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purple-krystie7 · 2 years

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The Fake Wedding

Glamrock Freddy X (Gender Neutral) Reader

Warnings: None

MEGA FLUFF!!

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It had been about half a year since you started working at the new Pizza Plex, a huge, complex of a jaw-dropping children's playground, with food, Mini golf, a laser tag, but most importantly, an animatronic band. It was led by the one and only, Freddy Fazbear, a known name of the past brought back to life with the most high tech stuff you could get. Seeing the band for the first time made your jaw drop, sure the others were great! Montgomery Gator, Roxanne wolf and Glamrock Chica, But freddy….the first time you saw him on stage something just happened. Your heart pounded, and when he looked your way. Oh god. Obviously you disregarded this feeling because, really? It’s a robot, but since you were an employee you sometimes had to interact with him in his own personal room. He seemed so real despite being made of metal, his mannerisms, quirks and nicknames making you fall more and more as you guys were able to talk like regular people could. Your coworkers noticed your excitement whenever you were chosen to check on him, and even saw Freddy’s demeanor change after a couple weeks. Finally, it was you that decided to admit to him your feelings. His response still plays in your mind when thinking of him.

“Wait, Y/N are you saying you…would like to be my partner?”

You had nodded, immediately regretting your decision

“Oh…Superstar….I would be HONORED, I have to admit, I’ve been having similar feelings for quite awhile as well.”

He looked away sheepishly, a faint blush appearing on his face

Your eyes had teared up from fear but then all of sudden started pouring out, you hugged each other so tightly, both having no care about anything else but this, This is what you both wanted.

There was a lot of teasing from other staff, but most seemed to be fine with it, as long as it didn’t affect your work. The only one a bit bothered by it was Vanessa, a security guard that had worked there for quite awhile beforehand. She wasn’t hateful, but still was honestly confused how a human and Animatronic bear could fall in love.

The children on the other hand LOVED IT. Freddy actually introduced you after one of his opening performances and got cheers from all of them, (and some…stares from parents but their complaints were ignored)

Today was a normal day as usual, the concert had gone off without any problems and it was afterwards where the band could walk around and interact with the kids. You were standing on the sideline when one ran up to you and grabbed you by the hand, trying to drag you. You chucked and followed him, as he ran up to Freddy.

The young girl pointed at you then looked at Freddy and made a heart with her hands, tilting her head.

“Heheh, Good job kiddo, you are right! That is my partner!”

The kid looked blank for a second…pondering something, Then her face lit up

“MARRIED??”

You and Freddy immediately went wide eyed, he looked over to you as if to say ‘what do I say???’

You laugh

“No sweetie, we are not married…yet”

You smirk at freddy bringing a big blush

Another kid ran over

“WE COULD DO ONE!!!”

It was at this point the other animatronics had come over, as well as other kids hearing him shout

“Yknow..” Chica started “that would be a great activity to do together!”

“YEAH! A rockin’ wedding! That would be sweet!” Roxy smirked seeing the blushes on your and Freddy's faces.

Monty was mainly silent but nudged Freddy, teasing him.

“OH WELL I” He stuttered “…Uhm… I suppose we could..do a ‘Pretend’ wedding’, are you ok with that y/n?”

You had just been standing there, vaguely listening. A wedding…oh god. You love Freddy so much and although you two had only been together for a short time there’s always been the fantasies of walking down the aisle to him.”y/n….hello??” Chica waved her hand in front of your face, snapping you out of your daze

“UH OH sorry uhm” You clear your throat, freddy’s face had a bit of concern mixed with dismay

“Of course we could do that! Sorry it was just a..surprise is all.”

The kids jump for joy and start chattering about everything they need to get ready.

Freddy pulls you aside while the others discuss plans with the kids, as well as trying to get them to calm a bit

He looks into your eyes, the same look as before on his face.

“Are you really ok with this y/n, you seemed unsure”

You put a hand up, cupping his face

“Yes of course silly, I was just in a little shock, a GOOD shock, don’t worry”

His ears perked back up,

“Ah ok, well, let’s get to it then!”

Word got around about this ‘Wedding’ amongst the other staff, and they wanted to actually help out.

They all chipped in to get you and freddy amazing (but not overly expensive) outfits..

As decorations are being made and you are both getting some touch ups before going to change, Freddy seems off, almost looking sad.

“Hey what’s up sugar bear? Everything ok”

He sighs

“Well…even though this is just meant to be for fun, I would have loved to have seen Bonnie up there next to me”

You nod, knowing how he is still grieving the loss of his best friend.

An idea pops into your head

“Hey…I have an idea, ok?” You poke his nose, “Don’t worry…he’s going to be here, in some way”

A small smile returns to his face

“If you say so, thank you My superstar” He kisses your forehead

“Alright you guys it’s time to go get dressed! Now both of you go separately to other rooms!” Chica beams, and you both head off into opposite directions.

While you are both getting dressed, other positions are being filled. Gregory is given the role of ring bearer, while Sun is the flower girl. A regular staff bot is given a script for being the ‘priest’. While everything is being put into place, A staff member brings in a Bonnie Bowling cut out.

“Uhm..someone asked for this?” Chica runs over and thanks her. She places it on the decorations table and winks at the kids.

While getting ready Roxy walks up to you “Alright, looking good! You got your vows ready?”

You stare. Shit you had forgotten about the vows. What were you going to say to him? He does mean a lot to you, but…oh wow this is all happening so fast and- “Ah…ok so that’s a no. hey..don’t worry about it. Just say what comes to your mind when you get up there, remember..it’s all for the kids so it’s not a huge deal.” She pats your arm “You got this champ, I bet he’s just as unprepared, actually knowing him, he’s a mess right now” She lets out a big laugh as you chuckle with her

Suddenly the door bursts open “STARTING SOON! STARTING SOON WEDDING!! WEDDINNNNGGG!!” Sun bounces about as he runs into the room.

“Woah woah Sunny…calm down.” You walk over to him and hush him.

An announcement is suddenly on the overhead speakers

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and girls, please come into the main stage area and be seated for the wedding of Glamrock Freddy and y/n!”

“Well…there’s our cue, you ready to do this?”

You smile

“Y…yes”

As you are behind a booth in front of the aisle, you take in big breaths.

Being this nervous over a faux wedding seems ridiculous and at the same time understandable in your mind. It might as well be the real thing when you think about it. You have no doubt in your mind that, despite being who or what he is, Freddy is the one you want to be with. Plus you consider everyone here part of your family.

The music starts to play over the speakers, Sun starts to dance down the aisle and pass the many kids, their parents, employee’s and worker bots, Throwing beautiful flower petals (your favourite colour, same as your bouquet) down the aisle. Monty and Roxy walk down first, her giving you a wink before starting off. Chica runs up, almost late with the Bonnie cut out “Sorry..about that..so what do you think” She turns it around to show that they have painted a nice suit onto Bonnie and you smile. “He’s going to love that…now c'mon your turn!!” You push her out with the board making her stagger and the audience giggle, she then walks with it. Freddy lets out a chuckle at the sight, but his heart aches, in a good way, knowing you were thinking of him.

It was finally your turn. You breathed in and out.

“Remember, it’s pretend…you got this…”

The music changes to “A thousand years” (Chica’s pick) and you step out.

You walk down the aisle slowly, a fellow staff member holding your arm. You wave at the kids and their parents, who, surprisingly, seem quite fine and are smiling…well most of them anyway.

You finally bring yourself to look forward and see Freddy. He’s standing in a nice black suit, staring back at you smiling, causing you to grin back.

Finally getting to the altar, feeling like it took an eternity, you stand in front of your boyfriend looking up at him. You notice tears in his eyes. He whispers. “You…you look so..amazing..my sweet..” You blush very hard “You look very handsome yourself Sweet bear”

The bot starts the ceremony, not an overly long religious one but shortened and to the point.

“And now…the vows, Freddy you may go first”

He clears his throat, and takes a deep breath

“I know we have not been together long, but I feel as though I've known you almost all my life, since my creation. And while some may think it..weird…or unheard of for something like me…an animatronic, falling in love with a human, I do not care. Because in my programming, as much of a robotic system it is, I still feel love for you, and I know it will continue to grow for years to come, no matter the weather, no matter the day. I, Freddy Fazbear, will love you, y/n”

A couple sniffs are heard in the audience, you as well are tearing up at such an emotional thing for him to say. Right then, you know what your vows are going to be.

“Alright, y/n, your vows now” the bot gently nudges you

“ Ah yes…” You sniff and he wipes a tear off your cheek

“Freddy, I agree that some may think our relationship odd, Unrealistic, unnatural, But I too, Know deep down in my heart, that I love you, and..-”

You look towards the crowd..then back at Freddy

“Freddy you are my destiny…cheesy to say and.. I…you know what, this was meant to be just a little show, not real but…does it have to be fake? I Love you Freddy Fazbear, So what do you say, let’s make this a real wedding. I mean we are already here right? Will you be my Husband?. Because if your vows are truly how you feel then-”

“YES” Freddy holds the side of your face, his blue eyes beaming and tears pouring down his face, Chica and Roxy cheer with the crowd and Monty gives a thumbs up and a smile.

“Well, then, if everything has been said, the rings?”

Gregory steps up with the rings, He smiles at both of you.

Freddy places the ring on your finger, kissing your hand afterwards. And you do the same.

“Now, I present to you all, Mr and Mx Fazbear!, you may kiss!”

