#why 60 people joined in like two days
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Death is always around the Corner
Vil + Death!Reader
Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, Vil,Idia, Malleus
Masterlist
Let's set the scene:
"Magic Mirror on the wall. Tell me, who is the fairest of them all," The Beautiful queen asked her magic mirror.
" I see the figure of your fair stepdaughter. With her lips as red as a rose, hair as black as ebony, and skin as white as snow," The mirror said.
" Snow White…!" The Queen scowled.
Death stood in the shadows as they watched the vain queen glare and curse the young princess.
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Reading Vil's book brought back memories of the terrible women. Y/n could only hope that history is not about to repeat itself, but they knew. Just by the patterns of what has been happening around this school, they knew that was most likely.
"Wha—?! Don’t just stop and stare, Yuu! I hit my nose on your leg, yanno?" Grim groaned.
"You’re staring intently at the Great Seven’s statue, Y/n. Something up?" Ace asked.
"It's... It's strange seeing all these people. Being looked up to and aspired as such," Y/n said simply.
"Why is that? Did you know them personally?" Deuce asked.
"Not personally, but I was there to witness their prime and watch their downfall," Y/n explained.
"Really?! So what was the Queen of Hearts like?" Ace asked."
"A hypocritical tyrant. She would enforce the rules on everyone, but herself. She would even make up laws on the fly just to have an excuse to behead people. 60% of the rules in Heartsybuyl were ''on the fly'' made ruled," Y/n explained.
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After that Ace and Deuce certainly had a new perspective of the queen of hearts. But school continued as normal, and Y/n could already feel the presence of a growing blot. It Has Begun.
Later that day an announcement was posted in the cafeteria. An audition for the Joint Cultural Festival’s Vocal & Dance Championship.
“Come and join us! Aspiring singers and dancers, this is your chance for stardom! You shall represent our glorious school! In the case that you are chosen to be part of the finalists. The prize money of 5 million Madol will be divided among the participating members."
This certainly caught the boy's attention. As the group walked through the courtyard expressing their excitement. They were interrupted by singing, a lovely voice too.
That voice belongs to none other than Epel Felmier. As those boys began talking, Epel noticed that Y/n seemed to be left out. Sadly before he could reach.
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"Goodness, Epel. Are you neglecting your lessons to talk to some pigeons?" asked a smug voice.
"Vil-san!" Epel gasped.
"Wha—?! Is he talking about us?" Grim asked nervesly.
"Who else is there? This is an important lesson for our Epel. There are less than two months before the VDC. He does not have the time to be fraternizing with lowlifes like you," Vil said with a prideful smirk. " Please do not bother him while he is doing his lessons."
"We weren’t bothering him at all—," "Vil-san, don’t shout at them! This’s—This is my fault—," Epel said, cutting Deuce off.
"Epel, how many times must I tell you to stop with that vulgar way of speaking? It is not befitting a person of your standard. Surely you do not want to be referred to as a “Poisonous Red Apple,” do you?" Vil continued.
"But I—I don’t really want to do this—!" Epel stuttered
"Have you forgotten your promise with me already? Come along now," Vil commanded.
"Hey, you. I don’t care whether you’re a Prefect or not, but you just look like you’re bullying him," Ace glared.
" H-hey, you two…! Didn’t the Headmaster tell you both not to pick fights anymore?!" Deuce said nervesly.
"Hmph, pretty bold of you nobodies to challenge me. This will be perfect exercise after a meal. Come now, I’ll turn you into mashed potatoes," Vil smirked.
Sadly Adeuce and Grim were not on the same level as Vil, so Y/n eventually decided to step in. Just as Vil was about to throw a blow at the First Years, Y/n effortlessly caught his fist.
"Abusing your authority as a Prefect is not a good look. I thought you were better than that, but I guess I was wrong," Y/n smirked as they tossed Vil into the air. Only to grab him by his collar and slam hard onto the stone below. Vil had the wind knocked out of him.
"I'd give you a... 5 points out of 100," Y/n smirked at Vil's gasping form.
"Instant kill!" Grim and Ace cheered.
"S-so cool," Epel awed quietly.
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After that one-sided fight, Epel asked Y/n if it would be possible to be as strong as them. They answered "That is for you to decide, but don't focus only on the strength. Or is trying to be a muscle head the only thing about you?"
With that Y/n and the Adeuce group left. After some days of dance training with Kalim and Jamil. The group had to sign up by talking to Rook. The school stalker, who was all to happy to lurt random info on the group. Though he didn't have much on Y/n
So Y/n returned in kind.
"Greetings Rook hunt from Class 3-A, seat number 10. Your height is 177cm, whose unique magic is "I see you," Y/n smirked as Rook froze. For the first time being on the receiving end of his action.
But Rook would smile it off and tells them to come to Pomfiore in three days' time. And thankfully Adeuce was accepted into the group. Along with Kalim and Jamil.
But unfortunately, Y/n and Grim were forced to house the new VDC group. for the next 2 months, and While Grim was easily won over with money and tuna. Y/n didn't want to share their temporary home.
So with much back and forth Crowley ignored Y/n and gave the boys the green light. So Y/n was not the happiest when they came. especially when Vil starts making demands and setting down his own rules. And order them around.
Sadly not only did Y/n have to house them, but also help assist them with their training.
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"Of course. Manager, please play the song for us," Vil said expectantly.
"Who?" Y/n asked as they leaned against the windowsill.
"Who else is there? Didn’t the Headmaster ask you to support us? If you want to get paid, then work yourself to the bone for us, too," Vil said.
"Well, I don't need your currency," Y/n answered simply.
"What?!" Grim Gasped. "B-But my Tuna!"
"Grim I cook fresh fish for you for Breakfast and Dinner. You have no reason to complain. I even get the certain types of fish you like," Y/n scolded.
But Grim wants that money so he did follow Vil's command. As the Video was about to play an Ad of Neige popped up. And As Y/n watched they could see Vil crumble inside.
"He is very Lovable," Y/n commented, throwing salt into the wound.
"Gentlemen, stop focusing on the wrong things and watch the dance video, for god’s sake! This time for sure… I promise that we will not lose," Vil promised.
"Good. Well, I wish you luck. Don't cause trouble Grim," Y/n said as they left the dance room.
"W-where are you going?" Vil asked, but was ignored.
Practice went well, all the way to sunset, But Vil began to rear his head. As his ugly tendency surfaced.
" I… I don’t want to do it…" Epel stuttered.
"Pardon? “Meandering and girly? Are you sleep-talking, my dear? Well, even then I still will not tolerate such brashness," Vil scoffed as he grabbed and yanked harshly on Epel's ear. "Let me explain. This “meandering” dance trains the inner muscles so that our movements look clean and beautiful. Clothes and dancing should not be categorized into “girly” or “manly.” You are absolutely being close-minded if you think you shouldn’t do “girly” dances just because you’re a boy."
Suddenly Vil yelped in pain as a strong pair of fingers grabbed his ear. He was pulled down to Y/n's level by his ear as Y/n began to talk directly into it.
"And You should know that Boy or Girl, you have no right to place your hands on another individual. Or have you thrown out common human decency?" Y/n asked. "Since we're on the trend of pointing out flaws, I have many of yours to point out."
"Like how you drag unwilling people into your goals. Aren't you ashamed of forcing your dreams onto Epel? What are you incapable of reaching your goals on your own, and need someone else to succeed for you?"
__________________________________________
Y/n called the first day of training to a close. Vil wasn't feeling too chatty after that earful with Y/n.
Y/n sensing that Vil had enough, they left the group alone Till everyone went to bed. Kalim was surprised to See y/n outside. They gave Kalim a small pep talk and sent him back to bed.
Since Y/n death Didn't need sleep, they continued to do work. Like Removing Vil's curse on the baked goods Trey made. Before anyone could get hurt, reaping unfortunate souls, and Catching fish for Grim to eat.
Vil was not happy when he caught Ace and Deuce eating sweets, but was infuriated to learn that Y/n removed his curse. And Y/n would continue to be a thorn in Vil's side.
But sadly Vil's tune didn't change over the few days. And Eventually, it Got to the group. Epel quits, Deuce with a massive loss of confidence, and Ace becomes more of a jerk.
________________________________________
" Well only after a few days, you're out of a team. Seems like you are well on your way to losing after all," Y/n laughed.
"Those potatoes didn't have what it takes," Vil glared.
"Oh, just like you don't have what it takes to beat Neige?" Y/n asked with a knowing and cruel smile.
"Gaining what you want by means of pure effort is a thing of dreams," Vil muttered to himself. "And I do have what it takes, I will be the fairest of them all."
"Will you, or are just repeating words of people telling you are beautiful?" Y/n asked. " find something else to do with your time. Like becoming a better teacher or instructor."
"Do you just enjoy insulting me?" Vil glared.
"I just act how you act when you do when you are around people you think are beneath you. Time 5 of course,' Y/n said. " And yes, I do find it amusing how fail to be an influencer. Like how you fail to influence Epel into seeing the benefits of being pretty. You just Sqwaked and screeched at him the whole time."
"Then what would you do?" Vil scoffed, as he nervesly watched Y/n polish their blades.
_________________________________________
Y/n recommended trying to appeal to Epel, like helping his family with their business. This helped ease things over with Epel, and Vil was a bit nicer. And soon 2 months were a breeze.
Things were looking up for the group and Vil, spirits were high, and confidence was through the roof. Til Vil got cold feet after seeing Neige's performance. And the story of the evil queen replayed once again.
---------------------------------------------------
"Where am I?" Vil wondered as walked in the darkness.
As he did he found a backstage vanity, the lights were bright and the station was pristine. There was a book on the table, it was about Him. He read through the script-like text, and memories began to surface. And it was strange seeing it from a new perspective.
"Ah, your here Mr.Vil. Are you ready for your makeup session?" Asked a voice.
Vil turned in his seat to see Y/n dressed like a makeup artist. The boy nodded slowly as Y/n began to recline his chair.
"So what do you think of the script. Do you like the Vil Shoenheit character?" Y/n asked as they began to soak Vil's hair with warm water.
"I just wanted to stand on the stage till the very end," Was all he could say.
"Everyone one does, and you just wanted more then what you got," Y/n agreed as they began to shampoo his hair. " You didn't want to be seen as the Villain any more."
"Exactly, but no matter how much I try and Improve... I don't want to be just that, that villain character. I'm sure the Queen of beauty would look upon me with disappointment," Vil sighed.
"The queen of beauty wouldn't give a flying feather about your struggles. If she were in your passion, she would have killed Neige back in high school. And eat his heart, thinking she would gain his beauty," Y/n said as they rinsed Vil's hair.
"Do not mock the Queen of beauty, and how could you possibly know who she was?" Vil spat as Y/n conditioned his hair.
"I know you very well, I wrote the script in your book," Y/n answered.
"Y-you did. How did you know such personal details about me? Who are you Y/n?" Vil asked slowly.
"I am always near, but never quite here, I am feared by most, yet always appear. I take life from the living, with one final breath. Who am I?" Y/n asked as they rinsed and dried his hair.
Vil looked back at the mirror, but instead of seeing a style artist. There stood a black-robed figure with two razor-sharp scythes.
"Y-your Death. So... You were there during The queens time?" Vil asked as Y/n brushed his hair.
Flashes of Y/n's memories of the Evil queen appeared in the vanity mirror. Showing the queen's true color. Vil slumped into his chair as his idol, everything he knew of her... Was a lie.
"If you were to ask me, you outshine the queen far more than snow white," Y/n said as he turned his chair to face them, applying the makeup. "The queen never cared about improving her own beauty. She simply would not allow more beautiful people to live. You on the other hand worked har to improve your beauty."
"You really mean that?" Vil asked as he looked back at his book, only to see a wanted poster on top of it.
"Yes, straight from death's lips. You are everything, you thought the queen embodied. Sadly you would have never known that, because you really on strangers to inform your worth. When only you can truly know what your value is," Y/n said as they finished their work and turned Vil around to face the Vanity.
"Vil? Who is the fairest of them all?" Death asked.
As he looked in the mirror, images of his life achievements flashed in the vanity. Vil smiled as turned to face Death.
"I am the fairest," Vil said.
"Are you sure?" Death asked as they bored into Vil's eyes.
Vil stood from his chair and stood face to face with Death. " Yes, I'm very certain."
"Good," Y/n smiled as they stepped aside. "Well, you better hurry. You're going Live in 30 seconds. Your public awaits."
Vil looked ahead to see the stage doors open, as a blinding light showed through. With confidence, he stepped back into the living.
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v: continental drift | joel miller x f!reader
flash point (series) masterlist
pairing: pre-TLOU! joel x fem!reader (no use of y/n!)
summary: on a particuarly wet night, you run across tess servopoulos and joel miller, and they help you out of a tight spot
chapter warnings: canon-typical violence and gore, depictions of death and decapitation (don't fucking ask), wound stitching (not sure this is a warning but for my queasy peeps), swearing, FEDRA is still an authoritarian regime, decent amount of POV-changing, the slowest slow-burn of slow burns (because I'm trash and like to make you all wait for it), a decent amount of angst
a/n: the way i giggled nervously when I realized it's been a month and a half since my last update......sorry you guys. also the sam tea is hot so please enjoy it. also this is officially the end of side a so the next time we see joel and reader will be closer to the TLOU canon timeline
The next day, you’re surprised to find Joel back in the coffee shop at the end of your shift.
“Need something else already? Or just coming to make sure I haven’t been kidnapped?” you ask him sarcastically, as he steps up to the counter, raising a single eyebrow.
“Just came for some coffee, thanks,” he says, and you sigh.
“We’re closing in ten minutes,” you tell him, peering around the shop, “I just sold my last cup.”
“Oh,” Joel lets out, and for the first time since you’ve met him, Joel seems awkward.
“I’ll make you a fresh cup,” you say after a second, giving him a tired smile, “I work here, after all.”
“Thanks,” he lets out, and you have to bite back a laugh at how woody he sounds.
Who knew coffee would stump Joel Miller.
“Did you hear what happened?” he asks you, and while his tone isn’t necessarily urgent, it’s clear the information he acquired is worth sharing as you get to work making an extra cup.
“I came home yesterday and crashed,” you inform him, “So no,”
“Really?” Joel’s eyes fall pointedly on something that looks suspiciously like a fresh hickey at the top of your collarbone, “You. . . crashed?”
You give him an unimpressed look. “60 years of life and no one’s ever told you it’s rude to stick your nose in other people’s business?”
“60?” Joel asks, eyes widening and gruff expression melting from his features almost entirely for a second, “You think I’m sixty?”
Your cheeky smile gives you away as you let out a small chuckle, shaking your head before giving him an expectant eyebrow as his scowl returns. “What happened, then?”
“They found bodies this morning,”
“Bodies?” you ask with a frown, looking up at him, “Where?”
“Abandoned church on Salem," Joel says, and for a second, your eyes widen, before your frown sets deep again, "Two young guys, both carrying assault-rifle type weapons,"
"You don't think –"
"–that when your little soldier boyfriend said there was a good reason it had been boarded up, he was damn right? That's exactly what I think, sweetheart,"
Your mind is running too many miles per hour to pay any attention to the nickname or the much more comfortable tone Joel seems to take with you as your fingers absent-mindedly reach for the coffee tin.
"Infected?" you ask him, and he nods.
"Overheard a few of his guard buddies talking about it. They're pretty sure it was infected, bodies were so torn up they couldn't ID them,"
"Jesus," you mutter to yourself, your fingers absent-mindedly reaching for the coffee beans tin, only to find it empty, "Shit,"
"Still sure you got enough for a coffee?" he asks, undertone sarcastic, and you manage to roll your eyes.
"Yes," you say pointedly, before turning to peer upwards, where you spot one of the 5-kilo coffee bean bags, "But you're going to have to help take down the new bag,"
Joel nods, walking around and behind the counter to join you as your arms reach out, fingertips barely grasping the edges of the bag. Joel has an easier time reaching, and together, you manage to lug the thing down.
"But why would they stay in the church?" you wonder out loud as you set the bag down on the counter with a huff.
"Beats me," Joel says with a shrug, which only makes the gears in your head whirr harder, frown deepening.
"Doesn't make sense," you mutter to yourself as you use one of the scissors on the counter to open a corner of the bag, leaning it slightly over the edge so you can fill the tin easily.
"What are you thinking?" Joel asks as he observes your face, and you look up at him for a second as your hands go on autopilot, dropping a handful of beans in the grinder.
"I'm thinking–" you say pointedly, "That they had no business being in that church, no reason to be there. . . the whole place was boarded up, there's signs everywhere. . . they may have been thugs but I doubt they were stupid enough to stick around,"
"Maybe they were just waiting to move the barrel," Joel says with a shrug, and you grimace slightly, shaking your head.
"There were three of them," you point out, pouring the ground coffee into a clean pot, the kettle whistling to your left, "And the checkpoint had already been abandoned for the night. . . best window to do it would’ve been immediately,"
"I'm not sure I follow," Joel says eventually as he stands next to you behind the counter, and you shake your head, bringing your hand up to rub your forehead.
"Don't mind me," you say with a sigh, "Been a long shift,"
The rest of the process happens in silence, neither you or Joel saying a word to each other as you finish making the coffee. Joel can tell from your expression that you're still pretty deep in thought, and the expression only clears from your face when you've made two steaming cups of fresh coffee. You hand one to Joel, who reaches into his pocket for a ration card.
“Don’t be silly,” you say, shaking your head with a frown as you finally seem to be pulled fully out of your thoughts, “I don’t want to see a single ration card come out of your pocket, Miller.”
Joel’s hand freezes in his pocket, and for a second, he doesn’t know what to say. He’s caught off guard by how friendly your tone is, and he’s silent for a minute before he clears his throat, his hands staying in his pockets.
“Alright.”
"Who was this job for, anyway?" you ask Joel as you take a sip of the coffee you've just made, and he shrugs.
"Dunno," he says, and you resist an urge to smile at the fact that he's talking to you now, "Some wiry fucker Tess knew. . . I think his name was Peter,"
You grimace. "Creepy name for a creepy dude,”
Joel makes an agreeing snort into his coffee.
“Fertilizer, huh?" you say, making a face, "What the fuck's he gonna do? Plant a garden?"
Joel lets out a hum as he swallows down his sip.
"And fuel oil, for some reason," Joel says, clearing his throat, "You put anything extra in this?"
"Wait, rewind–" you say, and suddenly your voice is serious as you set down your cup, "You never mentioned he wanted fuel oil."
Your mind is racing as you finally put together the pieces of the puzzle. The reason they asked for such specific items, staying in the church after, not wanting to be asked nosy questions–
Joel frowns as he turns to look at you, raising a sarcastic eyebrow. "Shall I write you a full report? Or just the transcript of our negotiations?”
"Who was he?" you ask him, tone urgent as your eyes become wide, and Joel frowns deeper, “Joel, who was he?”
"Don't know, told you that already," Joel says, before his eyes flicker with mild concern, "What's wrong?"
You give him an alarmed look.
"Joel, ammonium nitrate is the main ingredient in fertilizer," you say, your voice low and filled with panic as your eyes flit around the half-empty coffeeshop, "And fuel oil––. . .they're making ANFO, Joel, it’s a goddamn–"
You don't know how Joel understands what you mean, but his eyes blow wide as he finally puts the pieces together
"-bomb," he breathes, and at that moment, there's a sound of crashing glass as something shatters the front window of the coffeeshop. Some people scream, those sitting by the window jumping away. It's a brick, and just as people gather to look at it, something else flies through the shattered window.
"Joel–" you yell, and you only just manage to turn your body, hand flying over Joel's shoulder as you push him down behind the counter, going to do the same–
BOOM.
The explosion is unlike anything you've ever heard, and if you hadn't had the good sense to press your hands over your ears as the sheer force of the explosives propelled you against the opposite wall, you're sure both your eardrums would have burst as sounds tear through the atmosphere around you.
When you open your eyes, you find yourself on your back, and everything hurts. Your gaze is directed at the ceiling of the building, your temples pulsing with pain, and all you can see above you is smoke, half burning embers floating through the air as you try to blink the dust out of your eyes. Plumes of dust and smoke obscure your vision, but you can still see the gaping holes in the ceiling from which pieces of stucco rain down. There’s a deafening silence in your head, filled only with a distant ringing, and your eyes blink several times as your vision becomes less blurry, bringing into focus the burning embers floating through the air as if dancing on the wind.
For a single moment, the silence is almost peaceful as you watch them flutter down around you, eyes still blinking as your mind seems to process what has just happened, before you feel your lungs expand with a breath, and the illusion of peace shatters.
The next breath you take is stifling, the dust scratching the inside of your throat as you try to breathe any kind of oxygen in your lungs. You’re vaguely aware of something entering your vision, a familiar face, but your eyes don’t immediately focus on Joel’s face until you feel his hands on either side of your arms, pulling you upright and propping you up against the wall. You're still dazed as your eyes roll over the scene. Most of the counter is still standing, but the front, near to where you’d been standing, has been blown to bits and everything once standing on it, is either in pieces, or strewn across the floor.
Your eyes are torn away from the scene as you feel a squeeze in your arms, and your gaze meets Joel’s. His face is dirty, covered in grime, but his eyes are alight like you’ve never seen them, more present and alert than ever as they inspect your face. He looks relatively unharmed, except for a few bleeding cuts and scratches on his face as his eyes search your face, and you see something in his eyes you'd not seen on him before. He looks worried.
