#the movie was rather dull but nice-looking atmosphere

[yanguazalie]

I watched a movie and a character was wearing pink clothes that I liked. Yes, I did use Kitty as a muse because she has pink hair to match :}

And I attempted to draw a little bit of background because I wanted to get into that more. It hurt a lot but I'm being strong about it ;~; Here's to better full illustrations in the future!

#uglydolls #uglydolls kitty #if you wanna know what the movie was it's ''poison for the fairies'' #it's about a wannabe-witch who bullies a timid rich girl to comply with her demands #at the end the bully takes the girl's pet dog and the girl's like ''i'ma burn this witch'' #and so she did! :D #the movie was rather dull but nice-looking atmosphere #it just dawned on me that i didn't even plan to draw this today but something completely different #curse you tumblr!

[just-a-small-obsession]

The Sun and The Moon

Act I

Crossroads

Chapter One

The halting of the car woke me, opening my eyes I saw my brother settling in his seat. Moving to Arlen, Georgia had the influence of my brother since he’s a photographer, he was rather happy about moving this time. The atmosphere of Georgia was new one, warm and spacious nothing we have ever experienced before. Danny is my older brother, he’s my legal guardian since both our parents were never really in the picture. Our dad, we never really knew about our dad, but our mom was there, she was in and out a lot. When Danny found out the mom was an addict, he left with me. We’ve lived in three communities before coming here, forth times the charm is what I’m believing right now.

“We’re here, let’s get started.”

Going upstairs I look through the two bedrooms. The room at the end of the oak paneled hallway is the one I picked for myself, the room was big enough for my bed, nightstand and dresser.  The window pointed at the back yard of our new neighbor’s home. A small rickety chapel sat there it was intimidating.

“You like it here? I was thinking we could say hello to the neighbors after we get done, would that be, okay?”

His gentle voice brought my attention to him.

“Yes, that’s fine Danny.”

“Their house is really gothic; I’m going to ask if they’ll let me take some pictures.”

Suddenly I became uncomfortable, goosebumps raised on my arms the thought of new people makes my stomach tighten in pain. The stares, the squeakiness of facade kind voices, the reaching of a touch makes me want to vomit. Saying nothing, in response I climbed back to my new bedroom. The outline of my room was simple, it had to be, every room I’ve had looked the same. I position everything the same way, place books in the same order and keep the same blankets that sat on the newly entered sitting space in the window. The morning quickly turned to a late afternoon, our boxes were empty, folded, stacked and storage in the front living room closet. Just as Danny promised we started to walk to the neighbor’s house for an introduction.

“I’m hungry Danny.”

“This won’t take long Bell; we need to make a good impression.”

My body tensed at the nickname, a name that stuck with Danny since I became obsessed with the Disney movie beauty and the Beast at a younger age. The house, as Danny said was Gothic, old and rustic, the paint chipping away due to age and weather. The yard looked well kept and clean, someone must cut it often, Danny and I reach the door and push the doorbell.

Ding…… Dong

We waited, and waited an elderly woman, her hair brown and in a tight bun on top of her head, Dressed in a long black dress, and the sign of the cross hanging around her neck. Her eyes were the thing that disturbed me, they were dull, grey, angry.

“Can I help you?”

“Hello, my name is Daniel Lockhart and my sister Y/n Lockhart we just moved in right next to you and I just wanted to say hello.”

“Oh, hello I’m Keeny and I live with my grandson Jonathan, he’s not here right now, he’s doing his chores, he’s about your sisters age she might see him in school.”

“She is, I must say your home is very interesting how long have you lived here?”

“Hmm, my whole life, is it just you and your sister? What about your parents”

“They are no longer with us.”

“God bless them and their path to heaven.”

“Thank you”

“Are you a believer Daniel?”

“I was raised with no religion miss.”

“Ah so you were raised to be a heathen then” Danny stiffened at her words, taking the insult with only a grain of salt.

“I assure you miss I’m no heathen.”

“we’ll see about that; you should leave the boy should be back at any time.”

Her voice was snooty and sharp as if instead of a tongue she carried a knife in her mouth. We had already here for too long; my legs started to move and sway me as I stood in place. Danny seems to take notice and act.

“It was nice to meet and sorry for disturbing you, we need to get something to eat and settle in.”

‘Of course, you do that, have a nice evening and god bless you.”

The door closed with a squeaking shut. Danny sighs deeply and looks at me.

“Today’s Sunday, which means for dinner it’s pizza day.”

“Spinach and mushroom”

“Yes, I know, and it has to be thin crust, I’ll call a pizza joint and order when we get home, you get in your lazy clothes and pick out a VHS to watch in the living room.”

Throwing on a t shirt and some sweatpants I rummage through my collection of VHSs. Settling on one I put it in the VCR and played it but paused it at the very beginning so Danny and I could watch it together, the smell of warm pizza guided me to the kitchen, Danny unboxing it and putting the slices on paper plates. Danny sitting in his recliner while I sat on the soft couch watching the TV and eating my warm pizza. Danny stops eating and looks at me.

“I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow since we have nothing, but this pizza and I need to meal prep, that means you need to go to your new school alone this time.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone bell I’ll write down what you need to say and ask to the people at the office.”

“……...”

“No bell please don’t shut down on me, everything will be fine, I promise.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise”

I gave him a small smile in return, already I was going over a script in my head, what I would say, who I would say it too. Danny would write it down for me but still I need to prepare myself for this interaction beforehand.

                “Hey, let’s pinky promise” He asked.

                Pointing out his left pinky finger for me to hook on to. Sighing, I do the same with mine and seal the promise with our thumbs kissing each other. He smiled at me and left into the kitchen, the sound of cardboard and opening of trash bins alerted me to the kitchen as well. Danny gathered the leftover pizza in plastic wrap and placed it into the fridge. He kept one out for my lunch tomorrow, as I stand there by the island in the middle of the kitchen Danny prepares my boxed lunch.

                “We should head to bed; we have a big day tomorrow.”

                “Okay Danny”

                “I’ll tuck you in.”

                “I’m not five anymore, I don’t need to be tucked in.”

                Danny was always like this, overprotective and sheltering. Maybe it was because of our parents, or perhaps because of my disability, but Danny has always treated me like a newborn baby. In my bedroom I was alone finally, turning out my lights and settling into my bed I looked out my window. The dark chapel that sat in the backyard of Miss Keeny’s house gave off a shadow. Closing my eyes my mind wandered about imaginary situations that helped me fall asleep. The moonlight was my nightlight for the first night in this new house that I hoped I would call home for the rest of high school.

#jonathan crane x reader #dc villains x reader #scarecrow x reader

[elysianslove]

hi💗 i saw that you opened up your requests to jujutsu kaisen and i was wondering if i could request something,,reader is dating our favorite bandaged shaman sensei and they are both teachers at the school. and a little scenario when they invite the 3 first years over to their house for Christmas or winter holidays,,since they all have complicated family situations and the reader notices this and tells satoru they should do something,,so a cute little mom and dad moment 🥺 thank you

hi anon!!! this request was so, so cute i hope i did it justice hehe, and i hope you enjoy <3

━━ satoru gojō feels like home. in every sense of the word, he feels like home. he smells like it too, but that’s possibly because you’ve lived with him for much too long, and been with him for even longer. he’s your safe haven, your safety net, a constant, grounding presence in your life. you think that, maybe, you’ve always loved him, before the confessions, before the friendship, in another lifetime even. if you’re willing to believe in curses, you can believe in blessings too, right?

that said, anywhere with him is home too. you could be stranded in the middle of nowhere and still sleep just as well as you would’ve in your own bed, so long as his arms are around you. the too busy streets of tokyo somehow lessen in their overwhelmingness once his hand fits against yours, once his thumb is lightly brushing against the back of your hand. the quiet, eerie atmosphere of a random motel the two of you had no choice but to stay suddenly feels lavish and luxurious as soon as his lips find yours, and immediately the dim, sombre light of the room only illuminates him more.

it had never mattered what your life had been before meeting him, before loving him. all the pain and hardship and suffering was completely erased from memory, as if the first glance from him was an offer of a blank slate, a new beginning. of course, every relationship has it’s unstable moments, and with laughter come tears, with excitement comes dullness, quiet, and with sunny days come cloudy, rainy ones. it’s inevitable, but you two are strong pillars of it. the pain and suffering comes crawling back to you, but you brush it off, reminding yourself that this is your home now. he is your home now.

and every moment with him matters. especially holidays.

although neither of you properly celebrate christmas, the festive atmosphere still exists within the four walls you two share. small marshmallows sway in an ocean of hot chocolate in a mug, flames dancing proudly in a fireplace before you, a knitted blanket offering you both warmth and comfort, snow piling on your windowsill. the winter holidays are mostly spent like this with gojō. there’s just something about the cold that drives the both of you to utter laziness, and it’s not unlike you to easily welcome any source of physical affection from your lover.

it’s the night before the last teaching day, before you’re sending off your students to their homes for the holiday. the room is dark, save for the light from a lamp to gojō’s right, and the light that comes from the tv playing in front of you. it’s some movie that you’re not entirely focused on as your cheek rests against his chest, his arm slung around you. despite the fact that you’re as tired as ever, your mind is alive with endless thoughts, and gojō seems to notice when he lifts a hand up to poke at your temple.

“what’s going on up there?” he asks, shifting slightly to sit you up straighter. he disregards the phone in his hand, placing it next to lamp, before turning to face you properly.

“gojō,” you start, your voice smaller than usual. this doesn’t go unnoticed by him, and he nods encouragingly. “where’s itadori going for the holidays?”

it’s quiet for a moment, and you watch his expressions carefully. he looks thoughtful, slightly bothered. “i—“ he begins, his voice wavering slightly as he admits, “i didn’t consider that at all.”

you hum sadly. “he has no family, right?”

gojō shakes his head in response, adding, “none.” the silence stretches out between the two of you, the background noise of the tv a filler, not disrupting, but balancing. “all three of the first years have familial issues, now that i — now that i think about it.”

“do you think they can stay here?” you suggest, without a second of doubt. you don’t entirely regret it, but you wince slightly at the look of his face. you’re ready to drop the subject if the matter is too uncomfortable for him, but you know your lover too well, well enough to know he’ll agree to it just as eagerly as you’d suggested it.

“that’s a great idea,” he confirms for you, and the careful expression you had morphs into glee. you beam up at him, before leaping into his arms, wrapping your arms around his neck as you embrace him tightly. one arm weaves around your waist, with the other travels up, leaving his hand cupping the back of your head as he holds you to him. “you’re too good for this world, my love,” he tells you, whispering his confession in your ear. you only push back with a smile, and plant a heavy kiss to his lips.

you announce the decision to the first years right after the teaching day ends, while alongside gojō. he’s standing comfortably, hands pressed into his pockets, an easy smile on his face as he surveys both you and the students before you. they’re standing with careful, solemn looks on their faces, as if they’re about to be sent off on a serious, life endangering mission.

“what is this about?” nobara wonders, her eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion.

you only smile widely back at her, before softly saying, “gojō and i are inviting the three of you to stay at our home. for the holidays.”

nobara’s eyes soften slightly at the words, while megumi’s face remains impassive. yuuji, however, has his eyes wide and jaw slack, clearly the only one capable of speaking because he yells out a rather aggressively shocked, “what!”

“is this —“ megumi starts, breaking off and interrupting himself to swallow thickly. “are you being serious?”

you nod eagerly. “i want you three to feel safe and to enjoy the holidays too! only if you’re comfortable with that, of course, but our home is your home,” you address them.

gojō hums playfully from next to you, adding, “every night is hot chocolate night.”

yuuji and nobara are automatically sold, to the exaggerated point of throwing their arms around you, collectively suffocating you in their embrace. megumi still looks wary of the idea, and you notice this easily. offering him a soft smile, you reinstate softly, “i just want you to feel safe.”

he smiles.

“you have a really nice home, sensei,” megumi comments as he surveys the living room. you’re not sure which of you he’s addressing, or if he’s addressing the both of you, but either way your heart softens at the awe in his eyes. you’re curled up next to gojō comfortably, the three first years surrounding the two of you, and there’s an array of food options before you.

for the first day, you’d eaten dinner out in a restaurant, but it’s way past nighttime now, the stars visibly shimmering in the sky, the moon lost within a blanket of them and the clouds. the snow falling isn’t heavy enough to have your world disappear in white, not yet at least, but it’s slowly and surely piling up.

“hot, hot, hot—“ yuuji whines, sticking his tongue out and fanning it as he places his mug down. you huff out a laugh at him, watching as nobara pinches at his arm and scolds him for ‘being stupid.’

you lean more comfortably into gojō, admiring the scenery before you. he shifts, leaning his lips nearer to your ear as he whispers, “i’m glad we did this for them.”

you nod in agreement. “me too,” you say.

“you know what it makes me realize?” gojō starts. you hum, urging him to continue. “how good of a person you are, how lucky i am —“ your smile widens at his words, cheeks aching as they start to flush. “— how good of a parent you’ll be one day.”

you freeze. “parent?”

gojō only smiles when you move back to observe his face. although his smile is teasing, his eyes are serious. he’s serious. “one day?”

you try to imagine it. your own family, with him, raising your children with him, sharing hot chocolate with them, watching as they bicker with each other. spending eternity with him. the image and fantasy comes so easy to you, it’s dizzying. gently, you fall back into his arms, curling up against him as you whisper, “one day.”

#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen imagine #saturo gojo x reader #satoru x reader #gojo x reader #satoru imagine

[mst3kproject]

Devil Girl from Mars

This movie qualifies itself for MST3K by the robot alone.  I don't think anybody involved with it ever made it to the Satellite of Love– in fact, most of the cast had made real movies in the past and went on to make more of them.  But Devil Girl from Mars has a dumb title and a terrible robot, and anybody who’s seen it will agree that’s all it needs.

It's a dark and stormy night somewhere in Scotland when Robert, an escaped convict, shows up at the isolated pub where his ex-girlfriend Doris works, hoping she'll help him hide from the police.  She agrees, though it's obviously going to make both their lives far more complicated... but not as complicated as the arrival of Naya, a Martian who lands her flying saucer just metres from the front door. It seems Mars had a war between the sexes, which ended in the near-extermination of the men.  That's right, it's another movie about aliens coming to Earth looking for breeding stock.  Can one jailbird and the staff and guests at a Scottish pub possibly stop Naya in time?

Someday when humans have left the Earth behind and set out to see the galaxy, I rather suspect it'll be us visiting random planets and saying things like, “hey, we're all out of males, can we borrow some of yours?”  And it won't be because we've actually had some kind of reproductive crisis, it'll be because we're bored and horny and we want to fuck some aliens.

I guess I'm going to start with the things I like about this movie. It's a short list.  Naya explains that the reason she was forced to land so far from her destination of London is because Earth's atmosphere was denser than she'd expected.  This kinda makes sense – the atmosphere of Mars is extremely thin and creatures adapted to that might have a hard time believing life forms could survive in air as thick as ours.  It's about the only nod to actual science that the script ever makes, so that's nice.

The other thing I like is how the movie treats Naya.  The 'we've run out of potential mating partners' trope, as manifest in things like Fire Maidens of Outer Space and Cat-Women of the Moon, is usually an excuse to have a hot alien babe fall in love with a thoroughly dull and unremarkable Earth man.  Devil Girl from Mars never even considers this idea.  Naya is always and only ever a threat.  The humans are nothing to her but specimens, and none of them ever even mention the idea that she could be considered physically attractive.  Actress Patricia Laffan, in platform shoes that make her as tall as any of the men, never portrays her as even unintentionally sultry or sexy, only as cruel, arrogant, and increasingly fed up with these insects who believe they can oppose her.  The only person who considers Naya a sex object is the costume designer, who was definitely jerking off when he came up with that Sexy Darth Vader getup she wears.

Other aspects of Naya's behaviour, unfortunately, are terribly inconsistent, particularly her technology.  She demonstrates early on that she can hypnotize and control humans to do whatever she wants – so why doesn't she just force the men to come with her while leaving the women behind, instead of letting them wander around and plot against her?  In another scene, she vaporizes a guy leaving nothing behind but his glasses.  There's no reason why Naya as presented to us wouldn't do the same to any human she deems less than useful.  We wouldn't have a story if she just did the most efficient thing, of course, but the movie never even tries to come up with an excuse. I think the writer just hoped we wouldn't notice.

Then there's the robot.  It looks like a fridge on legs, and is a step up from the robot that fought the Aztec Mummy only because it has an approximation of knees.  It appears in a single scene, clumping around at somewhat less than human walking speed and vaporizing a couple of things before thumping back into the spaceship never to be seen again. Enough time is spent on this and the impression it makes on the human characters that it seems like it ought to be setting up for the robot to do something really cool at the climax... but it doesn't.  It's only there to have a space robot in the movie.