The big bear picks you up effortlessly and bends you down into a big kiss, both of you still crying, the crowd clapping loudly.

As you both walk back down the aisle, Vanessa is seen at the back of the crowd.

“Hey…congrats” She slightly smiles and nods, both of you nodding back.

With the wedding over the after party begins, all the chairs are moved out and food and drinks moved in. Pizza, of course. The first dance starts off, Perfect by Ed Sheeran, another great pick from chica.

As you slow dance, looking into each other's eyes, Both of you realize this is perfect, everything. “I love you so much y/n.” “I love you too, Freddy”

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #glamrock freddy #x reader #glamrock freddy x reader #security breach #fnaf security breach #five nights at freddy's security breach #gender neutral reader

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violenceenthusiast · 3 years

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ok i had a thought that makes me wanna dip my head in acid but in a soft way...

dean and claire having a father/daughter saturday of fun and low-grade mischief, going to an arcade and joke-fighting over what stuffed animal to get with their tickets and getting slushies and while they’re taking a break to grab burgers claire says “yknow i’ve been meaning to go get- wanna come with me while i get a new piercing??”

and dean pinches in the direction of her ear a little and says “what, you don’t have enough of those already?” as if he doesn’t think they’re the coolest thing.

she waves him off, eyes flicking between the burger in her hands and the table “i don’t know i just thought it’d be something else fun to do today.”

dean’s only half teasing when he asks “you want me there to hold your hand?”

claire rolls her eyes and looks to the side with half a smile, “oh shut up.” but it’s true, she does want him there to hold her hand– she may be a hardcore hunter who will take a knife cut or a monster bite in stride, but she always gets a little nervous before each piercing. maybe having dean there will make it just a little more manageable.

––

they get to the studio and claire signs the forms, picks out her jewelry, takes a seat to wait while they get ready for her. dean is pacing, looking carefully in each case, at each display. the nice person behind the counter sees him looking and asks “did you want to get something pierced today too?” claire cracks a smile at that and dean looks up at the counter clerk a little wide-eyed, eyebrows raised and mouth half open in surprise, huffs out a breath and looks down as half a nervous smile pulls at the left side of his mouth. he sticks one hand in his pocket and gives one wave with the other as he says “ha. nah, no- just here for her today” as he gestures at claire. he goes to sit with her until the piercer calls them back to the room that’s set up for them.

claire is getting a conch piercing and it’s going more easily than usual- partly because dean is there with her, partly because there are shockingly few nerve endings in the middle of the ear cartilage, and partly because the woman doing the piercing is insanely pretty and insanely good at what she does (she used to be a phlebotomist so she knows a little something about blood, needles, nervousness, and a given person’s propensity for fainting). while the piercer is busy marking the ear, claire looks over at dean in his chair and unable to contain the question any longer asks him, “you ever thought about getting a piercing?”

“me? nah.. it’s just not- i mean they would’ve gotten ripped out for sure by some- by accident.” he was about to say ‘by some monster’ but caught himself before he really weirded out the nice piercer woman. he hadn’t thought about him and piercings in a long time. he had slowly stopped wearing even rings and bracelets as much over the years in case they got caught on something during a hunt (though now he had a new ring on his left hand that he never took off). a piece of jewelry actually in the body was even more of a ridiculous idea for a hunter. but he wasn’t a hunter any more, not really. hadn’t been for about a year. after chuck and getting cas back safe and human.. with sam and eileen running their witchy little hunter hub from the bunker.. it had just seemed like his opportunity and his time to break out of it all. wow okay in that split second he trailed so far off from where he started.. where did he start? ...piercings! right. he remembers being young and not being able to take his eyes off the men in bars with the metal glinting in their ears, noses, lips.. now he knew the staring had been more about the men than the jewelry but it hadn’t not been about the jewelry either. was this one of those things he got to think about now, again, for the first time in a lifetime?

claire takes a moment to make sure she isn’t woozy any more and gets up to go look in the mirror at her new adornment. she smiles and dean snaps out of his own little world to say “you like it?”

she looks at him through the mirror “love it.” and then, mischievous, “your turn.”

“my turn??”

“oh absolutely.” a moment of raised eyebrows and incredulous silence then, “if you decide you hate it you can just take it out. c’mon i saw your face, you want one you can’t hide from me.”

she’s right. he protests weakly, but she knows him all too well at this point and she’s right and the goading from the piercer only encourages her.

“okay okay fine. but nothing too showy.”

they decide on a rook. it’s not too prominent but it’s definitely there, definitely unique, it will look okay on it’s own if he never gets another piercing, and if he has to jump in on an odd hunt it’s far enough into the ear that it would be hard for it to get caught on anything or ripped out. dean picks a simple, stainless steel piece with a lapis lazuli setting– blue for his husband (though if you asked him he would deny that’s why he chose it. but only at first).

he can’t believe how jittery he is about the whole thing, but this time claire holds his hand. it’s over before it’s begun and he thought it might be painful like the tattoo was, or like any of the number of painful little things that have happened to him over the years but it’s not, it mostly just feels strange. it’s nice to be surprised like that.

dean hops off the bench like claire did and goes to the mirror half expecting to hate what he sees. but he’s surprised for the second time in barely a minute. the glint of the metal in his ear doesn’t just look good, it looks right. like it was meant to be there and he had been awaiting it’s arrival but didn’t know it. something hard to name, something small, something he didn’t know was missing until he found it had just found its way to him, slotted into place and settled in his ribs. he feels quieter but also on fire– like he’d be satisfied to just sit and read a book, like he could face god and win (again).

from behind him claire asks, “like it?”

he smiles. “love it.”

––

they kick around for a little while longer, each of them forgetting about their new piercings until they catch sight of the other’s or until they catch their reflection in a shop window and take a second to admire the newness. eventually claire begrudgingly admits she has to get back to campus to get some work done. dean drops her off at her dorm with a hug and a “stay out of trouble”.

dean makes the drive home to cas, just lost enough in happy thoughts and memories from the day that he forgets to put on any music until he’s already half way home.

he gets to the house and finds cas watering the plants in the living room. he leans in the doorframe, watching his love gently tend to each plant in turn. dean doesn’t say anything, he knows cas knows he’s there and will greet him when he’s finished seeing to his darlings. in the meantime dean gets to delight in the sight of the curve of cas’ back as he bends this way and that to reach the plants, the delicate and reverent care he shows each leaf and vine.

cas finishes his routine, sets the water down and turns to greet dean. he freezes half way to saying hello because something is.. something.. something is... he can’t put a name to it, nothing is wrong but dean is.. shifted. not different.. but different. dean is holding his head oddly turned to the side and it doesn’t help either that dean is smiling around a secret and they both know it. cas narrows his eyes but brushes off the feeling long enough to cross the room and give dean a kiss, quick but whole and familiar. dean turns his head to look at a plant and ask a question about it and “accidentally” reveal his new addition. cas, who hasn’t taken a single step backwards since coming over to kiss dean, of course sees the jewelry immediately and exclaims before dean even has a chance to start his made-up question.

after some very amusing joke-yelling from both sides, it’s revealed that cas just absolutely loves it. and not that dean was worried cas would hate it but dean was a little worried cas would hate it. or worse, that he would judge it. but cas loves that dean tried something new, loves that he chose something blue, loves that dean seems just that little bit more at home in himself. and from the slight blush in his cheeks and ears, dean can tell cas thinks it’s a little bit sexy too.

––

dean keeps thinking about how much he liked getting a piercing. he gets it on a fundamental level now, gets claire and her array of silver and gold. he’s got the taste for it now, the itch. he’s thinking about going back for another one. or two. but what else, what next? he cheekily wonders about picking based on what would drive cas wild.

...dean goes back in secret a month and a half later to get his nips pierced. it doesn’t stay secret for long. not from cas, at least.

#dean winchester #claire novak #dad dean #bi dean #destiel fanfic #destiel #retired dean #supernatural #spn fic #spn fluff #finale fix it #saileen mention #dean can have a little gender euphoria as a treat #gay angel but make him more jewish #1.7k words #ok maybe i need to follow more spn blogs i only have like 5 rn #anyone wanna guess how many piercings i have based solely on reading this fic lmao #fern posting

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darker-soft-starker · 4 years

Photo

Starker High School AU Pt. 6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

---

tw: general howard stark warning

---

There is a buzzing by his ear.

At first, Tony doesn’t really notice it, waking up in short increments before being pulled back under. But he keeps waking, unsure what keeps tugging him out of his dreams, hand flapping around his face as he tries to stop the incessant ringing.

“Blergh,” he mumbles into his pillow.

Batting his hand around to quell the source of annoyance, he comes to grip his phone, squinting as it lights up inches away from his face and vibrates against his palm. For a second he thinks it’s his alarm, but then he remembers that he didn’t set one. It’s a succession of text notifications cascading down his screen that alerts him out of the slope of slumber with a start.

The only time his phone goes off like this is an emergency. The first thing he registers is that it’s only eight-minutes after seven. He blinks, sight clearing from the sleep wedged in his eye as he reads the flurry of still-incoming texts.

> so thanks for last night > yknow > for the ride > i mean > you know what i mean > anyway > so that folder i gave you had my BIO notes, not econ > im such a doofus > i need them back > don’t bother looking at them lol > can we meet up?

Tony groans, eyelids heavy as anvils. Jesus christ. He didn’t get home until four after dropping this guy off and he’s already up and bothering him? What gives?