You watch as he moves his mouth, and it looks like your name, but you still can’t hear anything except for that damn ringing. Your eyes try to make sense of the movement of his lips, but you’re too distracted by the thundering of your heartbeat in your chest. Joel seems to finally understand you can't hear him as his eyes look into yours. They’re wide with shell shock, continuously flitting between him and your surroundings in an effort to gain your bearings.
Everything feels like it's moving in slow motion. You swallow hard, trying to clear your ears, but still the ringing doesn't subside. The only thing that seems to work is your nose, and the smell is horrible, a mix of acrid smoke, burning plastic and thick dust which oppresses your lungs. Joel gives your arms another squeeze, forcing you to look back at him, the shape of your name once again appearing on his lips. You shake your head at him, eyes wide with fear as they stare into his. You watch him as he swallows hard, eyes flitting around desperately, seeming to consider something. Then he moves beside you, taking your arm and slinging it over his shoulder. He says something else that you still can’t hear, but you nod as he looks at you, anticipating it as he pulls you up. You let him, trying to cooperate as much as possible, but your whole body hurts, screaming at you to lie back down again.
The minute your eyes focus on the full scene of the coffeeshop, your stomach turns and you wish you had never seen it.
Smoke and debris fills the air, casting an eerie haze over the scene; tables and chairs are strewn about like discarded toys, and the floor is a harrowing canvas of debris, bodies, body parts. . . you can see some people moving, crying, screaming. . . bending over others that lie face down and deathly still, blood smeared across the floors of the shop like morbid strokes of paint. The entire front of the coffee shop has been blown open, and the ground is littered in glass from the shattered windows which glitters dangerously in the fading daylight.
You can’t focus on it any longer as you feel Joel pull you towards the back door, keeping one arm around your waist to hold you up and using the other to push open the door. You quickly move past the backroom, before Joel is pushing against the heavy fire escape door, which sends you both stumbling into the alleyway as it gives way. You let go of Joel at that moment, and he helps you down on one of the upturned boxes against the wall of the alley.
Your hearing is slowly returning, the ringing becoming less and less as you can start to hear your own heavy breaths. It’s still muffled as you try and calm your thundering heartbeat, hand coming down to rest on your knees as your bow your head, shoulders shuddering. Your mind keeps flashing back to the images from inside, the acrid smell of smoke and burning flesh still so present in your nostrils it makes you violently nauseous; the tears streaming down one woman’s grime-covered face, the man screaming in pain as his hands desperately the thigh from which his bone is protruding, a teddybear lying in a pool of blood, loosely clenched in the hand of its lifeless owner. . .
Your breathing is shallow as you register what you've just seen, trying hard to keep your breath under control, but your pants are ragged as you try to steady your shaking hands on your legs.
"Oh god,"
You bring a hand to your mouth, the feeling of wanting to throw up overcoming you suddenly, but you find that nothing comes out except for a hoarse cough.
A voice drifts through the fog, muffled at first, before it becomes clearer as it repeats your name. You look up at Joel as your hearing finally sharpens, so you can hear the blaring of sirens in the street as several trucks drive past the alleyway, the shouts from outside and the screams from inside.
“Those people. . .” you stammer, your eyes wide as they meet Joel’s, glittering with tears, “We have to–”
“There’s nothing we can do,” he says, a little breathless, but his voice solemn, “We have to get out of here. . . there could be more–”
“Joel!” you let out, your voice still tinged with horror and shock.
“We can’t!” he lets out, shaking his head as he looks down at you, “We can’t help them, okay? We have to go. . . if they decide to blow up another building, or god forbid, the fucking FEDRA army descending on this place right now, we’re in deep shit.”
After a second in which you stare at each other, you nod shortly, heaving a breath.
“You still have the keys to your place?” Joel asks, and you take a second to feel for them in your back pocket. Thankfully, they appear not to have fallen out during your ordeal, and you nod.
“Alright,” Joel says with a curt nod, before looking down at you, “Can you stand?”
You nod weakly, before getting to your feet. Your legs are still wobbling a little, and you frown as you feel pain flare through your ankle. Joel notices, and doesn’t even ask before he stands beside you again, taking your arm again to steady you against him.
You go as fast as possible, but it still feels like an eternity before you reach the building in which you live, the people in the streets either too busy running towards or away from the wreckage of the shop to pay attention to you. The minute the door closes behind you, Joel walks you over to the kitchen table, and sits you on top, your chest heaving a pained sigh.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, and even though his tone is neutral, his hand comes up, two fingers gently taking your jaw to analyze your face. He tilts your head to look at the side of your face as you groan slightly.
“I can’t hear anything on the left,” you say, and he hums.
“You’re bleeding. . . eardrum must be bust.”
“Shit,” you let out, closing your eyes and trying to take a deep breath as you feel Joel's fingers leave your face before he steps away from you.
“You got a first aid kit? Anything like that?”
You nod, motioning towards the sink. “Cupboard under the sink.”
Joel moves towards the sink, before crouching down and opening the cupboard under it.
“What about Tess–”
“She’s a smart woman,” he says through a strained voice as he gets to his feet again, setting the kit down on the counter, “She’ll figure out where we’ve gone if she has any suspicion we survived that. . . ANFO. . . I should’ve fucking known,”
Joel feels his stomach churn with guilt; of course he knew what ANFO was, they use to use it quite a bit way back when he was still rebuilding houses for a living.
“What was that?” you let out, and Joel’s face darkens as he grabs a glass from the upper cupboard and fills it with water.
“Pipe bomb,” he mutters, before he looks over his shoulder briefly, eyes pausing on the scratches that litter your arms, “Something like nails of bolts in it, from what I can see. . . the ANFO packs a pretty big punch in of itself, but the nails and bolts do double the damage because they act like shrapnel. . . it’s what the Unabomber did,”
Joel vaguely remembers watching a TV documentary on the Unabomber with his ex-wife, which had detailed his similar methods. He briefly wonders– or rather hopes– that the dude died during the Outbreak.
“Jesus Christ,” you let out in a breath, burying your head in your hands, “Who the fuck would do that?”
“People who feel like they aren’t being heard,” Joel says darkly as you hear him step back towards you, and you feel like sobbing.
Hadn’t the outbreak been punishment enough? Weren’t people sick of pain and grief?
“We sold them that shit, Joel,” you say through your hands, the despair and guilt in your tone clear as day.
He comes to stand in front of you again, leaving the kit and the glass of water on the table next to you, before pulling one of the chairs from the side of the table to sit facing you.
“I know,” he says solemnly as he sits down and opens the first aid box, pulling out some rolls of gauze. You finally look back up, eyes meeting his, and Joel can see in your eyes that you’re struggling with grasping this particular fact.
Of course Joel feels guilty, to some extent, but he'd been in the smuggling business long enough to adhere to the policy that once it was out of his hands, it was no longer his business.
“Here,” he says, swallowing as he grabs your arm, zeroing in on the largest cut.
Ironically it looks much worse than it actually feels, and almost the majority of your forearm seems covered in dried and fresh blood from this particular wound. Joel works in silence, cleaning the large cuts one by one and dressing them. You don’t mutter a word either, as you sit still and stare ahead of yourself a little. Joel knows you must be in shock, and he feels a strange amount of concern every time a loud sound from the street makes you flinch.
“Sorry,” you mutter after a particularly loud bang in the street outside makes you jump, and Joel temporarily loosens his grip on your arm as he bandages it.
“S’okay,” he says after a second, looking up at you briefly only to find your eyes unfocused once again, staring almost vacantly at the window. He notices your ears straining for sounds from the street, brows tied tightly together like you were searching them. Then, you feel Joel’s fingers back on your chin as he gently turns your head away from him.
“Still nothing?” he asks as he cleans the trickle of blood that has run from your ears down your neck. You shake your head as you feel his other hand come up, “What about this?”
You assume he snaps his fingers, but you only hear it on your other side. You shake your head.
“No,” you say, swallowing.
Joel lets out a sigh before his hand falls back down to his lap.
“Shouldn’t last very long,” he says, in an attempt to distract you, “Maybe one or two weeks.”
You give a non-committal hum as you nod, eyes still not meeting his as he returns to the final scratches on your arms.
“Stop thinking about it,” he says after a second, and this gets your attention, your head turning to look at him as he hunches over your arm.
“How?” you return, and he looks up at you, “How do you stop thinking about it? I–. . . those people are all dead, Joel. . . that could’ve been us.”
“Well lucky for me you got some fast reflexes,” he says, his tone almost joking as he looks back down to your arm, and you shake your head ever so slightly.
“This isn’t funny, Joel,” you say, and your voice is heavy with emotion as he looks up at you, your eyes shining with tears.
“I know,” he replies with a sigh, looking up at you, “I never said it was.”
There’s a split second in which you look at each other, before you swallow shakily and look away again, silence falling over you both.
It lasts only a second before you speak up again.
“How come you’re always the one patching me up?” you mutter, your tone half-hearted, making Joel let out a small scoff.
“Maybe because you keep getting yourself into trouble, sweetheart,” he returns as he wraps the rest of the bandage over a particularly large gash on your arm, careful to keep his grip loose around the fresh scar of your stab wound.
“Saving your life, you mean,” you mutter, and Joel emits a dry chuckle, before looking up at you from where he’s sitting hunched towards you. He’s not sure what he’s thinking, or if it's even a good idea, but he finds himself putting a reassuring hand on your knee, which he feels under his fingers is still trembling.
“That’s twice now,” he says with a squeeze of your knee, “You done being a hero? ‘Cause I’m afraid there won’t be much left of ya if this happens again.”
His face doesn’t reveal much, but his tone is strangely gentle, caring. . . something you’ve never before heard from Joel.
“Yeah, I’m done,” you say with a groan as you try to sit up a little more, Joel’s hand leaving your knee with a slight pat, before he gets to his feet. Then, his eyes fall on something under your chair, and he frowns.
“Are you bleeding?” he asks you, looking back up, and your eyebrows knit together as you follow Joel’s eyeline and find, to your great concern, a rapidly growing pool of blood gathering at your feet.
“I–. . . I didn’t think I was,” you let out, frowning slightly, before Joel steps around you, and you listen as he takes a sharp intake of breath.
“Your shoulder,” he says as you watch his hand go into the first aid kit and reach for the scissors, “You don’t feel that?”
“I mean a little, but, fuck–. . . ! What was that for?” you ask him, turning around to glare at Joel, who just used what felt like his entire hand to press down on the wound, making your shoulders erupt with pain.
“Sorry,” Joel mutters, as you feel his fingers pick up the hem of your shirt. Then, you hear the scissors cutting through the fabric of your top, “Doesn’t look too deep, but you’ll need a few stitches I think.”
“More fucking stitches,” you grumble to yourself, shaking your head as Joel peels the shirt from your back, “At this rate I’m going to be, like, 90% scar tissue.”
“And water,” Joel adds in an attempt at a joke, and to his credit, you chuckle slightly.
“And water, I suppose,” you say with a nod of your head as he reaches into the first aid kit for something to suture you with. You sit in silence as Joel cleans the needle and then your wound, before you feel him put his hand on your shoulder and he starts to sew you up.
It hurts, and you immediately feel tears spring into your eyes as your shoulders tense and your fingers tighten around the edge of the table, knuckles whitening.
“If you relax, it’ll hurt less,” Joel says, and his voice is practically in your ear, his breath fanning over your exposed skin.
“I’m being stitched up by a stranger with no pain medication or alcohol. . . I think you can understand why I’m tense,” you reply with a sigh.
Joel says nothing, but you can hear him thinking. You wonder about what.
“Stranger, huh?” Joel asks you with a hum, and you snort.
“What word would you use?” you reply, eyebrows creasing, “Because something tells me you’re not the type to have friends.”
Joel says nothing, only letting out a grudging sound as you feel the needle pierce your skin again, which makes you grit your teeth, shoulder tensing up again.
“Jesus Christ woman, relax,” Joel says again, letting out a breath as you feel him put a hand on your other shoulder, “Or I’ll sew you up crooked.”
You try your hardest, letting out a shaky breath and forcing your shoulders to un-tense, but it still isn’t enough, and Joel heaves a sigh as he tries to think of a way to distract you enough so he can sew you up at least half-properly.
“Be honest,” he says eventually, “How the fuck did you survive a month and a half out in the open?”
You’re silent for a second, and Joel waits for your answer before getting back to work.
“I was by myself,” you say eventually, as Joel places another stitch, which you react less violently to than the last one, “That sounds stupid, but I’m pretty sure that’s how. . . you have nobody else relying on you, you’re responsible for nobody and only have yourself to answer to. . . you’re entirely alone.”
“Here I was thinking that’s exactly what leads people to giving up,” Joel notes, throwing another stitch, and you let out a breath.
“You’d think that, but spite is a good motivator,” you admit, “Most of my time traveling I was just angry at the universe for putting me through the ringer. . . so I kept going. . . kind of like a ‘fuck you’, huh?”
“So you’re telling me–” Joel says, stopping to place another stitch, which you hiss at slightly, “–that you survived 2 months of hiking through the American backcountry as a fuck you to the Universe?”
“Canadian backcountry, actually,” you correct, before chuckling slightly, “But yeah, pretty much.”
“Canada?”
“Hm,” you give an agreeing hum, “We’d heard the midwest was hell on earth. . . as much hell as you can get in an apocalypse, I suppose. . . so I crossed the border somewhere in North Dakota, walked along the border.”
“What about infected?” Joel asks, and you shake your head.
“Only in and around big cities,” you note, “The rest is mostly national parks and forest, so I ran into relatively little trouble. . .infected were really the least of my worries, it’s the people.”
Joel gives an agreeing hum, but before he can open his mouth to reply, your front door flies inward with an almighty sound and you hear someone’s hoarse voice call out your name.
You jump again, eyes widening. From behind you, you’re vaguely aware of Joel’s hands having left your shoulders, and you hear the unmistakable sound of a safety clicking off.
Sam doesn’t look too injured as his wide eyes search the room before falling on you. His rifle is slung over his shoulder, and he has some smears of grime on his cheek, as well as a bloody handprint on the side of his pants that looks too small to be his. When he sees you, his face simultaneously relaxes and tightens at once.
“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice hoarse as he eyes the cuts on your arms, seemingly not even noticing Joel sitting behind you, and you nod.
“Just a few scratches,” you assure him, and he lets out a breath, before his expression becomes stormy. Behind you, Joel moves again, his hands coming back up to your wound where you assume he’s almost finished.
“The fertilizer,” Sam pants in a panicked voice, “Who did you give it to, speedy?”
“I kno–” you say, but Sam doesn’t listen.
“–because if you mix fertilizer with fuel oil you get–”
“–a bomb,” you finish, “I know, Sam.”
Sam’s voice stalls in his throat, eyes widening. “You knew? You knew they were planning on blowing people up and you went along with it anyway?”
“Obviously, I didn’t know that,” you reply sarcastically, and Sam lets out a scoff as Joel puts another stitch in your shoulder, palms coming up to steady your bicep.
“Sweetheart, I’m sure this is a very important conversation, but I’m gonna need you to hold still for me,” he says, his voice low but still audible as he focuses on the stitch.
Something in Sam's face twists when he hears the nickname, and Joel recognizes the flash of jealousy behind the young soldier's eyes that makes him realize this might not have been his smartest move. He doesn't find himself caring too much, drawing some satisfaction in the way Sam sizes him up.
"I'm sorry, but who the fuck are you?" he asks him, moving his rifle towards Joel; not quite pointing it, but enough to tell him his attention has shifted, and not in a good way.
Joel takes up the challenge, moving his gaze from you to Sam, his shoulders setting imposingly as he gives Sam an almost unimpressed eyebrow from over your shoulder.
"Someone who doesn't have the fucking time for your little schoolboy crush."
"Joel," your voice is a sharp warning, "Not helping. . . Sam, I didn’t know.”
“I don’t care,” Sam says with a shake of his head, “Come on, you can’t be stupid like this, speedy.”
You close your eyes as you feel another stitch, face contorting in pain momentarily before you sigh. “I know.”
“–and all those people. . . did you know they killed fucking kids? I mean Jesus Christ,” Sam lets out again, and at this your jaw sets slightly.
“FEDRA hung an entire family for trying to come into the QZ last week,” you say, your tone cold, “You don’t need to lecture me on the blood staining my hands, thanks.”
There’s an uneasy silence between the two of you as Sam takes heavy, angry breaths, and after a second, Joel clears his throat, chair grating as he gets to his feet.
“All done,” he says, his voice back its usual stoicism, but neither you nor Sam pay him any attention as he walks to the other end of the room to clean his hands in the sink.
“You have to stop,” Sam says with a shake of his head, hands on his hips as he gives you a look.
“I have stopped–”
“No, I mean you have to stop smuggling,” he says with a shake of his head, “I don’t ever want you anywhere near this shit again.”
Normally you’d agree with Sam, but something about his tone irks you. It’s too authoritative, too controlling.
“Excuse me?” you utter, eyebrows flying up your forehead, “I don’t need you telling me to do anything, Sam.”
“Clearly, I have to– given you’re in absolutely no fit state to make any sound fucking decisions,” he hisses at you, and his tone has a venom to it you've only heard him use a handful of times.
“What the fuck is your problem?” you let out, and Joel can hear in your voice that you’re stung.
“You really want to know what my problem is?” he seethes, before motioning towards Joel, “This. . . ! This is my problem! This ridiculous rebellion you have going on, that you’ve had since the day you left the academy, that makes you run around here like some kind of untouchable, twisted version of Robin Hood. . . it’s stupid, speedy, and sooner or later it’s going to get you killed.”
“Hasn’t gotten me killed yet,” you retort, crossing your arms over your chest, and Sam lets out a sound of exasperation.
"I don't fucking care!" Sam lets out, his voice loud with anger and frustration, "You aren't listening–. . . the Fireflies’ cause isn’t any more noble than FEDRA’s regime. . . they’re all the fucking same, they lie and they kill, and sooner or later, they'll turn on you and you'll end up like your fucking dad."
"What?"
Your tone is shocked, and Sam watches with a guilty turn of his stomach as your eyes widen in shock, and grief, glistening with the oncoming threat of tears. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Sam says your name, but you interrupt him as you get to your feet suddenly, the sound of the grating chair filling the otherwise silent room.
"Tell me," you say through gritted teeth, and Samuel purses his lips, jaw clenching in frustration with himself as he takes a second to answer you.
The room is so silent that even with his bad ear, Joel is sure he could hear a pin if it dropped.
"It wasn't some random bystander that snitched on your dad," Samuel admits finally, and Joel realizes with a horrible turn of his stomach what he's about to say, "It was the Fireflies. They weren't happy he stopped helping them, and so they tipped FEDRA off that he’d been letting them run operations through the shop."
Your vision is starting to narrow as you take a shallow breath, eyes boring into Samuel. "How do you know this?"
“It doesn’t matter–”
"No– Samuel, how do you know this?" you say, your gaze going back to the boy you'd known for 13 years, your eyes filled with the puzzle pieces you're struggling to put into place, "If we were ever friends. . . please tell me."
Samuel's eyes plead with yours as your brain works overtime, before he lets out a defeated breath, shaking his head. "Burke is my mom's name, I took it when I joined the academy because I was sure they wouldn’t let me in otherwise. . . my dad's name is Hartwin."
Even Joel recognizes the name; it had been whispered in the streets for the past few years as word spread of the Fireflies' revolution and victory in San Francisco, led by a hardened ex-marine called Jack Hartwin. His name had been spoken with a twisted kind of admiration, word of his liberal use of violence somehow less known.
"Sam," you let out, your voice trembling as you blink once, tears still refusing to spill down your cheeks as your face becomes a mask of realization, "Oh god.”
“Speedy, please–”
He takes a small step in your direction, but you respond with a step back, your body almost flinching at that stupid nickname falling over his lips. It had been for a stupid reason, as well, a name he’d called you after you’d out-sprinted almost your entire class during a training exercise at the academy. You had let him, allowing the nickname to take hold until eventually he had started to use it more than your actual name. Now, the name sounds poisonous coming out of his mouth.
“How long have you known?” you ask him, your voice is trembling with both rage and betrayal, “And don’t you fucking even think about lying to me.”
Sam’s face becomes a mask of solemn guilt.
“Since the beginning,” he admits sorrowfully, “I found out who you were a few days after you joined.”
“You knew–” you say, your voice stalling in your throat as you hear your heartbeat thunder in your ears, “You knew all this time, and you never told me?”
“What would you have done with that information? We were sixteen, speedy,” Sam pleads.
“You were protecting him,” you accuse, your voice hoarse with pain and anger.
"I was protecting you," Samuel shouts back, his eyes wide and pleading, "That's all I ever wanted to do, okay? My father would've destroyed you if you'd gone after him. . . you were my friend, the first and only one I’d ever had, and I couldn’t in good conscience say anything–"
“That wasn’t your decision to make!” you explode, and finally the tears flow freely over your cheeks, “This whole time, you lied to me. . . you looked me the face and you lied to me, for thirteen fucking years, I–”
Your voice stalls in your throat as you take a shaky breath, your trembling hand coming up onto your forehead, your chest tight and uncomfortable as you fight the overwhelming urge to hurl.
“Speedy, please,” Sam says, and his voice is shaky, “I wasn’t protecting him. . . I want nothing to do with him. . . I was horrified when I found out what he’d done, I joined the academy out of spite because I wanted to get as far away from him as I possibly could.”
“How fucking noble of you,” you spit, your tone venomous as you refuse to look at him.
Silence falls on the kitchen, not a word spoken by anyone, until eventually you let the breath out again, just as shaky as when it came in. Sam tries one more time, saying your name, your actual one. . . but you interrupt him before he can get any further.