The robot is truly hilarious.  It's supposed to be this huge threatening hulk but the only thing I would be afraid of is that it might topple over on me.  My Mom remembers seeing this movie as a kid and told me even then she wondered why they didn't just push the robot over. With its noodly tube arms there's no way it'd be able to get up again.  Sadly, the robot is a good eighty-five percent of all the actual entertainment value this film has to offer.

Devil Girl from Mars is based on a stage play, and you can kind of tell – almost everything that happens does so in a single room in the pub, with only brief (and sometimes dialogue-less) excursions to Naya's flying saucer and a couple of other rooms in the building.  Furthermore, very little of it counts as 'action'.  Most of the movie is just people talking to each other and drinking.  I can tell what the script is going for.  We're meant to feel a sense of claustrophobia, of being trapped and impotent while the world falls to pieces all around us (an annoyingly relatable situation, really).  Unfortunately, it never quite gets there.  Rather than biting our nails wondering what will happen next, the audience just wishes the movie would get on with things.  A couple of times the characters come up with a plan to kill or capture Naya but these never accomplish anything but annoying her further.

The odd side-effect of this is that the character who is easiest to empathize with is actually Naya herself.  She's stuck here until her spaceship is repaired, so she's killing time and getting irritated with these people who are not what she came to see.  That's us!  We're stuck watching this movie that we hoped would have cool space stuff in it, but it doesn't, and now we're just waiting for it to be over!

I guess the characters are supposed to have arcs.  The major one is the little love story between Ellen, a guest at the pub, and Mike, the reporter here to cover the odd events unfolding in the area.  She has been unlucky in love and has come to this remote place to hide from the world, not wanting to let herself get close to anybody for fear of being hurt again.  He went through hell in World War II and now finds solace in alcohol and being an asshole.  Supposedly the situation strips both of them of their pretensions and lets them see each other's vulnerabilities, but we never really feel that. The entire thing is talked at us rather than shown.

Then there's Robert and Doris, who are introduced as if they ought to be the main characters.  Unsurprisingly at this point, they're barely in the rest of the movie.  Their situation, with Doris wanting to help but knowing she shouldn't, and Robert on the run but with no long-term plan yet, is very much the most interesting thing going on here, even more so than the whole 'Mars needs Men' a-plot.  I kind of want to see a movie just about the two of them trying to figure out where to go from here.  As it is, their story isn't so much part of the plot as it is interrupted by it, and the ending doesn't solve their problems but merely renders them irrelevant.

Other characters are fairly useless.  The Professor (of course there's a Professor in a movie like this) is only here to say sciency shit and explain to the rest of the cast how to destroy Naya's spaceship.  The Cute Kid (also an inevitability) is here to gush about how cool the spaceship is and so that Naya can take him hostage.  And the old couple who run the pub are our collective nemeses, the comic relief characters who are never actually funny. The joke is that Mr. Jamieson would be an alcoholic if only his wife would let him drink.  Mrs. Jamieson putters around clucking over everybody and telling them to put their trust in the Lord, which has always struck me as an odd reaction to an alien invasion.

I think the biggest reason why Devil Girl from Mars feels so unsatisfying is because we never get the idea that this story means anything.  The specific reason why Naya has come to Earth is basically irrelevant to the events that unfold – it only matters that she's there and must be gotten rid of, or more Martians will follow her. She could have come to Earth for specimens, for water, for gold, or for Professor Maki's super-advanced rocket fuel and this story would have happened the same way.  The 'war of the sexes' is referenced and then dropped.

I dragged a bunch of other 'aliens need mates' movies at the beginning of this review but they all at least tried to do something with the concept.  Generally such movies advance the idea that neither men nor women can exist without the love of the other. This is an unpleasantly parochial statement, but at least it's a statement.  Devil Girl from Mars doesn't seem to have a statement.  Maybe Robert redeems himself, since he's a convict on the run and all... but he doesn't seem to need redemption, since he insists the death of his wife was an accident, not a murder.  Perhaps he is redeemed in the eyes of those who believed he was a murderer, but we don't see that, since the movie ends pretty much right away after the spaceship blows up.  There is no reward for sitting through all this.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #devil girl from mars #50's #we're running out of plots #tobor is robot spelled backwards

[ptergwen]

last christmas | pt. 2

❆ series masterlist ❆

w/c: 2.5k

warnings: one suggestive joke and a couple of angsty moments

a/n: yo i forgot that harry was actually in this movie as an extra? that’s kinda funny to me but anyways pls send requests (ik it’s annoying i keep asking i’m just so bored y’all help) and enjoyyy

━━━ *:･。.

today feels better than most days. the throbbing headache you usually wake up with isn’t there. plus, you have your date with tom later. it still feels surreal to say that. it still feels surreal he’s your friend’s brother, and you only found out three days ago.

you throw on some sweats and head into the living room. your roommate alex is in front of the tv with a bowl of cereal. she puts it down, the spoon making an obnoxiously loud clink. you’re sensitive to sound, so you unintentionally wince.

“sorry, y/n/n. i thought you had the day off, no?” she asks, lowering the tv for your sake. you smile at the gesture and go to grab your coat. “i do. i just wanna get breakfast.” “we have stuff here,” alex reminds you and picks up her cereal for emphasis. she’s careful not to drop the spoon this time. laughing to yourself, you shrug into your coat.

“i’ll pass. i wanted to say hi to harry, anyway.” “right, tonight’s the night.” she turns her head towards you and smirks. “you’re shagging his brother.” your eyes go comically wide. “no i’m not! he’s taking me out somewhere,” you defend and button up your coat as fast as you can. it’s time to get out of here.

“i’ll make plans just in case,” alex calls out as you shuffle to the door. “yeah, bye!” you shout back. you planned on asking if she wanted anything, but you were too distracted. oh well.

━ ❆

the café isn’t too crowded when you get there. harry is on register, so he’s probably in a good mood. he eyes you curiously when you step up. you give him a big smile.

“you’re not in today,” he says quietly, pushing up the santa hat he’s wearing. you stifle a laugh. you’re all supposed to dress up festively, but you don’t. your manager made an exception. one of your co workers is watching harry, so he fixes the hat. it’s not done without a long exhale.

“i’m here for coffee,” you explain and glance up at the menu. harry squints at you. “you couldn’t have gone anywhere else?” feigning offense, you put your hand on your chest. “why, you don’t want to see me?” “when you’re supposed to be home resting, no.” he taps a button on the register. “what can i get you?”

“first of all, i have a date later. that won’t be happening,” you tell him smugly. he would try to act annoyed, but he’s honestly happy for you. tom, too. “can i have an iced coffee with liquid sweetener? please?” harry raises an eyebrow. “room for milk?” “sure,” you almost chirp. he can’t help but grin.

“i haven’t seen you this happy the whole time i’ve known you,” he mumbles while punching in your order. your smile fades into a concerned grimace. “is that okay, do you think?” harry looks up at you again. “why wouldn’t it be?” “because, i mean, it’s only one date. it could end up going no where.”

you lean over the counter so you can talk quieter. “what would i be happy about then?” “excuse me?” a woman interrupts your conversation louder than necessary. you’re trying to search harry’s face for an answer, but he doesn’t give you one. “one second, sorry,” he apologizes to the customer. you stand up right again.

“tom wouldn’t do all this if he didn’t feel something,” harry nearly whispers while you get out your money. you read your total befofe he could tell you. you let your hand linger in his when you hand him the cash. “you’ll have more than one night of happiness. you deserve it.”

you’re starting to get a bit emotional, so you pull your hand back. you nod and manage a small smile. “thank you, harry. really.” “you’ll let me know how it goes?” he checks. “tomorrow, yeah. have a good shift.” you give him a finger wave and go off to get your coffee. he waves back.

━ ❆

tom gets a text from harry a few minutes after you leave.

y/n is really special. don’t be a div tonight.

he scoffs at his phone and shuts it off. your smile pops into his mind then. he only got to see it once, but he can’t seem to forget it.

harry is right. you are really special, and he better not mess this up.

━ ❆

you and tom decided on eight for your date. he’s meeting you outside your place because wherever you’re going is in walking distance. you bundle up accordingly in your fluffiest jacket and some earmuffs. you’ve never worn them before, but they’ll be your best friend tonight. they’re also cute. this is the time to be cute.

tom buzzes to let you know he’s there at eight sharp. his punctuality is kind of a surprise. you don’t know much about the real him, but this is rare from what you’ve gathered. you tell him you’re coming and hop out the door.

the thing alex said earlier does cross your mind, and she did leave you the apartment. never mind all of that. you try to think of anything but that before you get outside.

“hey,” tom greets as you walk down the stairs. he grins playfully at your attire. “you look cozy.” “you don’t.” he’s wearing a thin black jacket with a flannel underneath. it’s not ideal for the middle of winter in london. a smug smile pulls at your lips.

“you’re gonna walk in that?” you gesture to his outfit, moving so you’re next to him. he hums. “i’ll let you tease me for it the whole way there.” the two of you start walking side by side. it doesn’t take long for you to fall into step. “the whole way? how far is it?” you raise an eyebrow.

“twenty minutes maybe? it can’t be too bad. we have loads to talk about,” tom says rather suggestively. you look over and he’s smirking. there’s never a dull moment with this man. that’s actually just what you need right now. “true. you start,” you prompt him, your arm brushing against his. “tell me all about you.” he leans closer to you instinctively.

“well, i’m an actor. obviously,” tom shrugs like it’s no big deal, making you laugh quietly. he really likes your laugh. “besides that. like, what do you do when you’re not acting?” you ask, eyes fixed on him. he’s so pretty under the streetlights. all the time, really. “this is so boring, but i love golf. i’m rubbish, though,” he says the second part under his breath.

“and i thought you were good at everything,” you tease, tom faking a frown. “no, but seriously. it’s probably nice to do some regular stuff when you can.” he exhales in a way that seems reflective. “exactly, i like having some separation. what about you?” “what do i do when i’m not acting?” you ask sarcastically. “sure,” he plays along.

you think about it while you turn the corner. tom watches you intently, like you’re about to say something actually interesting. you’re not. “not much anymore.” he’s about to ask what you mean by anymore, but you keep going. “i took a gap year from uni, so i’ve been getting that sorted,” you continue, looking up at the dark sky. this isn’t your favorite discussion.

“makes sense. what are you studying?” also not your favorite discussion. “i’m undecided. i was thinking about psychology, but...” you search for something, anything you can to change the subject. the first thing you see is the first thing you mention. “your ears are bright red right now,” you giggle and point at one. tom presses his hands to them, feeling how cold they are.

“damn, you’re right,” he gives in to your conversation from earlier. without thinking about it, you pull your earmuffs off. you put them around his head instead. they’re pink with white snowflakes on them. tom looks cuter with them than you do, you think. “here. these should make them a normal color.”

“aw, but i don’t want you to be cold,” he protests and goes to take them off. you grab his hand before he can. “i’m not.” grinning, he properly takes your hand in his. your fingers lace together like you’ve held hands a million times. he lets them drop between you two and keeps leading the way to your mystery spot.

you swing your hands back and forth, smiling when you feel his grip tighten. tom pats one of the earmuffs. “i think we’ll both be warm once we get there.” “where exactly is ‘there’?” you laugh out. it was supposed to be a surprise, but you have to know. he points at something straight ahead. you’re still too far to see it.

“yeah, i can’t tell what that is,” you confirm. his reply is a satisfied hum. “good. let me keep you in suspense for at least five more minutes.” “you’re cheeky, aren’t you?” he chuckles and swings your hands again. “i’ve been told.”

you two finally end up at a hot chocolate stand. there are white lights strung in the trees surrounding it, music playing quietly into the night. the atmosphere welcomes and comforts you as soon as you get on line.

“i figured it would be nice to get one of these rather than making them for a change,” tom fills you in. he seems unsure of it now that you’re here, his voice lower than before. harry’s text is replaying in his head. he wants this to be good enough, more than good enough. should he have planned something more? his nerves die down when you squeeze his hand in yours.

this is the perfect low pressure date you’d hoped for. the focus is on each other and not some fancy meal. you were right about the movies not changing tom. “this place is really cute. i like it.” you move up on line together. “and my hot chocolates kind of suck, so yeah. it is.” “no, i bet they’re delicious,” he reassures you with one of his famous eye crinkling grins.

you chat more about your barista skills and all the kitchen disasters harry has had to save you from. the story of the time you made foam explode all over the countertops has him giggling. his laugh is contagious, so you end up joining in. your laughter eventually quiets because it’s your turn to order.

“hi, we’ll have two large hot chocolates?” tom orders for you two. you shoot him a curious look. “large? i’ll never finish.” the sizes here are huge, which is part of their gimmick. it’s also why tom found it interesting. the joke is that the stand itself is small, but they have gigantic drinks.

“leftovers, then.” he winks at you. you’re disappointed you have to let his hand go while he pays. the cashier says your drinks will be ready shortly. tom thanks him and turns back to you. “you probably got in so much trouble, huh?” he asks about your work horror story. you look him over for a few seconds.

you’re shocked how genuinely interested he is in everything you tell him. there are much cooler things he could be talking about, but he wants to hear from you. it makes you feel like there’s something between you two already. like, you’re old friends or soulmates or anything bigger than two strangers on a first date.

even though it’s still early to tell, you definitely have a connection of some kind.

“nope. i’m better at cleaning than i am at making cappuccinos,” you remark, the cashier coming back with two large hot chocolates. tom hands you yours first. he takes his after. “thank you so much,” he tells the man again. “have a nice night,” you add. the two of you take your drinks to a small table under a tree.

you sit across from each other, tom setting the earmuffs down. he pushes them back to you with a smile playing on his lips. “i like those better on you,” you murmur before taking a sip of hot chocolate. “pink’s my color,” he agrees and does the same. it’s so good that you decide to have some more, even though there’s steam coming from the lid.

“maybe i will finish all of this.” “i knew you’d like it.” tom laughs behind his cup. he got all worked up about it for nothing. you’re having one of your best nights in a while, which almost makes you not want to bring up the next topic. it’s sadly inevitable, so you might as well get it out of the way. christmas.

“so, do you have any plans for christmas?” you start, downing another sip. tom puts his drink down and leans back in the chair. “i’m staying over my mum and dad’s. we’ll have our traditional holland celebration.” he smiles to himself just thinking about it. you’re happy he has something to look forward to. you don’t.

“are you doing anything?” there’s the big question. people usually get awkward when you go into detail, which is exactly why you won’t. “actually, no.” his excitement changes to confusion. he furrows his eyebrows and sits up again. “you don’t celebrate?” “i do, just not anymore. not this year, at least.”

tom is extremely curious what this ‘anymore’ is about. it’s the second time you’ve mentioned it.

“i used to love it. my christmas spirit ran out, i guess,” you eleborate, eyes shifting down to the frozen grass. tom almost frowns. it’s not because he pities you. no one likes that. christmas is one of, if not, his favorite times of year. he just wishes the whole world could be happy this holiday season. the lovely girl sitting in front of him, especially.

there has to be something he can do.

“no, you can always get it back,” he says softly, searching for your eyes. “i’ll help you.” you look up at him again and blink back the tears you feel coming. tom must feel so lost right now. he wouldn’t be with context. you’re going to tell him what happened when you’re ready because you do want him to understand. trusting him feels like an instinct.

“how?” your voice comes out even quieter than his. you pick up your drink to distract yourself. “let’s see,” tom thinks aloud. he snaps when he gets an idea. “have you done any decorating?” “my roommate put up a tree. she never did the ornaments, though.” he gasps over dramatically, earning a laugh from you.

“you can’t leave a naked tree sitting around.” “i told her it looked stupid,” you sigh and sip your hot chocolate. tom holds out a hand for you. “we should go to the shops”

it would be easy to say no. it would be easy to go back home and hide under your covers and avoid the missed calls from your family. the catch is, easy isn’t progress. you can’t move past this unless you work to get it done.

you take tom’s hand and stand up from the table.

“we should also get a ride this time.”

#tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #tom holland x reader #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #tom holland fanfiction

[boop-le-snoot]

masterpost • main masterlist • taglist & faq

previously on...

Chapter 1! Reader's job has no chill and Wanda means well (Tony does too), but, as we know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Reader discovers the source of some peculiar things and can't help but be overcome with curiosity. F-bombs galore!

Fun fact: this story's main soundtrack is Claire de Lune, for some reason. Usually I can't stand classical music.

I didn't anticipate my first day at the bodega to be remarkful in any way but I was quickly proven wrong. My expectations were low: few customers, some of them flat-earthers of the garden variety, perhaps one or two of those 'witches' from social media blogging platforms and an overzealous Satanist or two, since I was pretty sure I saw an Ouija board and a silver pentagram hanging in Odette's office on the day of the interview.

Boy was I wrong.

