him. But the instant you drag his family into it, it's game over.

She only lives – her family’s house is ...

I made the same mistake Nancy does, went to correct it, and then went, 'ohhhHHHHHHHH'.

Chapter Three

I really, honestly did think this was going to be the final chapter of this fic when I started writing it.

I like Tommy and Carol because like. They're not evil, they're just high school evil. I like them best as people who genuinely like and care about each other (and Steve), who just have absolutely no idea how to express that in a positive way without the forces of high school social politics dictating how they interact with each other. Likewise, I think Tommy both looks up to Steve and resents the fact that he's second to Steve, and is always looking for little opportunities to both impress and one-up Steve. (Which is part of why he's second to Steve - because he's too obvious about how much he cares. High school, man.)

Except. He’d been so angry when he’d thought Jonathan was a murderer. Like Jonathan had personally betrayed him. Steve’s not sure what that means. If it means anything. He’s not sure he wants to think too much about it.

Some fics I write are about the slow development of feelings between characters. Not this one. Steve caught feelings before the story even started, and the rest is just him slowly realising that that's happened.

Trying to lay seeds of evidence for the solution to the murder plot while misdirecting readers away from where they're actually supposed to point is hard, but also so much fun. I tried to make each of my clues, independently, be something that could point in two or more directions. So, for example, Fred's notebook with his evidence that there was foul play in Nancy's death being missing after the crash points toward his accident being intentional, and the actual murderer trying to suppress the evidence, but it doesn't point to one specific suspect. Personally, I thought it suggested the lab most strongly. But when you put it all of the evidence together, you start to see that some of those alternate options cancel each other out, which leaves only the one, true murderer right in the crosshairs.

It's a technique I'm going to be carrying forward in my plotting in the future. After all, when you boil them down, most stories are, at heart, either a mystery or a romance. And romances are a kind of mystery, because you need to be leaving and developing clues about why these people like each other, and -

Anyway.

“Nance. It’s okay. It’s been thirty years. I’ve made my peace with it. I’m dead.”

I love Jonathan 'resigning myself to it so I don't have to hope for anything because hoping for something and (inevitably) not getting it would break me in half and somebody in this family(/relationship) has to be The Strong Reliable Okay One' Byers and love and consideration breaking down his shitty coping mechanisms so much. I also love undead characters being matter-of-fact about not being human when it clearly bothers them more than they want anyone to know. Two great tastes that taste great together.

And tried not to think too hard about the last time he’d had a girl who wasn’t Carol up here.

Steve: it's not weird that I'm thinking about sex while I'm inviting Jonathan and Nancy into my bedroom. Nancy's here and I'm in love with her. So it's not weird.

Steve straightened up and turned around with it in hand, only to catch both Nancy and Jonathan watching him intently. “What?”

They were both staring at his ass while he was bent over with his back to them, here.

(That's not a joke, that's actually what I was going for.)

"... You, obviously, and Brad, and Chief Keller, and anybody they might’ve told about it, I guess…”

Another thing about laying clues - it's good if they can have more than one logical interpretation, because then you can have your characters put the pieces together and move forward based on entirely the wrong logical interpretation, and then your characters don't look stupid or oblivious. (Unless, of course, that's what you want.) But, it's also good to keep bringing up the actual right answer to the mystery in conjunction with those clues. Not so much that it's obvious. Just enough so that the actual solution is kept in the reader's mind, so when the big reveal comes they're not going 'wait, who? What? Why? Where did he come from?', but 'OOOOOOHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh.'

Did I get this in this fic? That is for you to tell me. But that's what I was going for.

He was interrupted by a choked noise from Jonathan, and a disbelieving, “Chief Hopper? Chief Jim Hopper?” from Nancy.

I just think that characters having different perspectives on each other is a rich vein to be mined for characterisation and also for hilarity. And also the idea of these two being older teenagers when Hopper was in middle school just demanded to be brought up.

And since when does Steve care so much about what Jonathan thinks of him, anyway?

He is so stupid (affectionate).

“- said they lost the bodies, Joyce! Lost them! ..."

This fic was specifically about Steve and Nancy and Jonathan, and in Steve's POV, so I didn't really get to get into the other two parallel storylines. But I did want to give a sense that they were going on, and also a glimpse at what was going on in them. It's one of my favourite things about Season 1.

“This isn’t funny, kid. What, is Bill Hagan’s boy in the bushes with a video camera? ..."

Every interaction Hopper and Steve have ever had before today makes it absolutely reasonable for Hopper to come to the conclusion that Steve is playing a cruel practical joke! He's wrong, we as readers know he's wrong, but he doesn't have the luxury of our perspective on Steve and it makes sense for him to think it! I just love it when characters have impressions and perspectives of each other that are shaped by their experiences with each other, and are necessarily incomplete, biased, influenced by their own prior experiences, and not the same as the impression or perspective the reader has! It makes characters feel whole and distinct from each other and human, to me!

"... I mean, you are vampires. I still don’t even know what you eat.”

Oh, he did ask! I'd forgotten. Would've been in character for him to just conveniently forget, though.

... Steve’s sure would have had the neighbours calling in yet another noise complaint if they weren’t in Bermuda...

I love a good foreshadowing, don't you?

“You can’t be Mike,” she’s insisting, in the face of all the evidence. “Last time I saw Mike, he was just two years old.” “So was Will, Nancy,” Jonathan says, so gently. It’s sweet how hard he’s trying not to laugh. “No. It has not been ten years since the last time we were here. That can’t possibly be right.”

This, unfortunately, is just what being an adult is like.

He doesn’t even really understand what’s going on. Something about making a sensory deprivation tank, or maybe a battery? The kids had all kind of been talking over each other when they tried to explain. But apparently, this pool full of body temperature water and road salt is supposed to help them find Will Byers. Somehow.

Is it really even the season's big group DIY project if Steve Harrington doesn't not fully understand what's going on?

“The way I lost it on Steve, the other night,” Jonathan says, flatly. “That’s not – he’s a complete stranger, he shouldn’t have been able to get to me like that. I shouldn’t have let him get to me like that. And you, nearly turning him -”

Jonathan Byers: The only possible explanation for how crazy we've both been acting over Steve is interdimensional interference. The only possible explanation.