Exhausted and annoyed, he tucks his phone under his pillow and sets it on do-not-disturb for extra measure. There ain’t no way he’s getting up at seven on a Saturday for fucking class notes. Prick.

In his opinion, he’s filled his quote of good deeds for the month and he doesn’t need to be up for another few hours. Whatever it is, he thinks, snuggling into his pillow, he’s sure it can wait.

---

The next time he wakes it’s just after nine. There’s a gap in his curtains allowing a sharp shard of sunlight into the room where it directly pierces into his eyelids.

He groans tiredly into the drool patch on his pillow, willing sleep to come back to him, turning on his other side, gripping the edges of the quilt and tightening it around himself until he is firmly cocooned within it. It’s nice and warm, and sleep is such a rare commodity to him so it’s novel to bask in its dregs. But there isn’t any more sleep to come he’s quick to realize, giving up after a few minutes and blinking up at the ceiling.

Nine is practically six. It’s criminal to be up this early.

There’s an unusual flurry of texts on his phone, some from Rhodey, but most of them are from Parker, an endless ladder of increasing franticness.

Tony tosses his phone to the end of his bed carelessly.

It’s been literally less than twelve hours since he’s had to deal with the shithead. Surely whatever was lodged up his ass couldn’t possibly be as important as Tony ignoring him.

Swinging his legs off the bed, he stands and stretches his arms up high, fingers curling. The stretch feels good and he takes a quick sniff of his armpits to gauge if he can forego a shower for the third day in a row.

The stench is wicked. It’s possible that he’s overdue.

He strips off as he heads towards the adjacent bathroom, naked and nursing a semi.

He can’t help but shudder as his back meets the cold tiles, the intuitive shower head following his body with a mechanical whir, miscalculating its aim and spraying him in the face.

Ah. That will need to be recalibrated, he notes.

But, he can’t say he really minds, tolerating the spray, even as it hits his mouth like a fire hose. He ducks his head to wet his hair, reaching blindly for the touchpad to dial down the pressure. Once the water is to his liking he reaches down to take himself in hand, leisurely stroking himself.

It’s just a perfunctory part of his morning ritual; he doesn’t really have anyone in mind as he brings himself to full hardness, just the fleeting memory of lips around his cock, the next of a well rounded ass, not feeling particularly creative.

Okay, so maybe he pictures some big, brown eyes and dark hair he can run his fingers through. And maybe he goes off like a rocket. That’s his business.

Anyway, once he’s out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, he inspects his appearance in the mirror. The bruises on his face are still pretty gruesome, deep purple and beginning to yellow around the edges. The cut on his lip seems to be well and truly scabby.

Turning to the side, Tony takes observation of his overall torso region; his stomach is not as defined as he’d like it to be - probably due to his affinity for carbs and sweets, if he’s honest. Between a few fingers he can pinch the skin and pull it a little -- and look, he’s a bit soft around the middle, but he lifts, alright. Maybe he isn’t exactly steel cut like the dudebros on the football team who have made being ripped their life mission, but he has musculature under the adipose.

Is he a little self-conscious about it? Sure. Is he worried about it enough to give up garlic bread and cronuts? No. Especially when he spots a new chest hair nestled comfortably between his pecs.

Probably a bit too proud of himself because of a singular piece of hair, Tony gets dressed in a pair of jeans that have seen better days, speckled with singe marks and thinning at the knees and a singlet, slinging on his leather jacket for the finishing touch.

He almost forgets the bot.

“Look at you,” he says, to the mangled mess of metal on his desk. Scooping the injured, beeping bot Tony stuffs it into his backpack. “Come here, darling. Shh, you’re okay.”

Peering both ways out of the hall to ensure the coast is clear, he quickly descends the stairs, shushing the bot the whole way.

On the ground floor, he pauses when he hears voices coming from his father’s office. It takes a second to recognise the voices, his father and Stane arguing over one another, loudly, then softly. He tries to listen in, catching somewhat audible hisses about the company finance officer.

Careful to avoid the floorboards that squeak he tiptoes to the kitchen to pocket a few muesli bars and a water bottle from the fridge.

The voices get progressively louder as he sneaks to the front door, silently saluting their maid as he passes. She waves back at him, offering a sympathetic smile as he goes out the door.

His heart pounds as he reaches his car, parked around the corner street.

“Alright, baby,” he grins, revving the engine. “Let’s go.”

---

“The fuck?”

It’s hard to be sure, but perhaps Rhodey doesn’t expect Tony’s unannounced arrival at his front door. Not if the furious scowl and bunny slippers on his feet are anything to go by.

Nonetheless, he slips past the front door, welcoming himself into his friends home, despite the exasperated outcry of for fucks sake Tony, it’s Saturday and it’s not even noon, can’t you call ahead?

No, he can’t call. Well, actually, he reconsiders, heading down the hall to the basement, his friends footsteps echoing behind him, he probably could, but it wouldn’t make anyone less mad at him, so what’s the point?

Besides, judging by the empty driveway and barren living room, Rhodey’s family is already out, he’s not sure what the issue is.

“The issue is I am tired, man,” his friend complains, following him down the stairs. “What are you doing here?”

“Me too, honeybear, freakin’ exhausted,” Tony mutters, skipping down the stairs. “Go back to bed. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

“Oh sure, and let you solder your fingers together again. Nah. Not taking the fall for that.”

“I’m not going to solder my fingers together. I’m a pro.”

“Unless you need me to remind you of last summer,” Rhodey takes a seat at the workbench, “I suggest you shut up.”

“You’re rude, you know that?” Tony asks, retrieving the bot from his backpack and setting it upon the bench. “I’ll have you know that I’ve learned since then.”

“And yet you still refuse to wear gloves,” his friend sighs, settling heavily upon the adjacent chair. There’s a comfortable quiet between them while Tony works, carefully settling all the pieces onto the table, moving each with care.

It’s hard to miss the weight of observation on the back of his neck, but he lets his friend drink his fill before he’s ready to speak.

“You fuck up something?” He points to the bot.

Tony shakes his head, pressing the solder into the circuit board. “No. Well, yes. The coding is perfect, as usual, but this idiot isn’t any smarter than a Roomba. He’s meant to be smarter.”

“So?

“He is smarter. I dunno, sometimes he messes up,” Tony mumbles, reaching blindly for the bent-nose pliers before Rhodey places it in his hand. “He’s not bad, just dumb. It’s not his fault.”

“And again, what happened? Did you run him over?”

“No, the old man got sick of me playing with ‘toys’. Dumb-dumb here met the wall in a very dramatic fashion. It was an Oscar-worthy performance.”

There’s a sigh from behind him.

“Does that explain your face?”

Tony glances behind him and smirks.

“You mean my dashing good looks?”

“Tony.”

“Honestly? I got into a fight with a feral racoon that ran off with some old lady’s purse. It nearly cost me an eye, but I saved the day. She called me a hero, gave me some stale crackers from her purse and then gave me her number.”

“Tony.”

“Fine. I was skateboarding. I was in the middle of executing a super complicated kickflip but lost control when an enlarged gutter rat scurried in front of me. I flew headfirst into the gravel. Very embarrassing. That work?”

“Tony.”

“Look, just leave it will ya? God, you’re like a nagging wife. Pick whichever story makes you feel all nice and fuzzy inside.”

Rhodey is suddenly before him, waving something in his face. “Your phone, jackass. Your better half is calling?”

Huh?

Tony blinks, gently setting down the pliers and the chip he’d removed, taking his phone. It vibrates, Your Better Half flashing across the screen.

“Parker, ugh.”

He really should have changed the contact name by now, he thinks, swiping to answer.

“Alcoholics Anonymous,” Tony answers by way of greeting. “How may I direct your call?”

“Ha ha, very funny, asshole. So you are awake. I’ve been trying to contact you all morning.”

“I know. I’m beginning to think you actually might have separation issues,” Tony says. “I just got rid of you like eight hours ago.”

“I’m calling about the folder. Didn’t you read my texts?“

“Oh, I read them,” Tony settles back on the stool and continues to work on the main circuit. “See, I was just ignoring you. Hoping you’d take the hint, but I forget subtlety is lost on you.”

“Look, I need my notes. Can we meet up?”

“Right, for Bio,” Tony rolls his eyes. “Can’t it wait until Monday?”

“No. I, uh -- I have a test first period. I need to study for it.”

“Uh-huh. Just remember, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. You’ll be fine.”

“I take AP Bio, asswipe, I’m aware of that. Can I just get it back, please?”

“You take AP Bio? Was that an admin error or something?” he asks, holding the chip he’d retrieved earlier up to the light to inspect for any damage.

It looks to be ok. The damage to the bot overall seems to be mostly cosmetic, couple of scratches, a few dents. Nothing that a few replacement panels wont fix. Whatever he hasn’t already got stored here Rhodey will surely have spare parts, it’ll be fine. God, what would he do if his friend didn’t lovingly tolerate Tony using his space for storage and barging in whenever he lucks. It’s lucky Rhode’s parents are so chill though, unlike his own. He may be a hot-head but he’s practically a saint compared to -

“ - hello? Are you still there? I can hear you breathing.”

Tony blinks. “Right. Your notes. Look, I’m kinda busy. I have a life outside of you and I don’t actually care about your academic integrity, so, you’re gonna have to wait.”

“For how long?”

“I’ll drop them off this evening, like six-ish. Hey, maybe we could do that interview with May if she’ll be around.”