We averaged a customer every fifteen minutes with each person requesting increasingly strange items: healing quartz and sage were on the closer end of normal; I felt like I had teleported to Hogwarts and was now attending Professor Snape's Advanced Potions class, having to race between the high shelves and memorize the exact location of each and every ingredient. In the end, I sacrificed a few dollars and bought one of the beautiful, leather-bound notebooks off Odette to write down the shelf and position number for the most commonly requested items and planned to begin memorizing them at home.

There's a little bit of Ravenclaw in all of us, I supposed. My curiosity only extended further: sometimes, a haggard looking person would come up and declare they had an appointment with Odette and was quickly whisked away by my boss to her office, coming out looking slightly less haggard in about half an hour or so.

I adapted to the routine fairly quickly, choosing to make my personal peace with the strange customers and Odette's mysterious meetings: after all, I got the job because I needed money - who was I to judge her for doing Tarot readings and spiritual séances for an extra dollar?

The bodega's atmosphere did grow on me rather quickly, as I had thought it would. It was warm and homely even on the rainiest afternoons, there was an unlimited supply of herbal tea, free of charge, and I grew to appreciate it just like I learned to find the positives in my job at the café. That remained a constant, mildly interesting affair too - my regulars, especially the superheroes, had started coming in during the morning hours and we were able to resume our chit-chats without a hitch.

Wanda still fished for my most recent, memorable reading and Dr. Banner left his incomprehensible scribbles on every napkin within an arm's reach for me to return to him on his next visit. The fully grown man with multiple PhDs didn't fail to blush like a schoolgirl every single time it happened, causing Mr. Stark to double on his own salacious jokes, should the engineer have had come with. They often came together, blabbering things I couldn't even fathom understanding even with the help of Google.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Wanda sounded surprisingly chipper for it was freaking seven in the morning.

I blanched, banging my arm against the display door painfully with a softly muttered, "Fuck!".

The witch frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I muttered, hoping my face wasn't portraying the mixture of confusion and fear that I felt. "Something weird happened at my other job yesterday, I'm still processing," I replied honestly, looking to the side.

In fairness, I didn't know what to think. The situation wasn't something that should have shocked me, with aliens and magic people an abundance in NYC, but seeing it with my own two eyes had been jarring.

A limping, paranoid young man had arrived for an appointment with Odette shortly before closing time; I had escorted him to her office without as much as a blink, only noticing he was dripping oddly colored blood when the door behind him had closed. I cleaned it up, dead set on confronting Odette about the obviously injured person - the blood, it was more of an attempt to clean it, since it merely stuck to the rag, refusing to wash off it with water or any of the organic cleaning solutions kept under the sink.

I had to leave the rag in a paper bag, acutely aware of the fact it could not have belonged to a normal person. My best guess was that a man was a mutant - NYC had plenty of them living behind a blue wall. Odette's office wasn't soundproof: I heard a pained yelp and then a vocalisation of relief as whatever was causing the man to bleed had been removed. In a few minutes while I was closing the cash register, he came out looking almost brand new - and as I paid him a more careful look, he was missing his scleras, leaving his eyes to look slightly terrifying.

And then he winked at me, a surprisingly human, boyish gesture - the smile that crawled up my face was purely automatic. I was sure it looked frozen. He disappeared without a word as Odette herself emerged from the backrooms, a tired sheen to her brow.

"Did you manage to clean up?" She asked, eyebrows raised at the lack of stains on the hardwood floors.

"It stuck to the rag," I replied, eyeing her warily. "The rag is in the unmarked bag next to the sink. I didn't know what else to do with it."

"Sometimes it does that," her sigh was very telling. This was to be expected to become a regular occurrence. She motioned for the notebook I got to keep track of everything in the store, rattling off a recipe for a cleaner and solvent combo, made purely from the items she had inside the store, giving me stern instructions to add the ingredients in the exact order I was told. I sighed but added the footnote. Odette was a far cry from the greasy git from Hogwarts so she deserved the benefit of the doubt at least.

I didn't dare to ask any more questions about the strange man; not that day, not after I had suprised Wanda with a quick recap of my story. It's not like I had anything against mutants - as long as they were peaceful and didn't harm humans with their abilities, I was content to co-habit, share my space and even be friends with them. A very nice old lady who came by three times a week had gills peeking out of the top of her turtleneck and she was just the most polite, sweetest thing.

Wanda's curiosity was understandable and not suspicious in any way: I was under the impression she was a mutant, too, along with her twin brother - so the feeling of dread that blossomed within me as soon as the two suited figures entered the small store I attributed to the larger size of the man and vulture eyes of the woman. They both appeared extremely out of place with their black two-pieces and badly hidden pistol holsters, topped off with badges I couldn't take a good look at without losing my customer service facade.

I decided to play it dumb, self-conscious of the thudding of my heart in my ribcage. My body screamed 'danger' at me. "Hello, how can I help you?"

The woman cast an observant look over me, my plain clothes, lingering on my star-patterned scarf and matching hair band. "Are you the owner of this store?"

"No," I frowned, not liking where this was going. "Do you have an appointment with Odette?"

"We'd like to see her," the man pointedly moved his arm, exposing the gun and the badge.

I dropped the nice act, staring him down in earnest. I never liked self-righteous, pushy government officials; even less so, when they didn't follow protocol and started the conversation with demands instead of proper introductions. As I shot a quick text to Odette, noting that there were 'strange people in uniform' looking for her, my suspicions were only confirmed when the woman looked around the store with eyes that knew what they were looking for. Those two definitely weren't cops or even feds, they were straight up shady.

Odette all but flew to the bodega, the imposing, suffocating aura I'd seen only once on full display. It was hard to breathe standing so close to her; with muted satisfaction, I noticed both agents squirm, their fingers twitching, as they took in shuddering inhales through their, undoubtedly, lying mouths.

The whole spectacle was over quickly. I had managed to serve and quickly usher out Ike, one of the Satanists (yes, we did, in fact, have a few of those as regulars) with his paper bag full of powdered goat horn and a fresh cat skull under his armpit before the curtains parted and the two agents left without saying a word. I thought their eyes looked - wrong, like glass marbles, dull, lifeless and unseeing.

Odette dismissed my worries with a frivolously waved hand: "They won't be bothering us anytime soon," closing the door to her office - it reeked of strong incense and horseradish, for some reason. Like she'd been making some hell salad in front of the two nosy officials.

I took a deep breath in and then a deep breath out. The weirdness should've bothered me more, I knew, but I couldn't bring myself to decide whether I wanted to know what that interaction was actually about or live in blissful ignorance, where my boss might be some sort of a mutant or an actual witch that helps other mutants.

The longer I thought about it, the louder anti-mutant propaganda articles screamed at me: children being killed or abandoned because one day, they woke up and could fly or move things with their mind; every potential situation could end up like Carrie or Brightburn - two movies so blatantly obvious in their point to instill fear against children that could grow to work alongside Earth's Mightiest Defenders.

Needless to say, my conscious calmed down pretty quickly. I had felt the hairs on my nape stand up as soon as the agents entered the room and in my experience, a reaction like that was never good. I had been taught to trust my gut.

Odette had cancelled her visits for the day, holing up in her office as the whole store rapidly filled up with the stench of horseradish, old blood and sage. The occasional noise came from the office, interrupted by mumbling, and I was quickly told to just turn up the old, vintage radio if it bothered me.

I was too busy taking in the contents of her office - the table that previously stood in the far end of it, stood in the middle, folded out into the shape of a circle. Something was drawn on it, something the color of dried blood, and there were light candles, white and blue, littered on almost every possible surface. The air was clouded with incense smoke, so thick, it made my eyes water.

Odette's grin was sardonic as she met my eyes, wide and shocked, that had previously landed on what looked like a pot- or a cauldron, emanating the strongest bitter stench that wafted even through the lead curtain of incense. No wonder the whole store reeked.

Before she gently shut the door in my face, I caught the centerfold of the whole show - an extremely large, tattered, leatherbound tome with yellowed pages and a heavy metal padlock laying next to it. Overcome by stupor, I didn't manage to make out the intricate silver letters on its cover.

Needless to say, walking home that day was an adventure. In part, I was cautious that the agents would find me, follow me home, interrogate me - I've never been arrested even by usual cops and it was unlikely that shady government agencies were delicate in their approach. A larger part of my brain was wondering about the implications of what I had seen, I'd nearly chewed off my fingernails remembering the vacant, lost face expressions on the agents' faces.

As soon as I got home, I set to do some serious googling. And find information, I did. Plethora of minor details - candle colors, herbs used, deeply individual incantations and mythical deities that chose to work with a particular witch. It was nothing short of a whole science; I'd go as far as to say it was a complete lifestyle. The use of magick bled into every aspect of daily life, from sleep to food to communication with others.

Part of me felt incredulity at the implication of sacrificing so much to get results that might be the opposite of the ones desired. A larger, braver part of me - the very same that used to push me to explore abandoned buildings with my friends and drink booze given by a stranger - admired the work and the dedication my boss and her kind put into their work.

Having received my first paycheck and successfully having made it through rent day without having to make excuses, my conscious allowed me to treat myself to a few items - I decided to give into my curiosity and placed an order for a few books on modern witchcraft, happily waiting for the package to arrive next afternoon. I went to sleep with my head full and a new world at my feet to explore.

The books were late - or more like, never showed. The refund couldn't come soon enough. My curiosity began to reach unbearable levels the longer I worked the front desk at Odette's. These days I didn't need much assistance anymore, ready to help any new or returning customer with the help of my notebook. Time after time, I noticed a certain working order, a pattern to things if you may - and was able to recommend a few things here and there. In short, I stepped over my initial apprehension and dove into the world of natural remedies and energetic manipulation headfirst.

It made all the sense that Odette would start to take absence from the bodega as my training progressed. On the days she had fewer or no appointments, she would don her favourite scarf and trot out the front door, large purse in tow, to run errands or restock on the rare, pricy items that couldn't get delivered directly to the shop. I'd grown accustomed to locking up on my own; the spare key to the entrance door was my pride and joy, the dull silver a warm comfort hanging on a chain around my neck. Its antique design made a fairly pretty necklace.

The customer coming to pick up a special order hardly disrupted my time. I had Janis Joplin blaring from the old radio, my skirt swayed to the rhythm of the song together with me. The elevated mood while working in the shop was something I appreciated fully - with a kind smile, I departed for the backrooms to search for the package with the customer's name, not finding it anywhere near the proper place. A call later, I was opening Odette's office and extracting the paper-wrapped shoebox from the fridge, passing it into the customer's arms with utmost care: 'FRAGILE. KEEP REFRIGERATED AT ALL TIMES.' read on it in Odette's sharp cursive.

The bell above the door rang as the woman departed but I was already inching behind the curtain, overcome by sudden inquisitiveness.

The book. It stood right in the middle of Odette's desk, shut, but missing its padlock, beckoning with the thick gothic letters spelling out 'PRACTICAL ALCHEMY'. I noticed it as soon as I stepped into the office, confused and puzzled by my own unbearable desire to approach it immediately. I knew something was amiss, yet, my legs had a mind of their own and my hands firmly placed themselves upon the heavy cover of the book, seemingly without the input from my brain.

"What the hell..." I muttered to myself, finding the books contents to be - for the lack of a better word - peculiar. "Protect a babe born on all Hallows Eve..." I numbly mouthed the first words that my eyes registered. The pages made a soft noise as my shaking fingers turned them, one after the other. "Bestow healing upon a barren womb... Punish a thief..." There were - spells, and potions, and so many plants I've never even heard about before.

The pages turned and handwritings changed - at the start, words were written out precisely, the cursive neat and sharp, obviously written by an ink pen. Some things were scribbles, pencil or charcoal, so barely intelligible I had to guess about a third of the words written. Towards the end of the book pages made with a typewriter appeared - blocky letters and numbers, language modern, ash and cigarette smell coming from the paper.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The longer my hands touched the pages, the stronger the tingling sensation became - I failed to notice it at first, attributing it to the exhilaration of finding something so strange yet so precious, but as I was finishing a page that contained a fairly short spell for protection of a witches' home, the discomfort of my palms rose into a mild stinging pain.

"Fuck," I yelped, casting a look at my fingers. They were hot, angry, as if I had briefly touched boiling oil - and the skin on my fingertips began to blister, little white pustules forming where I had gingerly held the pages of the book in place. "What the fuck?" Was my reasonable question to nobody in particular.

The books contents were, no doubt, interesting but I was more concerned with the state of my hands - had I ignored the pain for five more minutes, I might have had to go to the hospital to treat what was beginning to look like a second-degree burn. I slammed it shut none-too-gently, placing it exactly as I found it and winced when barely a second of touching it brought on more excruciating pain.

The healing peppermint oil salve I knew people bought for mild burns only soothed the initial sting, so I had to suffer until I clocked out, stopping by a drugstore on my way home to purchase some much-needed burn cream. And while it didn't make it worse, I knew that my next day at work was going to be Hell.

Most thankful, however, I was to my voice-to-text option on my cell. Not only it allowed me to communicate with my friends without hurting my abused skin even more, but it also dutifully saved the short, simple spell that was supposed to protect my house. There was no harm in trying it, I supposed, after seeing what I didn't doubt was the book's own protection wreak havoc on my snoopy little hands.

The tag list is open until the story is finished.

@couldntbedamned @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites

#bun writes #practical alchemy #tony stark x reader x stephen strange #tony stark x reader #stephen strange x reader #stephen strange x y/n #tony stark x y/n #Stephen Strange x you #Tony Stark x you

[angeltears-writing]

The Brother’s and movies

Lucifer

v  Lucifer tells anyone who asks that he enjoys serious, dramatic movies set during the wartimes the type that get Oscar nominations but are quite intense and a little dull.

v  Lucifer however holds a dirty little secret that his prideful nature will not allow him to outwardly share.

v  He LOVES Christmas movies.

v  The end of year holiday movie’s just alleviate all the stress in him. He is so happy while watching that he can barely keep the grin off his face.

v  DO NOT watch Home Alone with him and Mammon. Lucifer every 2 minutes is mouthing off against Mammon stating that HE is the Kevin of the family.

v  His favourite holiday movie is the Santa Clause.

v  The holidays are so special to him and the movies just capture the atmosphere and joy he feels.

v  He loves Christmas because he finally gets a break from his duties, he can have a fun little party with his beloved brothers and friends, he receives and gives meaningful gifts and even Satan is nice to him on Christmas.

v  When you come to the Devildom you bet Lucifer is watching Love Actually with you and every single romantic Christmas movie so he can feel enjoy the warm fuzzy feelings assiociated with his favourite holiday with his beloved Y/n.

Mammon

v  Before you came the Devildom Mammon solely watched hardcore triple X action movies. Unless on movie night with his brothers, then he’s forced to watch some boring artsy flick or some anime junk movie .*cough cough Levi*

v  He was a total dudebro and loved PointBreak.He owns the full collection of the Fast and the Furious. What’s not to love with the live fast, die hard law breaker lifestyle?

v  The man also lives for heist movies, Oceans 11? He has it memorised! He thinks about how HE would be a huge asset to the team and dreams about pulling off some high action super cool heist with you.

v  When Y/n comes to the Devildom it is like a flip of a switch for Mammon.

v  He says he can handle horror movies but you both know that’s a big fat lie so only insist on watching them if you wish to torture him.

v  He will complain and insult your choices of chick flicks and romantic comedies but he is enraptured.

v  HE LOVES it, he watches a couple of them in secret and daydreams about you and him as the main couple.

v  This man wants to pull a Heath Ledger and serenade you to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in front of his brothers, Diavolo, RAD, heck even the whole Devildom.

v  He is living for these romantic comedies and constantly tries to recreate his favourite cutesy moments with you. (Did he get you “special wishing sparkles” and told you to close your eyes and make a wish? Did he then give you a shy blushy kiss when you opened your eyes and say wish granted? Who knows that’s between you and him.)

v  Oh and you bet he’s crying when the couple’s fight and cheering so hard when they finally get together. He can’t help it he’s a secret romantic. Don’t be so loud about it Y/n! He has a tough guy attitude to maintain.