If these three could communicate with each other for five minutes and all get on the same page, there would have been no story.

Steve is so hot for everything inhuman about Nancy and Jonathan that it's almost embarrassing and I love that for him.

Were Nancy and Jonathan not sure about how to get into the lab because I wasn't sure how to get them into the lab? I'll never tell, and I'm sure you'll never guess.

Nancy and Steve calling each other 'Nicole' and 'Brad' in their fake fight was unreasonably funny to me. Actually, the whole fake fight was so much fun to write. I considered cutting it, because I'm not sure it adds anything to the story as a whole, but...well, this is fan fiction. Also, I wanted to give Steve a chance for his strengths to shine and to save the day in front of the two people he most wants to impress. He was angling hard to get himself and Nancy taken inside so he could 'call his dad'. And it almost worked, too.

That warm, wet something trickling down Steve’s forehead chooses that moment to drip into his eyelashes, sticking them together for a moment.

We all got that Steve realised he was bleeding and that Jonathan was injured and likely to attack him over it, and then went over to try to help Jonathan anyway, yes?

Something moves under Steve’s fingers, those black veins shifting in Jonathan’s throat like living things, and Steve has to swallow down bile.

Parasitic fungus!

There’s no emotion Steve can discern in Jonathan’s voice at all as he says, “I’ll kill you.” Steve has maybe never thought so fast before in his life. “Like Nancy with the dog,” he says, and Jonathan lets out a shuddering exhale.

Jonathan's trying his hardest to scare Steve off for his own safety, make Steve think he's threatening him, but Steve stops and thinks about it first, unlike when he jumped to the conclusion that Jonathan was a murderer, and - correctly - identifies it as a statement of fact. That Jonathan won't be able to help himself, because he's injured badly and needs blood. I figured this whole interaction was the moment Jonathan finally mentally went aw, shit, I'm in love with this stupid stubborn asshole.

“You’re not really much of a killer, man.”

Specifically, this exact moment, when Steve completely backtracks on everything he'd said the previous night about Jonathan being a murderer and places his life entirely into Jonathan's hands.

It's not really all that much like what he’d imagined, the other night, with his hand down his boxers. But fuck if it isn’t still lighting up those crossed wires in Steve’s head like the Fourth of fucking July.

The older I get, the less I'm interested in vampire bites ~not really hurting at all~ and ~inducing euphoric bliss~ and the more I'm interested in the people on the receiving end of vampire bites just being huge fucking masochists.

And he knows he’s never seen her with that dead-eyed, monstrous face on before. Steve’s dick does its level best to give an interested twitch about it.

In The Lost Boys, the only vampire/half-vampire who we don't get to see with monstrous, freaky vampface on is the female love interest. I think this rather denotes a lack of courage.

Chapter Four

I wrote pretty much all of chapters four and five as one piece, and then waffled over whether to split them into two. I even polled he studio audience here on tumblr (though not actually with a poll because I was late to get polls). I'm pretty sure the result was 'one big-ass long chapter please'. And then I went ahead and split it into two anyway.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling, having somebody else, somebody he’s made a practical career out of lying to, invent him such a plausible alibi without any input from him.

The thing is, while the perception of Steve that Hopper has from seventeenish years of shenanigans is incomplete, it's also not wrong. It is a spooky feeling to know you've been perceived, and with more recognition and understanding than you'd realised, but the person doing the perceiving still doesn't like you.

They’re both making their arguments like they’re concerned for Steve. But Steve, slumped in the backseat, resting his aching head against the cool glass of the rattling window, knows them both well enough to know that what they’re really fighting about is his dad’s fucking around. He’s heard them make the exact same arguments, in almost the exact same words, about who’s going to stay home and take care of his dad’s tropical fish.

Tell me you had a kid when you should have gotten a dog (okay, well, maybe you also shouldn't have gotten a dog) without telling me...

"...The things we do for our ungrateful kids, huh?” Hopper’s eyes narrow, a little.

If you can't tell that Jim Hopper would cheerfully strangle this man in cold blood and broad daylight just to have a chance to get stuck staying home with his concussed kid, then I haven't done my job.

“You’re lucky to be alive, asshole,” Carol agrees. Steve can’t explain why his chest suddenly feels so hollow.

...

“And thanks for saving my life or whatever, I guess.”

...

It hurts more if Steve presses his fingers against the bandage just over where the bite mark’s trying to scab closed.

I spent a lot of time wallowing in the sense of missed opportunities and squandered chances that leads Steve to take some stupid, risky chances - like, for example, confronting somebody he thinks is a murderer to his face. He's clearly missing Nancy and Jonathan, and feeling like he's missed his one chance with the both of them even though he'd never put it into words like that at this point, but also - he's trapped in the house with people who genuinely don't care enough whether he lives or dies to worry about him for his own sake, and feeling like maybe he doesn't, either. He was ready and willing to die happy in the woods that night, and now he's been denied that, and he's staring down the barrel of up to eighty more years of just the same mundane tedium and catty, shallow relationships and bullshit.

I had to raise the temperature slowly to a boil, to get this boy ready to do something drastic, and it's one of my favourite parts of this fic.

The lady at the ticket window tells him that with the Greyhound drivers’ strike, she can’t guarantee he’ll get to wherever he’s going when he wants to be there.

I found out about the Greyhound strike in the 80s when I was doing a little googling to figure out how likely it'd be for them to have a route that'd take Steve out to Pennhurst, and absolutely had to toss it in. For historical flavour, and to hammer home the sense of isolation and futility. It just dovetailed so nicely.

She looks over Steve’s shoulder, at the woman who’d reached for him, and smiles warmly, though there’s still steel in her voice as she says, “And you’d do well to remember you’re a guest in his house. Evelyn, stop trying to mooch cigarettes off the visitors, you and I both know the doctor doesn’t want you to have them.”

'Spooky scary asylum inmates' is a shitty trope that sucks. Steve absolutely 100% would have no other schema for mental illness, though. I tried to thread that needle by having him react initially with horror to the weird, strange, freaky behaviour of the inmates, and then recontextualise that behaviour as like. yeah she just wants to bum a cigarette. what's your problem. Also to keep reminding Steve that hey, you were like three drops of blood away from being in that exact same position, and your future health and sanity is Not Guaranteed. Not sure how much any of that succeeded but. There was only so much lipstick I was gonna be able to put on that pig.