“Get out,” you say, and this time, your voice is firm and furious. His eyes widen with surprise and hurt for a second, before his brow creases slightly.
“What?” he utters, his voice filled with pain, his eyes even flitting helplessly to Joel for a second, who is still standing in the corner as quietly as he can, wishing he had the superpower to turn invisible right now.
“You heard me, get out,” you repeat, and you’re still not looking at him, fingers pressed against your mouth lightly as your eyes look down at your feet.
His expression becomes almost pleading. “Speedy–”
“Samuel,” you return, your eyes, alight with fury, finally meeting his.
You say it like a warning, and Sam presses his lips together as he watches your expression.
“Get out of my house before I do something I regret,” you seethe, and Joel watches your fists clench at your side. He feels his shoulders tense slightly, readying to move just in case your common sense fails you and he has to actually pull you off the soldier standing in your living room holding an assault rifle. When Sam says nothing, you repeat yourself, your voice raising. “I said get out, Sam, fucking get out, before I–”
“What?” Sam interrupts you anyway, shaking his head “Before you kill me. . . ?”
He doesn’t say it with scorn nor anger, tone maybe a little disbelieving but open and vulnerable nonetheless.
When you say nothing, he takes a breath. “You would do that to me, Speedy?”
Joel knows it’s going to happen before it does, watches as your fingers curl around the glass of water on the table, hears the sound of it shattering as you knock it over. It doesn’t hit anyone, but Sam jumps slightly at the sound, but to his credit, his gun remains unfired.
“Don’t fucking call me that! Don’t you ever fucking call me that again,” you shout at him, “Get out of my face. . . I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“You don’t mean that,” Sam says, and Joel notes that he actually sounds genuinely upset.
“With all my heart I fucking mean that, Samuel,” you say, your voice barely controlled as your eyes shine with tears of anger, “I mean it. . . I don’t want to see your face, I don’t want to hear your name. . .I curse the fucking day you ever even spoke to me, if you’d just minded your own damn business you’d have saved us both the fucking trouble.”
Sam is completely silent as he processes your words, the only sounds in the room that of your breathing.
“Get.out.”
Sam heaves a defeated sigh, his own eyes shining with threatening tears. He doesn’t seem to care one bit that Joel is witnessing this, his eyes focused only on you as his eyes plead with yours.
Finally, he turns on his heel and walks to the door, before pulling it open. He pauses there, before turning his head slightly over his shoulder, but without looking at you.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, before swallowing harshly, “I only did it because I love you. . . you’re my family, not him.”
Every word he says feels like a gut punch, and you show him your back as you try and take a deep breath, feeling your face contort as you’re overtaken with the sudden urge to cry.
The door clicks shut quietly behind him.
You take a deep breath, clearing your throat and looking at the ceiling for a second, before walking towards the door that leads to what he assumes is your bedroom, passing by Joel standing in the corner in silence. Your face is a mask of so many emotions Joel can hardly keep count; hurt, betrayal, rage, and he can see the tears pooling in your eyes and down your cheeks, but you don’t meet his gaze. He says your name, but you ignore him as you pass him by, only saying in a hoarse voice:
“Please do me a favor and show yourself out.”
Joel barely has time to nod wordlessly before your door slams shut with an almighty bang.
END OF SIDE A
a/n: ya'll i PROMISE it gets more exciting/more spicyyy. i just needed to establish this so i could flesh out the reader/joel dynamic and the basis for their relationship. please please bear with me, i have a plan heheheh. as usual, please let me know what you thought of this chapter and the story as a whole, i love hearing your input/feedback :)
taglist:
apart from those of you who explicitly asked to be added, i also took the liberty of tagging some of you that showed interest in more parts (if you do not want to be tagged, please please let me know, in which case i apologize in advance for doing so!)
@tanushreeg27 @user1112223334449890171 @frecklefacelm @samarav @alyssiamarierenee @platinumblondeedition @huntersandpie @lizlil @lumpypoll @pedro-pascal-3nthusiast @phryne-fish @ponyboys-sunsets
as usual, replies, reblogs and likes are highly appreciated!
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how did u get so good at composition:3 did u like to draw background all the time or it came to be after practice how long does one piece usually take:333
hehe well, thank you first of all. second of all... um both? practice yes, no one gets it on the first time. and just. i dont know? doing it over and over again and trying new things and experimenting, seeing what works, what doesn't, where the background is needed and not.
i remember i heard a lot of artists around me saying that they didn't like or couldn't draw backgrounds, and for some reason i decided that im not gonna be like other girls and learn to do it. and i uhhh.... just started? drawing backgrounds? i was trying, and watching tutorials on youtube, and seeing how other people did it and eventually it got easier? i can say that i definitely enjoyed figuring out how to do it, struggling to get the perspective and composition right. like, it was hard but i had a lot of fun doing it, so it felt natural and just like, normal art progression? it didn't feel like i was going out of my way to draw backgrounds, i just did it when i felt like it?
at some point i joined a character ask, you know, when people ask questions and you draw the character answering. and i decided that im gonna draw a background for each answer instead of it being a character on a blank background. and doing this, like, specifically trying to draw backgrounds and tell a story with them, and doing it regularly and coherently, it helped me progress a lot. like, i started with a character sitting on a couch in a room, and then it got better and better, multiple rooms, multiple angles of the same room, different locations and images. it helped me a ton. just, figuring out when you need a background, when its rather i did something simple for one frame and focused on the other instead, where the character needs to be positioned, etc.
i can say i didn't do a lot of proper studies, and if i did maybe it would've been helpful... i only drew things that were in my head, with characters that i liked, with imaginary locations and stuff. never really drew from photos... we did go on plein-airs, or whatever they're called, when i was in art school, so drawing backgrounds from real life probably also helped a little, but i can't remember anything about it so it didn't do as much.
i looked at a lot of art from cool artists and expanded my visual library, i analyzed their art trying to figure out why i like it and how to make my art have the same kind of feeling. and i still do! sometimes something just takes over me and i scroll pinterest for 3 hours looking at pretty art and going to artists' profiles and saving art and using it as inspiration later. and it helps! a lot!
i dont know where this post is going ummm. i guess if you want to learn to draw something, just like, start. scrap it if you don't like it and try again, have fun, don't get attached. and uhh, i felt a little nostalgic so here are some of my pieces that i did throughout the years. definitely feels like i got better at it recently, but there's still a lot of room for improvement
oh and for your second question. one piece takes about ummmm... more than a thousand episodes, thats 20 minutes times 1000 devided by 60 devided by 24... we're looking at about 14+ days of non stop watching?
no but for real. i dont really keep track of time when im drawing, uhh. plus depending on the complexity... my recent jrwi drawings are sketches, so they took maybe one or two hours max. something rendered uhhh, maybe 5 hours? if i don't finish it in one day the chances of this drawing ever getting done are super low, soo yeah
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Ok y'all are crazy 60 NOTES ON MY FIRST ONE SHOT?!
Gave you some Sanji ,today I have a little idea with BUGGY because I'm a clown
Buggy loved to be an entertainer ,I mean he was a clown,it was his destiny to perform and make people laugh .
But his favorite person to see laugh is you,his favorite person on his crew. Yeah you were just a chore person but without you ,the ship would be a mess.
After a long day of washing the ship and doing the dishes of those party people,you start walking to your shared cabin with other crew members ,passing by a few members laughing and probably too drunk.
You then saw a decapitated head thrown your way.You do your best to catch it,unstable as the waves hits the ship.
"What'ya doing (y/n) ,not wanting to laugh a little tonight?"
You looked at the head,a (huge) red nose in the middle of the face ,you recognized the head of your captain.You shook your head,making up an excuse to go in your cabin and go sleep early tonight,not wanting to wobble ,on a moving ship.
"Come on you can relax a bit , chores can wait later!"
You sigh as your Captain's head escape from your hands to get glued back on his body,soon a hand get in yours to force you to join the drunk pirates.Joining the circle around your ALSO drunk captain who goes back to telling jokes.
You have a good laugh ,drinking and watching your crew too.At the dawn of the day ,you watch the sun rise, enjoying the warmth getting on your face.You also realize that you haven't slept and your day is about to start by doing the dishes of the cooks doing breakfast.
In awe with the sunrise, you get out of your transe when the blue haired captain put his arm around your shoulders.No words, watching the sky getting orange and red.
"Why don't you come with us more often?You know you're always welcomed?
-Hm yeah,I like my job but I just don't like to be around people too much,the people in the kitchen are already too much for me , you giggle
-Ok but if you felt uncomfortable,tell me ok?I'll throw them overboard "
You laugh,covering your mouth with your hands and Buggy is clearly staring ,trying to engrave the memory in his brain.Your laugh was the most beautiful sound he ever heard ,your eyes shining with the first sun rays.
Days after days ,you started to notice your comfort rise and rise,first you had your own cabin now,the kitchen staff got reduced and the crew started to invite you to their late parties after shows... And now you're drinking your glass,laughing at the crew's jokes.Soon music started and your tipsy form started to dance in the middle of the crew.
Buggy was just staring at you on his throne,lazily half laying on it,leaning on the arm rests.Your body just moving along his crew,he enjoyed throwing parties just to watch you drink and smile , enjoying yourself and laughing.
Buggy made his way in the crowd,at least his hands did ,just to rest on your hips,sliding his fingers under your shirt as you shivered, recognizing those gloves you were washing every few months .
After a few hours of partying,drinking and dancing you went outside,letting the fresh air of the night hit you in the face.The owner of the hands on your hips following you.
"If you keep undressing me with your eyes ,I might catch a cold"
You never knew you had a flirty side but the alcohol running in your blood awakes it.
"You know I wouldn't let a crew member get sick ,it's a shame I'll have to keep you really close to warm up your body"
You saw him get a few drinks too.You were both tipsy,in the cold,and probably ready to just rip each other's lips.
"Such a shame my captain have to take care of his crew , he rolled his eyes, mumbling curses
-Yeah yeah,don't tell me I didn't take care of you ,when I saw those puppy dog eyes"
You laughed and looked at his painted lips,you suddenly felt like two magnets just sticking to each other,his hands were all over you,yours in his blue long locks.
This night was the start of 20 long years of marriage until Buggy took his leave on the pirate job and settled with you in your hometown ,letting you open a little bakery where you sold a special:
The clown night special, a blue cake with red and white icing with a strawberry on top.
Let's say your husband didn't like this cake too much as he often ate the strawberry "by mistake"...
Hope you liked it besties! Lots of love and drink water!
Take care!
#buggy the clown x reader#buggy the clown#buggy one piece#captain buggy#buggy x reader#buggy x you#op buggy#x reader
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WHY I DON'T LIKE TECH x PHEE: An unintentional essay
Alright, yall, I've figured it out on my end. I think. I just need to get some of this out so that I can move past it. I'm not even gonna tag it under tech x phee, cause you know what, I don't want to harsh the mellow over in that space, I'm just voicing what I've discovered.
This is long.
Wanda Sykes: I LOOOOOVE Wanda Sykes, love her - love her so much that I can't see anyone else with her voice. A 60 year old lesbian comedian... and you want to make her a 20 something pirate captain flirting with a male cl- no. No. Capital N. O. Like, I thought she and Rhea Perlman were going to be a fun comedic, older duo playing off of each other. Or that they'd have some sort of sassy relationship. But instead she's a coy, fun adventurer who starts to join in TBB family? Nope. No. Didn't sell it for me. Gimme someone else, might have worked. Try Anika Noni Rose, or if you need that star factor, Halle Barry or Beyonce or, for fucks sake LIZZO (can you imagine her beautiful voice as Phee? OOOO I just shivered. Loved her as the Duchess, but her as Phee! Instantly WAAAAY more excited about that character.) Not Wanda Fucking Sykes (like I said, LOVE her. But no. Choices.)
The Build Up: You guys. We are all literally writers. Where were the beats? Where were the moments? You naturally want there to be a moment the audience goes 'ooooooh yeah ok I see it'. IT HAPPENED WITH HUNTER. The next day I remember quite a few of us going 'OMG YES!!! Yes, totally ship that, saw the chemistry with Phee and Hunter! Into iiiiit.' I resisted that one too, cause of the Wanda Sykes thing, but you know what? IT. WORKED. I went with it cause it worked. Was actually kind of excited. Was looking forward to the fics. Did not happen once with Tech, never saw anyone go 'oh look at that chemistry between pirate and genius'. NOPE BTW SUDDENLY THEY'RE ALL TEASING TECH AND TECH AND PHEE ARE IN A SCENE AND THIS IS ALL ABOUT THESE TWO TAH DAAAAH! No. Nope. Not how it works. Feels like my favorite is getting the shitty end of the romance arc stick. Fuck off, no. We have all written better.
Toxic Matchup: The way Phee (see dude, I almost wrote Wanda. Thats how much I can't not see her in this character) treats Tech. One of my mutuals on here, @shadestepping, put it perfectly - "It’s because instead of understanding who tech is as a person and being respectful of how his mind works, she tries to force him to mask because it’s what she wants/it makes communicating with him easier". The example that keeps popping into my head is when Phee sarcastically says "when two people are talking its called a conversation". My eyebrows shot UP, like, this is one of the FIRST THINGS YOU LEARN about Tech- his face is in his datapad. Treating him like an idiot (which is what it sounds like in Wanda voice) because he is doing what he is always doing is not ok (seriously, WTF, dude?). Another mutual, @dumfanting agreed and shared how that hit them: "As someone whose been forced to mask for her entire life, that is wrong and damaging and perpetuates the idea that we as austitics are only worthy of love if we continue to suppress ourselves." And it really doesn't have to be that way. I can rewrite every scene they are in together, still have her be sassy, have her show interest and respect for who he is, and still move him out of his comfort zone. I will do it, if I need to, just to prove it. If the writers are trying to give her some growth too, cool, then TAKE THE TIME TO DO THAT - instead we only hear how HE's being taken out of his comfort zone. How about HER? You want to be with him? Maybe you have to meet him half way, honey
Ultimately, I could have gotten behind this if it was done another way - but the way they went about it missed so many marks. And for my man, that's unacceptable to me. He deserves the best, not something thrown together.
I have spoken.
(Ok, I think that is out of my system.)
#kind of geek therapy#geek therapy for me#cause expressing thoughts and feelings appropriately are good for me#tbb tech#the bad batch
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Five x reader blurb
I just expect new Five fanfics to be written and there for me every second of the day.
Not like there’s actual people thinking of and writing these ideas 🙄😩
Not like it also takes me like a week to write a one shot 😭
So here's a Five x reader thought to ease my brain.
Tags: platonic Klaus, romantic Five, fluff, angst ig, some silly moments.
——————
Imagine getting separated from him in the 60’s and that moment when you all reunite and you see him again.
For him it’s only been a couple days
For you it’s been years.
When you fell into that alley way you were incredibly distraught. Not unfamiliar with the act of time travel, but Five or another commission partner was always there. You were alone, stranded in a different place and time, stuck in a younger body. The things that could happen.
You searched for any sign of the date. Newspapers, posters. It was 1961.
You’d wandered around that alley for hours. Waiting for someone else to show up.
You gave up after a while, deciding to ask strangers for help. How would any of them help you find your strange time scattered family.
You spotted a flyer, a flyer with a familiar face on it… Klaus. Looks like he was a messiah or something. You wouldn’t question it. You just knew you had to find him.
You hitched a ride, and found yourself at a big mansion. You don’t know how long Klaus had been here but damn he’s moved up in the world.
You wandered into the large house looking for him. People in light turquoise tunics were everywhere. One woman stopped you in the main foyer. “Welcome traveler, are you here to join us in our endeavors?” She asked. “Um- I’m looking for Klaus.” You held up the flyer. “The prophet! Yes, he’s right this way.”
The woman led you to a bedroom in the back of house. She pushed open the double doors to reveal the man you’d been looking for, bent over in downward dog.
The woman cleared her throat “Prophet? There’s someone here for you.”
Klaus rose from the floor and turned to face you. As soon as he saw you a bright smile plastered his face. He let out a breathy chuckle and clasped his hands together. “Y/n! You’re here!” He held his hands out and walked towards you. “Oh it’s been so crazy, when did you get here?” He asked placing his hands on your shoulders.
“It’s good to see you Klaus, I’m glad I found at least one of you idiots. I’ve been here since like yesterday. I uh, saw your flyer.”
“Mm yeah those…” said Klaus. “I got here like a year ago. Tricked some rich old lady.” Klaus giggled.
“We should find the others.”
“What? Why?” Klaus whined. “I’m having a good tiimeee. And besides some of them might not even be here yet. I’m sure Five will come collect us when the world is ending… again.”
“Five.” You say.
“Oh yeah… I don’t know if he’s here yet babe. Don’t go hurting yourself looking for him though, you know him… he’ll find us.” Klaus says in his melodic way.
——
When Diego showed up at the mansion to collect you and Klaus- or rather Ben- apparently. It was safe to say you were ecstatic. Diego didn’t have a lot of time to explain, but he did say that Five had found a way to get back to 2019.
Ben had some “unattended ghost business” to attend to so you sat around waiting for him for a good 10 minutes. Anxiously biding your time, shaking your leg, biting your nails. Five always told you to top doing that.
You hadn’t seen him in two years. You were shamed to admit that sometimes you would forget about what happened before ending up in 61. Maybe Klaus’ cult lifestyle really was calming the mind.
You don’t even know if Five missed you as much as you did him. You don’t know how long he’s been here, but the only thing on your mind is how you can’t wait to see him.
———
Klaus/Ben dragged you out the front door of the mansion, leaving the cult behind. No goodbyes, no last words of wisdom. Except for something from The Backstreet Boys.
The two of you rushed all the way to town and to the shop Diego told you to meet at.
Klaus stumbled into the alley way, struggling against himself, smacking himself in the face, shoving himself around. He ended up projectile vomiting across the ground, and whining on his knees.
Five yelled at him and threw the briefcase into the air as it went off. Their best chance of escape- gone.
Five; blinded by his rage didn't seem to notice you standing at the end of the alley.
“It was a simple task!” He complained, “meet me here within the time I told you, and we all get our real lives back! But no! Of course only two of you show up!”
“Three, actually.” You say, walking down the alley towards Five.
He turns towards the sound of your voice. His eyes grow wide for a second and a quick smile spreads on his lips. Your name comes out soft and breathy, as if he can’t believe you’re really there.
A grin is plastered across your face, and your eyes water at the sight of him. Your steps towards him quicken and his do as well. He meets you halfway and blinks right up to you, arms already open. You crash right into his arms, grip the back of his blazer, and bury your head into the crook of his neck. You breathe in his familiar scent and release a shaky sigh.
“I missed you.” You mumble.
“I missed you too. Are you okay? Not hurt? How long have you been here?” Five bombards you with questions as he pulls away and examines your face in his hands.
“Two years, I got here in 61.”
“I'm so sorry.” Five whispers, resting his forehead against yours.
"It's not your fault. I found Klaus so it was... slightly bearable." you chuckled softly. "How long have you been here?" You ask.
"I got here just a few days ago." Five says.
"Well I'm glad I found you." you say, hugging Five tighter.
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(AN: Next I present to you random dialogue from this story line that I don't want to fully write out into a detailed scenario)
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"Y/n, sweetheart, for the itching." Five says while handing you the bottle of baby powder.
"Itching? There's itching?" Questions Luther. Five ignores him.
--------
"Can't wait to meet our old selves, it's going to be so weird." You say.
"Focus y/n, we just have to get that briefcase." Five says.
"Yeah fine, you're already paranoid without the psychosis." You say.
-------
"Who the hell are you?" Asks old Five.
"Who do you think, dumb ass?" Says old y/n.
Old Five looks back and forth between the two y/ns.
------
As young and old Five beat the crap out of each other, and occasionally Luther; "Boys." old y/n sighs, wiping sweat from their brow and shifting uncomfortably. "Tell me about it." Says young y/n itching, eyes shifting around paranoid. "Just wait till you meet the rest of his brothers."
------
On the farm after Five kills The Handler;
Five lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding as he watched the last Swede walk away. He turns around and blinks to where you stand. He takes you into his arms and holds you close. You hold him back, although a bit confused.
"What happened Five?" You whisper. You're familiar with Five, and with time travel. You figured he used his power to fix something that happened.
"You died." He mutters quickly, resting his head on your shoulder.
"Ah." You pause. "And you saved me." you reassure him.
He sighs and pulls away. He presses a kiss to your cheek and rests his nose against your temple. "Let's get out of here yeah? Let's go home."
"Yeah, let's go."
---------
Well that starting as something and then turned into something else. I just have a Five deficiency.
I hope you enjoy whatever the hell this turned out to be.
Um I'm not like taking requests officially but if you have an idea I can try to write it within like a week T-T
#the umbrella academy#tua#tua klaus#tua five#tua imagine#five hargreeves#five x reader#five hargreeves imagine#five hargreeves one shot#five hargreeves x reader#number five#five x you#aidan gallagher#klaus hargreeves
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I would love a goose fanfic!!
Goose You Big Stud
Title: Goose You Big Stud
Pairing: Nick “Goose” Bradshaw x Reader
Summary: You go visit your boyfriend Goose at Top Gun and leave as his fiancée.
Warnings: None
Authors Note: Goose does not die in the future of this fic, imagine that they live a long and happy life together.
When you first met Nick Bradshaw you never in a million years could have imagined that you two would end up dating. You were the shy new girl who transferred to a new high school in the middle of the year and he was the nice popular guy that everyone adored because of his unintentional charm and goofy personality that could make anyone laugh.