“...I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“C’mon, I already told you I’m not actually hot for your aunt. I’ll be professional.”

Rhodey shoots him a bewildered look.

“That’s not what -- look, whatever. Just don’t be late okay. I have a life outside of you too.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. I’ll try and not get in the way of your weekend plans of crying while you masturbate.”

“I literally hate you.”

“And yet you aren’t denying the crying. Anyway, I have to go now, try to clean yourself up before I get there. See you at six, bubby,” he hangs up, cracking his neck before refocusing on his mangled creation. “Now where were we?”

“What the fuck.”

Tony pauses, pliers in hand. There is a particular expression on Rhodey’s face erring on the side of confused and haunted.

“What?”

“’Bubby’?”

“Don’t say it like that - it’s like an inside thing. Don’t repeat it to him, alright, he’ll get pissy. And then I’ll get pissy.”

“You know it’s just a project, right? You two aren’t actually married.”

“Thank god. Could you imagine being married to that guy?” Tony shudders. “Scary.”

“Two weeks ago you said he was the bane of your existence. Now you have ‘inside things’ with him? You saw him last night?”

He sighs, shoulders dropping. Yeah, he doesn’t really have a good explanation for any of that.

The thing about himself, Tony’s found over time and trial, is that he really, really likes to press buttons. He likes to test variables, wants to see what would happen if he did something he wasn’t supposed to, and map out the world as it occurs in motion around him. Curiosity means he likes to test the parameters, to see what can yield, what will bite back.

More often than not that kind of impulsive brand of curiosity has gotten him in some sort of trouble. Turns out not everything and everyone appreciates being tested - and many things like to lash out when pressed.

Parker, Tony has found, is somebody that doesn’t yield or bite. If Tony was a betting man he’d have placed his money on the boy being more of a yielding type - but what he does is he presses buttons just as much as Tony does, buttons he didn’t even know he had to be pressed.

And that very much interests Tony.

He just doesn’t know what to do with that information, except to keep pressing.

“I’ll explain later,” Tony promises, mentally crossing his fingers. “In the meantime, can we forget about Parker and focus on my broken baby here?”

Rhodey relents, but Tony knows that look in his eye. He’ll be hearing about it later and at the most inconvenient time. And he’s gonna tell Pepper.

Wonderful.

He really should change Peter’s contact name in his phone.

---

By the time he leaves the Rhodes residence and heads to his next destination, his robot is in somewhat in working order again. It remains fairly immobile though, just until Tony can replace the damaged infrared and touch sensor. It clicks its metal claws sadly towards Tony in the passenger seat as he drives.

It’s a Roy Orbison kind of day, so the music is loud and the guitar is heavy as he makes the drive to Harlem.

And if Tony frees a hand to pat the bot on its’ metal head every so often, that’s his business.

When he reaches the other side of the city he parks in his usual space at a nearby lot and contemplates whether or not he should leave the malfunctioning bot in his car for the sake of being professional. It clicks at his jacket, weakly grasping the material as if on a plea - and damn, Tony knows the thing isn’t actually sentient but what kind of asshole would he be if he left it here for the day.

Heart squeezing with sympathy, Tony delicately places him in the backpack, leaving the zip partially open for ‘air’.

Next, snacks.

While he’s retrieving a pack (or two) of Reeses, he comes across Parker’s folder that he’d stashed there last night. Their conversation from earlier returns to the forefront of his mind.

Look, Parker might not be the knuckle-dragging, monosyllabic dumbass Tony initially suspected that he was, and yeah he was savvy as demonstrated during their trip to the rental market - and yeah, definitely smarter than his social circle would suggest, and is absolutely and a source of constant surprise to Tony - but is he AP Bio - or AP anything material?

Time to find out.

The first thing that Tony notices is that the notes are definitely not for Bio. They’re for Econ, as initially prescribed.

The second thing he notices, as he flicks through the papers, skimming over the complicated graphs and annotated research, is that what he’s reading is actually good.

Well, I’ll be darned, Tony thinks, eyes getting progressively wider as he flicks through the pages. Not bad at all.

Makes him wonder why Parker thought he was missing his Bio notes though.

The answer to that becomes clear when a crumpled envelope falls out of the stack onto Tony’s lap. He picks it up, at first thinking it’s a part of the research, but pauses. It’s open and it’s addressed to May Parker.

“Um,” he says.

It’s from Queens Presbyterian Hospital, which should make him drop it as if it were burning. It doesn’t, though. Either it’s meant to be included in the folder, or it’s not and that’s why Parker has been acting like a crazy-ex all morning.

Hmm. Tony sits there, torn, debating whether or not to look into it, the overdue stamp standing out against the crisp paper like a warning sign. On one hand, he’s running kinda late and, y’know, privacy or whatever -- on the other, his fingers are already itching to know what’s in it.

Mind your own business, he can already hear Rhodey saying, mind your own business, Tony.

Curiosity and a distinct lack of a moral compass wins, as always. Just a quick peek, that should be okay, right? The envelope is already open anyway, so, it’s not like anyone will be able to tell.

God, this is none of my business, he tells himself, even as he’s retrieving the letter from within and starts reading it.

Oh.

Tony quickly stashes the letter back into the envelope and back into the folder. Yep, definitely none of his business.

Yeah, he really shouldn’t have done that. Big fucking yikes on his behalf. And yep, there’s the guilt -- or at least he thinks the stomach churning is guilt, it could be the stale muesli bar he ate on the way.

Nonetheless, it hangs over him like a dark cloud as he picks up his backpack and heads out to the garage across the road. What kind of asshole looks into someone’s mail because they can’t help themselves. This dick, that’s who.

Fixing a grin he doesn’t really feel, he heads to the back office. He knocks on the window, ducking his head into the open door.

“Yo,” he waves to the man sitting behind the desk. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Hey kid,” the man looks up, smiling before his face drops. “Tony, your face. What happened?”

“This? It’s nothing --”

“-- is that why you couldn’t come to work yesterday? Not that I mind,” the man stands up. “Are you okay? Was it --”

“-- Was it nothing to worry about? Absolutely,” Tony holds his hands up in surrender. “Just an unfortunate encounter with a wild, feral squirrel in Central Park. I tell you, they’re deceivingly cute, but they’re pests. Totally out of control.”

“Tony.”

“Jarvis,” he interrupts, gesturing to the cars in the garage behind him. “C’mon. Look, let’s get to work, okay? Save the violins for later.”

And by later he means never.

The man sighs, world-weary, looking at him like he knows exactly what he’s thinking. At first he’s certain his boss is going to push the issue, but it must be a day for dodging bullets because he relents.

“Alright, kid. I got a ninety-four Ford sedan back there with your name on it. Busted fan belt, overheated engine. Probably needs a new set of spark plugs while you’re at it.”

With a grateful nod, Tony heads back, locating the vehicle in question. It’s rusted to all hell and probably not worth the cost of repair, but he gets stuck into it anyway, keen for a distraction. He sets his bag and bot down near him while Jarvis blasts Alice Cooper’s Poison.

Tony might not have all the answers to life’s problems, but this is something he knows how to fix.

---

He probably distracts himself a little too well, because by the time he’s wrapped up with the Ford it’s already five-thirty and he’s a mess of engine oil and coolant.

It’s only when Jarvis squeezes his shoulder and points to the clock on the far wall does he realise that he’s lost his sense of time. How the fuck is he supposed to clean up and get all the way from Harlem to Queens at this time of night?

“Ah, crap,” Tony mutters, setting down his socket-wrench in his toolbox. “I’m late.”

“Late for what? You got a hot date or something?” Jarvis asks, stepping back to give him some room as he rushes to the staff bathroom.

“What, no,” He calls back, running the faucet and pumping soap over his hands. “I gotta go see about a guy.” He struggles to hear his boss over the running water but he doesn’t have time to stop and figure it out.

“From school?”

“Yes, and a prime pain in my ass,” Tony mutters, drying his hands on his jeans, walking back into the garage. “Anyway, see you Monday, chief?”

His boss nods, passing Tony his earnings for the week in cash. Tony should have known to dash and run because he starts hearing the proverbial violins when Jarvis clamps a hand on his shoulder, squeezing in a way that is more paternal than Tony is comfortable with.

“You know you can call me, you have my number. You come up and see me and the missus whenever you want.”

Tony fake snores.

“Jarvis.”

“We have a spare room,” he insists, shrugging sheepishly and stepping back. “It’s yours at any time.”

“I see you enough, okay, don’t push it. I’ll see you Monday,” Tony draws him into a one-armed hug and claps him on the back. “Don’t you worry about me.”

“Don’t make me worry.”

“No promises,” Tony salutes, slinging his backpack on shoulder and walking backwards out of the garage to the street. “Hug the missus for me.”

Jarvis salutes back.

With that he sprints across the street when there’s a gap in traffic, bot snapping gently at his hair as he runs.

Sweaty and sore, he is full of energy, a sense of accomplishment coursing through his blood, like an afternoon of work can only provide. He should fire off a text, he thinks, as he starts the ignition and heads out onto the road, yeah. Let Parker know he will be late.

And he does genuinely mean to send a message at the next traffic stop, but then Queen starts playing on the radio and Tony isn’t a fool, okay, he turns that up loud.

Next traffic stop, he promises himself.

---

“I’m beginning to think you can’t read the time,” Parker opens the door with a scowl. “You said six.”