Why Steve can’t just leave it alone. His life is better, they chorus in the theatre of his imagination, if he just shuts up and keeps his head down and pretends not to notice or care like the coward he is.

There is a question that the show raises and that I think this fic is asking, which is, was Steve always the kind of guy who'd go running to the rescue with a bat when it came down to the wire and people's lives were on the line, no questions asked, or did he need Nancy's influence to let him become that? And the answer is yes. I do like how in canon it's Tommy's goading about how Steve always runs away that ends up getting him to go face his fuckups and his fears. How it's his old friends, being their shitty selves, who help move him toward becoming a better version of himself. I have several emotions and none of them are coherent.

“Hey, I’ve got to get going, I was really just passing by – but when Jonathan comes back, let him know I was looking for him? That I wanna talk to him? Or Nancy, if you see her.”

In my original draft, Steve came straight home from Pennhurst and went and confronted his dad. (Well, okay, he had dinner first.) And then I realised there was no reason for Nancy and Jonathan to break their 'we're going to stay away from Steve so maybe we don't accidentally murder him for real this time' streak, and they probably wouldn't be coming to the rescue. Which is why this scene's here. However. I like it a lot and I'm glad it's here. Steve very awkwardly trying to interact with anyone other than Nancy and Jonathan immediately post-Season 1 gives me life.

... or some kind of strategy to stop Logansport’s freakishly fast point guard from kicking all their asses.

I did Actual Research for this line (read: I looked on Google Maps and compared the positioning of Hawkins within Indiana on the Season 2-3 geological survey map to small-ish cities in the area who could believably be high school rivals to their sports teams, and also looked at the Wikipedia page for 'basketball'). I will have it appreciated.

Of life before it all turned upside down on him.

I will not stop making stupid jokes and that is a threat.

His mom jokes over dinner that maybe Steve should be concussed more often, it’s been so quiet and peaceful around the house.

A+ Parenting

I talked at length about the confrontation between Steve and his dad, so I won't rehash it.

“You should know,” she says, taking a single step toward them, as slow and deliberate as her nod. “After all, you were the one who killed me.”

Nancy Absolutely Did Not know this until approximately ten minutes ago. She is doing a fantastic job of bluffing.

“I didn’t,” Jonathan says, low enough that at first Steve isn’t sure if he really heard it at all. “You believe me, right? I didn’t.” “What? Barbara? I know that, he has no idea what he’s talking about, can we just go?”

Jonathan still can't quite believe that Steve doesn't actually think he's a heartless, remorseless killer without anything human left in him. Mostly because that's sort of how Jonathan's been thinking about himself for the last thirty years. (Remorseless killers usually do not have this much angst about their lack of remorse, Jonathan. Protip.)

Chapter Five

After what he’s heard, tonight, he doesn’t want to give his dad the chance to say that Steve went after him, that the knife was self-defense. That a combination of the concussion and some local history project just deluded Steve into thinking his dad was a killer.

I got a lot of comments on chapter four about how Steve's dad wasn't thinking and how was he planning to get away with murder after he killed his own son in his own office in cold blood. I let myself go down the rabbit hole a little thinking about how, exactly, he would try to get away with it. And I think Steve knows his dad well enough by now to have a pretty good idea.

It turns out that limping into a police station covered in your own blood is a great way to get a lot of attention very quickly.

I'm just very proud of this line.

“Jesus, Harrington, they’re gonna have to start giving you frequent flyer miles.”

I promise I didn't set out writing this fic planning to nearly kill Steve three separate times. It just...happened.

... Hopper shoots an awkward, try-hard grin in Steve’s direction and drops into the chair beside his hospital bed. “Heyyyy, kid. How you feeling.”

I just think Hopper's absolutely abysmal bedside manner in Season 2 is the funniest thing. And. Well. Just made myself sad thinking about the possible reasons why he's so bad at being normal beside a hospital bed with a kid in it. Okay!

It seems to me to be a very popular trope for Steve to end up getting kind of pseudo-adopted by Hopper and Joyce. I see why it appeals, but it's never clicked for me. And yet. The logical progression of this fic led me here. Never say 'I'll never write...'.

At least Will sounds slightly less accusing than Mike Wheeler had when he says, “What’re you doing here?”

We collectively as a fandom do not honour Will Byers' sassmaster energy enough.

“Yeah, no shit I’m upset. What was that? Just drop me and run like an unwanted baby at a firehouse?”

Steve is...kind of a fascinating contradiction in terms, in some ways, to me. I see a lot of fanon where he's very much a sick cat about things that bother him, that he'll shut down and try to hide what he's feeling for the sake of other people, and I don't think that's wrong necessarily but I do think it's...incomplete. Like, maybe he would downplay the seriousness of his own hurts and how much they're affecting him if being honest about them would hurt other people...but that absolutely doesn't mean he's not going to bitch about them. Loudly.

“Witless protection program,” Jonathan says.

We also as a fandom collectively need to appreciate how funny Jonathan is more often.

This whole confrontation was a bit of a balancing act. I didn't want it to turn into an angstfest. There was a certain degree of 'avoiding you for your own good'/'denying my feelings for your sake' mutual pining going on in this story, and I really needed there to be a good reason why these characters didn't just communicate with each other (or, at least, for the characters themselves to feel like they had a good reason). I also didn't want to wallow in that misunderstanding, because quite frankly it drives me batty when characters who are mutually into each other end up in a situation where it's almost unavoidable that their true feelings must come out and they must communicate, but they squander it on doing everything in their power to deliberately interpret everything the character they're into does or says as rejection, and deliberately hiding all of their actual thoughts and feelings to try to drive off the character they're into. Like, at a certain point you step past obliviousness and into 'yeah maybe you guys shouldn't be together, actually, if this is how you're gonna be'. These guys aren't communicating well, but god dammit, they're communicating.

It’s so – direct. No hesitation. None of Jonathan’s usual holding back. Just confidence, certainty.

Jonathan Byers has never been hotter than that moment in the hallway in Season 1 where he's throwing that lighter and that's just facts. It's the purpose, clarity, and confidence.

Jonathan devours his mouth like – like he’s starving to death and Steve’s an open wound.

I was proud of this line, too.