You two met on a complete accident. You had been walking to class carrying your books with your head down when you tripped over another students backpack and literally fell into his arms.
“Hey there honey.” He had said with his goofy smile on his face and a very faint mustache starting to grow on his upper lip.
Just like every fairytale, every romance novel. You two clicked that day and never looked back.
Which brought you to now.
You and Nick have been dating ever since your Junior year of high school, you followed him all across the world as he lived his dream flying for the navy with his best friend Pete Mitchell who eventually became your friend as well.
Nick and Pete had gotten an invitation to Top Gun in Fightertown directly after their deployment somewhere in the Indian Ocean it had been almost 4 months since you saw your boyfriend which is the longest you two have ever gone without seeing each other. Which is why when Nick called to tell you that he managed to get permission for you both to live in one of the off base houses together you packed everything you needed and jumped on the first plane there.
Your flight was about as good as you could expect for a flight in the mid 80’s, you were stuck in the middle seat with a woman who just broke up with her boyfriend and thought that she had to tell you every detail about their relationship while she sobbed, and a 60 year old man who had to go the the bathroom every 10 minutes. When the plane finally landed you could have kissed the ground of the tarmac.
You grabbed your suitcase and carryon before getting in line behind the other passengers and walking down the ramp. You immediately started looking for your boyfriends tall form who was being accompanied by Maverick. You got on your tiptoes trying to see over the other people when you finally spotted your man standing with a bouquet of your favorite flowers with Mav beside him holding a big stuffed teddy bear.
“Hey Goose, you big stud!” You exclaimed making a bright smile overtake his face
“That’s me Honey!” Goose laughed as he jogged towards you
“Ahh! I missed you so much!” You squealed jumping into his arms wrapping your legs around his waist as your hands cupped his cheeks and connected your lips; Goose held you tightly to his body memorizing the way your soft lips felt against his.
“I missed you more Honey.” Goose said breaking the kiss to pepper tiny ones across your cheeks and neck making you giggle as he sat you onto the ground.
“Hey Mav!” You smiled at your boyfriends pilot as you have him a tight hug
“Hey Y/NN, glad you could join us. I got you a bear.” Maverick smiled holding up the bear making you laugh as you took it
“Thanks.” You smiled leaning into Goose’s side as he came up behind you and pulled you back against his chest
“You know I got you flowers to if you aren’t too occupied with that bear.” Goose spoke sarcastically making you playfully roll your eyes turning to peck his lips and take the flowers
“Thank you baby, I appreciate the flowers very much.” You said making him smile
“Thank you. I know your being sarcastic but I don’t care because I can finally hold you and kiss you again.” Goose said scooping you into his arms making you squeal and laugh. “Me and my girl have some catching up to do Mav, meet us at the bar tonight at 6:30.”
“Have fun! Use protection!” Mav waved after you as Goose carried you away
“You gonna take me to bed stud?” You asked as you both got settled into his car
“You better believe it honey.” Goose smirked making you giggle as he drove away
──────── 🛫 ────────
After some very thorough rekindling you and Goose made your way to the bar to meet Maverick and his new girl Charlie.
“So this Charlie girl? She’s your instructor?” You asked your handsome boyfriend as you walked hand in hand in the parking lot
“Kinda, she’s a civilian contractor. So she basically tells us any information she has about the planes but we don’t have to solute her or anything.” Goose said playfully twirling you making you laugh
“Nicky your such a goof.” You smiled wrapping your arms around his waist
“You love me.” Goose said kissing your forehead
“Of course.” You said pulling his head down to connect your lips
“We better head inside before Mav thinks we ditched him.” Goose said giving you one last kiss before leading you into the bar
It was a cute almost diner type bar there was a piano sitting in the middle of the bottom floor making you smile knowing how much Goose loved playing the piano for you.
“Goose, Y/NN over here!” You heard Maverick say, you two walked over to where he was sitting with a pretty blonde girl
“Hey man. Charlie this is my girl friend Y/N.” Goose introduced you
“It’s nice to meet you.” Charlie said reaching out to shake your hand
“Yeah you too. So tell me, what’s it like having Pete Mitchell’s heart?” You asked moving to sit beside Charlie in between her and Maverick
“Your so funny.” Maverick teased nudging your shoulder as Goose sat down at the piano. “Hey Goose, did you know your girl was a comedian?”
“Yeah try living with her, I’m her comedic motivation.” Goose said before playing the opening of Great Balls of Fire. “You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain.”
“So you excited to be living here with us?” Maverick asked putting his arm around you as you took a sip of beer
“Getting to see my goofy hot boyfriend every day after months apart? Hell yeah.” You said as you admired Goose singing like no one was watching
“Well I am going to embarrass myself with your boyfriend, keep my girl company for me.” Maverick said kissing your cheek and giving Charlie a wink before walking up behind Goose and leaning against his back.
“Goodness gracious. Great balls of fire!” The two sung throwing their heads back making you laugh
“You know I’m glad that Mav met you, I love Pete Mitchell but he needs a woman in his life.” You told Charlie who smiled almost shyly
“You think I’m that woman?” Charlie asked making you chuckle
“Oh sweetheart. That boy is head over heals for you.” You smiled nudging her leg making Charlie chuckle. “Now come on, let’s go embarrass ourselves with our men.”
You grabbed Charlie’s hand and yanked her up making her laugh as you lead her over to the piano, Goose pulled you down onto his lap and placed a kiss on your shoulder blade making you laugh.
“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain. Too much love drives a man insane. You broke my will. But what a thrill. Goodness gracious. Great balls of fire!” You guys all sung together before breaking into laughs
“Take a walk with me.” Goose whispered into your ear and you nodded before standing up, as you fixed your skirt you didn’t notice the look Maverick and Goose shared. “Mi lady.”
“Thank you kind sir.” You giggled taking his arm as he lead you out the back door and onto the beach. “I’ve missed the beach, it’s so beautiful at night.”
You and Goose walked along the shoreline hand in hand you watched the waves crash and the full moon reflect across the water, it was so peaceful on the beach at night with you and Goose being the only ones there.
“You know how much I love you?” Goose asked pulling you to a stop
“As much as I love you. Which means it’s a whole damn lot.” You smiled
“Well with as much as I love you it makes me want more. You have been the love of my life ever since you fell into my arms all those years ago, you are my entire life and every time I go up in the plane you are what I think about. Your the reason I fight to come home every single deployment, every mission, every training session. You are the love of my life and I don’t want to go a single minute without knowing that I will have you by my side for the rest of my life.” Goose said making your eyes water as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black box
“Nick.” You gasped as he dropped down to one knee
“Y/N M/N L/N. Will you marry me?” Goose asked smiling up at you
“Yes! Yes of course I will!” You smiled as tears fell down your cheeks, Goose smiled and slid the ring into your finger before kissing your knuckle.
“I love you so much.” Goose said standing up and pulling you into his arms
“I love you.” You laughed more happy in this moment then your entire life as you connected your lips in a passionate kiss
You heard cheers and clapping behind you guys and saw Maverick and Charlie holding a video camera and disposable camera making you smile.
“We’re getting married!” You and Goose exclaimed together as Maverick ran towards you guys and pulled you both into a huge hug.
“My best friends are getting married! I’m so happy for you guys!” Maverick said kissing your cheek and hugging Goose tightly
“Congratulations you guys.” Charlie smiled
“Thank you. Thank you both for capturing this.” You said gesturing to the cameras they held
“All Goose. He knew you’d want documentation of this day.” Maverick said and you smiled turning to look at your fiancée
“Really?” You asked with a smile
“I knew you’d want to show it to our kids some day.” Goose shrugged making you hug him
“Our kids huh?” You smirked
“Oh yeah. We’ll be able to have our own football team with the amount of kids we’re having.” Goose said making you laugh
“Speak for yourself. You get the fun part while I have to carry them for 9 months then push them out.” You said crossing your arms
“We’ll talk about the details later. But for now I want to enjoy the night with my fiancée.” Goose smiled caressing your jawline
“Fine by me. I love you Mr. Bradshaw.” You said
“I love you too. Future Mrs. Bradshaw.” Goose said before pulling you into a kiss, excited to begin your lives together as husband and wife.
#top gun#nick goose bradshaw#goose top gun#nick goose bradshaw x reader#pete mitchell#nick bradshaw#nick bradshaw x reader#goose x reader
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Audio Drama Sunday - 30th July ✨
Another great week of audio drama has kept my brain busy while my data collection is less busy. Happy Audio Drama Sunday, please allow me to share my favourites!
SPOILERS!!
🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (127) Oh NO Mrs Wicker get your children away from that Church!!!! I love to hear the J-sibs starting to push back against her, long may it continue! I'm also still obsessed with the Raven-Writing Desk dynamic and it's only going to get juicier when Mr Writing Desk actually wants to follow Penny’s demands… And Danielle!! I love that she still gets to be an active help in the mission to the North in a way that doesn’t feel like deus ex machina because it’s just her.
🎞 Tiny Terrors (022) this episode had me yelling ‘what’s the catch?!?!?’ internally and I’ve just seen that the wait is over to listen to the other side of the tape!! Angela, what are you??
🌍 @lastechoespod (7) As some of you may know. . . I am a huge fan of Drs in Space. This episode had me gripped, those poor people 😭 What a cruel scare tactic from the Collected for that to be played to the people trying to decide whether to join. I’m so tense to hear what the final archival selection is going to be!
🧛♂️ @re-dracula Things are TENSE aboard the Demeter. Even in <60s of audio, the creeping dread is so palpable. And Mina, sweet Mina! So thrilled to have her back! Listening rather than reading has makes it so much easier to parse the long, chunky sections describing Whitby!! I have high hopes that I'm going to stick with it to the very end this time.
💫 Wolf 359 (24-32) Oh fuck. I am so glad I have all the episodes to listen to at once. I could NOT have dealt with the wait between seasons. Ep 30, Mayday, is possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. I love that feeling of rooting for a character so hard that you forget that they don’t really exist and that you know they make it because there are another 30 eps of the show left. And the new characters - Kepler, Jacobi, Maxwell - wow, I LOVE to hate them. They’re fantastic in the worst way.
🎩 @ethicstownpod (5) Things got a little creepy on the emergency broadcast this week. Memory is created as it is recalled?? What?? My mind is boggled. I’m very excited to hear how this, and what seems to be a growing discomfort between January and Artemis, plays out in the next episodes!
🥾@doyoucopypod (3) Now. Hear me out. I know that being stuck up in a radio tower all day has got to be boring but I do think there might be a better time to flirt with your colleague than when 3 people are missing in a place called the ‘Dead Zone’ where strange ecological events are occurring . . . Just me?? Have I got the braincell here??? I’m so excited for these shenanigans to get even spookier.
🏴☠️ Yeah. I listened to @levianpod again. What are you going to do? Support their crowdfunder? Good. Do it.
🎧 Such an interesting episode of The First Episode Of with @wirelandranch! The wireland vibes have always been immaculate and it’s so interesting to learn about where it came from and why it’s an amalgamation rather than a straight-up audio drama.
🐬 Described as a weird mystery, @patterspod is exactly that. It’s batshit in the best possible way. Perhaps I hang out with strange people, but the main character is so normal in his weirdness, I feel like most people know a guy like Ryan even though Ryan is a liar ghostwriter trying to hunt down his thieving EX-boss with ?paranormal connections. It’s great stuff.
I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! My goal is to have season two of the show written by the start of August . . . So I should stop writing this and get to writing that . . . Right? Okay.
#audio drama#podcast#podcast recs#audio fiction#science fiction#the vesta clinic#vestaclinicpod#hello from the hallowoods#hfth#hfth spoilers#the last echoes#tiny terrors#wolf 359#w359#re dracula#do you copy#ethics town#levi ackerman#wireland ranch#finding pattersby#audiodramasunday#audio drama sunday#audiodrama
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Music Monday + "What Are You Doing Here?" Quiz
Tagged by @g0dspeeed and @inafieldofdaisies
Tagging @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat @derelictheretic @shallow-gravy @strangefable @strafethesesinners @josephslittledeputy @purplehairsecretlair @deputyash @afarcryfrommymain @depyotee @voidika @onehornedbeast @softtidesworld @snake-in-the-garden @nightbloodbix @adelaidedrubman @wrathfulrook @chazz-anova @cassietrn @jacobmybeloved @henbased @carlosoliveiraa @ladyoriza @minilev @vasiktomis @neverthesameneveranother @thewanderer-000 @corvosattano and @vampireninjabunnies-blog
Here's three songs for my other Far Cry The Silver Chronicles stories, known as the following; Call To Arms duology starring Nadi Sinclair, Ain't It A Joy? staring Alexander Khaos and finally No One's Safe At Home starring Gavin Turquoise. The Quiz will be for an OC who appears in A Radioactive Calamity of Love, Bombs & Gore (a Fallout fanfic series). The quiz can be found here.
The Call To Arms fanfic duology of the Call Of Duty Modern Warfare games (at least only one and two, both taking elements from the original and reboot) starring Nadi Sinclair, a sharpshooter and recon for Task Force 141, fighting off terrorists like Makarov alongside her brothers (and sisters) from other misses and misters. This will only be a few years before she eventually leaves and joins the Project at Eden's Gate in Montana, Hope County.
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"Come on
Come on, people
Stand tall for the beast of America
Lay down like a naked dead body
Keep it real for the people workin' overtime
They can't stay livin' off the government's dime
Stand tall for the people of America
Stand tall for the man next door
We are free in the land of America
We ain't goin' down like this, come on, now
Come on, people
Come on, people
Come on, people
Ha!
Come on, people
Come on, people
Come on, people
Ha!
I will be right to you
I will be right to you
I will be right to you
And together we can stand up to the beast."
Ain't It A Joy? is a modern-ish fanfic adaption of the We Happy Few game, starring Alexander Khaos as the main protagonist, as he finds out the lies behind Wellington Wells, the self-proclaimed happiest city of England which is closed from the rest of the country, is in fact nothing more than a cult stuck in a perpetual state of drugged bliss with the inhabitants believing they're clean of atrocities and stuck in a 1940s/60s mindset while being taken advantage of by a pharmaceutical tycoon, Crawford Klaus, as he replays old videos of a TV personality named "Uncle Jack" and supplies the next batches of "Joy"... and the newest variant called "Glee".
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"A brilliant day is dawning
A million smiles are forming
Our shimmering isles are all enthralled
No, there's nothing like conforming
Perish the thought of mourning
Did you ignore the warnings?
All negative thoughts abhorred
"My Lord! Did you take your Joy this morning?"
Ask anybody in Wellington Wells
They'll tell you it's terribly swell
Delirious denizens swell where there's nary a speck between heaven and hell
They say that the empire fell
"Oh, but you never could tell!"
You say you remember it well?
"You'd better forget it or else!"
Why try to better yourself?
Reach for the medical shelf
Just take your medicine, death and the pestilence melt into pleasant locales
Another rebellion quelled
Dust off your suspenders and belts
It's horrendous to dwell, so remember how splendid it felt to surrender yourself
The roses we grow have a terrible smell
It's a Joy!
It's a Joy (it's a Joy)
It's a Joy (it's a Joy)
To be among we happy few
It's a Joy
It's a Joy (it's a Joy)
It's a Joy (it's a Joy)!"
No One's Safe At Home is a fanfic set in the Welcome To The Game universe, where the inner circles of "the Ministry" run their illegal activities behind the dark web as it reigns at the top, with constant murder, kidnappings, trafficking of all kinds and the most vile corruption persist in a world where morals are a joke. Until Gavin Turquoise starts going to great lengths in his intent on wiping their repulsive stain out of society and rigging the Game in his favor. In his crusade, he finds a strange child with... the most abnormal abilities. I can't help but laugh at the irony that this feared vigilante eventually becomes a lawyer in Hope County, being a bane to the Project at Eden's Gate and John Seed's existence.
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"As Property Manager, my job is sorting the utilities
Disposal of the garbage and the laundering facilities
Why would I compile a full report on your activities?
I'm just a standard landlord, "Glory to the Ministry"
Lock the doors and close the curtains, hold your breath lest you should speak your sins
But you can't keep a secret from the building that you keep it in
Befriend your fellow tenants, show a smile and keep it pleasant
But know everyone's a friend until you need to turn some people in
It's the breathing on the phone, hiding just beneath the tone
It's the things that shift when no one's home
Well, you may be on your own, but you'll never be alone
Yes, we all live here, but it's no one's home
("They're here!")
To get through the day
It behoves you to play by the rules and behave
Do the state preapprove all the tunes that you play?
When alone in a room, well, to whom do you pray?
Assume that your neighbours are moving away
When the black van comes in the night
And you're numb to the sight
Of another fumbling for somewhere to hide
As their wife just runs for their life
'Fore the ones with the guns can arrives
And they're gone 'fore the Sun can arise
To a government provided bunker for some realignment
It's just fine, you can trust it's a wonderful time
Just go about your business normally
No one's following, I'm not recording
Your paranoia is awfully boring
According to all of your friends that talk to me
Most importantly, please speak clear when you're broadcasting
Your honest thoughts on the law or economy
My provided mics are tiny
And I can't transcribe properly
Should you ever behold
Me with my peepers pressed to a keyhole
You can trust I'm just checking the tumblers for rust
I'm a custodian, not a Ministry mole
Settle in for a night on the couch
No questioning what that red light is about
Now bleeping on your ceiling since the time you were out
It's just a little gaslighting, put aside any doubts
You're fine in your house, so you confide to your spouse any crimes carried out
Any tiny amount of new ideas found just a mite out of bounds
'Cause I'm writing them down in a timestamped account
What's it matter, every night or two?
If I sneak in, have a rifle through?
But depending what I find, well,
You'll be faced with another kind of rifle, too
Privacy is the cry of the defiant to compliancy
But grease my palm and I might not see
Those books they banned from the libraries
What do you mean, that's not yours?
It appeared one night in your cabinet drawers?
I have to report it, I regret
But, of course, I could forget
Societal ideals are reliably pliable
So the rise of a tyrant becomes entirely viable
You will find that the spying is really quite justifiable
Why are you crying when it's your blind eye that's liable?
Handy landlord here to fix your ventilation whistling
Too many questions and it's not the air that needs conditioning
That telephone's not tampered with
Of course it isn't listening
But were it, it prefers the words:
"Glory to the Ministry!"
And last the results from the quiz! From my character:
Ortega "Ore" Brantley (A Radioactive Calamity of Love, Bombs & Gore, a Fallout fanfic series)
Ore has this "hope" that he carries with him. Despite the Wasteland he walks in, just as his sister Ress does, unlike her and their father, he can't help but focus on the beauty that has thrived even after the destruction. He's no fool, the world he lives in is dangerous, and as powerful as he is being a half-human, half-magical-creature-from-another-dimension, there are beings like his father, Arcane Urias, and his lackeys, like Aggravor, who can and will kill him if given the opportunity. Ress is hopeful... hopeful that with his efforts, the Wasteland can heal. That the people he's bonded with can live long content lives. That his sister can appreciate the lives of who she views as "weak" and see the strength these folks have despite the disadvantage they have against the likes of the Super Mutants, Synths and the Occult Urias founded. To see the responsibility to protect these people that they as the "strong" must carry. He hoped he could have seen the day where him, his sister and their companions could just lay down underneath the blue sky one day and just share with each other without the burden of death and destruction hovering over them in a moment of peace. Though he himself never lives to achieve this vision, he at least was glad to look at his sister and reassure her one last time before Aggravor's curse cut his long life short.
#music monday#oc quiz#far cry the silver chronicles#far cry 5#the project at eden’s gate#wip: call to arms#call of duty modern warfare#oc: nadi sinclair#wip: ain't it a joy?#we happy few#oc: alexander khaos#oc: crawford klaus#wip: no one's safe at home#welcome to the game#oc: gavin turquoise#oc: schrödinger turquoise#wip: a radioactive calamity of love bombs & gore#fallout#oc: ortega “ore” brantley#have some origin stories for two peggie ocs and a lawyer who hates peggies and has this reality bending child with him that he had found#while infiltrating a hotel owned by the organization that backs up the dark web#so fun stuff!
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Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Retrospective Part 1: Breakout (Episodes 1-7) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)
Assemble all you happy people and welcome to the first of many looks at one of the greatest cartoons in marvel history, an adaptation that honors the source material while streamlining and improving it to create something impressive. One of the best adaptations and one of the last before the MCU was in full force. It's a show unlike any other, it's Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
And the timing isn't concidential. While i'm a few months off, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the avengers, the first time the team assembled and hulk was a clown for a bit because the 60s. And since I both hadn't really talked about the Avengers on this blog despite being a massive marvel nerd and because i'd rewatched this very arc a few months back, I was happy to jump on it when Kev suggested this. He won't be sticking around for the rest of the retrospective, but I plan to cover this series on and off for the foreseable future as i've only seen about half of it and hadn't rewatched it in years and it was about damn time I did. And i'm glad I am as this is one of the sharpest shows in marvel history.
For those less familiar Earth's Mightiest heroes was a cartoon that ran for two seasons from 2010 to 2012, and was a fan faviorite for most comic nerds like myself, as what I caught of it I love. It's not hard to see why either: EMH is a giant love letter to the Avengers history and Marvel in general: Ciro Nireli, Christopher Yost and Joshua fine, who developed the show, all were clearly fans and thus try to cram as many iconic foes for each of the avengers as they could into this show, from cameos to arc villians to our big threats, just about every major avengers threat you could want makes it's way into season 1.