Leviathan

v  Anime movies. Need I go on?

v  He has the Blu-ray special editions of Studio Ghibli movies and he loves watching them on rainy cold days snuggled under a blanket with you.

v  He loves Ponyo for obvious water and fish related reasons. You guys have defiantly done cosplay photo shoots, he was Ponyo, you were Sosuke and Henry was the fishy sisters.

v  Other than anime movie’s Levi is a 80’s movie aficionado. He has seen every 80’s movie. He particularly relates to the high school movies for the theme of the awkward nerdy guy getting the super cool, popular girl of their dreams.

v  He does enjoy the nerdier comic book, big budget action movies, like Kick-Ass. He and Satan have faced off against each other regarding whether DC or Marvel movies are better. (He prefers the funny antics associated with Marvel plus he’s a Peter Parker fanboy)

v  He also is a huge fan of any Edgar Wright movie since seeing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. (He let out a Woaahhhh when he saw the comics)

v  May Lord Diavolo have mercy upon you if the movie is a book or tv show adaption because Levi will not shut up during the movie. (He will pause the movie he’s not THAT inconsiderate.) You will not have a moment of peace after the movie has ended. He simply must share every single thought he had on what the movie did right and what the movie did wrong. Then he has to show you his fan casting list of who would better fit the roles and then just when you think it’s over he pushes you to re-watch the movie with him to listen to the director commentary.  

v  Levi will generally save his commentary for after the movie if you got to the movie theatre with him. Something about the change of atmosphere and the excitement that comes from the movie watching experience just puts him in a calmer less frantic mood and you can enjoy a simple quiet movie date for an hour or 2 before your ear will be talked off.

 Satan

v  DO NOT WATCH BOOK TO MOVIE ADAPTATIONS WITH HIM! HE IS WORSE THAN LEVI AND TWICE AS BRUTAL IN HIS CRITICS.

v  Now that that fact is out of the way Satan is a mystery fan. He enjoys the cheesy who dunnit type movie’s especially if the detective solving the mystery is very cool and charismatic with a fun catch phrase.

v  One that caught him of guard and quickly became his favourite was Knives Out. A clear mystery with a wacky bunch of characters all with misleading facts and motivations. Additionally he was thrown for a loop on the ending so he really enjoyed it for its unpredictability.

v  Of course Satan enjoys DC movies I mean he and Levithan read the comics and he is a clear believer that the serious tone and consequence from DC makes them the far superior super hero franchise.

v  Contrary to popular belief Satan does not like documentaries, he gets restless and bored watching them, but you keep putting on those boring long documentaries because it leads to a very steamy make out session with a slightly huffy Satan who had been complaining that his movie choice would have been much more enjoyable. Hush hush Satan we are not watching the Blue Planet to sate our curiosity of the inner workings of the environment but rather to quiet your adorable little tuts and huffs with soft sweet kisses and gentle touches.

v  The double edged sword that comes from picking a documentary is that Satan will indeed make you suffer by making his pick a terrifying horror movie since he thinks you are oh so adorable when you’re frightened. He thinks it’s really cute when you ask him to walk you to the bathroom because you’re afraid of the big scary monsters and it’s even cuter to him when you throw your face into his chest and refuse to look until the scary scene is over. Haaa he cannot resist and must pat your head and give you a small peck.

Asmo

v  When one watches a movie with Asmo, one does not simply see it, one lives it.

v  Asmo loves 90s and early 2000s movies about the pretty popular girls because he lives to see their fabulous closets, outfits and their dewy supple skin. He’s a huge fan of Clueless, Legally Blonde and Bring It on.

v  He also simply dies for those cult classic like, Mommie Dearest, Troop Beverly Hills, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Marie Antoinette, Death Becomes Her and many more. You guys put on face masks grab a couple of tasty cupcakes and start reciting the movies line for line bursting into giggles every time, that’s how many times you’ve seen them.

v  Asmo gets the appeal of campy movie’s that have not been appreciated for their odd charm so when you come along you bet he’s going to be shouting out his favourite one liners and you fire the responses right back. He’s in love.

v  What he loves most about the campy movies is the fabulosity and authenticity that comes from the movie’s just wanting to tell a great story and celebrate the oddities and dramatics of the characters. His favourites are the ones with drag queens particularly Priscilla Queen of the Desert, To Wong Foo and The Birdcage. How is he not meant to simply adore the beautiful wigs, costumes, the attitudes of the queens and the sharp, dry, witty humour.

v  Big blockbuster wise Asmo is inclined to see any musical, and yes for 3 weeks straight he will sing the songs of the musical, much  to the displeasure of his brothers but to the delight of you and Solomon who cheer him on and request encores. (Yes you all went to see Cats together, yes you dragged Satan along. Yes everyone but especially Satan was traumatised and yes Asmo did drape himself across every available surface in the House of Lamentation and belted out Memory for practically the whole Devildom to enjoy. Enough with the questions!)

v  Asmo’s favourite musical is Rocky Horror Picture show, you have monthly viewings where Asmo dresses up as Frank en Furter and performs…well not for you more on top of you.

v  Movies with Asmo are always fun treats, you both have a great time with each other and walk away from the movie’s feeling more emotional and closer with one another.

Beel

v  Beel’s taste in movies is similar to his taste in food he is not picky and enjoys a wide variety.

v  He enjoys mafia movies of any variety He likes the familial bond and the trust between members but does not enjoy the double crossing, it makes him feel sad.

v  Other than that he lives for the lively mood, the Italian food, the dramatic situations and the action sequences.

v  He has seen a few animated movies and his favourite is Brother Bear, it reminds him of him and Belphie and makes him soft.

v  He does actually does like twin movies because the plots are always outlandish and funny to him at least.

v  When it comes to movies where food is central to the plot, do not get him started. The amount of times you had to pause Ratatouille so he could get his 20th snack in the last 10 minutes was astonishing. He get’s extra hungry watching the movie but generally enjoys chatting to you about the food making process of each dish rather than paying attention to the plot. (You: Would you prepare food made by a rat? Him: Well I ate Solomon’s cooking once so even a rat’s cooking would be better than that)

v  He loves to ask which dish would you eat when restaurant scenes come up because he’s curious of your taste while watching the movie and sometimes he’ll stop paying attention the movie and instead just watch your reactions.

v  Generally speaking any movie suggestion he’s fine with as long as he gets to spend time with you and can binge on delicious movie snacks.

Belphie

v  The total opposite of Beel, Belphie is a total film snob and will harshly berate your movie choice and say ‘You really made me stay awake for this crap fest.’

v  He doesn’t mean to be mean (yes he does but he doesn’t like making you sad) he just has a very particular taste for movies and if he’s going to extend the effort to stay awake and pay attention he wants it to be worth his time.

v  He is actually the one in the house who does enjoy documentaries. What can he say some habits die hard and he’s still a total Earth nut even though he human-phobic.

v  Not to mention the gentle voice of David Attenbourough soothes him until he is just barely awake so when he finally drifts off he dreams of the wonderful parts of Earth and the miracles or nature.

v  He is a fan of Shakespeare movies particularly the rich dark one’s that are a bit more violent. The atmosphere surrounding them just fits and the plot is a classic so why watch a cheap knock-off of what he has dubbed perfect writing.

v  This man is an emo so of course he’s going to watch the slightly pretentious movies with poetry, his favourites are Dead Poets Society, The Crow and V for Vendetta.

v  On movie nights he is selfish! He insists that you watch his movie first then he immediately falls asleep after it ends. He feels no shame over this.

v  He hates twin themed movies, he thinks they’re cheap and over use the same gag of ‘Whoa they’re twins.’ (Sorry Mary-Kate and Ashley Belphie does not like you guys at all)

v  He watches brother themed movies with Beel and gets really soft because he loves his twin so much.

v  If you truly force him he will relent and watch your movie with you but he will make fun of it and bully you every second he is awake and the only way to silence him is to cuddle up close, let him lay his head on your chest or shoulder, massage his head or give him tons of kisses.  

v  Generally speaking a bad movie buddy but a great cuddle buddy for movie nights.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me luficer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me belphie #obey me beel #obey me brothers #obey me leviathan #mammon x reader #lucifer x reader #satan x reader #asmo x reader #leviathan x reader #belphie x reader #beel x reader #obey me x reader

[comic-brew]

Pieces

@whumptober2020 days n.4 Running out of time: Buried Alive and n.5 Falling (alt prompt)

Summary: The wet soil doesn’t end, it engulfs him in its cold embrace and doesn’t let him go, no matter how wildly he struggles against the earthly tendrils wrapped securely around his limbs and torso.

Notes: shitty au where basically TV Titans Jason has flashbacks of his comic-life, even though he technically haven’t lived any of them yet. How much this story progresses depends on if I’ll write a second ch. Beware of 2 different writing styles cause I started this way too long ago.

Reading time: 35 mins (4.4k)

Warnings: whump, panic attacks, being buried alive, self deprecating thoughts, angst, oxygen deprivation, PTSD (?), vertigo, falling, perhaps sth else I missed??

or read here on ao3!

ps. reblogs and feedback bring the author great joy uwu

***

“Hey, Jason” Gar greets after knocking and opening the door to Jason’s room just enough to peer his head through.

“How’re you doing?”

The boy waits but Jason doesn’t reply. He’s simply staring out his window, arms falling limply at his side, barely even registering the new presence in the room. Garfield bites his lip and invites himself inside and by Jason’s side. He glances at the boy’s rapidly moving, but hollow eyes, then at the view of the sky they’re aiming at.

“Are you still with us, buddy?” he asks.

He hesitantly runs a hand up and down in front of Jason’s distant gaze and that seems to do the trick.

Jason blinks, then shakes his head to rid himself of whatever thought he was so unnervingly engrosed into. Turning to face the green haired boy, he assumes the most carefree expression he can muster, forcing a halflit smile in a futile attempt to compose himself.

“Yeah, was just.. thinking” he assures, his eyes holding no emotion.

“ ‘Course… You sure you’re okay?” Gar presses, making little effort to conceal the incredulous frown his eyebrows are drawn into.

Jason shifts in his place while his hands clench and unclench, in an attempt to calm his discomfort and aggravation at Gar’s question, because he knows his teammate’s just asking out of honest concern. It’s not his fault Jason hasn’t slept in days and isn’t used to people checking up on him.

“I’m fine, dude, seriously.” Jason insists and Garfield knows better than to further inquire him “Now, did you want something?”

Fuck. Jason almost winces at how aggressive his words have come out. Gar blinks, opening his mouth to say something. Before his thoughts can materialize on the tip on his tongue, he seems to rethink what he wanted to say. That delay of course doesn’t go unnoticed by Jason.

God..Why does he always mess everything up?

As Gar’s about to speak again, the new Robin raises a hand to the green haired boy’s chest, stopping any word before it can reach his ears. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just tired and I’m taking it out on you.” he huffs a bitter laugh “You don’t deserve me being an ass to you too.”

The boy’s brown eyes light up with understanding and relief and his tense shoulders physically relax at the confession. “Hey, it’s cool man. I get it.” he acknowledges, smiling politely and squeezing Jason’s shoulder.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t recoil from the touch, instead reciprocating Gar’s reassuring smile with an exhausted, but genuine and lighthearted smirk.

They both remain in that position for several split seconds, until Garfield finally retracts his hand to clasp his palms together as it dawns on him that he still hasn’t told his teammate the news he came to deliver.

“Actually I did come to tell you something” he announces, grinning widely and slightly fidgeting with his fingers “Rachel and I were thinking of watching a movie, you’re welcome to join us. You know, if you feel up to it.”

Jason takes a spare second to ponder and process Gar’s proposition. He steals a glance at the translucent glass of the window, separating his world from the towering skyscrapers and showering his neatly made bed in the soft gleam of the afternoon.

It would surely be better than staying there alone, falling into the inky depths of his eternal abyss.

Turning to face the boy whose eyes scour him expectantly for any indication of his intentions, he relents with a rather forced shrug.

“Uh, sure, I guess.” Jason says.

Gar’s face lights up and pulls into a joyous grin. “Cool… cool.”

He awkwardly shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants and starts heading towards the door, stopping midway to listen to Jason calling out after him.

“I’ll be there in a sec.”

The green haired boy simply nods and subtly waves his hand goodbye, before he disappears into the hallway.

***

When Jason steps foot into one of the spacious living areas Titans Tower houses, there are three heads turning at the soft sound of his approaching footsteps where he expected to be greeted by two. The platinum curls flowing gracefully with the motion can only belong to one person. Well, at least one person they know.

“Rose” he sighs. “Didn’t expect you to come”

“Didn’t expect to come either” she counters, the corners of her lips twitching upwards in amusement, “But I guess this could be fun after all”

She is comfortably perched on a lovely armchair covered by smooth, pearl fabric, facing the flank of a matching couch. One knee bent and placed securely under her body, the side of her head is doused in the last dull afternoon light seeping into the room through the daffodil curtains keeping the golden sunset rays at bay. Rachel is regarding Jason with a mellow smile, sitting cross legged on the far end of the couch neighbouring Rose’s armchair and Garfield has already started fumbling with a rather ancient DVD player.

It’s a wonder how this thing still exists in a building where interactive holograms are a norm. But then again it wouldn’t be the oddest thing about this place.

“Well,” Gar begins, slightly groaning when the DVD port spitefully refuses to close, “We’re both glad you did join us. Now, take a seat ladies and gentlemen!” he announces with fervor when he finally manages to slam the port close, and gestures towards the unoccupied cushions next to the purple haired girl.

Jason takes the invitation gladly and flops down on the other end of the couch, closer to the hall he was in just a few seconds ago.

“What are we watching?” Jason asks.

Rachel turns her focus to him then, leaning her back on the couch and clutching a decorative pillow to her abdomen. “Gar found this, and I quote, 'apocalyptic masterpiece of censorship’ and insisted we had to watch it.” she grins, rolling her eyes at reciting her friend’s words.

Jason and Rose both snort at that as Garfield reaches the couch in a few quick strides. “Seriously guys, I have only ever heard about this movie from some pretty questionable sources.” he says giddily before sobering up again, clearly fussing over his discovery.

“We’re literally staring an urban legend in the face, guys!”

“Yeah, not like you hang out with the Titans or whatever” Jason quips. Seriously, how can a movie be more exciting than fighting crime alongside heroes? Than being a hero?

“Good point, bro. Good point”

Jason shoulders stiffen at the nickname, but only for a briefly awkward moment which Gar is more than eager to fill with more (unnecessary) information.

“Well, according to those guys the movie was banned shortly after its release and all copies were revoked and ultimately destroyed.”

“Clearly not all copies” Rachel muses before asking why the movie was banned in the first place. Gar mumbles something about it addressing some extremely controversial topics and offending some powerful douchbag before making his way to the middle cushion.

Rachel scoots over without even untangling her legs to make more room for him to sit.

Rose simply raises an eyebrow.

“Where the hell did you even hear about this stuff in the first place?”

Gar suddenly goes stills in his place on the couch. He runs a hand through his messy strands of hair before reluctantly providing an answer. “Uh… Tumblr?” he says while grinning awkwardly.

Rachel nods her head back slack-jawed, brows shooting up in a terrible attempt at showing understanding. Gar frowns as he then glances at Jason who’s staring at him with wide disbelieving eyes, the sound of Rose dramatically smacking her own face enhancing the atmosphere.

“It’s not that surprising guys, come on!” Gar protests, an exasperated sigh emanating from his lips.

At that, the three of them exchange deadpan looks before bursting out laughing. The laughter soon subsides into small giggles and high pitched breaths as the green haired boy smiles with content and leans above the mahogany coffee table to grab the tv remote.

“Well, friends, brace yourselves, for the most epic zombie movie to barely exist” he says, smirking as he plops back down on the leathern cushions.

On the screen, their reflections have given their place to the lean figure of a boy of asian descent in his 16s walking alongside a girl with dark complexion and luscious, auburn hair. A gentle, velvety voice surrounds them from the speakers and integrates them in the world the film is set in.

Time flows pleasantly as the story progresses with no interruption aside from a few enthusiastic inputs from a beaming Garfield.

The rest of the Titans are all gathered together in some other part of the Tower, once again excluding them from whatever plans they might be conjuring.

Because that went so well last time, Jason unwittingly ponders, quick to dismiss the thoughts lest those dreadfully fresh memories resurface.

But perhaps it’s already too late to whisk them away.

Jason gets up out of the blue, eliciting an inquisitive glare from the rest of the kids.

“I’ll just.. go grab some popcorn” he states vacantly, pointing at the hallway with his thumb without breaking eye contact. Truth is he needs a minute to recover from the intrusion of sensations he’d rather forget.

Plus, popcorn sounds nice.

“We can pause the film if you want” Rachel’s soft voice prompts, wording what has likely been dancing around the others’ minds as well.

“Nah, it’s cool. It won’t take long. I’m not going all the way to the Antarctica and back or whatever” he replies, fighting the nagging urge to roll his eyes and let the poison drip onto his voice. The kids nod and in a moment’s notice he’s gone.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Keeping up his pace feels abysmally hard. His head is reeling and his senses are swimming all around the place, reality feels like a fuzzy blanket draped over a newborn’s skin. Jason takes a few more carefully calculated steps before he stumbles on thin air. Careening into the wall he leans against the slick concrete on his flank until the world stops shifting enough for him to continue.

Somehow Jason makes it to the kitchen. He fumbles with the drawers, opening and closing them jerkily.

In just a few seconds the falling has progressed to the point where he can barely stand. He doesn’t think it’s ever been this bad the previous times.