... and turns on the smile that’s made half the female population of Hawkins High turn cherry-red and suddenly become very amused by the floor.

This is totally the face he gave Nancy when he was trying to convince her to play 'strip flashcards' in s1e1.

...Jonathan’s got an arm around her waist and his face pressed into the crook of her neck, pressing kisses to the pale skin exposed by the slip of her robe. She raises an arm to cradle his head...

And this is absolutely the Dirty Dancing pose. Minus the side-skimming hand gesture that tickled Jennifer Grey badly enough to bust out laughing.

“I don’t have any blood flow,” he says, sounding defensive. “It’s got to be within a couple hours after I’ve eaten if you want me to, uh.”

I went back and forth on whether to include this, and finally decided I was leaving it in because it made my friends laugh. And because I love speculative fantasy xenobiology in action. 'But Mary, drinking blood won't introduce it to the circulatory -' I already told you these vampires are a parasitic fungus animating dead flesh, right? The fungus uses fine tentacle-vine-root-things woven through the flesh to puppeteer it? And the fungus feeds on blood, which means it uses blood for energy to, for example, move its limbs? I can bullshit this one if I want to. (Which I do.)

He remembers thinking the snake was beautiful, even as he was nearly pissing his pants in terror that it’d bite him. And now that he’s thinking about it, that comparison feels a little on the nose.

I got halfway through writing that first sentence and realised it needed a lampshade, badly.

Carol even styles Steve’s hair how he likes it, when she’s done. And there’s no way she could’ve known how looking in the mirror and seeing the hair that earned him his nickname perched on top of the haunted, battered face of a boy Steve barely recognises would make him suddenly and unexpectedly feel like throwing up.

The metaphor here may be a little unsubtle. Carol and Tommy are actually trying to be good friends to Steve, in their own, selfish, high-school-politics-influenced way. And it's got to hurt when he rejects that. But they're trying to make him feel better by getting him back to his old self. And that's only making it worse.

... some four-eyed fairy who took Nicole out to the movies last weekend in this classic car he’d restored. For this cardinal sin, one of Tommy’s buddies tracked down the auto wrecker’s where the kid’s been keeping the car while he works on it, so tonight –

I stand by my theory that Chrissy Cunningham's name is a reference to Stephen King's Christine. And so is this.

... Steve’s dating two people at once. (He tried that, once before, with Laurie and Becky. It did not end well. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing what he knows now, maybe he should’ve just asked them both if they’d be cool with it. Although he thinks the answer probably still would’ve been no.)

It is very important to me that, even when he is Having Self-Affirming Realisations and Growing As A Person, Steve is still a teenage boy.

Nancy, it turns out, likes gritty courtroom dramas.

It took me a while to figure out what kind of movies I think Nancy would like. John Grisham adaptations and Twelve Angry Men seem up her alley, though.

Jonathan’s shoulders are starting to hunch forward, turtling in on himself. He still hasn’t even moved to touch the glass Steve put in front of him.

As far as I know it's never explicitly stated in canon that Lonnie Byers is an alcoholic, and he's not even Jonathan's dad in this fic anyway, but it just makes sense to me that Jonathan does not enjoy drinking or being drunk or being around drunk people and I'm going to carry that through in everything I write.

The guy who helps Steve find what he’s looking for really knows his stuff, even if he can’t seem to resist a cheesy pun.

I love Bob Newby and I'm going to shoehorn him in everywhere I possibly can. That is all.

The scene with the kids and the D&D game was pure self-indulgence. If I were a better writer or this were a more professional piece, I might have cut it. However, this is fanfiction, and driver picks the music.

I moved Steve out to California one part so that I could do this whole thematic bit about Nancy and Jonathan choosing him, choosing to stay with him, one part because I realised I really had burned his life in Hawkins down to the ground and the most hopeful thing would be for him to be able to start over, and one part because I just thought it would be fun.

“We’ve got nothing but time.”

This was a little bit a nod to we have the time.

There was no way this fic was ever going to be complete without Steve getting to at least meet Robin. They have a beautiful friendship ahead of them.

(I've got to be honest, I've never vibed with Argyle. He annoys me on a fundamental level. But there was something about including him in this scene and in the nascent relationship between these versions of Robin and Steve that just...worked. As with Murray and Owens, whether or not a character is unbearably irritating can be a matter of which other characters they get to bounce off of and what they bring out of each other as much as that character in a vacuum.)

And that's all she wrote! I still have a vague, half-formed idea in my mind about a sequel (Barbara Holland wasn't as dead - or perhaps quite the kind of dead - that everybody thought, and El opening the Gate got her brought back as a specimen for experimentation, and something something something the US government is trying to weaponise vampirism and something something) but it never congealed into an actual plot so it's unlikely to ever materialise.

(I will tell you, because I'm not planning to write it anymore, that I had an idea for a scene where Steve, in thrall to the military's vampiric supersoldier, is forced to lure Nancy and Jonathan into a trap, and then successfully rules-lawyers his instructions into letting him cut himself so that his blood can distract the less-experienced vamp and Nancy and Jonathan can tear the bitch apart. Which would have left Steve mentally fine but physically more durable and slower to age. Felt it was a rather clever way to thread that needle. No I didn't steal this wholesale from Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse shut up.)

#chatter #this is mary's fic tag #stranger things

6 notes · View notes

sexybabystevie · 1 year

Note

i saw someone else do this and IM DYING to know so... if you had to assign each mutual a taylor album what would they all be assigned?