It's also a smart remix: The show takes after the earliest days of the team, starting with the original roster of Iron Man (Tony Stark), Ant-Man/Giant Man (Hank Pym), Wasp (Janet-Van Dyne), Hulk, and Thor (Odinson), while soon adding cap as happened in the comics, as well as adding longtime mainstays hawkeye and black panther soon into the season, with many of season 1's episodes adapting early avengers tales and the art style is a very stylistic jack kirby style art, while still being it's own thing with a bit more expression and some anime styling in the eyes and how the action unfolds.
That said it's clear the crew was also aware those early tales could use a coat of paint and thus the series takes from all across the heroes histories, combining Kang's first apperance with the later epic kang dynasty for instance, or setting up Carol Danvers becoming Ms Marvel as soon as Captain Marvel debuts. It's a streamlined approach that feels like what the ultimates should've been: honoring the past but looping in the present, with the classic avengers being assembled using the breakout arc from the new avengers. More ont hat later. The result is a fresh take on the cast that feels awesome.
It also feels unique as this was before a LOT of change swept through the marvel universe and productions: the x-men and the ff still show up beofre their LONG unecessary hiatus due to marvel being dicks about not owning either's film rights, the mcu was just budding so only iron man is modeled after that version as Cap and Thor's films would air the same year as EMH, and Black Widow is a recurring character rather than part of the team, though it was hinted they might have her join up eventually.
It also happened before a lot of comics biggest events of the 2010s, which like the MCU stuff isn't bad at all, it's just neat to see just how diffrent things were: Carol Danvers wasn't captain marvel yet, next gen heroes like Ms Marvel or Miles Morales weren't around, and ideas like Jane as Thor or Sam Wilson as Cap hadn't happened. It's an intresting time capusle of a comics brand before it changed forever.
So opening this capusle is a treat. As for this batch of episodes, EMH started in a unique way: With shorts. See at the time cartoons were just starting to captalize on the concepts of minisodes, tiny shorts in continuity usually distributed via youtube. Most shows just have some skits, like Lapis trying to destroy her phone thinking Steven's trapped or Tilly Green getting buried in cats
EMH decided to get ambitious with theres: TWENTY shorts, all from what I can tell intended to be repackaged as full episodes, all setting up important stuff for the series and serving as introductions to our main cast before they all assemble properly, including later additions Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Panther.
It's an approach I respect: much like the MCU was doing around the same time, it allows the writers to set up each character, get to know who they are as a person, what their deal is and put them into place for the series proper, essentially giving them their own solo series like they had in the comics. It's a great idea and makes these feel like characters who had their own lives and plenty of adventures BEFORE we step into them, and makes the idea of them coming together all the more awesome. It also fits the avengers well: the x-men and fantastic four are largely their own spheres of the marvel universe and most members of those teams were created for them. With the avengers it's marvels' best and brightest all assembled into one massive dream team, so showing said team's adventures. We even get setup for later additions to the team: Black Panther gets a short detailing his origin story and Hawkeye is a key part of hulks before getting his own.
I have only two gripes with this setup: the first is that it's long. It's well done and important but it's still a LOT of setup, and both times i've found myself happy to get to the end: Glad I took the journey but thankful we can get to the main event.
The other is the structure: as a result of them being shorts every non-thor episode here has one segment that serves as an epilogue to the others.. but really dosen't lead as effortlessly in. It feels like the episode ended and we're now just in an extended post credit's sequence. Not a bad one, all of these are necessary and important, it just shows why this type of structure wasn't repeated: it has it's limits, and they show at the end of almost every episode. You could for instance cut out the kang bit that starts the cap one and the kang segment that ends the cap ones and have a cohesive story. Their still GOOD shorts, it's just clear they don't quite work as a cohesive episode, which woudln't be an issue if these shorts also weren't clearly part of the season order.
Still I admit these are minor complaints. They drag the presentation down slightly.. but not enough for me to not have enjoyed this episode pile. So assemble under the cut as I break down the first 7 episodes of Avengers: EMH
Iron Man is Born! (Micro Episodes: Iron Man is Born!, HYDRA Lives, Behold, The Mandroids!, and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
So our first episode. .is third on disney+. Getting this out of the way if you watch these on disney +, start with this one, as disney mildly messed up the airing order. It isn't as bad as say Ducktales was at first, which was so bad the creators had to ask directly, but it's still very noticable disney coudln't be arsed to.. move two episodes on the list they gave people down a few slots. Then again this is the same company who won't give us the weekenders dammit, so i'm not surprised, just mildly in convinced.
Anyways this short follows Iron Man and as we go through our mightiest heroes, I thought it'd be fun to give my own personal history with each character. As I said, I really haven't gotten to dive into the avengers on this blog. I've covered Avengers #200 and Avengers Annual #10 this year but the former is more a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants story guest starring Ms Marvel and the Avengers, and the former.. is a nightmare from which there is no waking where only The Scarlet Witch and the Vision are remotely in character. Neither were really a time to talk about the team, the members of said team, or anything besides deep hurting and an antidote for said deep hurting that involves Carol Danvers verbally bitchslapping the avengers. Which is awesome, but not really a time to go "Gee this is why iron man is so great".
So starting with the cool exec with a heart of steel, I'm a pretty big iron man fan. I love Tony as a character a guy whose arrogant and overly macho at times.. but deep down is a man who just wants to make a better world after helping burn it to the ground for a profit. Someone who can be an arrogant know it all ass.. but also someone who once you've got his loyalty, he'd die for you. A man struggling with addiction, but whose also a poster boy for getting better.
I became a fan of Tony's around the movie, as before that I only really knew him as "that guy who was on spider-man once", "that weird cartoon I watched once or twice" or "That fucking asshole who ruled the superhero community with an iron fist and kicked every dog he could find post civil war".
Thankfully the movie changed that, and along with finding out his fascinating history and the utterly awesome run by Matt Fraction that launched alongside the movie, something I badly want to cover in some form at some point, I was a fan of shell head for life. My favorite runs for him aren't anything suprising: Fraction's run with invincible iron man, Dennis O'Neil's awesome epic run that sees Obdiah Stane break tony with every intention of having his enemy relapse and see's tony rebuild himself while Rhodey puts on the suit, and of course the classic Layton and Michillne run that introduced Tony's Alcholism in the first place.
The movie is important to this series as it not only launched the MCU, but said MCU incoming is likely why it happened, and while it was still young enough at the time to not impact this series heavily for most characters, that wasn't going to happen with tony. Tony, his CFO Pepper and his best friend and military liaison Rhodey, are all heavily modeled after the movie versions. That said given said versions are entirley accurate to the comics and all the MCU did to Tony was give him even more swagger.. this isn't remotely a bad thing and making sure kids had the iron man they were familiar with dosen't hurt the series. The suit's still more designed after the then current bleeding edge suit from the comic, one of my favorites. I have no issue with using stuff from the MCU, the mcu is mostly great. My issue is when latter stuff kinda.. ignores the comics except to bring in more people to punch.
Iron Man is Born gets tony down pat, in large part thanks to his VA, Eric Loomis. To my shock Loomis hasn't done a ton outside of play tony in this show and various video games but damn if few do it better. He gets the swagger, the desire to do better, and the stubborn ass refusal to let people help him down PERFECT, as does the writing. This is tony stark. Leading with him was also smart given, again the movie would be fresh on everyone's mind.
What's also neat about this one is it dosen't put tony up against any familiar foes. We'll still see some in Breakout and like the other heroes here he's already well experienced by the time the series opens up. The only thing close to it is Ultimo, a giant robot he fights in cell phone footage at the start of the episode, and even then that's just to establish Iron Man Slaps.
No instead it sells Tony's obession with his tech not hurting people by putting him up against some HYDRA robots using his tech. For those less familiar with marvel stuff, HYDRA are a bunch of snake themed nazi offshoots who are everywhere and generally the go too mook to punch in the face in the marvel universe. Who dosen't want to punch a snake nazi? Except bob. He's just there for dental. Oh bob.
The fight with said HYDRA bots is awesome: not only are they well designed, but it's classic iron man stuff: his suit running out of power, and tony having to use his brains, and hold out against his suit rapidly draining. Been used before? Sure. Helps establish how Tony fights and how his suit is both super strong and has a logical weakness in battery life? Yup.
And the best part is.. while HYDRA are his main threat... the real conflict simmering underneath this one.. is Stark vs S.H.I.E.L.D. the world's top super cops and shady assholes. Wether their being actually helpful or being obtuse and trying to obstruct the hero largely depends on the day, with the MCU making them more helpful and less greasy.
See SHIELD is mad Tony stopped making weapons. Tony is mad they won't quit bugging him about that, as he simply.. dosen't want to be an arms dealer no more. Which is fair. He made their weapons, and as he makes clear to Rhodey who also wants him to work closer with SHIELD, he's still HELPING them. He just won't build weapons. As we find out in breakout he built the Vault, one of four supervillian prisons , this one specializing in tech criminals. So he hasn't STOPPED helping them, he just wont' give them tech to go kill people with, which is fair. While they don't give his origin, at least not yet, it's very clear whatever version of it taught him the same lesson: just because someone else fires the gun dosen't mean you won't have blood on your hands.
So naturally SHIELD"S reaction to Iron Man taking down HYDRA.. is to try to arrest him
Yeah Tony has.. done ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong here.. and Nick Fury, for all his flaws we'll see in VERY short order, is not so stupid as to fire and orders them to stand the fuck down. The fuck is implied.
Tony trying to help them.. instead gets them to fire on him as the SHIELD Agents are using mandroids powered armors using tony's tech.. and unlike the comics where he BUILT the mandroids for them as a compromise, no lethal weapons but still a way to be on even foot with superheroes, here they just flat out used his blueprints to make their own weapons and expect him not to be mad. He has no right to get mad at them for doing this, he sold them the goods and clearly gave them enough legal room to do whatever, but they have no right to be mad at him for SAVING THEIR LIVES.
And they are as while Tony takes down the last hydra bot that suddenly wakes up, when he shows up at the hellicarrier, RIGHTFULLY pissed at being fired on and having them make their own iron man.. maria hill, Nick's right hand and like the comics a total asshole, PUTS A GUN TO HIS HEAD
I mean yes she has him surrounded by shield agents and if fighting them tony would half to hold back.. but he's still a man in a mostly powered armored suit that can suplex a train, while your only strategy is "hope he's really scared of a hand gun".
Fury wisely asks her to stand the fuck down, again fuck's implied, and we get a really compelling argument with him and tony: Tony has every right to not want to sell weapons, while Fury makes the point that with supervillians ont he rise they NEED this tech to compete. Tony still wins in my eyes mostly because while yes he's witholding tech and what not.. SHIELD... isn't hurting. They made the mandroid armors, they have the tech to compete with the hydra bot likely bodying them because it has the element of suprise. THey have a giant hellicarier, tons of staff, and plenty of super powered allies help keeping the various super prisons safe. Granted all four prisons are about to become paper mache, but that's not down to SHEILD being stupid. While Tony dosen't SAY it to his face, which given this is tony is a fucking achivement... the issue isn't that Fury can't handle these or the various super powered heroes out there don't have this covered for now. It's that Fury dosen't have CONTROL over it. IT's a problem inherent in most versions of Nick: it's not enoguh to be the world's top cop he has to CONTROL the situation, the info everything. He's often resonable sure but he puts control over what makes sense and antagonizes valuable allies simply by not respecting they want autonomy.
Our backup story is really just "why nick fury is badass" and "Why hydra is super dangerous". Turns out Fury has their leader, Baron Strucker. Strucker is an egotistical nazi who frequently runs hydra and is Nick's arch enemy and opposite number. So this whole mech thing.. was a smokescreen to get one of their agents, The Grim Reaper in.
The Grim Reaper in the comics is the brother of Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man. We'll get into him more next time as he has a full episode coming up, but long story short, he died, Grim blamed the avengers, and then he tried to kill his brother when Simon came back because he'd put simon on a pedestal. Here the two are pretty much detached and Grim is instead hydra's top enforcer, single handidly breaking in and wrecking up the place, only stopped, and captured alongside strucker, because Nick Fury is that badass. He also life drains fury a bit, giving him his signature white streak from the comics.
Thor The Mighty (Microepisodes: Thor the Mighty, The Siege of Asgard, My Brother My Enemy and the Isle of Silence)
As I said Thor the Mighty is the only one of these episodes that feels like a mostly cohesive 22 minute episode. I mean you can still see the seams where the shorts were, but it's one 22 minute story instead of one long story and one short one connected to the first. It's also not suprisingly my faviorite, but not just for this reason but for having some gorgeous action, great character work and a hell of an ending.
Before all that we have to talk about the god of thunder. Thor's a character I love, I mean I have a mjonr I got a yard sale somehwere around here. But he's also one i'm pickier on story wise: you either have to REALLY sell the scope and granduer of asgard, as done by Walt Simonson, god among men, and currently Al Ewing or do something fresh with it like the start of Jason Aaron' srun, Donny Cate's recent run or my all time faviorite thor story, J MIcheal Strazenzki's run. Thor's not a bad character but there is a tendency to focus on ye olde english and not on him as a person.
EMH thankfully sidesteps that. It shows thor as fucking awesome and has him do cool stuff.. but it also emphasises who the odionson is and WHY he prefers our world over his own. We start with his daily routine: finding some supervillians to punch. He fights the wrecking crew. The Wrecking Crew are villians I like, marvel's designated Jobbers. If you need someone to get their face punched in these are the guys. They CAN be dangerous, see the avengers storyline under sige where the four of them together bodied a slightly frazzled hercules, but their primary there to show up and get knocked down: their strong enough to fight thor, having asgardian enchanted construction tools.
But still not SO strong that say spidey , the runaways or whoever needs a pick me up this week can't body these jackasses. So their the perfect starter foe for thor: powerful enough to give him a good scrap, but not nearly as strong as what he faces on his home turf.
It also serves as a handy intro to Thor's love interest, Jane Foster. The film takes her from a doctor to a paramedic, ironically years before the comics would do the same, and it's a great update: Since Thor isn't spending time as mortal doctor Donald Blake here, there's no real reason for her to be at his practice as a nurse then doctor. Instead she's in the field trying to save lives just like him, and is shown to be fearless DESPITE being a squishy human, getting out to help someone the wrecking crew hurts without any hesitation while her partner cowers in the car instead of helpign. I mean .. I get it , supervillians, but yoru a fucking emt man. Your job is to save lives even at your ownr isk.
Thankfully thor provides backup. And cleans house. The Wrecker TRIES to hold jane hostage, with Thor chastising his lack of honor.. before smacking him in the back of the head with mjonir because hammer's don't respect chilvarly. Thor and Jane hit it off, and I like how even if Jane's entirely in this series to be thor's love intrest.. they give her personality and a reason he falls for her: she's just as dedicated to her job of helping people, and Thor is awed by the fact that DEPSITE not having the powers of a god and being at high risk she does it anyway. Which for us is a normal thing but for thor.. sums up why he likes Midgard so much. On asgard heroisim happens all the time, death is an endless cycle. Here humans are fragile.. but the best of us try to help each other anyway.
Thor is played by Rick D Wasserman and as you can wager i'm mostly focusing on the main cast's voice actors for this review. I"ll point out some others, for instance Jane is voiced by VA legend Kari Whagreen whose also played Charmcaster in the ben 10 franchise and Saturn Girl in the awesome Legion of Superheroes cartoon i'm bound to cover at some point, it's just EMH has a MASSIVE cast and introduces a lot of characters in the span of these 7 episodes, so adressing every single one is a lot to ask. I will try to adress the most important ones and some in future reviews as the voice cast here is positively stacked.
Which makes it weird that once again one of the main cast is a pretty low key voice actor: like with Iron Man, Thor's va did his voice for Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and Marvel Ultimate ALliance 3, but otherwise hasn't really done much else in the main roll. And given just how well Rick slides into the roll of thor as if he was born for this it befuddles me.
But we, and the god of thunder, have bigger issues..s pecifically frost giants thor writing shorthand for "We wanted something big for him to hit" I can only think of one run in recent memory that hasn't invovled thor hitting a frost giant in the face.
Turns out their invasion is being led by Loki. Loki here is another intresting time capsule as a combination of Tom Hidelston's standout performance in Thor and Avengers and character defining runs I need to read and finish respectively from Kireon Gilleon and Al Ewing placed Loki squarely in the anti hero position. As such instead of the genderfluid trickster we know and love, this is the old school loki they were for much of their run and what loki at present is deeply afraid of becomiing again: manipulative, evil and hellbent on burning down everything his dad and brother built.. if with a dope horn helmet. He at least has that.
As such this loki gets into a badass fight with thor, with Thor BEGGING his brother to reconsider.. but it falling on deaf sweet horn helmets. Loki wants to burn it all. Thankfully Thor is able to beat him and being thor does it in the most badass way possible.. gatherting a GIANT STORM above him before focusing all it's energy into a massive lightning bolt. And those horns are really good conductors.
Odin, who sat this one out as his powers are weak at the moment, more on that in a sec, punishes Loki by banishing him to thei isle of silence. It's one of his faviorite pastimes. The other is questioning his son's life choices, wanting Thor to stay to guard Asgard while Odin takes a nap. It's why he was weak: Once a year Odin enters the odinsleep for a few months, to a week to a day. Whatever's narratively convent. It's how he recharges.
Thor.. dosen't want to as he's needed on earth and the two get into a snit and what I like is it's well ballanced: Odin isn't wrong to want his son to protect the kingdom that will one day be his.. but Thor isn't wrong that the warriors three and sif, his best friends and badass warriors, can do the job and Thor is only one call away if needed. Odin bringing up Jane dosne't help as Odin comes off as being a spying dickhead which.. he is. He entirley is. So Thor leaves in a huff.
And so we get our final segment.. which unlike the others ties in directley. We see Loki in the isle of silence, which is neatly depecited as a black and white void with no sound. Loki is visited by the Enchantress. The Enchantress is a powerful sorceress whose vane as she is obessed with thor, but dosen't understand he's just not that into her for being you know.. manipulative, cruel and trying to kill his friends. Turns out, in classic loki fashion, this was ALL his plan. ALLL of it.
He set up thor to run into the wrecking crew by spying on them taking a job for the Leader, more on him later, having the Enchantress disguise herself as a regular woman , i.e. just a green dress, and point thor their way. Fun fact: She and jane have the same VA. Funner fact: Loki is voiced by Scottish actor Grahm McTavish of the Hobbit and Outlander fame. Both do a terrific job.
Loki then pretended to be Baulder, Thor and Loki's third brother and painted what Thor was doing as egocentric hot doggin and grand standing and the Jane thing as more serious than "They just met". All of this was part of a larger scheme... all going to plan.. and neither the god of thunder nor his neglectful dad have any idea they were played. Granted Loki's scheme would fall apart of Odin brought up that conversation with baulder to the brave himself, but while a risk.. Loki still wasn't TOO reckless with this: in any other thor story this would be highly stupid. Here it's risky, but with Odin going into the Odinsleep soon and Loki's plan HINGING on his dad being in the odinsleep anyway, it gives his plan a VERY small window for fuckups.
And what is his plan?
I genuinely forgot what his grand plan was other than "conquer asgard" but we'll find out as the season unfolds. For now we move on to another hero..... some call him a man, some call him a monster.. but is he both?
Hulk Vs the World ( Microepisodes: The Coming of the Hulk! , Hulk Vs the World, This Monster, This Hero!, and Beware the Widow's Bite!)
Now we talk about the strongest one there is, the man whose wrecking the town with a power of the bull, ain't no monster clown, he's that loveable and ever lovin Hulk. And sometimes immortal, grey and what have you but point is Hulk slaps.
Yeah like Tony I love me some hulk: I haven't read nearly enough of his earlier stuff but I adore the late 80's early 90's run of peter david, one i'm just one digital omnibus away from having the complete run of at the time of this writing, and Al Ewing's recent and incomprable Immortal Hulk, which I REALLY need to cover and just. .haven't. Hulk's just a good character: A man with DID who turns into the literal represntations of the emotions he represses: his rage, his childlike innocence that his abusive dad made sure he never had, his need for a father, his hornier and more traditionally masculine traits... Hulk is an endlessly fascinating character.
And the show does him good, partly by exploring a key part of Hulk's marvel history: the fact that for the vast majority of it.. he's an outsider. Oh sure Hulk will show up for crossovers if needed and what not, but most of the time people treat him as a giant monster to be put down instead of simply an angry, powerful being tired of people trying to kill him. Hulk is oft pegged as a monster, and can often turn on his own allies thorugh bad luck or simply a poopy mood. Most people in Hulk's suppporting cast care about BANNER not hulk, while Bruce is often hunted simply because.. he has a mental illness. Granted most mental illnesses can't suplex a train, but many people genuinely don't seem to CARE that Bruce isn't responsible for what hulk does. Hulk is part of bruce banner.. but he's NOT bruce. And the poor guy is constantly hunted for something he tries to cure or control but often simply can't.
EMH emphasies this as when we meet Bruce he's deshevled, in a hat, looking like the unibomber and getting harassed by the police like one. And this is a Bruce who as we learn later ACCEPTS that hulk is part of him: he dosen't LIKE turning into a rage monster, no one does, but he acknowledges the big guy can do things he can't and that curing him simply hasn't worked. He's someone trying to manage his condition: until now staying away from population centers and only going into them.. because he's worried.
This is also our intro to our second of the four supervillian prisons, the Cube. The Cube is a heavily locked down place for radiation based supervillians, mostly gamma mutates like Bruce himself. And in a fitting shift instead of being a place to stash away or rehabilitate their foes.. the cube is basically one giant lab and Bruce fears it's purpose.. is to create a hulk SHIELD can control. It gives a reason to why he runs: Sure the Cube has facilities to help.. but one hulk is already incredibly dangerous and barely managable. Now imagine if say it goes wrong and hulk ends up with no brain or concense like the current hulk, just PURE. RAGE.