Everything is spinning around. And when it all shifts upside down he’s falling from the marble to the ceiling, and when his skin and the asbestos are inches from colliding, the world tilts again like an hourglass that’s ran out of sand.

Just like that his descend is reset. Over and over.

He finds the popcorn bag in the last one and grabs it hastily. Only after the third attempt, the previous two ending shamefully with his clasp clutching piteously at empty air.

Dropping it of on the countertop it’s more muscle memory than will that redirects him to the sink. His fingers grip the knob, turning the water lukewarm, but as he lets it puddle on his palms he can’t feel it any clearer than a breath of a ghost on the back of his neck.

Jason splashes the water on his face but it ends up mostly on his clothes and on the ground. Gravity works funny when you have no sense of it.

His hands latch onto the edge of the sink and cling for dear life. The ledge, hold on to the ledge. His eyes open wide, they soak up the terror of the height. The terror of death.

The eerie reassurance of death.

The smog dissipates faster this time. But with it the distressing thought that it’s getting worse, that he’s getting worse, finds the chance settle in his gut.

Jason can’t do this anymore.

But he’s already been gone for a conspicuously large amount of time, and the thought of having to explain his reoccurring day-mares can’t even be entertained by his mind. So that makes a problem for another day.

The popcorn is ready in only a few minutes. Jason holds on to the sink for a couple more moments, taking deep breaths in and out, until his heart has stopped beating frenzied.

If they ask, he can always say he had trouble with the 'corn.

He can always say.

“Okay” he breathes out, closing his eyes as he informs nobody in particular.

“Okay I’m ready”

With that Jason grabs the bowl filled to the brim with the snack and disappears out the door. The journey from the kitchen to the smaller living area is nothing compared to the odyssey he went through following his departure from the lounge.

Once he sets foot back inside all heads turn towards him.

“What did I miss?” he asks, ever so cheerfully as he strides closer to the small den of couches.

One of them starts speaking, no doubt filling him in on the events that happened while he wasn’t watching. Whoever it is, Jason can’t concentrate on their voice enough to tell it apart.

On the screen, the boy is desperately gasping for air as he’s emerging from a moonlit grave.

The world spins out of focus, and before any of them know it the bowl has slipped through Jason’s limb fingers.

It has slipped, and it is falling.

***

The splintered wood pricks and stabs the sensitive skin beneath his shattered fingernails and the blood is threatening to leave his hands and drip onto his glacial cold face. His fingers hurt, they weren’t made as a shovel, they weren’t made to be penetrating wood, but they are doing exactly that, and he can’t acknowledge the piercing, burning throbs that travel through his veins to set the rest of his body aflame, because his lungs are burning, they’re flaring up more and more with every broken attempt at filling them up with air-

He has to dig, he has to keep going-

The last layer of polished wood finally relents, small pieces of it falling onto his raggedly, but once expensive, dandy suit. Blood is mixed with sweat on his palms, accelerating the speed with which it runs along his hands, tickling him while he scrambles for a breath of fresh air that never comes.

“N..o…” he croaks out and speaking is hard, his throat feels as the ash coated land left behind the passage of lava, and now he needs to cough, and he needs to breathe but there’s no air coming in, and frankly, he can’t decide whether it’s from the panic that has overcome him or because there simply isn’t enough oxygen in the cramped space he’s trapped in.

It’s not some prank

As if on cue the ground above him slightly shakes as the mud repositions and soil seeps through the open slit of the-

Of the coffin.

I’m buried alive…. I… I…, he realizes, ever so frantically.

And so his thoughts begin to plague him, the next one banging and clawing at the door of his mind before the previous has had the time to be stated, he’s hyperventilating and fairly so, he’s buried underneath 6 feet of soil-

Stop it Jason, get ahold of yourself. You made it this far because you never gave up, you won’t give up now either, a part of himself with a semblance of sanity left scolds him and orders his bloody hands to move, they grip the edge of the broken pine casket and pull with all their might.

The wooden seal cracks and Jason makes a supernatural effort to set it aside as it holds the weight of 6 feet of soil, his atrophied muscles protest by threatening to give out but it’s sheer determination that gets him to move on, he has to make it, he can’t die in there, he can’t leave, can’t leave his family.

Mud now openly drowns him from the huge whole in the lid of the casket, devouring every corner, sticking to every inch of skin and fabric.

He’s still gasping for air, his lungs and throat feel ready to burst and he’s dizzy, everything is spinning, but on the other hand 'everything’ is nothing more but a muddy grave and he’s still inside.

Almost frantically his injured fingers reach for the source of the soil. With jerky movements and all the strength he can muster he forces his hands through the earth. The stiff mud swallows him whole, lets the worms and maggots get tangled in his long strands of hair. Jason keeps his eyes and mouth stubbornly shut as he desperately struggles to propel his flimsy frame through the endless layers of ground.

He can faintly feel the darkness creeping in the corner of his mind, promising relief, promising safety. Those whispers sound tempting to his weak, grazed arms, to his blazing lungs-

The whispers don’t know that it’s not written in his DNA to yield.

His arms hastily swim through the wet mass that’s holding him beneath the surface, he can feel the dirt in his hair, in his ears, in his shirt, his pants, his everything. Maggots and caterpillars are crawling on his convulsed features. His heart is throbbing unnaturally loud, he can hear the thumping in his ears as his marred hands push and dig with painstaking effort.

Better hurry little robin! It ain’t fun if you die now, amiright boy blunder? HahaHA!

He’s digging, he’s trying, dyeing the earth crimson with his blood, please-

The wet soil doesn’t end, it engulfs him in its cold embrace and doesn’t let him go, no matter how wildly he struggles against the earthly tendrils wrapped securely around his limbs and torso.

He’s desperately gasping for a breath, just one breath to keep going, he’s coughing up phlegm and bile while his chest writhes and burns. He can’t help his mouth gaping in a last-gasp search for oxygen but the only thing entering his mouth and traveling towards his pricking trachea is dirt and rocks and… and…

…a feather?

A feather. He can feel it with his tongue, he can taste its sourness and almost hear a soft crunch under his teeth.

A feather. Robin.

He’s Robin, and Robin doesn’t die alone in an empty grave.

Robin fights. Robin protects. Robin wins.

With renewed resoluteness he forges ahead, his hand reaches where he supposes skyward is one more time.

This time, it’s met with the comfort of soft raindrops and the gentle wind blowing against his numb fingertips.

***

“-on? Jason!” Rachel calls at the sound of the metal bowl clattering to the ground, slipping right through the boy’s fingers and letting the freshly baked popcorn scatter all over the marble floor.

The girl exchanges a worried glance with Gar, before Rose gets up and marches furiously towards an exasperatingly unresponsive Robin, the popcorn crunching beneath her feet. She comes to a halt a few inches away from Jason’s hollow eyes and slaps him hard across the cheek.

The other two begin to protest loudly but Rose barely pays them any mind. She watches with pursed lips as Jason’s cloudy eyes regain focus and his hand shoots up to the skin gradually assuming the oh-so-wonderful shade of radish.

“Ow.. what the fuck?” Jason frowns at her while cautiously rubbing his cheek with his right hand. There’s no blood on his fingers, no mud on his skin. He can breathe.

Rose ignores his baffled query and simply turns to the two teens watching the whole scene play out from the safety of the cushions. She beams triumphantly as she announces smugly, “See? It worked.”

Jason, visibly annoyed by his incompetence to understand what the hell is happening traps her wrist in a vice like grip and tugs, forcing her to face him. She squints viciously at the gesture although she effortlessly pulls her hand free.

“Why the fuck did you slap me?”

The girl opens her mouth to respond, putting together a not so composed reply in her head -to put it mildly-, so it’s probably for the best when Rachel interrupts her train of thought.

“What happened, Jason? You completely zoned out”.

“Yeah, dude. What the hell was that all about?” Gar chimes in, nodding at the pile of popcorn by Robin’s feet and at the discarded bowl that has slid all the way to the edge of the couch he and Rachel are perched on.

“Wha..” Jason regards the strewn snacks with a quizzical look, as if he’s waiting for them to answer why they’re spread out all over the floor. Oddly enough, they don’t.

He fixes his still hazy gaze on his calloused hands next, his confusion manifesting in the form of furrowed brow.

He- he was-

no. He was never there. Always here.

His inviolate fingers are proof enough of that. But then.. is he losing his mind? Just like old Bertha, the old lady running around the theater, screaming that she had been kidnapped and experimented on by flying giraffes…. Not that it’s impossible with everything he’s witnessed the past year.

No, that can’t be it. He’s still shaken up from the fall right? It’s logical that he’s hallucinating about graves, he was seconds from ending up in one just a few days ago. It will go away right?

It will, it has to.

They can’t know, the street kid inside of him insists, they’ll throw you away like a broken toy. Broken..

“Jason, talk to us. What’s wrong?” Rachel is still staring at him, they all are. Her voice is laced with pity, they’re sorry for him. They’re pitying him, the bird that broke its wing and they know that now can’t survive on its own.

“What’s wrong with me?!” His head snaps to where her voice is coming from and the girl flinches at the bite behind his words.

“I didn’t mean- I meant you should perhaps tell Dick about it, he might be able to help” she stutters, her face bearing a deer in the headlights expression. Her gaze briefly meets with Garfield’s, perhaps to seek some backup. Somehow that angers Jason even more.

“Tell Dick? Really?” he snorts, “How about we tell Dick about that time you almost fucking choked me, maybe he could help!” he gasps mockingly. He is shouting now and the girl seems taken aback by the progression of his anger, gawking at him with a hint of sorrow tainting the indigo of her irises.

Gar stands up from his seat and approaches him, getting in the way of him and a Rachel fumbling for the right response to Jason’s accusation. The green haired boy extends his hand almost cautiously, it’s a simple gesture meaning nothing else than stop. It’s common sense, he knows he is going too far again but Jason’s common sense has jumped out the window. To him, they’re treating him like a wounded animal.

Perhaps he’s just projecting how cornered he feels.

“Dude, that’s enough”

“I’m sorry to break this to you, ” he points a finger accusingly at Rachel, “but Dick can’t fix everything like some kind of god you’ve made him out to be”

“Buddy-”

“He can’t fix you and your fucking razor blade tornado or whatever…” he keeps holding Rachel’s bleak glare gesturing wildly with his fingers and ignoring Garfield’s feeble attempts at making him stop.

“…and he can’t fix this” Jason concludes by pointing miserably at his head, then the rest of his body, until his hand drops limp at his side in resignation. His newfound rage has dissipated into downright bitterness.

At the far back the movie is still playing, forgotten. In the faint comforting light of the screen the girl with the auburn hair is kneeling in front of a stone cold body, burrowing her face in chestnut locks that would never grow any longer, as her shoulders heave sharply with every wreaked sob.

Grieving. Jason can still feel the three pairs of eyes -one consisting of one blue and an eyepatch- burning holes into the glimmers of tears stubbornly refusing to be spilt from his, even as he averts his stare.

There’s a deep pause after the abrupt revelation and the four kids are encompassed in a veil of tense silence no one seems willing to break.

Rose -who seemed rather amused when the yelling had started- is now solemnly inspecting the intricate patterns on the sheer curtains tucked to the side of the plate-glass window. Garfield is standing with his arms crossed protectively around his torso. Rachel has ceased to stare wide eyed like a freshly caught fish, however she’s keeping her arms close to her body and shifting awkwardly in her place. Her expression remains grim and her eyes dim, bearing an eerily sorrowful glint.

She puts her head down and eventually flies out of the room without another word. Consumed either by irritation or even guilt, if Jason has to guess. Gar spares no more than a defeated glance at her departure, otherwise maintaining his position by the abruptly deserted couch. He simply reaches for the tv remote, cutting off image and sound amidst a heated argument between the two leads. Damn this movie.

Deathstroke’s daughter looks between the two boys expectantly for half a second. None of them pays her any mind, too busy staring at the suddenly immensely intriguing floor.

“Nevermind, I’m out of here” she mutters through gritted teeth before getting down from atop the loveseat she had claimed and heading towards her own room.

Jason stares blankly at the scattered popcorn, but it provides no answer to the million questions dancing around in his mind.

Frankly, he didn’t expect it to.

Gosh. He’s so messed up.

Gar offers to help him clean up. He refuses. Perhaps Jason pushes him away just like everyone else. He’s got his own mess to clean up, first literally.

The metaphorical one might have just stained too deeply to remedy.

The night finds him placing the broom back in it’s place in the supply closet and sitting alone in pitch darkness.

Thinking of a grave that doesn’t belong to him, it never did, but it has his name on it. Thinking of the memories he shouldn’t have, piecing together how his heart only knows more fragments have been prodding at him, more broken pieces he doesn’t know where they fit.

The night finds him sitting alone in pitch darkness. Shivering, shaking with quiet tears.

Knowing he’d be undisturbed, alone, in the grave he’s built for himself.

#whumptober2020 #no.4 #buried alive #no. 5 #falling #altprompt #tv: titans #dc titans #jason todd #whump #panic attack #self deprecating thoughts #angst #ptsd tw #rachel roth #raven teen titans #raven #gar logan #beast boy #rose wilson #ravager #my fic #my writing #robin!jason #robin

[hapuriainen]

Hapuriainen's Animation & Comics & Games of 2020

It is again time for the annual compilation!

Manga:

Attack on Titan

I'm so sad this is so close to end... It's been my main thing for a few years now. Eren definitely didn't take the route I expected but I still find this consistent with his character and a bold and interesting move from the author.

(My notes say I also finished the jr high spin-off manga but it's not worth talking about)

Awards given: Best Side Girl (I still like Gabi, haters gonna hate), Best Boy (ditto Eren)

One Piece, My Hero Academia My interest in OP is still at an all-time low and I'm just waiting for the arc to end. There are so many characters and I have little idea what their deal is, Carrot hasn't been interesting in ages and currently Yamato is the only character I care for. Same for HeroAca; at least the excruciatingly long action scene is finally over.

Undead Unluck New Jump series! I think the main duo have a really good dynamic, but they're pretty much the only thing I care about and I'm very lost with what the plot is actually supposed to be about.

Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro

I like detective stories so here's one from the Assassination Classroom creator! The detective stuff itself could get rather nonsensical and as the story progressed more and more fantasy elements were added, but the titular character was entertaining enough to keep me interested. The viewpoint character was refreshingly (for a Jump series) a girl and her dynamic with Neuro (an ordinary schoolgirl and an arrogant amoral troll demon) was great.

Awards given: Best non-romantic relationship (Neuro & Yako)

Spy x Family

Super fun and the characters are cute!  The main couple has such great chemistry and in general I enjoy following characters who are really competent at their job. Not surprised that this has become hugely popular.

Awards given: Best romance (it is rare to get me to ship anything but the main couple here is just so cute)

Delicious in Dungeon

This manga has amazing character design and the author clearly loves to play around with it, like by drawing each character as each other's races, or making clones of everyone but each clone is a little different so you can guess which is the real one with the characters, and there's so much thought put to the outfits too. And then there's of course all the worldbuilding around how an RPG dungeon and the creatures in it could work, but it's presented simply enough that the story is still easy to follow. I also like the upbeat atmosphere; maybe I could get a bit more emotionally involved if there was more drama, but I still really like this as it is.

Awards given: Best character designs

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

Reread one of my favourite manga ever and it's still just as good. I love how the manga still has a positive vibe to it, under it there is the quiet melancholy of a world that is close to ending. And it's wonderful how uninterested the story is answering any of the worldbuilding questions it sets up.

Beastars

This was incredibly interesting in how it presented an animal society where the carnivore-herbivore differences couldn't be just explained away with "the differences don't really exist", and the story looks at this from so many different angles. Pairs really well with Zootopia for a completely different approach. Louis was a really interesting character with how he publicly managed to appear as if he was a good candidate to be the next ambassador for the peace between the animals but was actually very cold and broken inside, and I really liked his breakdown moment. The ending was pretty meh though.

Awards given: Best Side Boy (Louis)

Kannagi

This one has really cute character designs but apart from that it's a pretty generic harem story. Except for the twist that the main girl already had been involved with a boy which caused otaku to shred their manga or whatever. I believe I would have enjoyed this more if it finished back when it went to hiatus since at this point it didn't do much for me.

Witch Hat Atelier

The main girl is the kind of heroic, friendly, plucky goody-two-shoes protagonist I really don't like but apart from that this is a great manga. I love the art, and the way the magic works is really well set up but also easy to understand. Great outfits too!

Anime:

This year I learned that in order to clear stuff from your anime watch list you need to actually watch anime. So unexpectedly I think I watched a lot more different series than usual.

Attack on Titan

It was my plan to watch seasons 1-3 before jumping on board with the last one, and of course I dragged my feet for the entire year and had to marathon the whole thing in autumn. I still prefer the manga, but the anime does have great colours, soundtrack and voice acting and some of the action scenes were amazing. But I really hate what they did to Historia in season 3... The final season has been excellent so far and I can't wait for the big scene in the next episode.