i already know i'm gonna forget people because i still, unfortunately, do not have all of my mutuals on my list (ugh i keep forgetting :") ) but here we go!! if i don't tag you i'm sorry, and if you reply i'd love to add you!! <333

starting with ally since she sent this in :)

ally @yoalchumly - red tv. not only because you listened to atw10 for HOURS upon hours in a single week lol, but also because a lot of how we met and the things we talked about remind me of the topics of this album. also, you have the very sincere, heartfelt and emotional (not at all in a bad way) nature to you, and to me that's what encapsulates the red album <3

lily @my-my-only-angel - (first of all i am SO sorry we hardly ever interact, but ily!! my tumblr feed sucks these days and i rarely ever see your posts but i still very much appreciate you!!) to me, you are SO cool it's not even funny. and you have the best bad bitch energy (a lot of people here a going to be hearing this btw so be prepared) so ultimately i'm bestowing upon you reputation!! you give off the vibes of someone who is unapologetically and confidently themselves, and i really admire that in you! that energy is absolutely present and rep and there is why i associate it with you!! <3

ela @lovelyela - (i know you're still kind of inactive but that's totally okay! i've been a mess about my blog recently so it's not biggie, but i wanna include you anyway so i hope that's okay!!) every time i've spoken to you, you have been absolutely so kind and sweet! you were one of my first even stranger things related mutuals, and i'll never forget that!! for that reason, i'm giving you debut album taylor swift!! you have the very kind, shy kind of vibe that that lbum has as a whole to me!! <3

natti @natti-ice - okay. you are literally so cool i'm not even kidding. like i am SO honored that you're one of my mutuals/friends and i LOVE always seeing you in my feed! so i'm also giving you reputation because, again, you have amazing energy that's very confident and you're just SO cool <3

vic @royalmaybank - we haven't interacted in like. a REALLY long time and i am so sorry!! i absolutely need to catch up on what you've written recently!! to me, you give off both the vibes of lover and folklore, but if i had to ultimately pick one then i think i'd go with folklore! the softness and calmness of it all, combined with the way that to me, every song on that album feels so made with love reminds me of you!! <3

anna @keeryshouse - anna!! we haven't talked in SO long but i'll literally never forget the first time we talked!! i always looked up to you a lot and that was just so so special to me! (and also when that anon said they thought we were the same person. literally one of the highest compliments i have ever received 😭) i'm giving you evermore!! for a lot of reasons haha. your writing is absolutely amazing - you write scenes and characters and just EVERYTHING so well - and to me you have the steve harrington fanfic equivalent of evermore's amazing lyrical genius. also!! your writing also makes me SO emotional, no matter the genre or what's happening in the story, and i think that's another thing that evermore does amazingly and so do you!! <3

ava @lxvecakes - you are so absolutely lover. from your theme to your love of pink and the overall softness of your personality!! you have such amazing and sincere lover vibes, and you were absolutely the easiest person for me to choose an album for, honestly!! not only are you absolutely enamored with love and being in love, but you're also such a lover yourself and i think that's absolutely amazing and beautiful!! <3

anna @steddiesandwich - a little unrelated but i absolutely miss talking to and interacting with you!! i still see you on my dash on occasion but i do miss some of the little convos we used to have because they were so fun! if i chose an albm for you, i'd choose midnights! i feel as though your blog is very organized, but you also have such a wide variety of ships and characters from stranger things that is so refreshing to see, and it reminds me of the ways in which midnights is basically bits and pieces of all of her other albums, a gian variety that is tied together beautifully, and that so reminds me of you and your blog! <3

lo @noirgoths - lo!!! i adore you and talking to you so much, and you've been so kind and have been there for me so much in the past few months, and i am so so grateful for that! :) you're someone who's very honest and genuine, but you're also so so cool too!! you're very strong and independent in ways that i wish i could be, and that reminds me a lot of midnights and how the songs there are both very open and sincere and are also self-aware and uplifting at times!! <3

bee @sunflowerharrington - we haven't interacted in a while or very much, but i still look up to you a lot and wish we did talk a little more!! but no worries because honestly i'm a little shy lmao; anyway! from what i've seen of you and how we've interacted together, you remind me most of midnights as well! (sorry 😭 a lot of midnights album recipients in a row but it's simply my opinion :") ) you have a lot of the qualities that i identified with lo; unapologetic sincerity regarding yourself and who you are, etc, and i know that we don't talk that much so i could be totally wrong, and that's my bad if so! (also i hope this isn't awkward because i'm cursed with not knowing how to talk to people :") ) <3

brooke @circesstars - oh my gosh. you are SO so kind and considerate and helpful, and i'm so glad that you're always open to helping me with things when needed!! i love when we randomly talk late at night (lmao) and discuss the absolute most random things :) for that reason, and a few others, you most remind me of 1989! a lot of songs on 1989 are about friendship and how important being with friends is, and that along with your general vibes really reminds me of 1989! (i genuinely hae no idea how to describe the vibes thing, so my apologies lmao. you just very much remind me of moving/visiting new york with all your closest friends and having the time of your life while there :) ) <3

athena @puppy-coded - i'm so glad that we became mutuals a little while ago!! your energy and vibes are, as your url says lol, very puppy coded and i love that! you have such an energetic and fun vibe and i love it, and thus you remind me of 1989 in that way (that's totally different from brooke's 1989 vibes?? idk how my brain works, oops-) anyway :") <3

persephone @very-offkey-kazoo - i love love LOVE talking to you so much!! the little dad jokes everyday and just talking to you about anything in general - including, ofc, cat pics <3 - makes me so happy and i always love hearing from you each day!! i value your friendship so so much!! the album i'm giving you is speak now, which makes more sense to me personally than it probably will vibes or content wise. speak now is the taylor album that i largely associate with the best parts of my childhood, and even though we haven't been talking for this long, talking to you is so easy that it feels almost like i'm talking to someone i've known since i was that little :) maybe that's weird - idk :") - but!! that's the album that i most associate with you <3

OKAY i'm done!! as i said if i forgot anyone i am SOOO sorry, please let me know and i'd love to write you one!! <333

#em speaks #these are basically mutual love letters so i hope you like them!! and also ily all!!!! <3333 #asks #ally🌷

28 notes · View notes

bisexual-horror-fan · 2 years

Text

"You Don't Know What This Means." Freddy Krueger X AFAB! Reader. A Commission.

Ayyy! Another comm in the bucket! So this lovely commission, was done for @freddyappreciation who gave me the go ahead to post and share this lovely work with all of you! Went with something dark, romantic, and of course, horny as hell! I cannot thank them enough, getting paid to write Freddy?! A total dream come true. 2K was what they asked and paid for but I couldn't stop with such a rad prompt and busted out over 4K! Let's no dally, here we go!