Wincing in the hallway, Tony looks at his phone. Six-fifty-nine. It’s not totally his fault, okay. There was a pile up along the way and traffic was a nightmare of ridiculous proportions. He swears he’s gonna be the first person to invent a commercially viable flying car just for the sake of personally avoiding road congestion.

“Yeah, so. Here’s the thing: I had things to do, okay, priorities --”

“You and your priorities, I swear to god --”

“Here,” Tony cuts him off, passing him his folder, letter neatly inside where it isn’t going to obviously slip out. “Your folder, dumbass.”

Peter grips it, holding it to his chest as he stares at Tony for a moment, before passing it to the nearest flat surface, a weathered and small table that holds their keys.

“Okay, thanks,” Peter nods, smiling grimly, looking behind his shoulder. “Appreciate it. You can go now.”

“So where are the Econ notes,” Tony blurts, wincing as he plays dumb. “I mean, if you had something prepared.”

Peter blinks, surprised. “Oh, uh. Um, It can wait until Monday, can’t it?”

“The assignment is due Wednesday.”

“Right. Um, just give me a sec --”

“Is that Tony?”

May appears behind Peter, smiling brightly. Tony waves, rocking back on his feet.

“Hey, Missus Parker.”

“Hey there, handsome,” she hip-checks her nephew, joining him in the doorway and glancing between the two. “You didn’t mention we were having company tonight, Pete.”

“He’s not handsome and he’s not staying --”

“-- I was just dropping something off,” he looks to Peter. “And excuse you, the lady has spoken and I have to agree. I am handsome. Some might even say that I’m debonair.”

“And some might say that you’re deplorable.”

“Hmm, I think you mean adorable.”

That prompts a smile out of Peter. He crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his chin up, all haughty.

“Tony Stark, you are many things, but adorable isn’t one of them.”

He leans in, pouting playfully. “Oh come on, Parker. I’m a little cute, aren’t I?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“Uh, let me check,” Peter pauses before smiling sardonically. “Verdicts in - jury says you’re one-hundred-percent despicable. Sorry.”

"I’m sure I could sway the jury.”

“I think you mean you could pay the jury.”

Tony nods, pretending to be serious. “Well, yeah. You know, for consensus.”

Peter licks his lips, shifting closer.

“Consensus is important...”

“...Well, if you two are done,” May says after an extended period of silence, tying her hair back into a ponytail. “We were just about to head out to a Thai place around the corner. Tony, you should join us.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I should go --”

The rest of his words are cut off by a truly monstrous growl of his stomach. He winces, scrunching up his nose sheepishly. He probably should have eaten more than Reeses all afternoon.

“Well, I guess that settles that,” May says, stepping out of the doorway and beckoning Tony in. “Come in. Sorry about the mess.”

It’s with Peter still staring at him that he reluctantly enters their apartment, brushing past the other boy. It looks the same as it did the other week, mostly tidy and smelling like incense. There’s a sizeable stack of unfolded laundry on the dining table, however, that wasn’t there before.

Tony’s distracted by a pair of dancing-bulbasaur boxers sticking out of the pile when May leans in close to sniff at his hair.

“You’ve got something in your hair, honey. Is that paint?”

He runs his fingers through his hair, palm coming back streaked with green. “Oh, uh, radiator fluid,” he explains, holding up his hand.

“Can I ask what you did to your face?”

“I saved a homeless guy and his beef-sandwich from a pack of rabid, angry dogs. No need to call me a hero.”

May looks at him oddly. “Oh, well, if you say so. Go get yourself washed up and we can head out.”

The burn of Peter’s stare follows him all the way to their bathroom.

---

The meal is less awkward than Tony thought it would be.

Well, for him at least.

Over larb and khao pad they’d gotten through an informal interview with May about her experience as a caregiver with a single income. Not only was it informative for his own future financial independence, but she has been generous enough to speckle in colorful anecdotes of her nephew’s upbringing. Parker’s face has been getting progressively redder all night and it has nothing to do with the spice in his food.

Tony has enjoyed the evening thoroughly.

“ - and of course, we were lucky we hadn’t decided to go cheap on the health insurance. Especially when Pete here broke his wrist at gymnastics when he was eight.”

Tony barely holds back a snort.

“You did gymnastics, Parker?”

Peter tips his head back to stare at the ceiling and sighs. The flush seems to be creeping down his neck too, Tony observes gleefully. He stuffs a large mouthful of rice in his mouth to mitigate the urge to tease.

"Yes, he was very good, weren’t you, Pete? So talented, you should see his medals.”

“Stop, please.”

“C’mon, no need to be embarrassed, Pete, you were amazing,” she says. “You’re still a flexible little bug, aren’t you?”

Tony chokes on his rice.

Peter has his eyes squeezed shut and looks like he wants the earth to swallow him whole.

“May, I’m literally begging you.”

“Uh,” he beats at his chest with his fist, swallowing roughly. “So how long did you do that for?”

“Until I was fourteen.”

“Why’d you quit?”

There’s a very deliberate, weighted pause. May and Peter share a look between them and Tony gets a deeply uncomfortable sense that he’s just stuck his foot in it. Retract, he thinks, already regretting opening his mouth.

“Well,” May clears her throat, her tone light. “After my husband, Pete’s uncle Ben died, we moved away and we had to make some... financial cuts at the time.”

The bite he’s just taken goes to ash in his mouth. God, he really is a big idiot isn’t he. He’d assumed that May never got married to the man in the photos or that they’d just divorced, he didn’t realise that he’d passed - and so recently, too. Welling up with shame, he can’t stop himself from glancing at Peter, who’s staring at the table, lips pursed.

“Oh,” he clears his throat. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to - I didn’t know. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” May waves her hand dismissively, but her smile is strained. “Anyway, what about you, Tony? You’re severely asthmatic, right? That must have been hard, growing up if you wanted to play sports.”

Tony’s eyes widen.

“Yes, um, so hard. Luckily I’m not really an exercise-y kinda guy. I personally prefer to keep a heart rate below eighty beats per minute.”

“Did you have any hobbies growing up?”

“Yeah, driving my parents crazy,” Tony says, glad for the shift from the somber topic. “Escaping from nannies, seeing how quickly I could get them to quit.”

“You like tinkering,” Peter says quietly, looking up. “You mentioned, before. Cars and stuff.”

He shrugs, starting to feel as if he’s under the microscope, especially when Peter looks at him, eyes glittering with thinly-veiled interest.

“I mean, I don’t know. I like - building stuff, I guess. Machines and robots, y’know, cars. It’s like, whatever.”

“You want to be the next Elon Musk or somethin’?” Peter asks, not unkindly, resting his chin on his hand.

“Nah, I wanna be the first Tony Stark,” he scratches his cheek, suddenly bashful. It’s an uncommon feeling for him. One hard to avoid, however, particularly when there is a boy who Tony doesn’t really hate who’s asking about his life like it might matter.

He clears his throat. “Anyway, mostly it was just me cataloguing all the ways I could make the vein in my fathers’ head pop. I’m still working on that.”

May looks between them, smiling.

“Sounds like you were a handful.”

“Sure was.”

Still is, apparently, no matter how much he tries to stay out of the way.

The silence that follows is punctuated by the sounds of cutlery scraping across plates, of shrinking ice cubes rattling against glass. It feels pensive at the same time as it does thorny, like Tony opened the door to let someone in but accidentally let out a few ghouls.

And despite knowing he’d stepped on a landmine with the Parkers, he can’t help but wonder what other pieces of the puzzle he’s missing. Why Peter doesn’t live with his parents. Not that Tony is invested in him or anything.

He just doesn’t like mysteries, that’s all.

May excuses herself after to head to the bathroom not long after. It’s during that time that the waiter brings the check, which Tony takes immediately, slipping in some of the cash he’d gotten earlier, despite Peter’s protests. He was gonna do it anyway, even if he didn’t have the letter in the back of his mind.

“Stop paying for me,” Peter says after he passes the check-book back to the waiter. “Your family is rich, I get it. I’ve told you, I don’t need your charity.”

Tony shakes his head. It’s not worth mentioning that the only money he spends doesn’t come from his family.

“It’s not charity. Do you really think I’m that nice, eh? C’mon. Maybe I like lording it over you.”

“Well, at some point I’m going to pay you back.”

“And when that time comes I’m not going to accept your money.”

“You will,” Peter smiles wryly down at his plate. “I have my ways.”

“As do I, sweetums. Now, do me a favour: shut up and finish your larb.”

Peter does, but something about him shifts. It seems more quiet and contemplative, his eyes staying longer on Tony than they normally would. He wants to tell him to take a picture, but for once, Tony thinks it’s probably best if he keeps his mouth shut.

---

Back at the apartment, Peter goes to retrieve his ‘Econ notes’, taking the folder from the table and retreating to his bedroom. In the interim, May offers to let Tony stay over, inviting him for what he’s sure would be a rousing game of Mario Kart.

He politely declines.

“You sure? Winner gets to choose a movie.”

“I should really get home,” he says. “Thanks though. And thanks for dinner.”

“No problem. Thank you for paying, you didn’t have to do that. Let me pay you back.”

“No need. Think of it as payment for your services and letting us pick your brain tonight.”

She reluctantly accepts with a lot less pride than what her nephew displayed and that makes Tony feel a little sick, because it’s evident that she’s a proud and stubborn woman by nature. Her acceptance, albeit laboured, speaks volumes as to the reasoning behind it.

What takes him by surprise is when she hugs him goodbye and kisses his cheek.