Awards given: Best OP (all the Linked Horizon ones)

Ouran High School Host Club

Haruhi continues to be one of the best girls in the anime and manga industry ever with her confident and no-nonsense attitude, and Tamaki's oblivious and overflowing friendliness makes for a great counterpart to her. And the opening theme is so darn catchy.

Awards given: Best Girl (Haruhi)

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Finally managed to watch this. I love the iconic character designs and all the chaotic energy. Kamina for best bro. I've never cared for mecha, the girls were nice but the writing around them sucked and the second half wasn't as strong as the first one, but still a good package overall.

Awards given: Best ED (don't care for the song that much but Simon looks somehow really cool in the second ending)

Haibane Renmei

Another one that had been on the watch list for years. A lovely quiet and contemplative show. Visuals were rather dull though but maybe it's better for a show like this that the characters didn't have bubblegum pink hair.

Digimon Adventure 2020

This started promising but has since lost steam. I really like how different the story is from the original Digimon Adventure, and compared to Precure it's super nice how not every episode has the exact same structure, and the cast has different roles and regularly gets split up instead of shoehorning everyone into every conflict. But on the other hand the characters feel way more samey and flat, and the original "kids want to return to their home from the Digital World" plot was a lot more personal than the current one about global crises and prophecy jargon. And some of the action scenes last way too long.

Awards given: Worst side boy (Agumon and his evolutions, it is of course expected that he'd get a lot of screen time but I'm so over how much he's constantly pushed in your face in the franchise)

Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii Desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desu ka?

This wasn't afwul but still left me kind of cold. I think the character designs were a problem here, in general I'm used to brightly coloured anime characters but this was trying to be a very serious story about child soldiers who know they're going to die young. But when they were colour-coded and always wore the same clothes (and mostly had pretty generic animu girl personalities) they felt so artificial which made it harder to get into the drama. Nice OP song.

Yashahime

Inuyasha was my first show after really getting into anime so I was super hyped for any kind of new content. So far this has unfortunately been rather dull since I'm not particularly interested in either of Sesshoumaru's daughters, and the way the show treats the absence of the old cast is annoying. Just either show them or make it clear we're not supposed to care about them, now it's just annoying how their disappearance is treated as a mystery but the three heroines know barely anything about their heritage and don't even seem interested in learning either. But I'll watch this to the end for Moroha.

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angels, Twin Angel Break, Pretear, Happy Seven, Healin' Good Precure

Watched a lot of magical girl stuff this year too, these being shows that play the tropes straight. The Twin Angel seasons had different flaws but were otherwise watchable aside from the awful Twin Angel Break heroine. Pretear had surprisingly nice character writing and I feel I would really have liked this if I saw it at an earlier part of my anime hobby experience but now it doesn't feel so special any more. Healin' Good Precure has been rather dull.

I also watched a bunch of Precure movies, out of which only the Star Twinkle Precure one was actually good, and the Spring Carnival crossover movie was also good in an absurd way, while the rest ranged from awful to somewhat decent.

Awards given: Worst girl (Meguru - Twin Angel Break), Biggest WTF (Happy Seven suddenly going from monster of the week shenaningans to alien mass destruction weapons)

Concrete Revolutio, Myriad Colors Phantom World, Re:Creators

Also some anime where the magical girl was a side character. Concrete Revolutio was an unpleasant mess with nice visuals, Myriad Colors was a pretty boring otaku high school harem thing and the magical girl episode was also rather bland, and Re:Creators had a lot of potential with the "anime characters come to our world" setting but the result was somewhat uneven. Re:Creators had the best magical girl out of these three.

Awards given: Worst non-romantic relationship, Worst side girl (Setsuna from Re:creators, with the main boy) not really an awful character on her own, but the writing around her was pretty bad, let's also give Worst Boy for the said main boy

Nausicaa

I watched the first half of the movie over a decade ago and didn't manage to finish until now. After seeing so many other Ghibli movies this didn't do much for me, but the animation and nature were still beautiful.

Western:

Most Popular Girls in School

The newer seasons didn't reach the heights of the earlier ones but there's still something entertaining about a very raunchy Barbie doll stop motion show. Also pairs well with the Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse for a fun but more child friendly Barbie experience.

Frozen 2

I'm wondering if these really are the only Western piece of media I consumed this year? I certainly didn't go to movies after March. Anyway, like the previous film I had major problems with the plot and characters (I don't think Elsa's story was set up properly, Kristoff's sub-plot feels like an afterthought when he doesn't factor to Anna's sub-plot at all, Olaf is annoying, too much Lore) but ultimately I still had a good time. I like the costume design, the idea for Elsa's arc is fine, the songs are great and there were plenty of good scenes too, and the lullaby was beautiful. I'd say that like the original Frozen this was patched together from perfectly serviceable pieces that didn't quite work combined.

Awards given: Worst romance (not the pairing itself but the way Kristoff x Anna was written)

Games:

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

Early this year I just decided not to open this app for the daily money-grubbing grind and haven't touched it since. I'm free!

Animal Crossing New Horizons

However the daily grind continues here! It's been way more enjoyable, primarily due to lacking the microtransactions/limited time item angle and also for being so much more customisable. And the nature is so pretty... But I've reached a point where even this has started to feel kind of stale.

Super Mario Odyssey

My first Mario game since Super Mario World so of course I'm blown away by everything. I like how colourful and welcoming the worlds were, Cappy was a surprisingly enjoyable sidekick/mascot and also the game was easy enough and had a simple linear plot so it was far easier to approach than Zelda BotW which is still on hold.

Plans for 2021

Actually play Zelda BotW

Maybe finally Evangelion?

Finally finish the mostly disappointing Digimon Adventure tri

Various magical girl sequels and remakes

[tomsandal]

The one where Tom went "can I just make stuff up?" and didn't wait for an answer

a/n: incredibly terrible title brought to you by you yes you who couldn't give me better one heart

characters: červená kapota, tom sandál

warnings: teensy weensy cosmic horror/death depiction at the start (because i am a moron and a fool and forgot what genre im writing), alcohol mention

words: 1,8k

To truly start at the story’s beginning, we’ll need to go many pages back in history books.

It was millennia ago, when something very strange took place and changed the world from how it was known.

It so happened that, for some mysterious reason, a meteorite crashed down on earth and landed in a crater in some frankly unnoteworthy forest.

This incident did not go without notice of course, and not too long after it had fallen were there already parties of plenty that were eager to find out what strangeness took place the night before. Many ventured into the forest, allured by the mystery or driven by their responsibility to protect their village, but not a single one of those brave souls has ever made the journey back. And so the number of volunteers and explorers thinned over time, for the prospect of being lost to those woods without a seeming trace was enough to ward off even the bravest of the brave.

However all those who did go, did not disappear in an equal way.

Some of those who ventured started to feel effects of a mysterious force soon after the start of their journey. Those ones met their end lying down on the forest floor, feverish and plagued by visions indescribable. No man’s willpower to follow common sense and go back home could win over the pull of the compelling presence.

But some of them pulled through. The strongest and greatest of them all did get to see what their end goal was this whole time.

There in the clearing lay the mystery. Patches of brilliant blue were shining among the dark stone, twinkling not unlike the stars that hung above them.

And standing there, in this crushing magical presence, humans did what humans tend to do and moved to touch the shiny stone.

It was no easy feat, bracing against the sheer force of the meteorite this close to the source of all this madness, but some of them managed to do so.

Finally, with their goal at their literal fingertips, they laid their hands at the glittering surface. And their hands melted right off.

The lucky ones died from the immediate shock from the pain. The rest bled out among the grass, suffocating in the stone’s heavy aura.

And some of them leaned even closer... for the call had won over.

For some time has the stone been left undisturbed, lying unmoved while its surroundings changed as the years went by. No wise enough soul dared to enter the haunted forest. And so the years passed in hundreds and the celestial body had started to merge with the surrounding environment. Many years has it been since then, when it was finally fully covered and sunken deep into the ground and its power dimmed to a hum.

If you were to walk by that place at that moment, you wouldn't think there to be anything out of the ordinary. And so didn't the people that had settled there.

Who might know why they chose this secluded woodland place for their settlement but they did and surprisingly prospered without any casualties.

The stone's powers have dulled over the centuries but they were still there nonetheless, even if only in a shadow of its former self, and the construction and disturbance of the ground was bound to wake it up.

And so the energy started seeping out, warping the unaware residence in the process. With each generation grew the changes more profound, until the place was almost unrecognizable. Plants grew wild and high, displaying colours very uncommon to vegetation anywhere, the roaming animals wouldn't be recognized even by the highest of scholars, trees grew twisted with leaves of gold and humans were born with features never seen before. Their hair was bright and shining in arrays of blues, purples and greens, just like the lights in the sky that could be seen from time to time. But since no negative effect seemed to take place, this magical village of star-touched people lived in-

“Star-touched...really.”

“Yes and no interruptions please.”

-lived in peace. But time was not kind to them.

The year was 1610, the witchcraft craze was at its peak and it didn’t take long until the hunt was brought to them as well. Their clearly otherworldly appearance couldn't be excused and many fell on the trials, under the hands of men driven by fear and hatred. The rest left their homeland, which ended promptly burned to the ground. From then on, they lived as hermits far, far from the human eye.

They lay in hiding for long, until their time has finally come, when people started walking among themselves with wild bright coloured hair and-

“wait, wait what about the magical wolves”

“That is tied to my own personal upbringing and no, was not in fact universal for everyone, stop messing up the timeline”

“oh I am messing up the timeline and not you making something different every ti-”

“As i was saying-” “and when do the glow squids come in” “My glow squid ancestry is clearly the reason for my eyes not the hair ”

“yes, of course, the eyes that are obviously not coloured contacts”

“Keep that tone to yourself and shush.”

///

It was a pleasant summer night, the air was crisp and the streets were quiet. And there, in a certain bar, sat two peculiar people.

Kapota sighed and let her friend-but not friend-associate from work-but not wanting to kill each other right now-buddy ramble on as she took a sip from her glass. She had ordered something called the Hanky Panky Cocktail Supreme and deemed it as decent enough, if a bit overpriced for a glorified gin and fernet.

Still, she would rather be holding a pint of good old fashioned beer, but finding a place around these parts with a half decent beer is near impossible. She will not be drinking that dishwater no thank you.

Good thing that she’s a skilled fancy drinker. A life skill which she picked up from her business bar outings, such as now, which maybe wasn't actually the most objective of examples since most of those were with Tom.

Not that the aforementioned was any help in the drink picking department, that maniac of a man just sashays to the bar and orders a literal colour and when no further explanation is given the bemused barkeep has to pick themselves from their array of colourful drinks.

Seems that they picked well today, because the current “pink” already sat empty before Tom.

She continued to mull over this and that, all the while enjoying the bar’s comfortable atmosphere, when something caught her attention.

“wait wait roll that back”

“Why, could it be that you weren’t paying attention?”

“Yes I was, but what were you saying about pointed ears?”

“Oh, just that the star-touched had pointy ears alongside the wild hair.”

“well, please do pray tell me Sandál dearest how could it be that your ears are rounded”

“As I said, a long time ago in the times most desperate, riddled with fear, pain and terror, food was scarce and from the terrible hunger they gnawed on their ears until they were completely rounded and from then on this feature was lost to them.”

“ok see now i know you're just making fun of me because thats just from that dumb movie you like”

“should have been listening.

Honestly why do i even bother, I am so generously sharing the long lost history of my kind and yet this audience is so ungrateful”

“noo i like your lore, don’t worry it's much more entertaining than ‘I went to the aisle 12 in Kaufland and picked the gaudiest shade of purple they had’”

Tom just grumbled to that and moved to take a demonstrative swig of his drink, but then he realized he didn't have any left anymore so he instead picked up the little paper umbrella and pointed it accusatively at Kapota.

“Never, have I been more disrespected, as I am right now.” He complained, while accentuating every word with a swish of the tiny umbrella.

“It's nothing personal pal, but you can’t exactly expect people to believe you with a name like yours.”

“Oh that's rich coming from you!”

“I'll let you know that the Kapota name is very ancient and regal, thank you very much. Passed down only by the generations of the clan McKap”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s true look it up”

“Not happening, if i did that you would just laugh at me that i fell for it.”

“Well in that case I guess you’ll never know”

“oh shut up!”

“you shut up!”

…

It was a pleasant summer night, the air was crisp and the streets were quiet. And there, in a certain bar, bickered two peculiar people.

///

All in all Tom would consider this a successful night. He left the bar on his own two feet, had all his belongings still with him, including both of his important trademark sandals still on, and head somewhat clear.

About ten minutes back, they had been politely ushered out of the bar, because it was apparently closing. The shiny sign with the numbers 24 and 7 would beg to differ but sure.

Yeah, ‘always open’ my arse, people can't even trust bars these days.

He wasn’t really upset though, couldn’t blame the poor bloke either, because anyone who had to listen to their nonsense for the past -who knows how long- had all the right to kick them out. It didn’t matter anyway, tonight really was quite nice.

So now they were just lounging together on the sidewalk, enjoying the chilly air.

A lone car sped by somewhere in the distance.

Tom gently thunked his head on the wall behind him and let out a content sigh, next to him Kapota finally broke the silence.

“So...who’s the designated driver, hahh”

A good question indeed, since neither of them even closely qualify to anything akin to sober. Not that it would have changed much, given the fact that Tom does not in fact have a driving licence anyway. His most beloved, bless their heart, is incredibly awesome and does have one of those and drives him around in times of need. This would seem like a time of need and it wouldn't even be the first time Kap would hitch a ride with them, but this hour, other than time of need, is also time commonly known as ‘very late’.

“I guess I can try to give Tobi a call, but I dunno it's pretty late...”

“Nah, let ‘em sleep”

“So whats the battle plan Kaptn’? ”

“Where's the uhhh friggin closest bus stop.”

“Few damn blocks away at least that's for sure”

“Awesome... lets go its field trip time”

And so they went onto the grand adventure of getting safely home.

Some would deem it highly unwise to blunder around dark alleyways in the middle of the night, but honestly, unfortunate are those street rats who shall foolheartedly decide to pick those two fools as their next victims.

#2.5 bc #is the fic introduvtion at the start necessary? no but I wanted to make it pretty n cool ykno :) #idk that were the only one here #pretty for *us* #červená kapota #tom sandál #2.5 bc but with more words #thats the tag for fics now yes #kinda wanna write again but dont know what

[ggyppt]

In my 373rd review I take a look at Kung Fu 1x01 "Pilot"

Spoilers Below

This show has honestly surprised me, taking the incredibly simple yet focused premise, a young woman returning home after three years away, and already making a strong mythology to it that they can span out into a show that could last without a lot of the functional issues that plague productions with as focused premises as this one. This opening episode gives a clear hook, sets up the world, and a lot of characters beautifully, while also telling a full story. In that way, this episode ends up ticks all the boxes that a pilot needs to, though the most impressive element of it ends up being the pacing. Pilots are notoriously difficult to pace because of just how much needs to be crammed in next to the single episode plots the create memorable viewing. This episode, in contrast, flowed by, being a breezy and enjoyable affair, and the consistent forward momentum of the pacing ends up being much of the cause of that.

The action scenes, much in the same way, have a good sense of pacing to them, and each of the many that fill this episode, have their own flavor to them feel unique and distinct. From the opening scene that had great use of close-up camera angles to create of sense of claustrophobia that serves to convey the tension of the scene as whole, being a beautiful example of how camera technique can convey emotion. This scene also works as a presentation of actress Olivia Liang (known for being Alyssa in Legacies and Wendy in Dating After College) who, from what I can tell, was doing her own stunts, as she as of writing this review, does not have a stunt double listed in either the episode credits or online. While that is not a certainty yet, if it is true, that is an impressive feat. Then we have the first fight scene in San Francisco, which is treated both as a presentation of Nicky’s abilities, both to the audience and her family, and as a showcase of the instant connection Henry Yan (played by Eddie Liu), the character they are setting up as her love interest. Finally, we have the climatic fight scene, which acts as a nice bit of catharsis for the episode, tying in the larger plot of the episode into the fight scene in a way that allows for the conveying of emotions, something that some of the best fight scenes ever made do well. While it doesn’t quite live up to that quality, this is at least a showcase of ability for the crew behind this show, meaning that when they get to a climactic fight that has more than 20 ish minutes of build, they could potentially come close to some of the greats. In these fight scenes, we also get this show pulling on the history of the Kung Fu movies of the 70s, between the long takes that allow the action to actually be show off, to the slight bits of wirework in the opening and closing fights. Most of this praise must be levied on Stunt Director and Fight Choreographer Brett Chan (who worked as stunt choreographer for Iron Fist and stunt coordinator for the 2020 Snowpiercer TV show).