---

Rating. Explicit. Length. 4.1K. Freddy Krueger X AFAB! Reader. Warnings. Dark Fic. Dangerously Obsessive Reader. Name Calling. Degradation. Rough Stuff. Man Handling. Mocking. Teasing. Oral Sex. Blow Job. Dirty Talk. Degradation. Face Fucking. Gagging. Choking. Restrained Reader. Vaginal Fingering. Vaginal Sex. Creampie. Crying Reader. Knife Play. Fear Play. Blood Play. Murder. Begging. Boot Humping. Edging. Denial. Consensual Snuff. Death.

---

Is this what love is?

Is love cruel words and taunts muttered in the hollow of your throat while some ineffable force, heavy and chain like, holds you down into cracked and rough concrete? Is love cold steel slicing through sweat slicked flesh easier than a hot knife through butter? Is love a scarred hand with two fingers shoved so far into your mouth that you can’t stop yourself from gagging?

Is love the way he weighs on your mind, unable to leave you? Is it called love when you cannot stop thinking about him, what he has done to you, what he has said to you. Is this love when you continue to come back to him and take the abuse and the hurt and the debasement and crave more still?

Is the thick lump in your throat and the nervous itch in your fingers, unable to stay still, along with the ever present slickness between your thighs a symptom of that funny phenomenon written about in countless books and songs? Depicted too on endless TV screens?

Is the near obsession that has overtaken you while awake and asleep, love?

You aren’t sure what else it could be.

You’ve always heard love described as something all consuming, something fulfilling, something that makes you feel whole, complete. Love feels necessary and life changing and like you cannot live without it once you’ve experienced it, right? That’s what everyone always says anyway.

Maybe you love what he does to you? How he touches you, rough, unrelenting, like he knows how much you can handle. He never underestimates you. He is seemingly as endlessly confident in what you can take as he is in himself. He clearly enjoys pushing your limits, making you cry, begging him, telling him there is no way you can do what he wishes, only for him to show you that yes you can and yes you will.

Perhaps you love how he makes you feel? Not just physically, which holy fucking shit can he make you feel physically cannot be understated, but how he makes you feel about yourself.

You adore the effect he has, the way he leaves his mark both mental and on your body, making the times that you share while you are asleep undeniable. You can’t say it didn’t happen when you look over your cut and bruised body in the dim morning light of your bathroom. Inspecting the mess of hickies, dried tacky blood and other fluids, along with fading scars from previous evenings spent tangled up with him. You feel like you don’t fully belong to yourself anymore, no, you are his and the way he claims you, hurts you, assists in you feeling this way.

It makes you feel unsteady and off kilter, makes you feel impossibly hot, as if you are still in the boiler room long after waking, your mind feels sluggish, thick and clouded with lust and much more deep and complex feelings.

Feelings that stir things up inside of you that are much harder to define but insanely delicious.

You cannot help being entranced by him. Totally swept up and captivated. You probably shouldn’t. He’s not human, an awful abomination, a murderer and yet here you were. Night after night begging for him.

Ever since that first meeting where he pulled you to his realm and chased you, terrified you, nearly caught you, well you found it impossible to lock him out of your mind. It was like he burrowed under your skin and took root deep into your mind, refusing to leave or let you go.

He taunted and teased you for a long while before he fucked you the first time but after he had you in that fashion it really ramped up. He declared you fun, worthwhile of his time and that made you feel special.

You liked being special. You liked it so much that is where your obsession truly began. Where the addiction took hold.

Bedtime became your favourite time of day. Making yourself as enticing as possible, wearing delightful things made of silk and lace, high and low cut, excited to see what he would say, to feel him rip the flimsy garments from you and do whatever he wanted. You started going to bed earlier and earlier to see him sooner and sooner.

You found yourself squeezing in naps when you could. Spending days off sleeping as much as your body could.

You got so into seeing him that you had trouble falling asleep, far too energetic, mind whirring too quickly for sleep to claim you easily.

This simply wouldn’t do.

So you invest in as much as you can to make you sleep better, deeper, longer. Lavender lotion not only makes your skin soft, inviting his touch but promotes relaxation, lessens anxiety and makes for better sleep. You stock up on goodnight blend tea and drink it by the potful more than you do water. You don’t eat big meals in the evening. You invested in better bed sheets and a white noise machine and blackout curtains to make your bedroom the perfect space to crash hard.

You sleep and sleep and sleep some more. Devote as much time as you can to him.

You abandon hobbies, your house falls into disarray, why clean when you can sleep? You don’t cook like you used to, ordering in, take out, frozen meals become your best friends. You also start showing up late to work, sleeping in far too much, also trying to leave early, your work suffers, mind clearly distracted and elsewhere. Thinking of him, wondering what he was doing, pouring over what you did last night and what else you hope to do in the future.

Your boss talks to you and tries to inquire what is up with your quality of work lately, the showing up late, the sloppy appearance and you act cagey and dodge the questions, refusing to answer. You come up with lame excuses and your boss doesn’t seem satisfied but lets it go.

You keep spending as much time as you can with him and the awful dream demon himself who you keep visiting? He finds all of this hilarious. You are devoted to him, spending all your energy and money and time on him. He loves the attention, loves how willing and ready you are, that you are broken for him.

He taunts and mocks you over it often.

You are on your back, head hanging off of the bed he conjured, his non-gloved hand on your throat as he continually forced his cock past your lips, over your tongue and into your tight and constantly constricting throat. You gagged, struggling to breathe through your nose. Spit ran almost embarrassingly from the corners of your stretched wide lips and down over your eyes that were squeezed shut as tight as possible. You took the abuse he gave with gusto, utterly soaked, who needs air when you have him after all?

“You’d do fuckin’ anything for me wouldn’t you?”

You attempt to nod but another harsh thrust, the deepest so far, makes you gag so hard your back arches with the motion of it before falling back onto the bed. You writhe, your hands on his hips but you don’t push him away, you wouldn’t dare, in fact, you pull him closer. The taste of him makes your head swim.

“Course you would. Desperate and pathetic whore.” He grits out as the grip on your throat tightens, you choke around him, swallow thickly around the head of his dick and it makes him groan. “Can feel how deep I am in here.”

He could have been talking about his cock inside or his deep hold in your mind and both would have been equally true.

Your fingers dig into his hips, your tongue presses to the underside of his shaft, you continue to slurp and suck him messily, trying to give as much as you humanly can.