“You’re a good egg, Anthony. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

It’s probably the most maternal touch he’s had since, well. Probably since he last went to stay with Jarvis and his wife. Fidgeting in the hold, he’s not sure if he wants to squirm or to sink into it.

May leaves when Peter comes back in, a familiar stack of notes in his hands that he passes to Tony.

“You gonna kiss me goodbye, too?”

“What?” Peter blinks.

"Uh, never mind,” Tony waves the papers at him. “Thanks for this.”

Peter looks around to make sure they’re alone before leaning in rather promptly.

“Wow, hold up on the proximity there,” Tony inches back, startled by their sudden closeness. “I was joking about the kiss --”

“You read the letter, didn’t you,” Peter whisper-hisses.

“What? Letter? What letter?” Tony says, voice strangled. “I don’t know of any letter.”

He gets a painful poke in his chest for his lies.

“Don’t play dumb. It wasn’t where I left it.”

“I’m not -- ow, quit poking me.”

“Then stop lying. You’re unbelievable -- don’t you know that opening someone else’s mail is a crime?”

Tony’s shoulders slump as he concedes.

“Look, it was an accident, it just slipped out. And also, it’s not technically a crime, if the envelope was already open.”

“Oh and the letter magically opened itself and forced you to read it.”

“That could be argued.”

“Why couldn’t you mind your own business?“

Sick of being poked, he shoves the papers between his arm and his ribs to hold them and takes Peter’s fingers in his hands, squeezing the digits when they struggle to break free of his hold.

“I should have, I admit it - I didn’t think, okay, I’m sorry. Is she okay?”

Peter stops struggling, looking over his shoulder again.

“I don’t know,” he leans in again to whisper, “I only found it yesterday, I haven’t spoken to her yet. Look, I know you hate me, but can you please not tell anyone about this?”

“Why would I tell anyone?”

“I don’t know, because you’re the devil, and you get a kick out of seeing me suffer?”

“True, but I’m not going to tell anyone. Promise. That would make me look like an asshole and you like a martyr. Ergo, I shut my cake hole and continue looking better than you.”

“You’re a real prince charming,” the other boy huffs, but seems to take him at face value. “If I find out differently I’m going to come after you. You’re going to need dental work afterwards.”

Tony lets go of their joined hands, balling his fists and raising them to his face, mimicking what the other boy had done last night.

“You wanna tousle, huh?”

He gets a light shove out the doorway for his attitude.

“Alright, smartass. Get the fuck outta here already.”

“Going, going. Goodnight, princess.”

He mock bows, peering up under his eyelashes, momentarily arrested as he watches Parker roll his eyes and bite his bottom lip in an attempt to smother a smile.

His heart continues to beat a bit oddly all the way down to the car, where he sits in contemplative silence for a few moments until the sound of metal clicking shifts him out of his thoughts.

“Oh, hey you,” he coos, gently retrieving his bot from his bag and placing it in the passenger seat, instantly feeling bad. “I didn’t think I would take so long. I’m sorry.”

Placing a seatbelt over the bot and buckling him in, Tony begins to narrate his night to him as he pulls off the curb and begins driving.

“I guess that Parker isn’t so bad,” he tells the bot, who swivels its head in response to his voice. “I mean, he can’t dress for shit and has questionable tastes in friends - oh, and cannot hold his liquor - but I dunno, baby-bot. He’s okay. Don’t tell anyone I said that, though -- and oh my god, did I mention he did gymnastics, what a fucking dork...”

The thoughts churn and buoy him until he pulls up to his house nearly an hour later. From the driveway he can see his fathers office light still on.

The sight of it makes his stomach drop, all good cheer gone in an instant.

“Damn,” Tony whispers to himself, tapping his knuckles against the steering wheel. This time of night on a Saturday can only mean one thing and he is really not in the mood to be in the crosshairs of whatever his father and Stane are up to.

But before he can work himself into a worry his phone vibrates in his pocket.

> hey, look, thanks for not being a total dick tonight about everything > and last night as well, I guess > yknow what i mean < ur welcome < by the way, i’m proud of you > for what < not finishing off ur aunts beer tonight < takes strength < asking for help is the first step > omfg i take back what i said > ur the worst < and ur a pain in my ass > they have creams for that u know > anyway, g’nite, butthole > p.s. you’re still not adorable Tony smiles down at his phone. < goodnight bambi The bot clicks at him, breaking him out of his train of thought.

“Don’t look at me like that. Let’s go in, but you gotta keep quiet, okay.”

He manages to avoid detection and attention from anyone, despite accidentally stepping on a squeaky floorboard. Maybe it had something to do with the record player and raucous laughter coming from the office.

In any case, Tony’s just happy to make it back to his bedroom. There, he toes off his sneakers and starts getting ready for bed, stashing the leftover cash into a drawer.

It makes him think about Peter’s reluctance for Tony to pay for over the last couple of instances, and how freaking annoying that is. And rude.

Honestly, the dude should count himself as one of the lucky guys - Tony is not that magnanimous. He doesn’t experience an impulsive, unthinking eagerness to provide for just anybody.

Oh.

Tony stills in the middle of his bedroom.

Oh no.

He knows what this is.

“This is bad.”

---

tagging: @bylerboyfriends @ravens-starker-stuff, @starker-rays, @ironspiderstarker, @muse-of-gods, @notfor-temporaryuse, @tabbycat1220, @sugarfreecult, @rebel13lion39, @plueschpop, @spideravocados, @jellybbunny, @booktrashme, @elfkido, @mycatislickingmybedsheets, @queerghostboyo, @disneyprincessdominatrix, @cherrygoldlove @starkerflowers @starkeristheendgame @thewolffearsher @starkersugar , @starkerforlife6969, @css1992, @parkerrbitch, @fuckmemrstark, @blankblankityblank, @ilovemoreid, @blaquedecember, @killmylonelysoul, @notfor-temporaryuse, @arvaen

#starker #ironspider #tony stark x peter parker #high school au

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petewentzisblack1312 · 3 years

Note

hey dils!! was listening to sunshine riptide and thought of u so i wanted to say i hope ur taking care and also ask if u have any favorite fob videos/interviews?? lately i have been obsessed w the promo video patrick did for the honda civic tour where he drove around LA and said the only reason they got the tour was because he already drove a civic ahsjdbd

first of all it is SO flattering that listening to sunshine riptide made you think of me 🥺

secondly i was molded out of clay to answer this question, 100% i have a lot that i think about like way too often

the one where petes giving a tour of his parents house where he lived at the time and was showing off his stuff and was particularly very excited about the fact that his band was turned into action figures and then half way through andy shows up and is like "were best friends forever!" and petes like "yeah andy comes over for sleepovers a lot, we hang out in my basement and make zines and stuff" and then at the end he gets all excited cuz he hears his moms car pull up and he goes out and shes coming out of the car and then patrick gets out of the car carrying groceries and petes like "here mom me and patrick can put the groceries away you finish the interview" and shes like "no- pete i just got home from work im a mess" and hes like "what? no! no mom you look great, you can finish the interview well take in the groceries" and then she did and the camera crew came back to the two of them messing around and putting groceries away.

"pete wentz is honestly the only way to describe pete wentz. hes the most complicated guy i know." [cut to] "if anyone can make a strike without touching the lane i will pay you $300" *throws bowling balls straight into the air* *runs down the lane*

ok but in all seriousness i love that interview not only for that iconic moment but because later the footage is like blaring i dont care and pete goes and grabs a stuffed giraffe out of the prize thingie and hes like "what do you mean :)? we bought this with our tickets!!" and the editors are very much trying to make it a bad boy rebel without a cause moment except if you looked the woman behind the counter had a smile on her face and was laughing and then afterwards he gave it back and said "we werent really gonna steal it" but it really seemed like she knew that already

and then at a different point a couple fans showed up and they were all shy and excited to meet him and he was just like "hey are you guys coming to the show later" and they were like "yeah" and he was like "cool! thanks for coming out :) do you want a picture?" and they took a picture and it seemed like he was still kinda excited that people were excited to meet him. marcus (their bodyguard) was like trailing behind him and smiling and laughing throughout most of these antics and i just think thats sweet.

later in this same interview once again as they were on the ride back to their hotel or whatever theyd brought back a fake moustache and patrick put it on and did a bunch of dumb impressions.

patrick: if i wasnt doing music i think id be like a music critic or music journalist or something

andy:...i thought you said youd work at walmart

theres this one srar era interview thats just joe and patrick riffing for like 15 minutes. like it looks like they just straight up forgot the interviewer was there its so funny theyre such good friends.

this one joe and pete interview where i dont even really remember what they were talking about but theres a moment where joes talking about music with this intense passion and pete just kinda looks at him with this level of brotherly pride that keeps me going

this one andy and pete interview where 1) there were waterfowl chillin behind them which was deeply fascinating to andy and 2) they took a moment to swivel their chairs and hug each other bc theyre besties

band superlatives, specifically the moment where theyre all separately like "technically marcus isnt in the band but like. its marcus." bc that was sweet, unofficial 5th member of fob. and also "whos the most talented" "patrick. patrick. its patrick, hands down." "hm. petes like a really good soccer player" like thats a moment out of a fucking sitcom

halloween asmr with pete wentz. the man cant act but god can he commit to a bit.