Now, as much as the action has shown its chops, which is important in an action show, the characters around the action pulled their weight this episode as well. While a lot of this episode is set up work, establishing these characters and the relationships between them, this episode does that masterfully. In a single scene, they establish the majority of the main cast in such a beautiful way, and the rest of the important characters end up falling into the story without much issue soon after. The dynamics that are on display between these characters work really well as well. Specifically the familial bond between the majority of the characters gets shown off exceptionally well in this episode, illustrating the full gamut of emotions that those familial connections create, especially when they are put under the type of stress that Nicky put her family under. This episode is so deft at establishing the characters that the second half of the episode is basically just used for the singular story of the episode, having already established all that it needed to by that point, which is not something that many pilots can claim to. A special shout out has to go to the character of Jin (played by the always dependable Tzi Ma, who has credits all the way from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. to Arrival) who is Nicky’s father, and is already coming into contention for one of the best on screen dads in tv. He has such a kind and gentle presence that works so well to calm Nicky and keep her involved in this place she hasn’t been to for so long.

Now, this is not an impeccable cast, with the major weak point being Evan. He is played fine by Gavin Stenhouse (from Allegiance and Iconicles) but the character that he is given to portray is a sadly quite dull character that is only there to create a third point in a love triangle. That though ends up being the main point of fault with Gavin’s performance, as he does not have the needed chemistry with Olivia to make it feel like the relationship has any sparks left in the tank. That makes this love triangle feel rather lopsided, at least out of the gate, and likely to crumple as soon as they put any dramatic pressure onto it.

The other thing of note that I have to talk about with this episode is its tone. There’s this fantastical element to the whole regard that I imagine will be a little silly for some people, but worked well for me. This episode, and specifically the world build that it has created, ends up drawing a good comparisons in my mind to the show Jackie Chan Adventures from my childhood. Both of them play with the mystical sides of the cultures they are pulling from in similar ways that end up giving strong through lines to these shows as a whole. That is a great well to pull from, and ends up creating a very comforting atmosphere from the starting line, which is impressive.

Overall, this is just trying to be comfort food tv, and it does well in that regard, being a breezy 45 minutes of show with a cast of warm and inviting character. Pulling on a strong history of both shows an TV, this seems like a fun and solid presentation of what it’s trying to do, though it does have a singular bad tent poll in its cast that will need to be sorted out if this show is going to ever rise above being just comfort food. 7.5/10

#ggyppt reviews #spoilers #kung fu cw

[hiddeningrid]

i watched 25 movies in a month. so here’s a list, in order of preference:

sound of metal -beautiful movie about what it means to lose pieces of yourself

the life ahead -made me cry the second most. an unlikely friendship at the end and start of life

promising young woman -striking piece about rape culture and its consequences

pieces of a woman -made me cry the most. raw movie about still birth. recommended despite shia labeouf.

wolfwalkers -great visual look, beautiful story of friendship wrapped around interesting mythology

the man who sold his skin -an important movie about human trafficking and the loss of basic human rights.

the white tiger -raw story about what it takes to rise through the caste system in india

tenet -wonderful timewarp mindfuck, satisfying ending and great visual effects, though it felt a bit too long.

ma rainey's black bottom -had the feel of watching a play from home, wonderful performances and great music.

judas and the black messiah -well-made movie about an important topic.

minari -wonderful characters, beautiful story and atmosphere, but it felt too long and moved a bit too slowly.

news of the world -a well-made movie about the displacement of colonization

the trial of the chicago 7 -entertaining movie, though it takes liberties with history and was too long.

crip camp -great documentary about the disability rights movement. again, it felt a bit too long at parts.

united states vs. billie holiday -wonderful performance by the lead actress, raw music, but the story was meandering and the movie was simply too long.

onward -well-made animated movie. i don’t care terribly for pixar animations so there.

soul -ditto.

better days -a rough story about bullying, but the movie was too long and the plot started to feel theatrical and implausible towards the end.

da 5 bloods -wonderful performances and scenes and important topics warped within a movie that had the same argument/similar dialogue repeat too many times causing it to feel heavy and hard to watch. and it was just way way too long.

another round -i just couldn’t get into the mind of the middle aged alcoholic man. i was rather bored throughout the whole movie. alcohol and white men don’t really hold a lot of interest for me.

mulan -nice effects, beautiful pictures and costumes, and that’s about it. the story was stripped of all emotion and was rather dull. also, way too long. half-way through i was just waiting for it to end.

eurovision song contest -i love camp, fun eurovision. great live shows, cameos by past winners and graham norton! but the humor wasn’t there, the romance was dull, the male lead was very irritating and why on earth was the movie 2 hours long???? why do they make these boring dull 2 hour long movies when they could snip snip the boring bits out so i wouldn’t have to watch them??

my octopus teacher -10 points for the octopus, 0 points for the uninteresting diver who went on and on and on and on. we get it, you should’ve cut like an hour of material away honestly.

hillbilly elegy -a fictionalized real-life republican election advertisement. this republican appalachian man pulled himself up by his fictional bootstraps, now vote for him! horrifying. dull, patronizing, long, no. struggled to watch while doing laundry.

borat subsequent moviefilm -there’s really nothing original about finding nazis at a trump rally. i struggled greatly throughout this movie. great if you laugh at poo, dicks and boobs.

#the more u know #this is the most movies i've ever watched in a month #my watch and review

[elavoyy]

Worn Wear Won Wars (aka Chuck Hansen Birthday Fic)

Chuck’s 17th birthday started as uneventful as any other day he spent in the shatterdome. He had woken up, trained, walked Max, showered, had breakfast, then trained some more.

The atmosphere in Sydney Shatterdome was filled with an undercurrent of anxiousness and anticipation, and a routined busyness as always. Everything seemed the same as yesterday.

He didn’t expect to see Herc before their afternoon combat training session, but there he was, sitting at their table in the mess hall at lunch, having a seemingly pleasant conversation with one of Striker’s J-techs.

If Chuck had learned anything during the past year of drifting with his father, it was that Herc hated when Chuck publicly demonstrated how disfunctional their relationship was. It hadn’t much to do with shame or pride, no. Rather everything to do with how private a person Herc was and how much he hated assumptions, particularly on their father-son relationship, and how the soldier in him expected his son to act like one at all times.

So Chuck cursed to himself inwardly and made way to where his father was sitting, tray in one hand and Max’s leash in the other. He took the seat with a mumbled ‘hey old man’, then picked Max up and dumped him in Herc’s lap. Almost a peace offering as good as any.

‘Hey kid,’ Herc replied, scraching behind the tail-wagging bulldog’s ears without any protest to the deliberate greeting, which really was a surprise to Chuck. But he made no comment on it, instead picked up his fork and started attacking on the egg salad.

It wasn’t often that he and Herc ate lunch together when their schedule didn’t overlap in the morning. Chuck preferred to get ahead the busy lunch rush and finish eating as quickly as possible while Herc usually waited until the last fifteen minutes before they stopped serving. And in his stubborn mind Chuck had always thought Striker’s team being seen together was more for appearances’ sake than them actually wanting to spend time with each other.

Which was why he couldn’t help feeling a little alert when Herc made no move to leave after he had obviously finished his food. He could feel the old man’s attention focusing on him even though he was still idly chatting with the J-tech across the table.

That was another thing with sitting side by side with your drift partner, no wire or machine was needed to feel the other’s existence in the back of your mind, nor does every intention need to be read through body language or eye contact.

Finally Chuck broke his silence when the J-tech left the table and Herc showed no sign of following, ‘Don’t you have something better to do than sitting around, old man?’

Herc glared at him for a second and said: ‘Don’t call me that.’ Then he looked down at Max, clearly avoiding eye contact, which he rarely did and that just got Chuck more on edge.

Now that Chuck actually turned to look at him, he could see the slight awkwardness on Herc’s face. The typical “I have something to say but I don’t know how” face which could only mean the next thing that comes out of his father’s mouth would be either extremely infuriating or tremendously embarrassing. Great. Chuck regretted not just take his lunch and leave when he had the chance. He was having an okay day until then and really wasn’t in the mood for emotional conflict.

He was just about to get up and leave but of course Herc sensed his retreat and stopped him before he could.

‘Striker’s crew wants to throw you a party.’ Herc said, in a carefully neutral tone.

‘What?’ Chuck asked. Because none of the words Herc just said made sense to him.

Looking at Chuck’s furrowed brows and genuinely confused face, Herc sighed, ‘They knew it’s your birthday today. And they wanted to celebrate. They asked me to ask you if you were down.’

Chuck looked at Herc like he’d just lost his mind. ‘What? No! Why?’ Then he realised he was probably over reacting a bit, so he lowered his voice, ‘No. What were they thinking? This isn’t a fucking summer camp. And why didn’t you just tell them that?’

Herc, surprisingly let the swear word slide, just shrugged. ‘I told them a surprise party would be a very bad idea. And that you probably won’t say yes.’

‘A surprise party.’ Chuck repeated dryly. Just saying these words out loud made Chuck want to grimace. Yes it’s only been a little more than half a year since he started working with these people, but nevertheless they should know that Chuck passionately hated both socialising and surprises. A surprise party. If Chuck didn’t know better he would think they were trying to get back to him for breaking Striker’s fingers on their last drop.

‘They mean well.’ Herc said, ‘And you can’t blame them for finding every excuse to let loose a bit, eh?’

That last comment brought up some unpleasant memories for both of them, and for a short moment Chuck didn’t know what to say.

‘Besides, it’s your first birthday as a Ranger. Reckoned you’d want to celebrate.’ Herc stood up and made to collect both their empty trays. ‘I’ll just tell them that you don’t then.’

Chuck picked up Max’s leash and followed his father’s movements without thinking, still feeling a little off balance with what Herc just said, though he couldn’t quite figure out why.

Herc turned to face him at the door way and hesitated, but in the end he just clapped Chuck’s shoulder and said: ‘see ya later, eh kid?’ Then walked away.

————————

Their training session that afternoon went as well as training sessions could go, leaving them with sore muscles and aching bones and a wonderful aftertaste of adrenaline rush. To Chuck’s relief, Herc didn’t mention anything about birthdays or parties or surprises again, so all in all Chuck was quite happy with how this day ended, now all that left to do was to shower, get some food, then go back to his bunker and do some reading before bed while cuddling with his dog.

Chuck was about to go pick Max up from his sitter—a nice mechanic lady who works in the workshops in the hangars, before heading to the mess hall, when Herc called out to him.

‘Chuck, wait.’ Herc strode down the hallway and gestured for him to follow, ‘Come for a sec, got something for ya.’

‘What now, old man?’ Chuck’s tone was sceptical and wary, as he seamlessly fell into step with his father, ‘This isn’t about that party bullshit again, is it?’

‘Watch it kid.’ Herc warned without really meaning it. ‘No, it’s not. I got something for your birthday, you little wanker.’

Now Chuck wasn’t expecting that. See, after Angela had died, the Hansens just didn’t do birthdays anymore. Mostly because they were usually apart at the times, and evidently calling to say “Happy Birthday” was beyond their capabilities. In the past six years, Herc had gotten Chuck exactly one birthday gift, and that gift was probably getting a belly rub from a nice little lady in the mechanic shop at this moment. So Chuck really didn’t know how to respond, except with his usual “when confused with emotions, act like a little shit” tactic.

‘Since when do you care about anyone’s birthdays?’ Chuck scoffed as they came to a stop in front of Herc’s room, ‘Is it a head injury or just being old?’

‘For fucks sake, Chuck. Can you stop being a brat for one second and accept that people actually care about you?’ Herc pulled the metal door open with an unnecessary amount of force, and purposely ignored the loud noise when it smashed against the wall. He rolled his eyes when Chuck was startled at the sound. ‘And I’m not even forty. Get in.’

Chuck sat on the desk chair and watched Herc close the door behind him, then went straight to pull something out from the cupboard in the corner.

‘Here, try it on.’ Herc threw the jacket at Chuck’s head, but Chuck’s reflex was way too fast to get hit.

It was a leather bomber jacket, dark coloured with short faux fur lining the collar. The leather dull but thick and resilient, the weight heavy and the touch soft. Striker’s logo was sewn onto the right upper arm, its colour vibrant and stitches new, a jarring contrast to the old leather. But Chuck’s eyes were caught on the back, where a little Kaijiu head was spray painted to the left.

‘You got me a second hand bomber.’ Chuck was trying to sound judgmental but he couldn’t stop himself from tracing his hand along the Striker logo and the soft leather over and over.

‘I wore it in Hong Kong.’

Chuck looked up at Herc, there was reminiscence in his eyes, which quickly dissolved into smugness when he saw how carefully Chuck had caressed the garment.

‘It’s probably a bit big for you now, but you’ll grow into it, hopefully.’ Herc said with a smirk.

‘Yeah yeah, and soon it’ll be too small.’ Chuck grinned in that way when he knows he’s being a brat.

‘You wish.’ Herc chuckled, shook his head, then opened the door and waved a hand, ‘Now get out of here and go eat your veges.’

Chuck folded the jacket over his arms and walked through the door, then turned back to look at his father, who was looking at him with the same expression as at lunch, and said: ‘Thanks, dad.’

Herc smiled at him, and for some reason, looked almost relieved as he replied: ‘Happy birthday, Chuck.’

Chuck nodded once and walked away, he never heard the loud clang of a metal door before he turned the corner.

Fin.

#chuck hansen #bithdayfic #herc hansen #pacific rim #title was written when drunk #but i cant think of an other one #half of the ficlet was written drunk #not hansencest but can be read as #i had to force myself to think some happy thoughts and this was the best i could manage #happy birthday chuck #my fic

[mst3kproject]

The Atomic Submarine

I’ve had this one sitting around for a while. It’s a pretty dull 1950’s White Men vs the Saucer People movie, which attempts to differentiate itself from the crowd by taking place underwater instead of in outer space.  It features Brett Halsey from The Girl in Lover’s Lane and a few moments of Jean Moorhead from The Violent Years, and has parts for Jack Mulhall and Paul Dubov from The She-Creature.

It is… the future.  The US and the USSR are friends now, and passenger submarines regularly run between the two under the polar ice!  But all is not well – the USS Sturgeon, largest of this arctic fleet, suffers a reactor meltdown somewhere just shy of the North Pole, resulting in the loss of all hands.  The Pentagon convenes some guys in suits, and decides to send another submarine, the Tiger Shark, to figure out what happened.  When the Tiger Shark encounters a mysterious electrical phenomenon, their scientists conclude that the only possible answer is creatures from outer space!

I seem to be making a tradition out of starting with the shitty science, so here’s a good one: the Flying Saucer’s source of power is stated to be magnetic – that’s why it has to return to the North Pole every time it sinks a ship, to recharge.  Except… that’s not how the magnetic field works.  In the late fifties and early sixties, the north magnetic pole was somewhere near the southern end of Bathurst Island in Nunavut (as of 2020, it’s on its way into Siberia and is actually closer to geographic north than it’s been in centuries).  Sailors would definitely know that, making this plot point kind of hilarious to anybody actually in the navy.

I mentioned Moorhead… she and Joi Lansing (who was once in a movie called Queen of Outer Space) are the only women in the entire movie.  They occur in the same scene, which seems to serve only to remind us that women exist, and have no effect on the plot whatsoever.  Once we’ve entered the submarine where most of the film is set, the cast is entirely similar-looking guys in uniforms, and there are no romantic reunions at the end.  The Atomic Submarine couldn’t even give us the requisite 50’s movie Cute Girl Scientist.  I guess they were going for realism in their story about trans-arctic Soviet passenger subs and one-eyed semi-aquatic aliens.

On to the actual movie.  The first ‘character’ we hear from is the deep-voiced 50’s narrator, who sounds exactly like the guy rhapsodizing about radar at the beginning of The Deadly Mantis, but I looked him up and Patrick Michaels has never narrated any other movie.  I guess there’s just a category of men that have 50’s Movie Narrator Voice. His job is to sound portentous as he talks about things that are either irrelevant or else stuff the movie could have showed us but chose to tell instead.  He falls silent for long stretches of movie and then pops up again, interrupting the flow of the story every time.

The special effects in The Atomic Submarine are okay – they’re nothing ground-breaking, but considerable effort seems to have gone into them.  The saucer and the submarines are obviously small models but they’re nice and the underwater photography is quite atmospheric.  I especially like the little submersible the Tiger Shark carries, the Lungfish, which was clearly designed based on ideas for such machines that were in the works at the time.  There’s a shot of the saucer breaking through the ice cap and rising into the air which looks really good until the saucer itself actually emerges, wobbling on top of a rod.  The one-eyed alien inside the saucer is nice and gooey and parts of it look like they’re made out of living sea creatures.