It’s a good effort but he isn’t human, you are reminded of that often and it’s part of what you enjoy so much about him. You are in a perfect headspace right now, submissive and pliable, your hips rock involuntarily, desperate for some stimulation. “So needy you gotta hump the air, hmm? You still need more attention?”

He taunted as he continued to brutally ram into your throat. You whimper weakly around his shaft and he tsks, “My cock down your throat ain’t enough for ya?”

You shake your head slightly and you feel his gloved hand touch down on your bare stomach, the sudden chill of the metal makes you jerk under him. “Greedy, greedy.”

You feel him drag the blades up, the edges tease and you shiver, you wonder what he is planning as his hips slow but you aren’t left to wonder long. He cuts you. Breaks the skin and you cry around his cock. A deep steadying breath through your nose before continuing to suck and he laughs, he cuts again and again and while your pace falters slightly you keep on going, you keep on pleasuring him. “You’re too fuckin’ much.” He pants out.

“Here I am cutting you and you still keep sucking, still tryna hump the air too, stupid slut.” His fingers press into the fresh cuts, he makes more blood well up. You feel the hot and slick liquid run down the sides of your stomach and begin to saint the sheets below. You are sweating so much from the heat of the boiler room it stings the open wounds and it makes you cry harder as he fucks over and over into you. His groans more frequently, panting as he continues to degrade you, throbbing on your tongue.

He’s close.

You want him to cum down your throat, you want it more than anything. You make some needy and urgent sounds and he laughs again, he cuts deeper. His thumb smoothes over the angry red lines and digs in, making you buck under him from the pain that washes over you. “You need it fuckin’ bad, dontcha?”

A shaky nod, you are crying openly, the mix of tears and drool on your face is indistinguishable from one another. Your shoulders are shuddering, hands barely holding onto him as you just take what he gives, the taste of him thick on your tongue. “Get ready-”

The gruff quality of his voice when he was so close always made you clench around nothing. You are treated to three more strong thrusts, a new cut matching each one until he pushes in as deep as he can and he cums. Mess of him draining right down your throat, you swallow around his twitching dick, pulling some amazing sounds from him for a change.

It is far too satisfying for words as he rides out his orgasm.

He holds inside of you until you push back on his hips, about to nearly pass out from lack of oxygen. Only then he slides out, dragging his still hard cock over your face, adding to the extra mess as he does so. “Not half bad.” He compliments as he slaps your cheek with his shaft lightly.

The compliment is basic but you smile, warm and genuine. He calls you out on it, “Only someone as tragic and hard up for a crumb of affection as you would grin at some shit like that.”

You feel warm. You feel happy with him. You feel like this is your place, this is what you deserve.

This is how you spend your nights with him. Being cut and your body used to fulfil his needs.

You’d been around long enough that you get a little more than that however.

You get a little special treatment. You get to hear about his “work” , about what he does and how he does it. You eat it up. It might fuel many a hook up. You can’t help but get aroused by the sheer force of nature he was, the power he held, the control. He took so many lives and yet he didn’t take yours because you were fun enough, fuckable enough to have around.

But one night it shifted.

He was telling you about it and the way he spoke about it made you really realise what he did. He didn’t just kill them, there was more to it than that, he took their soul. He whispered about it, low in your ear as his non-gloved hand was between your thighs, fingers buried inside you, curling over and over into that sweet spot that made you sob and quiver. He told you all the dirty details.

Told you they became part of him.

They fed him.

Those who he killed were bonded to him, with him always, totally inseparable.

He fucked you until you had no voice as he told you of the extreme acts of awful violence and the atrocities he has committed. You cum so hard your vision goes white, the images of slashed open throats and torsos of torn limbs, gushing red and the sound of endless screams flash through your mind.

You thought long and hard about that the morning you woke after learning such a fact. You sat in bed, sweaty, bloody and cum covered. You lay in your messy bed, sheets pooled around your hips, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought until you make a decision.

You wanted that. You didn’t know what it said about you or what it meant but fuck, you wanted it.

Your life is so far gone by this point. You are about to lose your job, you are sure of it. You haven’t contacted family or friends, you don’t respond to messages and anyone who comes by you pretend you aren’t home. Your money is gonna run out fast once you lose your job. Your life in reality was dull, it wasn’t worth living, you didn’t want to be awake. Every second spent conscious was occupied with him, wanting to get back in his arms, in that damn boiler room.

Life is meaningless and worthless when you aren’t asleep.

So why bother?

Why not give up your disgusting and shitty excuse of a life in favour of giving yourself up, fully and completely to him?

You quit your job. You leave a letter to your loved ones. You go to bed for hopefully the last time.

You are pulled to him as quickly as ever and seeing him confirms just what you want, you ache upon seeing the outline of him in the shadows through the steam. You hear him drag those blades across old rusted metal and the sound that would make anyone else cringe instead brings you comfort, it makes you smile.

It pushes you forward, to what you hoped would become your whole entire world, to him.

You run. You don’t stop till you are nearly crashing into him, tugging at his sweater and he laughs, “Awe it’s been what? Less than twelve hours this time? Yer actin’ like you haven’t seen ol Freddy in days.”

“Missed you. I always miss you. I hate being away.” You admitted easily, burying your face into the rough material of his sweater, inhaling deeply the scent that was so thoroughly him. He laughed, long and cruel and the debasement started again.

“You are hardly ever awake now, always spendin’ all your time with me, is your life that sad and boring or am I just that fun to be around?”

Both. Definitely both. You had no idea how much you disliked your life until he showed up and you were made to confront the simple fact that nothing, not even reality and existence in the waking world compares to him.

You realise you hadn’t responded yet and told him, “Both, it’s…It’s both.” You take a deep breath before pulling back, looking up at him, fingers tangled in the sleeves of his sweater. “Actually uhm, about that Freddy. I was wondering about something…”

“What’s that?” He asked and you continued, “I was wondering about what you said the other night, about killing and taking people's souls, is all of that true?”

He clicked his tongue, a shake of his head, “Course it’s true, what do you think I do when I’m not fucking you stupid?” He presses on, “And what do you think this is for?”

His gloved hand meets your hip and drags up, sharp blades tease through thin silk and you shiver. “Think it’s a damn fashion statement?”

“No, no Freddy, I figured you actually murder but the souls thing, do they really become like…Part of you?” You asked softly.