there was this like live text chat that they all were in with fans on some radio station website. there were a lot of very fun moments, including joe saying "this is very current technology." as a comment on how very dated the live chat was and andy being like "can we set an icon i wanna change mine to an XVX" and pete and joe being like "oh are you vegan straight edge? we had no idea." and then pete was like "actually i wanna change my icon to andy hurley" and andy was like "no pete im not gonna send you a picture of me" and he was like :( and then a minute later he changed it to andy and he was like, and i swear this is almost a direct quote "BOOM! i love my life haha" and andy was like "goddammit" like i have no idea where to find this but it was so good.

theres this one "this or that" interview with joe and andy wherein the interviewer was a woman and like she seemed pretty at ease around them and got to the last question and imo seemed kinda uncomfortable and kind of established (in a way that seemed like she didnt usually do that) that it was a gross question, which was "would you have sex with a super hot celebrity but shes just died" and both of them were like "hey. what the fuck. absolutely not." and shes like "oh thats a first" and they are both like "do people say yes to that????????" and shes like "youre literally the first people to say no haha" in a way that made it seem that she did not find it funny and i just find that to be an interesting moment and i hope shes doing well and has a better producer now.

theres this one interview w andy on a hardcore podcast where the interviewer asks andy "do you every wish fall out boy were more political?" and he said (paraphrasing) "fall out boy is political, in its own way. we may not be as explicit with our politics as my other stuff, but kids find fall out boy, and through me, with all my other bands, or through joe, since he does a lot of metal, find heavier stuff, and are introduced to this stuff and to being vegan straight edge or anarchist or just more radical politics, and i dont think that just because we arent being super political in our music we arent a political band" which was really something to me bc i had just been thinking about that as a concept i call "gateway punk"

theres this one interview i recently found of a very small chicago music news outlet where a young lady interviewed pete and asked far more interesting questions than any other interviewer id ever seen and one such question was how he felt about the legalization of marijuana in illinois and he said that it was cool that it was legal but everyone locked up for it right now should be released and i like that he got to be political

theres a moment on the badass jew podcast episode joe was on where the interviewer whomst i do not recall was espousing some veiled antiblack sentiments wrt some antisemitic comments some famous black people had made and joe just completely rebutted it immediately and pointed out that black people not only are not a monolith bht are at a greater disadvantage

and also he made a joke that i could never make and cant fully get bc im not jewish but it was very funny and i love hearing people make jokes that arent for me.

this one interview before patrick had kids where he was saying how everyone kept asking him and elisa when theyd have kids and he was like "you cant just make that happen yknow? how do you just do that?" and pete immediately grinned and leaned over and mock whispered "you have sex" and patrick punched the air and was like "i hate you so much"

that one interview about abap where pete was like "we actually got the guy who did the whistles on patience by guns n roses to do it on this" and then he looks over at patrick and patrick shakes his head and petes like "you couldnt let me have this?" and he was like "i was gonna but then you looked at me and i just couldnt."

"whats the most important thing to you right now?"

patrick: star wars

joe: my daughter.

patrick: ...my son?

the puppy interview. everyone involved including the puppies was having the time of their goddamn life.

i have to stop this is too much its been like an hour

#dils declares #theyre so stupid.

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listless-brainrot · 3 years

Note

Could haru theoretically accomplish lavabending

okay i’ve technically already answered this but i think it’s pretty interesting so let me elaborate

what’s cool about lavabending is that we now have a Not LOK Example of it because of the new toph comic! so i can actually use that!

the following will basically be my very loose analysis of sorts, as well as observations and connections to be drawn between haru, tyro, and the lavabending presented in the toph comic. i won’t really be using LOK as a reference, because i want to focus more on lavabending as it applies to the atla timeline, as they’re asking about an atla character, but i do recognize and acknowledge the lok lavabenders (ghazan and bolin i believe?).

i’ll put it under a read more for people who haven’t read it yet as i’ll be including comic pages for reference but anyways! time to answer your question:

Could Haru Theoretically Accomplish Lavabending?

so to start, let me recap the comic briefly-

for those who don’t know, there’s this new character introduced in the toph’s metalbending academy comic named sun who turns out to be a lavabender.

this is important because it shows that lavabending isn’t actually as New as we thought (which is a fair assumption given that our first example of a lavabender was ghazan from lok), it’s just pretty uncommon and this kid just happens to have it, using it during underground the earthbending spats he participates in, as shown below:

[ID: a 4-paneled page from the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic, Toph’s Metalbending Academy. the first panel depicts a hand slamming against the ground, dust swirling around it with a sound effect for emphasis. the second panel depicts an earthbender, sun, wearing green and brown earth kingdom clothing, posed close to the ground, palms pressed against the ground as smoking lines of red lava begin to trail away from his hands. the third panel depicts sun in the same pose as before, standing behind a surging wave of lava loudly erupting from the blackened earth, aimed at his opponent, a man dressed in blue and brown water tribe clothing, who stands in fear with his arms raised. there is a crowd of onlookers watching the two from behind a barrier of steel boxes, all dressed in various green earth kingdom and red fire nation clothing. the fourth panel depicts sun on a red-tinted panel, bearing a focused expression as lava surrounds the outer edges of the panel, illuminating his face from below, highlighting his serious expression. his irises are tinted orange. End ID]

here, we can see one of the techniques used for lavabending- there is heavy use on being connected to the ground, though the actual bending seems to stem mostly from the hands, with the stance fueling the movement. it’s also interesting how the lava comes out in the form of a literal wave that is similar to the “earth waves” we’ve seen before, but in liquid form. though sun is touching the earth, the bending is focused on moving the earth/lava away from him.

probably because, yknow. it’s lava. you generally can’t touch lava. (also, how he hasn’t killed anyone with it, i don’t know, especially given that he apparently can’t control it)

i thought this was interesting, because we’ve seen this “wave” move before; in fact, we’ve seen this technique before:

[Image ID: three screencaps from the episode Imprisoned, from season one of Avatar: The Last Airbender. in the first screencap, four earthbenders on a metal rig, dressed in brown and grey prison uniforms, are shown raising a wall of coal, raising their arms above their head and standing on one leg. there is a pile of coal in the background, which katara is standing on. a small group of more earthbenders watch from a distance. in the second screencap, an old bearded man, tyro, is shown slamming his palms against the floor in a bent stance, one leg poised behind him while kneeling with the other. he is wearing a brown and grey prison uniform, and bears a focused expression, mouth open in mid-yell. his son, haru, who is wearing a dark green headband, as well as another earthbender, are shown standing behind him, dressed in the same prison uniform, palms facing downwards, fingers pointed inward. there are other earthbender prisoners watching in the background, standing near a pile of coal. in the third screencap, a wave of black coal quickly descends upon a group of dark red armor-clad nation guards, with pieces of coal flying off in different directions. the front line of five guards are defending themselves from the flying coal, standing with their arms raised to protect their faces. two of the guards in the back stand in firebending poses, holding a fist out while keeping one arm close to the chest. End ID]

look at tyro- he and sun’s stances are nearly identical! the palms hitting the ground, the same exact stance, the resulting chaotic wave motion of coal. this could very well be chalked up to an earthbending technique copied from the show, but it’s still important to note that tyro knows this, as it’s something directly applicable to lavabending. there is a focus on both body movement, but also hand movement especially, as evidenced by the following comic page:

[Image ID: a singular panel from the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic, Toph’s Metalbending Academy. in this panel, sun is depicted in a bent stance, standing on light brown earth with one foot behind him. he is wearing green and brown earth kingdom clothing. his arms and hands are raised, curling his fingers towards himself as he braces, closing his eyes. red and orange lava flows from the ground below him, surging out like a wave, breaking out of the lower half of the panel. the sound effect “russsh” is behind him, depicted in a similarly red and orange lava-like font, with the top half of the lettering bubbling and rising away. the lower half of the lettering is black, giving it the appearance of cracked lava rock. End ID]

this is another stance we’ve seen before, albeit not in imprisoned. it’s actually on the cover of this very comic, as toph’s standing like this. since we’re talking about haru, though, i won’t include it. but the focus is still the same- raising and pushing the earth/lava away from the user, which haru does a lot of.

my friend @the-hot-zone has already made an EXTREMELY in-depth analysis on haru’s bending style which i will link here, and i highly recommend reading it. it’s entirely supplemental to this, but it does help a lot with understanding where i’m coming from, especially when i mention earthbending and firebending styles.

because i think that, given that haru’s style is so mixed with earth and firebending styles, he could easily pick up lavabending, which is, quite literally, a mix of earth and fire. the control needed to, well control the lava, though, would probably have to be taught by a waterbender, given that lava is a liquid and moves as such, and is known to be hard to control, similar to water.

there’s actually one final point i want to make, though, and this is moreso speculation than anything, so take this at face value:

lavabending is the result of focusing on and tightly compressing earth, which generates friction, thus producing lava.

i know that there are examples of earthbenders manipulating preexisting lava (i.e. kyoshi making kyoshi island) but we see lava being generated within the earth itself, as shown by sun in the above panels. and guess who specializes in compressing earth, specifically earth away from himself?