Or they succed in making a super solider with gamma power.. but he simply dosen't want to do what they ask and has all the power of a hulk but none of the restraint, and all the ingellgence to misuse it.
Or you get someone with repressed issues and DID like bruce.. but you get something darker than a cranky teenager who just wants to be left alone
Granted that last one didn't turn out so bad but Bruce's point is easy to see just looking at the comics or basic logic: Making more monsters is way too big a gamble and as we saw with SHIELD in the Iron Man episode, they aren't exactly moral paragons to begin with. Fury will go to any lengths to make a safer world... so whose to say even IF best case scenario we get a she hulk style transformation... that fury can be TRUSTED with that power.
So Banner goes to get some answers. Bruce is played by Gabriel Mann, who played Alan M in the JOsie and the Pussycats film I need to cover, and also played Bruce in Wolverine and the X-Men, which shares a universe with this show. More on that later. He does a great job selling Bruce's fear but also compassion.. he wants to CURE the target he's after, Absorbing Man.
Absorbing Man, aka Crusher Creel, is another frequent Jobber of the marvel unvierse, though unlike the Wrecking Crew he's slightly less of a joke, though like them he started with Thor. Unlike them he became more of a hulk villian and a general marvel villian. If they need someone dumb and powerful, Crusher is their go too. In the comics he also has a wife Titania, also a super villian. They have an adorably healthy and happy marriage.
So naturally Crusher.. wants nothing to do with this and wants to instead punch the hulk. He gets his wish.. but then gets plenty of punches back. The Hulk here is based more on then recent Planet Hulk Storyline: Hulk is still not super smart, but isn't thuggish like say Joe Fixit or sadistic like Devil Hulk. He's just savage hulk if given the chance to learn and evolve: all the power, all the rage.. but with SOME smarts and dry quips. He eventually flattens Abosorbing Man easily after a brief fight.
Hulk himself is played by Fred Tatiscore. Much like Thor and Iron Man's VA"S, Tatiscore is marvel's go to for the hulk for adaptations, and has played him a LOTTT: Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2, Avengers Next, Avengers Assemble, Hulk Vs(Also part of this continuity), Wolverine and the X-Men, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel's Spider-Man (Cartoon), The Incredible Hulk Tie IN game, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, All three Marvel Ultimate Alliances. If you want someone mean and green you go with Fred and that's JUST his rolls as hulk. Fred is a prolific voice actor with a WIDE list of credits. This isn't even his only roll in this SERIES, but we'll get to that. If you want a good gravely voice, Fred Tatsicore is your man.
So Hulk is no sooner done punching his daily asshole when General Ross shows up.
So for those who haven't had the distinct pleasure of meeting this twatballoon before, General Ross is one of Hulk's two main arch enemys, the other one we'll meet later. He's the old man who ruins everything, a hard nosed general who already didn't like banner and hunts him and hulk like a monster, and is LARGELY responsible for both the hulk being treated like a monster (though his earlier, far shadier versions didn't help), and for Banner being hutned like one. If someone's going to fuck a situation that could've helped the hulk up, it's this fucking guy. It's shown here brilliantly as one of his men questions WHY banne'rs here.. and ross dosen't care. He can interogate banner later, not getting that bruce wont' want to help him.
Ross charges in with a bunch of smashable robots, but is ordered to stand down by the Black Widow and Hawkeye, in their classic outfits. For Nat it's .. really the same as the movies, for Hawkeye.. he has an actual costume instead of purple spandex and maybe sunglasses... please bring this outfit back.
Thankfully Clint isn't a piece of cardboard like the MCU , though he is an agent of SHIELD since Thor was in production and the Ultimate Unvierse existed. The two plan to subdue the hulk.. yes the martial arts master who is great in hand to hand and the expert marksman... think they can take down the hulk. or at least hold him off. Hulk is less than impressed but has bigger worries as Ross FIRES A MISSLE AT TWO SHIELD AGENTS DESPITE BEING ORDERED TO STAND DOWN
Seroiusly ross you fired on two fedral agents. I'm shocked he wasn't disohnorably discharged but he's gotten away with worse in the comics.
Thankfully hulk beats missle.. and we get a heartbreaking moment as Ross's stupidity and the hulk reflecting the missle nearly downs a hellicarrier... Hulk saves it.. and is taken in anyway. Always hunted, always alone with Banner's cries of having actually made the hulk work and not wanting to be cured falling on the deaf ears of Doc Sampson, usually Hulk's therapist here just a scientest.. and an asshole. Hawkeye though buys it.. unfortuantely he thenf inds out Black Widow is seemingly a tratior and she betrays HIM, framing him for working with hydra. So yeah this one ends with our heros impreioned for doing nothing wrong, the bad guys ahead and things about to get so much worse.
And if you thought we were done with downer endings well.
Meet Captain America (Meet Captain America, The Red Skull Strikes!, If This Be Doomsday!, Come the Conquerer)
Almost forgot this till I was done with this section: So I fucking love Steve Rogers. Loyal to nothing but the dream, kind, thoughtful and a badass through and through. That said when it comes to solo stuff it's hit and miss. I've come around to Ed Brubaker's run as while the winter soldier itself has lost a little impact with the fog of ages, Bucky's turn as cap is great, what i read of Ta'Nesi Coates run is fantastic, and I love Mark Gruenwald's lengthy run. I like cap, he can just be very hit and miss for me on his own, but usually if he's in a team he slaps and there's a reason he's key to the avengers.. and getting his own episode despite not being there for the origin story.
Meet Cap is a fun WII adventure, reminding me of the First Avenger despite coming first. It's got a lot of silver age charm and pep to it as Cap breaks into a hydra castle with the Howling Commandos. The Howling Commandos are Nick Fury's WWII running buddies in the comic and his dad's friends here. The roster's mostly the same, characters I don't really know and who won't be relevant to this show so i'm not going into... except one. He's still not relevant to the show.. but it's a cameo I can't not mention. One of the commandos here is...
YUP. As one of the many subtle hints this is the same continuity as Wolverine Vs X-Men and it's prequel Hulk Vs Wolverine, Logan fucking HOwlett is on the team. He dosen't go snikit either because he dosen't have bone claws in this continuity or simply to keep that under his helmet but it's still neat to see him. THey even got Steven Blum for this tiny apperance. There's small hints like that here and there, with another in the next episode we'll get to but sadly a combination of diffrent networks and Nick screwing over WATXM meant we never got an actual crossover, and Disney screwing over this series meant we never got a fully absorbed finale either. And as should come as no shock as a giant x-men nerd, I plan to cover WATXM after this show.
Anyways, cameos aside it ventually comes down to Cap and Bucky. Bucky is cap's sidekick, and unlike the mcu he' skept to being around 17. This is also one of his first apperances in animation after the landmark winter soldier story recontexutalized Bucky from "Child sidekick who really REALLY shoudln't be fighting WWII" to "that being a propoganda and Bucky being Cap's stealth man who does the stuff too dirty for america's symbol".
As a result this version, at least as Bucky, is voiced by Robin voice actor Scott Melinville, an excellent bit of meta casting given Bucky comes off as a fairly blatant robin clone. The two's banter is genuinely heartwarming as you really get a sense of their friendship.
Cap himself is played by Brian Bloom, who like most of theset voice actors continued the roll for Marvel Vs Capcom 3, it's sequel Infinite, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and unlike the rest recently in Midnight Suns. He's awesome and plays Steve Pitch Perfectly.
So the two's target is Red Skull, Naziism incarnate. He's pure evil, one of the most horrifying villians in the Marvel Universe and one of the few most other villians will nope out of working with being a literal nazi. And not just a snake Nazi, though as he does here he will work with Hydra. He was taught by Hitler himself. Fun fact that's pretty brutal: he has in fact met Magneto, Marvel's #1 holocaust survivior, who held his contempt of the guy long as he could when forced to work with him for acts of vengeance..a nd then first chanc ehe got Erik buired the guy in a bunker with this chilling as it is awesome sequence
This is just one long fun pulp adventure as Cap punches out hydra agents and i'ts revealed the Red Skull was experimenting with the 9 realms of norse mythology and marvel comics. Well 8, he's already on Midgard. His various captured norse creatures escape from fairies to a frost giant he almost kidnapped. it's fun chaotic brawl as many a nazi is eaten and we get some really cool lighting. We also get a mention of a Baron Zemo. This will be importnat later.
The Baron himself is absent though, and rather than being the one escaping on a rocket it's the red skull. And anyone familiar with the comics just tensed up a bit and really even if you aren't.. the fact that this is Cap's origin story, he's getting a full episode, and it's WWII kinda tells you this won't end well.. and it dosen't. Steve prepares to sacrifice himself.. only for Bucky to tell him "The world needs cap more than it needs bucky" and push him off. The Skull and the boy wonder apparently die .. and seemingly so does cap.
Well.. KINDA, as our last short happens: see the cap shorts kicked off with someone watching and we find out it's Kang, the Conquerer
For those who haven't heard of him or seen him thanks to the MCU, and the less said about his actor there the better, Kang is from the 30th century, a time of peace, love and no traffic accidents. And it was BORRRRRIIINNNGGGG to him, so longing for the past he only read about he stole a time machine, and ended up in a savage post apocalypse he eventually conquered and made the bedrock of his empire, using his time travel tech, vast army and genuine stategic knowhow to conquer civlizations throughout time and space.
Here though he seems to have just conquered this future, which is still a lot... but is about to be a little as it's in danger of being erased.. thanks to Cap. Kang is puzzled since if Steve DIED.. then how is he fucking up Kang's day? We get a really cool seuqence of Kang traveling through the previous parts of the episode, trying to figure out what he missed.. and finding steve frozen. Steve lived.. and thus his future will die. He plans to go back and stop this, but his future starts deteroating already, leaving him with just one warship. He TRIES to get his girlfriend Ravona on the ship in time.. but interfernce means she comes in and thus is stuck between fading out of existance. Kang's able to put her in stasis... but to save his empire steve rogers must die.. in about half a season.
Yeah Kang... dosen't come back up for a while and while it baffled me.. the more I thought about the actual two part premire.. the more i relaized why this was there.
The Man in the Anthill (The Man in the Anthill, Enter the Whirlwind, The Big House, Welcome to Wakanda)
We end our slew of origin stories with the introduction of Ant Man and the Wasp, my faviorite avengers out of this intial lineup. I love all these characters but Hank and Janet are some of my faviorites in all of marvel. I became a huge fan of Hanks after reading Dan Slott's run on Mighty Avenger where Hank, follow his ex wife Jan's death, takes up the wasp mantle. He also gets into the greatest pissing contest in all of marvel history with reed richards... though in his defense, Red started it
It was a burn so fucking awesome that the rest of Reed's team were all asking him to please, for the love of god call back and apologize. He did not and suffered the consequences. Again story for another day.
With Jan it took some more time but this series and various awesome apperances, chiefly her time in Zeb Wells uncanny avengers and what i've read of Roger Sterns avengers, sold me on the winsome wasp. For good stories for each, for Hank there's the aformentiond Mighty Avengers, Avengers Academy where he serves as headmaster, and West Coast Avengers for his redemption after his mental breakdown and abuse of Jan. For Jan I recommend Stern's avengers, The Unstoppable Wasp which follows Hank's Daughter and Jan's adopted daughter Nadia but heavily features the OG wasp, and most recently the Wasp mini series from king of awesome Al Ewing and it's currently running Followup, Avengers Inc, both things I intend to cover some day.
So for those less familiar with them or more familiar with the MCU versions, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne were founding avengers and the first Ant Man and Wasp, going in and out of the team to retire. They were in love.. but sadly hank's obession with work, undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and Janet marrying him while he thought he was someone else because Hank having a mental breakdown was the PERFECT time to marry him, the marriage fell apart, hank had a large scale mental breakdown and well.. you likely know the rest. Both would rebound with Janet finding a new indpendence and sense of self and Hank , after hitting rock bottom.. .finding the will to live on and atone for the various mistakes he made, first as just Hank Pym then as a superhero but not wearing a costume. I love these characters, their rich history, their powers just all of it.
I also love these versions of them: With the baggage of his mental breakdown and the infamous and horrifying slap gone, Hank is back to his roots as a science hero, finding his work the neatest thing in the world, while Janet is back to being hank's younger girlfriend , a social butterfly, and the one helping him get to do all his science stuff by doing the promotion, the last one a clever addition. It takes her later swagger and better writing by writers who knew how women worked as opposed to silver age stan lee who while many impressive things.. could not write a woman who wasn't some form of a sexisim. Likewise Hank ignores jan but it's more "he's a workaholic" and less him ranting about her being a stupid woman and friviolus and I wish I was making this up. It takes the best of them in the silver age, mondernizes and makes it awesome
They also each get a short spotlighting them: The first has Hank researching some Vibranium near wakanda when he has to deal with Klaw. Klaw is a recurring avengers bad guy, black panther bad guy and general punching bag. He's not yet to full costumed villian here, instead just having a giant sound canon instead of having said canon as a new hand. He and some mercs break in to steal the vibranium.. and get utterly wrecked in the best way possible as Hank shrinks, easily dispatches them in a scene straight out of a hroror film as each mook goes unconcious, tehn in an awesome moment, when Klaw uses his really big gun fulla sound to try and blast hank, hank GETS BACK UP and presses a button.. shrinkign EVERYONE present. Also while again i'm not pointing out EVERY villian's va i'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Klaw's is mark fucking hamill.
As for Hanks, Hank is played by Wally Wingert, who for once for this show DIDN'T play this character again in Marvel Vs Capcom 3 because Capcom wasn't awesome enough to include an ant man. THey DID include MODOK who Wingert also plays and got to reprise so he still got a well deserved paycheck. He's also been in Bleach and is the voice of Cubot in Sonic. Who knew. I also love the ending: Jan comes in, we get her adorably just throwing her arms around hank.. and then hank casually asking his girlfriend to go save the mercinaries before his ants eat them
The next one focuses on Jan and also shows the contrast between the two. Hank has super powers.. but prefers his research and rehabilitating criminals, not wanting to fight them. In contrast Jan recognizes sometimes you gotta throw hands, action is her reward, and gladly speeds into battle. We also see that while this hank hasn't spiraled yet.. he still has control issues, showing up wot Jan's battle with Whirlwind and telling her to back down, despite her both making the vallid point they can help people and that she can handle herself. And given she stings teh fucker in the eye and beats a guy with tornado powers with just her stingers and some inginuity yeah, hank ease off there bud.
Jan is voiced by Colleen Ann O'Shaughnessey, a va I grew up with as the Voice of Sora on digimon, a role she STILL has to this day. And if that and Jan wasn't enough she's also Jazz Fenton, a characte ri'll be looking into next year. For now though she just rips as Jan, whose the best of the founding 5. I mean their all pretty great and Hank comes close, but Jan's sarcasm, energy but also her heart and talent make her hard NOT to love.
The third short and the final one focused on our duo is the big house which reveals the third of the prisons: The Big House. Focused more on rehabilitation, the Big House was made by hank, housing a LOT of characters i know. Whirlwind tries to escape. If your curious who this schmuck is, Whirlwind is the closest thing Jan has to an arch enemy: he started out fighting her and hank then started stalking Jan who didn't take it well. He's incapaciated as the big house shrink's it's prisoners. Whirlwind is put back inside.. but is insured by the Mad Thinker that they'll be out soon. It's just a matter of time. The Mad Thinker is a long time fantastic four villian, a mad genius and.. that's basically it. He does have an awesome android though
He's a very good dude.
As for Hank and Jan theyt alk to Nick Fury who wants to recruit them. Jan's all for it but Hank says no.. that being said, it's not just Hank not wanting to be a costumed superhero: he dosen't TRUST nick, dosen't think he genuinely wants to rehabilitate criminals, and dosen't trust shield. And given what we've seen.. he's right. Jan follows Hank's lead, if reluctantly while fury.. berates hank for actually carrying about reform and building villians "Comfier jailcells".
With that we get one last standalone to set up episodes later this season: we see the origin of The Black Panther as his dad dies in comnbat fighting Man Ape, whose not NEARLY as cool or nearly as fun in the comics or this cartoon. Man Ape kilsl his dad with help from Klaw while T'Challa's people.. all agree to this trial by combat bullshit.
T'Challa not taking this shit heads off, takes the Panther Mantel and plans to find Allies. To be continued next time, same as cap. I love the animation on The Black Panther as he skulks around. So damn cool. He's voiced by James C Mathis III a voice actor primarily known for playing the character in this and Marvel Vs Capcom.. infinite this time. He's fantastic. And with that it's time for the MAIN EVENT BABY
Breakout Parts 1 and 2
So here we are, the big one. The reason we're all here> the Main Event. Breakout is the proper premiere for the show, airing before the repackaged episodes above though taking place after. And like the MCU with those episodes in mind it feels like a well built up climax to almost everything in the shorts, while setting up the rest of the season, with what wasn't setup for this being setup for later in the season like Cap, Kang and Black Panther.
Part 1 has the characters still in their own corners of the marvel universe before fate assembles them: Tony breaks up an arms deal between AIM, a bunch of super scientests in neat beekeeper suits who function as world conquerers or arms dealers depending on the day, and Lucia Von Bardis, one of Doctor Doom's minons in Latveria. Iron Man easily stops the sale, especially since it's his tech their selling and warns Doom via his proxy: do not come for his stuff again. He then drops them off at the Vault, talking to Jimmy Woo who sadly isn't as in to close up magic here but has noticed it's security is off and asks Tony for help since he designed it and it's not a weapon. Tony agreees.. but also wants him to make an appointment because Tony is a lot of things.. but he's also a massive asshole no matter where in time and space you find him.
Banner is still in the cube, trying to warn Dr. Sampson of two things: the cube is not a jail but an incubator to make another hulk, and that filling a jail full of super strong gamma mutates and gamma research is a ticking time bomb... and given bruce blew himself up with one he should know.
Thor.. is having a far chiller day of stalking Jane as she does her job since as an EMT she finds trouble and he dosen't exactly have a thor signal. And because she fascinates him, not getting how creepy that sounds. Jane finds it charming, partly because he's built like a norse god and partly because she gets this is less "I need to call shield a god is stocking me" and more "He's REALLY that clueless he dosen't get this is a felony".
Finally we have Hank and Jan on the hellicarrier, with Hank doing mods to the big house and arguing with Nick and Jane sorry she can't take maria hill's offer... only to realize hank had a point when maria won't answer a simple whose that.
It's then chaos breaks out.. as does every super villian at the 4 prisons with the Hellicararrier, which houses the big house, also going offline. Oh and Nick's house just blew up, but that happens every tuesday. You can just ignore that one, don't know why I brought it up.
As you'd guess most of our heroes are soon caught in the middle of it: Iron man flies back to the Vault, getting a heads up from Pepper that SHIELD"S in chaos, but finds all his foes have already kitted up and gang up on him including Crimson Dynamo, his russian equilveant and Blizzard, a villian i've always had a soft spot for who gets a truly awesome look here
Is his look baiscally just captain cold and mr freeze smushed together now? Sure? Does it look fucking dope? yes.
Thanks to SHIELD being stupid though, Iron Man isn't the only hero there and despite nearly blasting him earlier, Hawkeye helps for a sec before fleeing to clear his name. I like this setup for hawkeye as in the comic's hawkeye also started as a costumed criminal thanks to a misunderstanding, a nice way of meshing his mcu/ultimate self with the og. Hawkeye is also one of my faviorite superheroes, and something I can gush about later when Clint properly returns to the story. For now he's just awesome as always.
So Tony decides to escape by BLOWING THE FUCKER UP with his enemies inside
Yeah the civilians have apparently evacuated and the villians scene DO come back but you'd think after a few months after this Tony's go to wouldn't be "Cave a building on them and let god sort it out". Then again this IS Tony Stark we're talking about....
Bruce is IN one of the prisons and thus has a harder time, though there is one silver lining: Dr. Sampson.. is now fully on his side, having realized from the buildling falling apart that Bruce was right about this being a powder keg and promising to help. Granted it's a bit too late but still. The radiation abound has also given the good Doc super strength
Zzzax shows up. Zzzax is an energy being the hulk fights on and off, a big zappy man made of electricty who has a name that's as fun to say as it is to type. Naturally this brings out the other guy and Hulk fights him, winning becasue of course.
In the core of the cube and it's control rooms is the Leader. The Leader is Hulk's arch enemy and polar opposite: Hulk is pure rage and strength, the Leader is a calculated super genius with the durability of any other guy. And unlike the other villians in the other prisons.. Leader has no intention of leaving, to the bafflement of Absorbing Man and Abomination. Abomination is Hulk's other arch enemy, a KGB agent who got caught in a gamma ray blast when Hulk tried to kill the hulk with.. .the same thing that makes the hulk, being almost as strong but retaining his mind.
Leader sends the two to fight hulk as a distraction but once Hulk has them down he flees with Sampson.. and the Leader has his minons back off, explaning WHY he wants to stay in prison: he's going to change the world. And impliclity, what better lair for a super genius gamma mutate than a giant gamma based lab and former prison? It's almost like putting the lab next to the dangerous criminals was a bad idea waiting to blow up in their faces.