Like many movies on MST3K, The Atomic Submarine has some germs of good ideas in it, and like the rest of them, fails to do anything much with it.  The flying saucer – maybe we should call it a swimming saucer – is described as a living organism, possibly the same organism as its pilot.  The aliens themselves are biological engineers who will use humans as a template for altering themselves to live on Earth.  That’s pretty cool, but is ultimately not important to the plot. Besides the pilot, who seems to have been assembled by a variety of marine organisms, the inside of the saucer doesn’t look particularly organic.  If nothing else they had an opportunity for some really neat visuals here, but let it slip through their fingers.

The alien intelligence remains unseen and inscrutable for much of the movie.  This theoretically builds suspense but there’s honestly not a lot of suspense here. A plot summary makes The Atomic Submarine sound like an exciting adventure, but the impression one gets from actually watching the film is that it’s kind of a day at the office.  In a way, that’s fairly realistic – the crew of the Tiger Shark aren’t a ragtag group of misfits, they’re professionals doing their jobs which just so happen on this particular day to include saving the world.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t make for a very exciting movie.  An awful lot of scenes are just suspenseful music over footage of men in uniforms frowning at things.  Rather than feeling any excitement, the audience just wants to get to the damn aliens already.

The movie’s only about half over by the time we do enter the swimming saucer to meet the one-eyed, tentacled beast within, but it feels like we’ve been here for hours.  Once the boarding party enters the craft, some things do happen but they’re still not exciting.  Three of the four men die, one by being cut in half by a sliding door and two getting melted by intense radiation – these deaths are surprisingly explicit and gruesome for a 50’s movie, but they’re drawn out far too long and don’t serve a plot purpose.  If the alien killed the men to stop them cutting the Tiger Shark free of where it rammed the vessel’s hull, that would be one thing, but it appears to do it just because.

The main characters all sort of look the same, as lumpy-faced white guys in old movies tend to do.  The only one who really stands out from the crowd is Dr. Nielson, the son of the scientist who invented the Lungfish and an avowed pacifist who’s only on this mission because he knows his father wanted to see the sub used.  He has a running beef with an old friend of his father’s who thinks he’s a coward, all talk and no action.  This is supposed to be the movie’s main arc and yet it fails to go anywhere on just about every level.

Neilson spends much of the movie insisting that he isn’t a coward, which one would assume is a lead-up to him doing something heroic.  It’s not. He’s just here to drive the Lungfish and that’s literally the only thing he does – he takes the boarding party to the saucer, and then sits there and waits for the sole survivor to return.  There’s a bit where the captain of the Tiger Shark decides to ram the saucer with the sub in order to get through its defenses, and Neilson speaks up, pointing out that this is a suicide mission.  Nothing ever comes of this, and it might be evidence of his ‘cowardice’ but I’m not sure… the movie is not nearly as interested in his character as it ought to be.  At the end he seems to have decided that war is cool after all… or maybe the guy he was arguing about has agreed that we need to set aside war with other humans in order to focus on war with aliens.  It’s very unclear.

If there’s a regular passenger service between Alaska and Siberia, doesn’t that suggest that in this future we’ve already set aside war with other humans?  I’m not sure this movie thought very hard about its worldbuilding.

In fact, watching the ending I don’t even know if the guy Neilson talks to at the end was the same man he was arguing with earlier, because, as I mentioned, the actors all look similar. Until that final conversation I thought the other dude had died aboard the saucer and honestly I’m still not convinced he didn’t.  What mainly makes me doubt the idea is that it would mean there���s no closure to the feud at all, which would be the height of poor writing.  I’ve seen movies where I would buy that they were just that careless, but other aspects of The Atomic Submarine are competent enough that I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So what does this movie want us to think about war and the military?  It certainly suggests that they’re necessary, since after all we have aliens to defend ourselves from.  One of the scientists on board is British and another has what I think is supposed to be a Russian accent, so perhaps its extolling the virtues of international cooperation.  This would fit with Neilson’s statements about how we need to leave war behind, but if that’s the movie’s point it hobbles itself by never talking about it in that light.

This is all made that much more annoying because, as I said, the effects are decent, the cinematography is pretty good, and while none of the actors are stellar they all do their best.  There’s no real reason why The Atomic Submarine had to be so dull and messy, unless they were just saddled with a half-assed script. Even then, they made a pretty good effort to get some gold out of the dross.  You might find The Atomic Submarine worth watching even if only to think about what might have been.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the atomic submarine #50s

[welcometotheanimehood]

Last weekend I went to the Akiba Pass Festival, which is basically watching anime movies the whole day. Just the right thing for me. In total they showed 12 movies, 2 always screening kinda at the same time. Fortunately I didn't get into a conflict with myself because I had sorted out really quickly which  I wanted to watch. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on them.

Fuse: Teppou Musume no Torimonochou: This was a nice movie. The trailer made it look more interesting than it actually was but it was definitely worth watching. For me personally the artstyle of the characters wasn't really my thing, but the backgrounds were really beautiful. I also liked the setting, but story wise I think a less rushed pace would've been better. Also I think everyone except the main character seemed kinda flat. I wish they would've choosen to give them a bit more depth. Anyway a solid 7 out of 10.

Cencoroll Connect: I found out later that this is a sequel to another movie, which I didn't watch, but if I did maybe this would've made more sense to me. It felt like I just got thrown into the story but not in a good way, also it really wasn't that exciting, even the fight scenes felt quite tedious. The artstyle was okay, but the colours were so dull and the backgrounds so empty and let's not talk about the character designs. My only comedic highlight was that black haired antagonist boy but that's about it. It was okay but I wouldn't watch it again, 5 out of 10.

Uta no☆Prince-sama♪ Maji Love Kingdom: If Uta-pri weren't one of my guilty pleasures I probably would've walked out of this. I really can't speak of any story cause there was none, it's basically just a full concert. Let me just say that this was Uta-pri in every way, the visuals, the music, the characters... everything. But as I am quite the Uta-pri fantrash I enjoyed this so much, but still 6 out of 10 with at least 2 extra points because Uta-pri.

Children of the sea: Holy fucking shit was I blown away by this! Not only was the story totally captivating and beautiful but the animation was one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen. The amount of detail, the fluidity of the movements, the colours, the artstyle, everything, just wow. Also the music was really atmospheric and nice. This felt like it was over in an instant that's how much it sucked me in. Also did I mention the animation?! Definitely my Highlight and I'll totally buy this on Dvd, I also already ordered the manga and am very excited to read it. A fantastic 9 out of 10, cause I almost never give a 10 out of 10 but let's be honest that's what it is, a friggin 10 out of 10. Go watch it, now!

Birthday Wonderland: This was my second highlight. Also definitely woth buying it on Dvd. To me it had less of a classic 'Alice in wonderland' vibe than rather a huge 'Ni no Kuni' vibe. Nevertheless a great movie with a heart warming story, charming characters, good animation, lovely characterdesigns and setting and really great music. A bit predictable story wise but still 8 out of 10.

#anime #trashcan me #akiba pass #children of the sea #kaijuu no kodomo #uta no prince sama maiji love kingdom #fuse: memoirs of the hunter girl #fuse teppou musume no torimonochou #cencoroll connect #birthday wonderland #chikashitsu kara no fushigi na tabi

[iatasbcl]

You Were Born

Pairing: Deviant!Connor x Reader

Summary: It’s Connor’s birthday and the two of you take a trip down memory lane.

A/N: I didn’t feel motivated enough to write on the 15th so here is a late birthday fic for my boy!! Prepare yourself for some tooth-rooting fluff and shitty references, Enjoy!

W.C: 2K? I think

Monday, August 15, 2039

The first thing Connor noticed was how abnormal the silence surrounding the Andersson household was. His home wasn’t one known for quietness nor peacefulness, it disconcerted him how he couldn’t even hear Sumo’s familiar barking that he heard every time he came back from work. The lights were out too.

The atmosphere sent him spiraling into the worst possibilities, was everyone attacked? Were you hurt?

The thoughts terrified him, but he moved towards the door nonetheless, he knocked once, twice, thrice. He touched the doorknob and it turned with ease, the door let out long creaks as he tried his best to look in the dark, he, unfortunately, was not equipped with night-vision optical units.

Something was wrong, something was wrong, something was wrong —

“Surprise!��

As soon as the word hit him, the lights were on and his eyes immediately adjusted. The inner decor was covered with birthday decorations, a big ‘HAPPY ACTIVATIᵛᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᵈᵃʸ’ sign hung between the living room and the kitchen. It was your font; you probably didn’t take the size of the banner into account.

Most of the people he knew were there; Hank, Sumo, Nines, his friends from Jericho, and even Gavin. And you, who was smiling at him with the adorable smile he loved so much.

You closed in on him and pulled him into a tight hug, your lips pecked his cheek and you whispered, “Happy birthday.” Into his ear.

—

The party wasn’t over the top, as most of the people here were exhausted from another tiring Monday.

“It was ____’s idea.” Said Hank with some blue whipped cream covering his mustache, “They managed to gather everyone today, took a whole lot of convincing bring that rat-man.” Connor now knew that was Gavin’s nickname.

He appreciated it, you gathered everyone he loved in one room for him on a weekday, nonetheless. You and Hank made him cake shaped like a cartoonish robot with blue frosting, it was a bit messy, but it looked perfect to him. He appreciated the sentiment behind it even though he couldn’t taste it.

—

“Then I yelled ‘Fuck da police’” Said a weirdly drunk Gavin, Connor wondered where he got enough booze to become this intoxicated. He locked everything away for Hank’s sake.

“Detective, you work for the police.” Was Nines’ coolly response.

“Yeah… Fuck ‘em.”

“Nice,” You interjected, taking a sip of your drink “So, you’re saying where you were 15 you stole a car, crashed it, stole another car and yelled ‘fuck da police’ in the face of the office that was arresting you?”

“Yeah… it was awesome” He slurred.

“I feel like I should be surprised but I’m not.” You nodded to yourself.

—

“Hey, Markus?” Connor noticed the alcohol in your body slightly increased as you swayed next to him, “Is it true? Is Warren an android?”

Markus blinked at your sudden question; Connor gave him an apologetic smile.

“I can’t confirm nor deny that.” He chuckled.

“That’s a yes, Gavin you own me 20 dollars.” You ran to where the said man was.

—

Everyone had left as it got late, Nines accompanied Gavin to his home, Markus and the rest of Jericho went to the airport to catch their flight and a rather tired Hank retreated to his room.

It was just the two of you know, he did what you advised him to do if you slipped and drank too much. He made you coffee and gave you water, it didn’t take that long for you to begin to sober up.

“I am dating a one-year-old.” You muttered to yourself, sobering you liked questioning your life choices.

“I am technically designed to be in my late twenties or early thirties.” He corrected and you groaned, “Yeah, yeah.”

For the first time in the last hours, it was quiet. But this felt pleasant.

“Do you… wanna open your presents?”

Presents were a common part of birthday parties, given in celebration of the person’s birthday. He did receive gifts and cards from the attendees that he was curious to see.

And so, he did. He and you sat next to each other on the comfy couch and began to open the gifts.

The first one was a physical copy of the book ‘I, Robot’ by Isaac Asimov. He was surprised to see it was from Gavin, of all people. “Aw, he really loves that book,” you said, “Do you think you noticed you reading a lot in the precinct?”

Reading was another hobby he picked up, he enjoyed how relaxing it was.

The second one was from Nines, it was a mug with a Saint Bernard on it, it looked just liked Sumo. He smiled; he was going to use it for his thirium.

You were smiling too, like you felt happy for how loved he felt right now.

The third one was from Markus; it was a portrait of him. His Art always managed to take Connor’s breath away. “Damn, we gotta hang that over the fireplace.”

North gave him a custom-made knife; Josh wrote a birthday card that thanked him for his help with their cause and Simon gifted him a little cactus.

Hank’s gift would’ve knocked the air out of his lungs if he had to breath. Most wouldn’t call it a spectacular gift, but it meant a lot to Connor. It was an antique coin, similar to his dear one he lost a while ago. He flicked it into his other hand, testing the waters as they say. He knew how Hank found his habit irritating and yet he got him a new coin, a beautiful one too.

“Okay, show off. C’mon open mine.” You ushered and he noticed how you started to look anxious, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, of course, just open the thing.” You pushed the wrapped box towards him, and he nodded.

It was a scrapbook, made of polaroid pictures of him and the people around you. The first page was from the first time you met, the Carlos Ortiz crime scene. He remembered how Hank scolded you for taking a picture of this piece of shit instead of working. You did not care at all.

Friday, November 5, 2038

-Welcome to the team, Mr. the android sent by cyberlife

The next page included a picture of him and Hank in the car while you drove to Kamski’s place, he remembered it being rather… dull. You didn’t talk much nor did Hank.

Tuesday, November 9, 2038

-Going to visit Mr. I live in the mountains while the whole world burns, this should be great. Also, Connor is listening to heavy metal lol

He did mean it when he said he would like to listen to music, heavy metal has been one of his favorite genres ever since. His grin only grew wider when he saw the next picture. It was taken in Hank’s house, a shot of the TV displayed him standing behind Markus and the thousands of androids in front of them.

Friday, November 12, 2038

-This dork literally joined a revolution and won… what a power move

also hank is tearing up but he threatened to break my camera if I took a photo ):

“Hank cried?” He asked and you immediately nodded, “I told you he’s a softie… he was happy you were alright.” Right, he was almost killed beforehand by his ‘evil twin’ as you said, it made sense for him to worry.

He flipped the page and a wave of happier memories hit him. Things were still hectic since the revolution ‘ended’. Many evacuated the city despite the peaceful approach that Markus took, their fear was irrational yet understandable. This meant most of the resident of Detroit were androids.

It wasn’t bad but the evacuation only meant many humans still refused to acknowledge the fact that androids were alive and in time would be their equals in the eyes of law. It lowered his spirit a bit.

Hank wasn’t having it, at all. He decided to take out the old Christmas decorations he had and invited you over to help decorate the house. It wasn’t even December, yet you rushed here.

This one was of Hank scolding him and his counterpart while they tried to put the star on the tree.

Monday, November 29, 2038

-Life is great, Connor and Nines just tried to put Sumo on the amazing (decorated by me) Christmas tree

Androids really are superior to us

He chuckled at your comment and continued. The photo was of him in a ‘casual’ suit that hank gave him. It was your first date since you asked him out. You were going to watch movies at your place.

Tuesday, February 14, 2039

-Taking this one because Connor looks nervous… and cute.

You snickered, “Do you remember how nervous you were? It was so adorable.” He shook his head, “Yes, my stress level was a bit high. You failed to mention the date would be in your apartment and not out before I borrowed this from Hank. I didn’t want him to feel bad about it and I ended up looking overdressed.”

You chuckled, again. “Well, you still looked perfect.” Your loved complimenting him and it always made his face heat up, he bit his lip and proceeded.

The next one was of him standing in Hank’s bathroom with his LED gone for the first time since his activation, it took a lot of courage to be able to let go of what he was made for, be it that little spinning device. You and Hank were with him every step of the way.

Sunday, April 3, 2039 -My boy is accepting himself

He teared up a bit, the support he got from you and the others was heart-warming, to say the least. He held your hand and gave it a quick peck.

The following one featured a hug between him and Hank. He had received gifts from both Connor and Nines, the former gave him a card with a heartfelt message while the latter gave him one that simply said, ‘You are an efficient parental figure.’ It was impressive since it came from Nines, who still struggled with his lack of a social program.

Saturday, June 19, 2039

-Father’s Day with our fav grumpy old man.

After that was him in shorts and a tank top from last month. He stood next to Sumo with a box of fireworks in his hands. He didn’t participate with the celebration since he wanted to make sure Sumo would be okay, you stayed with him.

Monday, July 4, 2039

-Happy 4th of July! Connor, your legs were made for these shorts- god bless Cyberlife.

That night did end up being… Interesting because of his choice in clothing. He did end up wearing them a bit more since then.

He flipped the page and realized the rest of them were empty. “I didn’t realize this was why you insisted on taking pictures of me with your polaroid camera.” You shrugged.

“It wasn’t in the beginning but… I wanted to capture those moments you know? Keep them with us forever.” You moved closer and snuggled with him, “You can fill it up if you want. I know you can see any memory you want anytime but… I guess this is just a sappy way of doing it.”

“No,” he interjected, “I appreciate your gift and the meaning behind it. I also wish to have many more pleasant memories with you and those around us.” You hummed with a smile then yawned. You put your head against his shoulder and soon drifted off.

He noticed your Camera on the table next to him, how convenient. He slowly reached for it and used it to take a picture of the two of you. You looked breath-taking to him, with your peaceful face and soft snoring.

Something about this felt… right. He felt like he finally belonged. Like he found his place, his family, his love. This was ‘it’ as some would say.

Monday, August 15, 2039 -I am happy.

#happy birthday connor #Connor x reader #Rk800 x reader #connor imagine #dbh #dbh imagine