“Why all the questions? Usually I got my cock balls deep in you by this point.” He teased, pressing closer to you, sharp blades brushing the side of your neck. He had a point, normally that is how it would be.

You should be honest, lay it all out, with a hard swallow you say, “I want you to kill me.”

The air shifted in the boiler room so severely you could feel it. “What?”

You respond in an instant, leaving you on a rushed single exhale, “I want you to kill me.”

You are shoved into the wall so roughly, it hurts, you groan from the pain, eyes wide with shock, his gloved hand is on your throat. He leaned in closely, lips brushed against your ear as he asked in that deliciously gruff voice of his, “You want me to kill you?”

“Ye-yes.” His grip tightens a fraction and you bite your bottom lip before adding on, “I-I want you to take my soul, I wanna be here forever, with you.”

He pulls back, his eyes boring into yours, he jerks you against the wall, it hurts and steals some of your breath as he chokes you harder. “Oh you dunno what you are asking for you little bitch.”

Yes you did. You thought long and hard about all of this, you craved it more than you were currently craving oxygen to breathe properly. You wanted him, wanted to give up everything to be here. You try to convince him. You nod as much as you can, squeaking out, “Ye-yeah I know what M’ askin’ for.”

“No. You really don’t. If I do this it won’t be what you’re thinkin’ it’ll be.” His tone was dangerous, sharp, just like the blades of his glove. “You won’t be you anymore, won’t be an individual, you’ll just be part of me-”

You struggle to say, your hand gripping his wrist, “I-I don’t care! That’s what I want! I want it, I want you, please, please-”

He practically purrs at this. “Someone begging me to kill them is new. M’ always used to havin’ to chase people and take what I want.” He leans in closer, his lips almost an inch from yours. “Having you offer it up so willingly?”

His glove loosened, dragging down your body, making you arch into him, “S’ got undeniable appeal.”

“So you’ll do it?” You asked, impossibly hopeful.

“Yeah I’ll kill ya.” He hummed and you couldn’t restrain the soft moan you let out at that, positively delighted at the prospect. “Such an eager victim.”

You were, you really were.

His non-gloved hand was on your body now, feeling you up greedily, “Such a good body, so fun to torment. Damn shame it’s gonna go to waste.”

You loved when he was complimentary like this. “How about one last fuck before I tear you to shreads?”

Naturally, you jumped at the chance.

You revel in it. You soak up every last bit of it, every touch, and bite, every grope and harsh word. You moan and write and pant, you give yourself over fully knowing that you are all his, that he wants you, is going to keep you.

You are high on pleasure and on pain and on him. You are made to choke on his cock, grinding yourself on his boot, leaking embarrassingly over the well worn leather, mocking you all the while. “Humping my boot to try and get off? You’re totally hopeless.”

You were. You moan around him and buck harder, your nails biting into your thighs as you stare up at him, pushing him deeper into your mouth. He waits until you are close to cumming before he pushes you down. Thin silk nightgown is cut from your body, torn away and tossed aside.

He forces you onto your knees. Non-gloved hand pushing your head down, making it so your cheek is pressed to the wet grit covered floor of the boiler room. His gloved hand is splayed on your lower back as he slides inside. You moan, eyes falling closed and he sets a punishing pace. Your fingers dig into the floor so hard it hurts. You buck back into him, crying out for him, absolute bliss as he slams into that sweet spot that makes stars appear behind your closed lids.

The blades bite into your back, it hurts, you bleed and you sob. He spreads the mess of scarlet, he licks up the salt and iron and groans in kind. He fucks you nearly dumb, you are a panting and incoherent mess but he doesn’t need words to know when you are close. Your cunt is tightening up, leaking like a faucet, you can’t stop shaking, soaked in sweat and he knows you are on the edge.

It’s time.

His fingers thread in your hair and he tugs, he pulls you up hard, hips never slowing, he grits out into your ear, “Ready?”

“God, yes, yes! Ffffuck, M’ cumming-” You gasp and he feels it. Your walls clamp down on him, body tightening up, and the second you tip over his glove slides up your back and hooks around your throat. With perfect precision and practised ease the sharp tips dig in and break the skin and he pulls hard. He rips and slices through your throat easily, skin splits and blood pours down your chest and onto the floor between your hands. You weren’t expecting it to be like this.

You weren’t expecting it to hurt so much. You can’t make much sound, he cuts deep and once he starts he doesn't stop, your vocal chords are wrecked, you make weak and wet gurgling sounds as you choke on your own blood. You are aware he is saying something to you but you can’t make it out, mind clouded, between the biggest orgasm of your life and the sensation of death creeping in, you can’t focus or understand the words.

There is one thing you do recognize through the haze. The faltering of his own hips, then pressed full and deep, warmth, burning hot spreading inside. Your body is feeling so cold so fast, even in the heat of the boiler room, you feel yourself fading, life leaving you.

You are dying from the hand of this monster, the same one who’s responsible for your pleasure, the same one who chained you to him, drove you to think this was a good idea.

You are dying and it’s all because of him and here he is, cumming inside of you one last time, getting off on the brutality of it so explicitly. He pulls out and your body is flowing from both ends, blood spilling from the large gash that used to be your throat and his cum from your well abused cunt.

His hands release you and you fall to the floor, he is no longer touching you and you die then and there, him watching over your body.

The pain is as inhuman as he is. It is indescribable agony. You didn’t think this is how it would be. He tried to tell you. Tried to warn you. Yet you didn’t listen. You thought you’d be like a pet, a plaything, kept in his realm for him to use and abuse. You thought you’d be fucked day in and out and have no worries or responsibilities.

It’s not that.

There are others here, you can’t tell where you end and they begin. He was right, you are no longer you, no longer a separate entity, you are a mix, a writhing, incorporeal mass of pain and suffering along with the other souls he has taken and consumed, part of what fuels him.

And even still, this is what you wanted right? Even if you didn’t really know this is how it would be, this is what you asked for all the same.

So we come back to the same question we started with. Is this what love is?

Only now you have a sure and definitive answer, one that dominates the reminder of your form, one that is burned into the very core of your essence.

Yes.

It is.

#BHF writing #BHF Commissions #freddyappericatation #Slasher x reader #Freddy Kreuger X reader #NASTY #But so fun

45 notes · View notes