Before we move on Leader is played by horror legend Jeffery Combs, most famous for playing Herbet West in Re-Animator and it's sequels. Combs is a large ham supreme, a true craftsman of playing hammy bastards with no morals, and is perfect casting for the Leader, and SHOULD have played him in the mcu. Then again given how little the MCU has acctually DONE with the leader thanks to universal, it's a blessing in disguise. They can use him another way. Lots of mad scientests with no morals in marvel. Leader's story will be continued later, but I coudln't just.. pass by Jeffery Combs. I'm not made of stone.
As for Hank he gets the shit beat out of him by the people he was genuinely trying to help. Which is just.. sad... the problem wasn't hank's idea, a deluxe prison with creepy robots where he genuinely tries to reform people.. it's just most of the criminals were either people he brought in, resenting him automatically, or simply didn't WANT to change. Had he tried it on like the beetle or screaming mimi or someone who genuinely had the potetial to reform who knows what he could've done. Thankfully he's backed up by Jan and the fact he can become a really big man, a GIANT man if you will.
While this goes on Thor.. has a date. Jane gladly listens to his daddy issues, Baldur the Brave had visited earlier.. and Odin hasn't let up on the "come home thing". Jane breaks down "ancient asgardian things beyond your understnading" into what it is "You had a fight with your dad" and tries to convince him to go home and patch things up.. but then thor hears the explosions in the distance and goes to help.
So the bad news is a bunch of our heroes villians are free, with the only ones who aren't.. now running the prison. The WORSE news is that there's one more prison that didn't have a superhero on duty as Thor was out to lunch: the raft, a secret fourth blacksite prison hinted at earlier, containing the highest security cases... and one of them just woke up from a ten year nap, radaiting with power and rocking the helicarrier.
This yelling bearded man is Graviton, also played by Fred Tastiscore, whose hamming it up from here to eternity. He wants Fury dead and tha'ts where part 1 ends.. with him holdling fury hostage and sinking the hellicarrier.
Part 2 opens up with the origin of Graviton: Franklin Hall was a physcist for SHIELD before Fury tried to shut him down... for good reason as while Fury was trying to do this Franklin not only refused but his experiments blew up in his face. Then rather than help Hall.. fury locked him unconcious in the raft. Even the breakout didn't let him out it turned out ot be Baron Zemo. Baron Zemo is one of my faviorite super villians, a genius tactician and son of a nazi what cap fought. Naturally he tells franklin he's been down here for a while, then skedaddles. Unsuprisingly we'll be seeing the martial artist whose so skilled and cunning he's in the same jail as the guy who can make gravity his bitch.
Graviton is distracted by Iron man, who shows up to fight.. but tony gets a refresher in Gravity and gets bounced all the way to the endless cornfields of Kansas. Trust me having been in the car as someone's driven through them, that joke is not an exageration. Ther'es plenty of towns, intresting places.. but also large stretches of corn and nothing. So much corn and nothing.
While Tony calls for a backup suit, Thor tags in, while Hank chews Fury out, especially relevant since Fury refuses to tell them anything at first calling it classified... despite the giant exploding gravity man fighting a god above them.
As for Hulk... Hulk needs a snack. Prison hasn't done wonders fo rhis appittite so he stops at a diner, asking them to get help for Sampson... when Hulk has another guest: his brain buddy bruce who urges Hulk to help as he's the only one that can. Hulk makes the valid if misnthropic poitn that if no one's helped him, why should he.. but Bruce poitns out all the good he can do.. he can be more than the monster they see him as and he knows it. SO Hulk agrees to serve as backup.. provided Bruce make one concession: Hulk becomes the dominant personality and bruce comes out , as we find out later, only once a month.
As we wait to see the results of that deal, Thor gets plumeted to the bottom of the sea and Jan decides she isn't going to stand by anymore.. while Hank is like "NO YOU'LL GET HURT. LISTEN TO ME. " because he hasn't gotten Jan dosen't CARE she can get hurt, knows the risk, and is doing the right thing comma jackass. Jan.. actually puts on a decent showing as her stingers, small lasers , aren't affected by gravity. She is.. but Hank catches her having gotten his giant head out of his ass, while Thor regains Mjonr and tony joins back up. The avengers have.. mostly assemebled.
They still can't make much of a dent though: not only are they still very new at this tea-m thing, but Graviton is still strong enough to body a god: a scientest, a fashioin icon, and billionare mass attempted murderer aren't really going to turn the tide. Unluckily for Franky he decides to get braggy.. and gives too good an intrance cue NOT for someone to stomp in and ruin his day
Graviton: I'm stronger than all of you! I'm the strongest one there is!
(BOOM)
Hulk: You sure about that?
Hulk is here and easily beats the stuffing out of Graviton. We get a truly EPIC moment too as Graviton tries increasing the gravity on him which only works for seconds at a time as Hulk KEEPS, GETTING, BACK UP. With the others helping, and sometims just.. rushing him, Hulk is able to land the final blow on Graviton. My faviorite moment during this is Wasp lasering a container in half, confused someone's helping him... before Janet helpfully pipes in he's the bad guy. THe two will be incredibly close after this and given they both like hitting things and impulsive desicions, easy to see why.
Well almost final, He still has time to weakly rant before Wasp shuts him up.
Naturally SHIELD"S response to Hulk saving the day, the future avengers lives, and stopping an evil they created.. is to point all their guns at him. This time though Hulk has something he didn't have back in Vegas: Friends. Iron Man refuses to let SHIELD take him and everyone else gladly joins in, Jan naturally being the second most vocal behind tony.
Fury reluctantly gives in, and admits he could use the five's help: the various prison breaks have unleashed 74 other super villians and someone needs to round them up.
Hank.. turns him down, getting one last callout and a very damming one: they CREATED this mess: while Franklin made himself into a living god instead of trying to cure him or turn him into a force for good they locked him away an dhoped he'd never wake up, and new york nearly got leveled. I forgot to mention it somehow but motherfucker LEVITATED manhattan.
Tony does concede Fury has a point:.. not about joining SHIELD, they suck dirty ass in thunderstorms. But about working as a team:
Iron Man: One on one, we can each take down a villain or two, but 74... none of us can do it alone. Together we have a chance. What we did here, it can change things. The world needs us, but not as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. As a team of our own. Together, we can avenge the wrongs caused by all these villains.
Wasp: We can be Avengers.
Hulk: Huh. Good name.
And thus.. a team is born. Hulk agrees to stay for now and everyone else, even pacifist hank seems excited. And even Fury, while not exastic, dosen't really poop on their parade. He is worried about one thing though: Who was behind this?
So yeah.. the first 7 episodes of EMH, the breakout two parter in paticular, are amazing. It sets up the world, fleshes out the cast, and gives us some great hooks going in: how will this team mesh? can hulk be accepted by the rest of the world? Who caused the Breakouts? What's loki's plan? How is leader going to "Change the world"? What did steve do to destroy Kang's timeline? All valid questions we'll answer another time but for now we've got 7 pretty excellent episode an da great start to one of the greatest avengers tales ever
Sometime Next Year: The avengers loose a member, gain an icon and a king and deal with their growing pains, ionic men, dougboys, ape men, living sounds, and a bunch of hulks. See you then and thanks for reading.
#avengers#marvel#the wasp#ant-man#iron man#thor#hulk#janet van dyne#hank pym#tony stark#bruce banner#the leader#jeffery combs#avengers earth's mightiest heroes#loki#abomination#absorbing man#crusher creel#nick fury#maria hill#comics
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I'm writing out my overarching headcanon about VIncent's life and how Gaia and it's people looked pre-SOLDIER program because I want too:
I'm of the mind that in Vincent's era, there was a lot of growth like we have in our own day and age, much like the 50s-70s, Midgar would have been a work in progress. Maybe only one or two upper plates would be finished and livable, but a sizable undercity was already underway to growth.
I believe that this would be when the beginning of the science department of Shinra would truly begin, so Shinra would have been using the Turks as more of their heavy hitters as SOLDIER was still a small budding program being thought up by Shinra's defense department.
Seeing as the war between Wutai and Shinra didn't happen until 1985, I'm going to go under the assumption that they were in a cold war with each other ever since the power company began building reactors, so the Turks would be much more utilized than they are now.
I have the headcanon that Vincent and Veld were partners or at least worked with each other when they were in the Turks and their missions would have looked like those of spies and government agents (with different rankings and capabilities. Not everyone would have the same job just like a normal government job.)
I also love the idea of their world having similar clothing styles and music to ours during those years, so Vincent and Veld would have been young adults in the 60's and 70's.
I also think that with what happened to Vincent (getting shot and killed by Hojo), he did actually die physically (lurcrecia even talks about how she can't stop the decaying when talking about Vincent in the tank in DoC) so there would be a loss of memory that Vincent would have from actually dying and being dead for however long.
Like sure, his memory loss could have been slowed by the Mako and experiments, but there would be SOME memory loss. So I think that the man we know now is not the whole Vincent he would have been. The reason I say that is because a lot of the memories he does have are from times at Shinra Manor and nothing really else. It's mostly from Shelke's POV that we get the remaining memories about Vincent's past, and that is from Lucrecia's POV of how she saw Vincent. So my HC is that Vincent has a lot more to him than he remembers about himself.
Anyway long-winded explanation of why I think Vincent Valentine has more than meets the eye and I can justify my more fun version of him XD
Back to it. Here's where my headcanons come in heavy:
I think Vincent's mother is a Wutainese woman, Grimiore having met her in his early years of exploration as a scientist, before things with Shinra started to get more competitive. I believe that when Vincent was a teenager, his mother left for Wutai due to the simmering tensions between the two powers, unable to take him with her as he had no citizenship there and I do not see him wanting to leave his home.
Vincent and Grimiore don't get a long for a while because Vincent thinks his father should have convinced her to stay. He joins the Turks at a young age, having met Veld (who I think is at least a decade older than Vincent) who worked with his father, not really knowing about the ins and outs of what a cold war meant or even who was the aggressor in the conflict. He knew his father worked for Shinra and they were bringing progress to their city and home, wanting to help any way he could.
#Vincent Valentine#Veld Dragoon#headcanon#ff7#final fantasy 7#final fantasy vii#ffvii#Always feel free to be inspired by anything I write#I would literally read five million words about the same shit over and over again
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If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard of “skinheads” being racist. You might have also heard that not ALL of them are racist. So, what’s the deal?
Out of curiosity and not being able to sleep, I did a quick Wikipedia read.
It’s probably not news to you that there are distinct generations of punk. We’re, of course, in our own.
The skinhead movement started in the late 50s. This is where you get your work boots, straight pants, etc. look. Only, they weren’t skinheads just yet. This movement was known as “mods”, “a youth subculture noted for its consumerism and devotion to fashion and music”. The consumerism part doesn’t sound a whole lot like punk today, but the “devotion to fashion and music” sure does.
From there in the late 60s there was a split between “peacock mods”, or those who were more into the latest fashion, according to Wikipedia, and the more traditional working-class image of punks denoted by their shorter hair. It’s not entirely sure if the cutting of hair was more for defiance against “mainstream” hippie culture or for ease’s sake as a working class, but I suspect it’s probably a mix of both and so much more.
From there the skinhead movement became heavily influence by Jamaican culture, which is extremely fascinating! Around this time there was also a break off group in Australia.
In the 70s skinhead culture, which originally was said to be apolitical, started diverging into other groups. However, late 70s is where the punk movement we think about today really kicked off. This is where some skinheads started joining up with far-right groups. It doesn’t really say why, though.
From here we narrow in our focus away from Britain and the United States towards Germany, which has a big cultural impact in the punk scene. In West Germany factions of neo-nazi groups and anti-fascist groups were at arms. In East Germany two factions were also forming: one focused on the aesthetics of punk and one focusing on the ideals of punk. Gone were the days of apolitical skinheads in Germany.
Going back to the UK, in the late 70s and early 80s, however, there WAS a group of apolitical skinheads. These were characterized by the Oi! subgenera of punk.
In other parts of Europe, groups of skinheads seemed to be left-wing and antiracist since it’s original conception in the 60s. There’s also mention of racism from both black and white skinheads against South Asians in the UK.
From this, though, grew fractions that were vocally anti-racist, notably “redskin” and “anarchist” skinheads. The use of the word “redskin” is interesting, looking back from today’s perspective and how the term has been historically used over here in the United States with racism against Native Americans, and the push to remove the word from popular American Culture, like in sports teams.
It was skinheads, actually, who supposedly brought the term “ACAB”, or “All Cops Are Bastards” into popular usage, from a punk song.
And so, I bring us to today: where neo-nazism is still alive and well, and goes hand-in-hand with antiblackness, and so much more. I think these days we use neo-nazism as a broad term for people who are loudly outspoken against more than just violence against Jews, however, it’s important to realize that violence and discrimination against Jews is the biggest and core part of neo-nazism.
We look back at the legacy of a movement we’re trying to uphold today, but a movement at it’s core is just people. People laughing, people drinking, people smoking, people just being people. So… how do we tell what is okay to reblog and what isn’t?
Well, some things are obvious, at least. Does someone have a swastika? If so, is it crossed out, or is it displayed prominently. See the word “nazi”? What’s the context around it?
Somethings are less obvious. Lace code. Patches that reference things from long ago. What bands you’re listening to, what local underground movements you’re supporting. These are less obvious to know the history of, to the average tumblr blogger in 2023.
So what can we do?
Well. We can learn the history for starters. I’m not saying we need to go and learn about every particular subculture and band and movement and code and this and that and-
But you can Wikipedia the history of a movement you’re not really sure about. That’s a start, at least. You can learn some terms, “buzzwords”, if you will. Learn what some symbols you see often mean. Learn what bands the antifacist punks were listening to and what bands the racist punks were listening to. It’s a start.
You can also talk to people who still identify with the skinhead movement here on tumblr or in real life if you can find them. Get their opinions and see what they think. Hear what they’re saying and decide for yourself what you want to support. You should do that for pretty much any movement, not just skinheads.
Today it seems like skinheads have a gay subculture. Was that a part of history that’s been largely ignored or erased? Or is that something that’s come about in more recent years?
The punk movement is a very broad one with lots of overlapping cultures and subcultures and branches off- a great way to see that is simply falling down a rabbit hole of tumblr blogs or Wikipedia articles. It’s easier than ever to see all the parts of something. But that can make it overwhelming. It’s okay to break it down as needed.
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Can I request prompt 60 with Daichi? Thanks a lot
requests for haikyuu and naruto are open; send me a prompt pls!
60. home
daichi: 1,962 words
00. in this universe, you meet on the last day of summer vacation, across an entire baseball field of untapped potential — him with his friends, you by yourself, but never alone. the volleyball they’re tossing around bumps up against your leg. you look up, squinting against the fierce summer sunlight, pouring down over his back like liquid gold, and for a second, you can’t see his face, only the shape of him — wide shoulders and short hair and —
“hey, sorry —”
you blink, looking down at the brightly covered ball still nestled against your leg. and when you next look up, you find his eyes instead.
someone once said that there are some infinities that are bigger than other infinities.
neither of you knew really what that meant. until now.
“no, it’s okay — here, your ball.”
“ah. thanks. uhm —”
“uh —”
you speak at the same time as you both reach for the ball. your fingers brush; the world pauses, waits, holds its breath.
“daiiichiiii! c’mon! we’re waiting for you!”
he jerks up, blinking as if pulling himself out of a daydream. he looks behind him to his waving friends. when he looks back at you, you’re already turning back to your book, the pages lined and dogearred. something inside him cracks, ever so slightly, as he takes a step back, and then two, clears his throat and dips his head.
“thanks again.”
you chance him another glance as he jogs back to his friends. you look down half a second before he looks back at you.
01. in another universe, you meet over a spilled coffee, the autumn leaves falling around you both, the air just chilly enough to paint your breaths in silvery white, spiraling up towards a gunmetal sky.
“shit — sorry — oh…”
you look up first, sting of the hot coffee still nipping at your fingertips, him reaching out to hand you a wad of crumpled tissue before he realizes and jerks back, his cheeks flushing as he fumbles to grab a fresh piece. you feel the laughter bubbling out of you like freshly poured champagne.
“it’s okay — you can just buy me another.”
it takes him a second to process, and by the time he does, someone else has scoffed and stepped around you both up to the counter to place their order.
“oh. sure, yeah — but i’ve — well —” he glances down at his watch. you feel your heart sink inside you, ever so slightly.
“no, it’s fine. go, i can just get it myself —”
“no! no —” his voice is too loud, making a few people jump as they frown and look over, disapproving and uncertain of the two bumbling, awkward teenagers holding up the line in the middle of the coffee shop.
“please,” he says, “let me buy you another.”
you blush and nod, even as his phone buzzes with some kind of message. he quickly taps out a reply before shoving the phone back into his pocket and joining you.
“yeah, alright.”
02. in another universe, you grow up together, screaming and laughing and crying together, spending every birthday at each other’s house, every win and loss by each other’s side.
“ugh! this is so stupid! why can’t i just ask him out?!” you shove your face into daichi’s pillow, thumping your legs against his bed. it smells like him, you think, this whole place does. but then again, it kind of smells like you too.
daichi sighs, glancing at you from over your problem set, his mechanical pencil poised over the multiple choice answers.
question 4 — if a tree falls in the middle of a forest (if a boy like a girl and never tells), does the falling tree still make a sound? (does the boy still get his heart broken?)
“do you want me to do it for you?”
you turn your head to stare at him, your heart right on the tip of your tongue — what if you asked me out instead?
“no.”
daichi looks back at the problem set, “then, what are you gonna do?”
you lick your lips, “can i… practice?”
“practice what?”
“asking him out.”
daichi slowly circles option d (all of the above) before putting his pencil down and turning to face you.
“sure. why not.”
you grin as hop down onto the floor of his bedroom, the pair of you facing each other. you take a long breath and open your mouth.
03. in another universe, you are both heartbroken people.
“he wasn’t ready.”
“she had… someone else.”
you purse your lips, your cheeks pink from the three shots of shochu you’d just had. outside, the winter storm shows no signs of stopping. beside you, daichi swirls around his second glass of whiskey.
“well, she was an idiot.” you turn to grin at him, your body feeling warm and loose and ready.
he turns to you with glazed over eyes and cold-bitten lips and you feel yourself falling. not for the first time.
“well, he was too.”
the bartender refills both your drinks and you raise your glasses. the shochu stings; the whiskey burns. when you both set down your empty glasses, you cock your head at him and he flashes you a lopsided smile.
“uhm…” he bites his lips, still a bit too shy. you fight the urge to lean forward and bite it for him.
you flash him your most charming smile, “wanna get outta here?”
daichi hiccups, his eyes going wide. a second later, he slams down a bill on the counter and pulls you to him.
“y-yeah. let’s get outta here.”
03. in that universe, you stumble back to your apartment, but by time you get there, you are no longer strangers. his hands are cold, yes — but your skin is hot, and the way he groans against your lips sets your entire soul on fire. he’s a bit too gentle as he undresses you, but you nip at his lips, hiss against his skin, and tell him that you want him to show you everything she never got to see.
he growls in his chest, shoves you back against your bedroom door and tears your underwear from you with his teeth.
he makes you come three times before letting himself go, his forehead pressed to yours, your fingers laced, palm to palm, his hips bruising as he thrusts into you, panting, the moonlight spilling down over his back like liquid silver. and like this, all you can see is the shape of him, his broad shoulders, his short hair —
“d-dai-ichi! please!”
you feel yourself clench around him, the white-hot pleasure punching through you as he fucks you through your release, his breath hot against your shoulder even as you twitch around him.
“f-fuck… nngh —”
you puff out a breath as you feel him jerk against you, his arms shaking as he fights to hold himself up, before you wrap your arms around him and tug him close, grinning into the mess of his hair as he collapses over you.
“so…” you ask, after a few minutes of ragged breaths, a few seconds of collecting the scatted pieces of yourselves from across the twisted bedsheets, “what was she like?”
daichi shakes his head, turning to look at you with a crooked smile, “i… honestly, i don’t remember.”
you grin, turning to face him completely, “good… i don’t remember him either.”
02. in that universe, you sit across from him on his bedroom floor, your fists clenched in your lap, him sitting directly across from you. your multiple choice worksheets lay forgotten on the floor by the foot of the bed. outside, the spring sways on the barely blooming peach blossoms, collecting dew in the warming night air.
“uhm — so, i’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while…” you say, looking anywhere but at daichi’s face.
daichi feels his stomach clench, his heart skitter and thump, a raw, wild, bewildered thing, untamed and untamable as it tumbles inside his chest.
“yes?” he tries to keep his voice steady. he’s not sure if he succeeds.
you force yourself to look up at him, finally. finally.
(if a girl finally, finally, admits her feelings, does she have the power to heal a broken heart?)
“i — i know we’ve grown up together, and we’ve always been best friends —”
“mhm, yeah,” daichi nods, forcing himself through the paces. he has to do this, he has to do this for her. but —
“but if — somewhere along the line… i think — i think i started to have feelings for you — and i know, i know it’s weird — but… i don’t think i could forgive myself if i didn’t… if i didn’t at least try…”
you squeeze your eyes shut and lower your eye, bending at the waist till your nose is three inches from the floor of daichi’s bedroom.
daichi stares, his mind unwilling, perhaps unable, to process everything you’d just said.
(wait, i thought — i thought she was talking about someone else! i thought —)
“daichi… will you go out with me?”
01. in that universe, he writes his number on the coffee slip right before he hands you your brand new drink.
“thanks… you didn’t need to do that,” you blush, taking the coffee, letting it’s warmth seep through your fingers as you both walk to the door.
“yeah, but… i wanted to,” he says, grinning as he turns to look at you, his own cheeks dusted in the color of falling leaves.
“well… i’m glad you did.”
you take a long sip of your coffee, letting the sweet and bitter burn through you, letting the shifting winds blow loose your hair, kiss passed your own insecurities. but daichi’s phone’s already ringing again, and you content yourself with watching him fumble as he answers, stuttering into the receiver.
“suga! i’m coming, i’m coming! i just —” he ducks as he cover his mouth, hissing into the mic something that sounds suspiciously like ‘met a super cute girl and gave her my number’.
you laugh as he raises a hand to wave at you, half-skipping, half-jogging down the street.
“call me, okay?” he shouts, motioning with his hand, miming up to his other ear even as he almost smashes into a couple walking down the street in the other way.
“okay!” you call back, laughing as you look down at the hastily scribbled number on the coffee slip.
00. in this universe, you slam your book shut, jolting to your feet. somewhere in the distance, the cicadas are chirruping loud enough to drown out the rushing tides of destiny.
“u-uhm — sorry, excuse me!” you shout, so loud that he nearly trips over his own feet.
“h-ha?” he looks back at you, all amber eyes and sunset smiles and in the flicker of a moment, both of you wonder if you can see the stray strands of a hundred thousand universes playing out in the spaces between you.
“what’s your name?” you ask, your fingers digging into the flesh of your own palms. and somehow, you already know the answer.
behind him, daichi’s friends hoot and holler.
he blushes, clutching the volleyball to his chest as he takes a breath. he scratches the back of his head as he looks away and looks back. this time, your eyes catch, perfect, shocking, present tense.
“sawamura… daichi.”
#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu imagines#haikyuu scenarios#sawamura daichi x reader#hq imagines#haikyuu smut#floofy floof floof#haiCUTIES#haikyuu fanfic#well;;;; did we really think i was gonna do anything NORMAL my first piece back? no.#the answer is no. lol.#i really do love the multiple universes trope tho...#anyway. it's good to be back. pls tell me what you thought/send in some prompts! :D#sawamura daichi scenarios#sawamura daichi imagines#hq scenarios#sawamura daichi
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Food Research
Male Reader X Kim Sejeong
Length: 2300+
Tags: Creampie
A/N- wrote this one randomly. not many edits and such so sorry if it has a lot of typos and such.
College was a pain in the ass. You think it's safe to assume it was for almost everyone. The memories of late-night study sessions, and early morning panic attacks because of exams have never left your mind. Nevertheless, those four years were worth it once you got your degree.
A bachelor’s in agricultural science, concentrating on food science. A degree like this meant you only had one real job option, a food researcher. Now to some this job could sound annoying as it’s a lot of cooking and experimenting with different flavors but to you, it was a dream.
The love for cooking started at a young age with you being the son of a chicken shop.
The secret to the popularity of the shop was the sauce you made with your mother trying out all of these different spices and such. Those memories help influence the job you have today.
The interview process was tough and grueling with several other candidates but in the end, you were one of two people they hired to Go Research. This company in ten years quickly made its way to the top food research institute in all of South Korea. At the start they had you doing minor things, just picking up ingredients and such for the workers to experiment with.
After a year of your errand boy job, you were finally assigned to a small research team with a face you recognized. The only other new hire with you that day, Kim Sejeong. Unlike you, Sejeong was quickly added to a Research team and now had her own. You were excited to join a team and it certainly helped that Sejeong was always open to your ideas.
Six months went by as you and your team continued to work on developing new foods for the company. Your last product, salted roe fish was a hit even seeing massive sales in countries such as the US and Canada. After that success, the pressure was on for the next big product your team would develop.
It was a late Friday night and you and Sejeong found yourself in the Research lab working on the next big product, White Kimchi Ravioli.
“God I’m so tired.”
“You and I both but we need to work more on this ravioli.”
“Ugh. I feel like plankton when he said ravioli ravioli, give me the formuoli. We have been testing out this formula doing big changes to the sauce then the kimchi and then the meat and we still don’t have it down.”
“Well, it’s our job so we keep trying until we are happy with the final product to present.”
“Yeah yeah, what about this? Let’s try to put more of the kimchi than the meat at a 60/40 ratio.”
Sejeong leans over to look and looks at the small changes you do to the ravioli. As she is bending down you get a view of her ample cleavage. Sejeong may dress very professionally but those outfits didn’t hide her nice mounds.
“Y-yeah I'm gonna try it like this.”
Once you mix the new filling for the ravioli you stuff the pasta and seal it closed. Putting the ravioli in the oven you knew it was just a waiting game now.
“I’m gonna go get a cup of coffee. Do you want one?
“Um sure why not. You know how I like it.”
You can’t help but notice a small smirk appear on Sejeong’s face as she walks away. That little smirk nearly makes you crazy. All this time you spend with Sejeong, the small views of her body have been slowly building up your lust for the woman. Not only was she gorgeous but she was playful, flirty, and kind.
A few minutes pass as Sejeong finally comes back in with coffee. The cup gets placed down in front of your face as you pick it up and chug it down quickly. At the same time, you finish your drink the timer goes off informing you the ravioli are ready. Sejeong then walks over to the oven and pulls it out to cool down for a second.
“Ok test number one hundred forty-seven is now ready. Let’s try it and see how it tastes.”
Picking up a fork you split one of the ravioli and bring it up to your nose.
“From the first smell, it seems like the kimchi might be a bit too spicy but only trying it will let us know.”
Sejeong and yourself finally taste the product as you both do small chews taking in the flavor. You have to admit that this version of the ravioli that focus more on the kimchi is delicious but then the heat finally hits your mouth.
“Fuck that’s spicy!.”
“Jesus, that is hot!.”
Running to the fridge you pull out a gallon of milk and see Sejeong is running over as well. Before you could even take a sip of the milk, she takes the gallon from your hand and starts to drink the milk. All you can do is laugh for a second as the heat still attacks your taste buds. Sejeong being the “kind” friend she is, hands you back the milk to drink. Finally, as the heat leaves your mouth your eyes meet and Sejeong just smirks at you.
“You just stole the milk from me.”
“Hey, you should know it’s ladies first.”
Chuckles fill the room as you both walk back over to the test product and sit down.
“Well it tasted pretty good but there was too much heat. We need to find something that can nullify the heat.”
Like earlier Sejeong leans and looks at your paperwork for options. She seems to have gotten closer as her boobs are basically in your face. The view is amazing as your dick starts to twitch. Quickly you feel your length harden from looking at her.
“You know, I have an idea on how to bring down the heat.”
“U-um yeah?”
“I heard a rumor that there is an ingredient that helps cool down the heat from spices and adds extra flavor.”
Your chair quickly spins around as Sejeong looks right into your eyes.
“W-what is the ingredient?”
A smirk appears on Sejeong’s face as her mouth gets closer to your ear.
“Nice, hot, warm, cum.”
Those words shocked you as hands quickly grab your belt and unbuckled it.
Sure you shouldn't be doing something like this in the workplace but all reason leaves your mind as she pulls your pants down and grabs your cock in her hand. Small strokes are what your cock feels as you look down and see Sejeong just smiling at you.
“You said cum is good for the recipe so you should get to work.”
“With pleasure.”
Lips wrap around your cock as you pull your head back in pleasure. Small sucks on your tip send shivers down your spine as Sejeong swallows your entire length in one go. As she pulls her head back up for air you reach for her ponytail and guide her back down on your length. Sejeong continues to bob her head on your cock easily taking you down her throat. You notice her hands go down to her blouse as she starts to unbutton it, taking it off her body.
Your eyes are finally blessed as Sejeong unhooks her bra showing you her large breast.
“I’ve seen you eying them all these months. Now you get to enjoy them like this.”
Sejeong's tits wrap around your cock as she moves them up and down your shaft. You have never had boobs like these wrapped around your dick and it was amazing. Sejeong wraps them around together as her speed increases. The nonstop itty fuck is bringing you to the edge quickly.
“Sejeong I’m gonna cum soon.”
“I told you I need it as an ingredient.”
Much to your dismay she stops her attack on your cock and pulls out a container. Once she brings it down to your dick she strokes your cock as fast as she can. The throbbing from your dick goes wild as you finally shoot your load into the container. A few seconds pass as you feel your orgasms end and you look down at Sejeong. She gives your dick small strokes at some leftover cum leaks out your dick.
“Let me get a little taste of this ingredient.”
Her tongue gives your cock small licks all around going up and down your shaft and picking up the leftover cum. Your legs shake as she gives your tips small kisses.
“Fucking delicious.”
Sejeong now stands up and gets closer to you. You don’t care that she licked up some of your cum. Your mouth quickly attaches to hers as you kiss her aggressively. Your hands go around her waist as you bring them up and grab her boobs. Small moans leave her mouth as you give her nipples little pinches. Finally, your mouth goes down to her breast as you suck on her right nipple. After you give her nipple a small bite you twirl your tongue all around and move to the left one.
“Fuckkkk that’s good.”
Your hands move down to her pants as you unbutton them and pull them down. Once her pants are pulled down you see she has no panties on.
“You got a taste of your ingredient but I think it’s time for me to try some.”
Sejeong gets what you mean and sits down on the chair. Spreading open her legs you dive in and lick her folds. You know you have to make things quick so you raise your hands to her pussy and push two fingers in. As you pushed in you were able to find her clit quickly so your mouth attacked it. First a flick with your tongue then you swirl your tongue all around it. You feel Sejeong grab your head and wrap her legs around your head. You could almost suffocate from how tight she is holding you but her taste is intoxicating.
Once you give her clit little nibbles you hear pants leave her mouth as she almost screams.
“I-I’m gonna cum if you keep this up.”
Hearing those words just causes you to increase the speed in your hands as you open her pussy a bit and tongue fuck her. That was enough to get her to cum as her pussy squirts all over your face. Her fluids could have almost drowned you but it was fantastic the sweetness. Sejeong's grip on your head loosens as you pull yourself back. You can feel yourself hard again standing up and Sejeong notices as well.
“I got my sample for the recipe but I think I need another load from you.”
Sejeong then sits on the table as she spreads her legs again. You don’t even hesitate as your length lines up and enters her pussy. The hold her pussy has on your dick is amazing as you can only push yourself halfway in. Pulling your hip back you try once again to push your way into her pussy, finally filling Sejeong to the brim.
“Fuck! How tight are you?!”
“How fucking big are you?”
Reaching down for her hip you start to enter and exit her pussy slowly building up speed. Grunts leave your mouth as you pull Sejeong’s face to your own, kissing her. After some time you pull your mouth back and move to her neck, kissing and leavening behind love bites.
“Fuck that’s some good cock. Keep fucking my pussy baby.”
“With pleasure.”
Your aggressiveness increases as you feel her walls start to massage your cock more and more. Sejeong lays her body back a little as you feel yourself hitting another spot in her pussy. Screams start to leave her mouth as she covers herself from making more noise. You can assume you must be hitting her G-spot as her eyes start to roll back and her pussy clamps hard on your dick. Juices shoot out of her pussy as her whole body shakes.
As Sejeong comes down from her high you give her cheek small kisses calming down.
“Fuck that was good but you need to cum before we get caught so fuck me how you want.”
“I want to keep looking at your pretty face.”
You continue fucking her the same way as you pant building up your speed again. Your peak is finally arriving as you tighten your grip on her hip. You know you're about to cum finally.
“Sweetie I’m gonna cum. Where?”
“In my pussy baby!.”
You use the last of your strength to piston in and out of her pussy until you shove yourself in one last time as you cum. Shot after shot of your cum fills her pussy as you pull her lips back in for a final kiss. You aren’t quite sure how much time passes as you both pull back from the kiss gasping for air.
Pulling your dick out you look around and see the mess you made around you and look back at Sejeong.
“We need to clean up before we leave huh?”
“I’ll help, don't worry.”
“Did you hear cum is a good ingredient for the recipe?.”
“I mean you can hear a lot of shit on the internet but this was more of an excuse to fuck you. I’ve seen you eying me for a long time.”
“I mean you are freaking hot. How could I not eye you for a long time?”.
“Well I was eyeing you too but you didn’t pick up my hints.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter because now we know. We should get changed quickly and head out. We can work on the ravioli tomorrow. I think you owe me dinner now.”
You laugh as you pick up your clothes and put them back on. Once you are both changed you pick up the mess you made and head to the door and walk out of the lab.
“Alright then sweetie, what do you want to eat?”
“Something quick so I can get another sample of that ingredient tonight.”
Well, fast food it is then.
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road racer
warnings: cyclist!reader x shiratorizawa (platonic), angst, reader is basically an aomine kinnie but with a little twist.
You thought you swore the day you started hating cycling would be the day the world ended, but look at where you stand now.
You closed the gap of opposing cyclists and widened it by 60 meters. Victory was at the pedal of your feet and everyone in the venue expected that you would stand on the 1st podium. When you only needed a few more pedals to the finish line and attain another medal and trophy to litter your house and room with, you stopped.
You slowed down, making spectators wonder why, it could have been fatigue and leg cramps, to which they let out disappointed sighs. You purposely slowed down, took a deep breath before letting out a long sigh.
"What are you doing?! The finish line's right here!"
"You can do it!!!"
People were yelling left to right, it started getting annoying. It no longer felt exciting to hear praises or "go for it" and "you can do it" cheers, nor did the look of the finish line getting nearer give you an adrenaline rush.
This was just pitiful. In the middle of a race, too!
The cyclist you sprinted your heart out with just a few minutes ago, whom you'd surpassed, passed by you instead. They didn't have their head up with a wide grin etched on their face, no, they had it turned to you as they finished first with a frown, out of seeming frustration but also worry.
As other cyclists pass by you, it no longer seemed exciting for them to stand before the stage to hear the awards ceremony. They felt insulted by your little show, like what, were you that great that you decided you didn't need another few medals and trophies because your house is basically filled with them?
Fortunately, they didn't hate you too much. Okay, maybe one did.
The three new faces who stand at the stage don't have a smile. They wanted to win fair and square, not be spared by you stopping just at two meters or three away from the finish line. It wouldn't have too much of a negative effect if you won either way, a huge grin etched on your face as you show off to the public, but no, neither happened. You didn't even look sad about losing, but I mean, you lost on purpose. So there's no point in acting sad about that.
"There are a few clubs and sports teams which still accept second and third years," Wakatoshi, your brother, said. Hoping that you would ask about Shiratorizawa's cycling team and announce that you would join.
"That's great but I know what you're thinking. I'm going to quit cycling anyway. Or, well, I have already quit. I'm going to spend my third year studying and getting into a good college." Stretching your long limbs, ultimately hitting his, and stood from the dining area.
"Is that really what you want?" He asked, a little worried about your statement. With the way you nodded so surely, he thought something bad was going to follow that his head started aching and his gut started twisting. Something was definitely going to happen.
Is it a storm? What if the house burns down? Even worse, what if he ends up quitting volleyball because he stopped loving it too? That thought scared him badly and he shook his head, making the ache worsen.
You soon disappeared from the ground floor of the house, now possibly in your room. Wakatoshi continued arranging a few papers before cooking dinner, as it is his turn this week.
"The gym is near the baseball field. You can barge inside, just try not to make a scene with any of the girls, especially, in the court." Wakatoshi reminded you again before you two separated ways. With him heading to his class and with you heading to yours, which was a few classrooms after his.
Your first day at Shiratorizawa went by rather quick. With absolutely nothing relating to cycling coming up, it didn't feel so long. For the first time, you weren't reeking of sweat and your peers weren't complaining about you and your love for your bike. Nobody was trying to assume weird shit like, "You're definitely in love, like romantically, with your bike. I bet you–" Yeah, things like that. But that just shows how much you loved your sport. Probably.
For the first time, you didn't come back from lunch with any tire marks. You weren't dirty and you still smelled fresh, like you had just gotten out of the shower.
Now that you think about it, it did hurt a little not to have any friends who would talk as passionately as you with cycling. You made a few friends in your class, but none of them made comments about how much you grew over the course of two weeks all because of your intense workout and how long you cycle a day, but of course, there's no way for them to make such comments.
They did ask about your height, how you reached 6' and if you were related to Wakatoshi.
"I used to cycle back then, had this crazy intense workout routine that I follow every single day, I also cycled every day. I swam a bit, as well, which helped me increase my height. And yes, Wakatoshi is my brother."
They errupted in ohh's and ahh's but nobody asked further.
Soon, it was the end of the day at school. You helped clean up the classroom and the halls before wandering around the school, making it your mission to memorize everything before walking to the volleyball gym Wakatoshi allowed you to loiter at.
But before you could enter, you caught a glimpse of the baseball field and after the baseball field was a track course for cyclists. Of course, you still loved cycling, you just stopped for a little while, and of course, you had to check it out.
@midoriima this was written about a year and a half ago maybe? i regret not putting the dates 😭 i started getting back into yowamushi pedal and became obsessed so i integrated that new passion with my all time faves: haikyuu.
#(sy - 物語)#inspired by: yowamushi pedal#platonic#shiratorizawa#shiratorizawa x reader#ushijima x reader#tendou x reader#semi x reader#shirabu x reader#goshiki x reader#yamagata x reader#reon x reader
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My DBH headcanon(s)
So I recently received DBH as a gift, after years of being obsessed with this game, lol AND, so I thought, why not share my post game headcanon(s) here.
Just to be clear, I will base my head cannon after the peaceful revolution ending.
This is a(n incomplete) list of all of my HCs !
1st HC : Connor’s siblings
I like to think that after the revolution, Connor will go back to the cyberlife tower and then discover several things: first off, in a rush, most remaining androids were destroyed, including all of his “replacements”. But, in one way or another, he will find an abandoned android that look like him. A forgotten project, if you will: RK900. The project wasn’t 100% finished, resulting in RK900 having issues; mostly sort of seizures and other problems in direct or indirect links. (I still hesitate to HC him as mute, not sure, though it is a nice concept)
In my head cannon, RK900 is like we see in the Machine Connor ending, where he replaces Connor. His name is Nines (given by Gavin, though people always call him Niles instead, assuming a typo or mispronunciation). Though, they can be differenced, especially because their personalities are very different. Connor is a puppy. Nines is a raven.
Another surprise, Connor find Connor-60 still alive. Hank had sloppily shot him right in the right-eye, effectively knocking him out for quite a long time. Maybe another bio-component was broken that led him to be knocked out for so long. Any way, he’s alive and not deviated yet, but luckily, Connor does that for him.
At first, everybody at the DPD had a hard time differentiating the two Connor, if they weren’t face to face with them. The only different was Connor-60 had a quite big scar from the bullet wound, and a permanent decolourized pupil/optical bio-component. Connor-60 slowly started to hate his name and thus opted for being called Conan (and it’s easier to know which is being called). Hank and him still have an iffy relationship, and he prefers Sumo’s company. He also joined the SWAT team. IDK, it just suits him (Captain Allen is sceptical at first, though he sees how Conan has potential)
Of course, their personality is quite different. Thanks, deviancy. While Connor is a puppy as previously stated, Conan is very cold and quiet. He’s still very much like Connor’s initial personality when he hasn’t deviated yet.
They all live in Hank’s house, but it’s quite small for 4 people and a dog. That’s why Hank is secretly searching for a bigger house. Nines wants to get his own house, though, but Conan wants to stay. Who’s going to rightfully spoil Sumo if he isn’t here, after all?
Also, Hank is 100% their dad now. Go away hankcon shipper cuz this relationship is 100% father & son(s).
On a (not so) unrelated, note, Hank’s mental health also improved, as his sons really do take care of him. He still does get drunk from time to time, especially after a hard day, but it happens less and less.
2nd HC : The C-bling’s (pun intended) fashion senses.
Connor’s fashion sense:
He got that fashion sense from Hank’s own wardrobe, but with his own twist. Colourful opened flannel with usual neutral shirt under it, dress pants & shoes. Though, he recently developed a taste for ripped jeans. If he doesn’t wear his colourful flannels, then patterned sweatshirts are his must-go. Music band names? Sure. Sweatshirts with dumb jokes like: “Who needs hair on a body like this?” ? Yes. Prints like houndstooth, waves, or simply bicolour? Why not !
Conan’s fashion sense:
He doesn’t really care for such things. He’d happily keep the clothes provided by Cyberlife if it wasn’t ruined by his Thirium and very taboo for free androids!! To keep wearing such garments. So, he’d resort to any shirt found and pants, though he usually has jeans. He also has grown attached to his SWAT sweatshirt and can often be seen around the DPD wearing it. The colours are kept neutral: different shades of grey and black, very little white.
Nines’ fashion sense:
Having been deviated recently with no memory beforehand, Nines hasn’t got the chance to really explore himself. Perhaps he’s too scared for that, perhaps he’s too busy for that. So, his usual go-tos are buttoned-up shirts, or turtlenecks. He does appreciate long coats to go with everything. Like Connor, he prefers wearing dress pants. His palette is still neutral, but perhaps a bit more colourful than Conan’s: white (esp for coats. It reminds him of his Cyberlife jacket), black, grey, and if he’s feeling like it, deep blue, emerald or dark green, crimson or dark brown.
3rd HC : Nines and Gavin
Yes, I ship them. Yes, Gavin is an asshole. Yes, it is because he has issues. Luckily, Nines also has issues and is having none of his partner’s shit.
Their relation get better with time passing, and their “I’m going to kill you before you kill me” slowly morphs into playful banter and inside jokes.
That’s all i can think of for now.
Byeeeee
#dbh#dbh connor#detroit become human#headcanon#dbh headcanons#nines rk900#dbh nines#dbh sixty#connor rk800#my headcanons#gavin reed#hank anderson#personal headcanon#fashion sense#post peaceful revolution
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