[Image ID: a set of four screencaps from the episode Imprisoned, from season one of Avatar: The Last Airbender. the first screencap shows haru’s hand on an orange forest background. he is shown levitating two rocks, which spin over his palm. the second screencap shows haru’s hand, now closed into a fist, with sand streaming out of it. the third screencap shows the prison rig, with tyro and haru standing offscreen in front of a pile of coal, bending and compressing pieces of coal that levitate between their outstretched palms. the fourth screencap shows the same as the third screencap, but with the coal solidified into a solid, jagged rock. End ID]

haru and tyro, but mostly haru. we see him reduce solid rock to sand in one hand. we see both of them work together to turn lots of individual coal pieces into a huge solid lump of coal. we can see that they’re capable of compressing earth this way from a distance- who’s to say they can’t go farther? who knows what they can do once they get on solid ground?

so. keeping in mind that tyro uses very similar movements to sun, analyzing how sun’s lavabending technique works, knowing that haru uses similar bending movements as firebenders, and knowing that both haru and tyro specialize in bending compression and manipulating earth away from them, i propose this to answer your question:

tyro could, theoretically, be a lavabender, and there is a high possibility that he could teach lavabending to his son, haru.

i think it would be really neat if tyro was a lavabender, especially given that he’s the leader of haru’s village. they’d probably want a strong earthbender to be in charge- if he was a lavabender, then that adds more to being its protector, given that he led the resistance when the fire nation did eventually come for the village. even when they were “outnumbered ten to one”, as haru put it.

it would be a dangerous skill that the fire nation most likely hasn’t seen before, and would explain all the precautions they take with locking up the earthbenders. in fact, they send six fn guards to arrest haru, a singular earthbender- if they knew he was the son of a lavabender, or that lavabenders existed in the village, it would make sense that they would send so many just to subdue one.

furthermore, tyro teaching haru how to lavabend would be so cool, especially given the techniques haru already knows. he could utilize it in new ways that tyro’s probably never heard of or seen before, especially given that the technique is so rare. haru being able to even learn it also makes sense with this concept- tyro being able to lavabend and then his son also being able to lavabend makes sense.

i might make a separate post on this, solely because i have so many thoughts, but for now, there’s your answer.

tl;dr: yes, i think haru could, theoretically, lavabend. i also think his dad, tyro, could lavabend, and, after breaking out of prison, he would teach this ability to his son.

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kitkat1003 · 3 years

Text

On the issue of Mortality

AO3 Link

MK chose to be mortal, to be vulnerable, for the time being, and Monkey King is fine with that.

On the surface, at least. Now he has a successor, one that he likes, and he’s vulnerable????

Yeah, he’s never going to sleep easy again.

(Or, 11 chapters through season 1 about Monkey King, and anxiety his successor gives him. Who knew being a dad teacher would be so hard?)

Chapter 1: Picking a successor

(Or “Look, I’m gonna come clean. Um...I’ve been kinda watching you”)

When Sun Wukong—the Monkey King—decides he needs a successor, it isn’t an easy decision. For one, he refuses to admit why. Because that would mean confronting it all and he doesn’t want to.

He needs a successor because he wants one. Who doesn’t want to retire? It’s not like he’s spent hundreds of thousands of years in technical retirement, waiting for the Demon Bull King to return. No, he’s been...super busy. Yeah. Turning Flower Fruit Mountain into a paradise has totally taken him…forever, and, like, he’s got lots of stuff to do. He watches TV, once humans get electricity figured out. Gets a computer too, once those things start popping up. He gets a lawyer or two, yknow, keeping up with the times.

He’s...super busy. He definitely deserves a retirement.

So all that’s left is find a successor. Easy, right?

Well....

He actually starts looking when he hears whispers that the Demon Bull family is starting to get close to figuring out how to lift his staff. So about a hundred years before Demon Bull King actually escapes.

He finds a few kids he thinks might work, but nothing happens, anyway, so there’s no point in interrupting their boring normal lives for nothing. Besides, he doesn’t really see any of them with the spark of...something that he wants in his successor in any of them

He watches them grow. Child to teen to adult, he watches, and then he leaves before they get too old because he doesn’t want to see the headstones.

He doesn’t understand why they have to be human. Why they have to be mortal. Why they have to be able to die.

Why he has to watch them die.

Years and years pass. He gets lax, when looking for a successor. Lax when it comes to keeping an eye on the Demon Bull family.

He does, on occasion, watch the town where his staff is. It’s a pretty populace place, always buzzing with some sort of activity, which is both fun and boring.

One night, he watches a kid—no older than 13, he thinks, since he’s gotten used to watching humans grow and can gauge it pretty well—sprint down the street in the rain, wearing nothing but a ratty old hoodie, a shirt, shorts, torn up shoes, and a headband so dirty that even he can’t discern the original color.

There are three other figures chasing him, and he ducks into an alley as they sprint past. Monkey King watches as the kid settles down, sitting in the alley, and pulling something out from beneath his hoodie.

A puppy.

“Hey there, little guy,” the kid’s voice is soft, and he scritches the tiny pup behind the ears. “Sorry I couldn’t get your siblings, but they’d already been thrown in the lake—” the look on the kid’s face is nothing short of heartbreaking.

Monkey King has plans for the group of thugs he saw earlier, if that’s what they were doing. Humans.

“But hey, managed to save you, huh? I’ll bring you to a shelter in the morning. Someone will take you home and you’ll get loved to death.” Monkey King rolls his eyes at the saccharine display, but he wonders.

There isn’t a lot of crime in this city, with its advancements. What’s a kid doing outside this late at night?

“I’d take you home with me, but mine’s more of a hovel than a place to live. You can still see it, though! C’mon,” the kid gets up, stumbling a little, and Monkey King notices that he’s favoring one leg, that the elbow of one of the sleeve’s of his hoodie is wet.

He follows.

The kid’s house is literally a shack made of a metal sheet wedged between an alley wall. There’s a ‘bench’ that’s a slab of rock placed on top of more rocks, where a well loved sketchbook sits.

The kid sits on the bench, setting the puppy down beside him as he flips open his sketchbook.

“I’m gonna draw you, so I don’t forget, kay?” He pats the pup on the head, and then, using the smallest, most worn down pencil Monkey King has ever seen, he slowly carves out the puppy’s features, getting the soft tones of fur. He keeps squinting, but Monkey King thinks that’s because all he has is the light of the lamppost for his vision.

This kid...is pretty darn good.

Monkey King watches for way longer than he would like to admit, and then watches as the kid pulls out a very worn blanket-substitute, curling around the puppy beneath it.

He frowns, but isn’t sure what to do about it.

So he leaves, and makes sure those thugs learn a thing or two about treating animals with respect.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This kid just keeps popping up in Monkey King’s peripherals.

He likes to people watch, and the kid will just appear from nowhere. He’ll be running down the street, hanging out with this girl who looks about 3 economic classes above him. They’ll go to the arcade and play for hours, and she’ll pay for practically everything.

He decides he likes her, if she’s nice enough to do that for the kid. Plus, he feels a familiar energy coming off of her, something he trusts.

They typically end their day at a noodle shop. Pigsy’s? The kid always pays there, with coins of various sizes. The girl, when the kid isn’t looking, will slip the cook some more money. They get steaming hot bowls of ramen, harass the cook, and eventually get half chased out, laughing all the while.

“You know you can stay with me, right?” The girl says, one day, when Monkey King is people watching (read: eavesdropping on their conversation. It’s like his new favorite TV show, at this point). Kid rolls his eyes.

“Mei, c’mon, your relationship with your folks is as strained as mine! I wouldn’t want you to end up like me. Besides, I’m fine!” he insists with the grin Monkey King has grown accustomed to seeing on Kid’s face.

The information Monkey King gains from those two sentences is certainly something, and he ponders on Mei, the girl who spends her days as far away from home as possible.

Mei frowns.

“You still won’t show me where you’re staying. Or explain why your clothes are all torn up!” She pokes him in the chest, and the Kid shrugs.

“Cause you wouldn’t like either of those things! I can take care of myself! Promise.” He rocks back and forth on his feet, all smiles.

Mei fixes him with a glare, before she sighs, relenting. “Fine. But, if you won’t take my hospitality, you get my undying loyalty and free stuff!” She whips out a brand new red winter coat.

Kid takes it slowly.

“It’s getting colder out!” She explains. “And red just isn’t my color, you know?”

Kid slowly pulls the jacket against his chest, like he doesn’t know what to do with it, and then he smiles. This one is smaller. Less performative. Monkey King didn’t realize that he’d been watching the kid to be able to tell the difference, but it’s not too hard to see. Kid uses big smiles like a cloak, to hide what’s underneath. The smaller ones-those are like the slivers of sunlight shooting out from an eclipse. Wukong finds he prefers the smaller ones.

Kid wraps his arm around Mei’s shoulders.

“Thanks, Mei.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The days get colder, and Kid is still in that shack. Monkey King finds out that Kid doesn’t steal for money. Instead, he does little odd jobs for short change, and then looks for coins people have dropped. Apparently, the city’s wealth has made people more loose with their change.

Mei drags him to warm places as often as she can, but apparently this time of year she has a lot of responsibilities, or “social events,” as she calls them, so she can’t be around as much.

Kid doesn’t seem to mind, shivering through the nights, curling himself as tight as possible with that jacket and shitty blanket, and Monkey King doesn’t know why he even cares, but...

He’s not cruel. It isn’t pleasant to watch a kid suffer.

And then, Kid gets sick. Like, delirious, fever sick, and he’s not getting better.

And Monkey King has told himself, a million times, that he would let Kid figure his own life out, but he ends up picking Kid up anyway, depositing him at the ever familiar noodle shop.

The cook drags the boy inside, and Monkey King doesn’t see Kid on the streets after that.

Good.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kid starts working at the noodle shop, apparently, and he lives above the shop. Slowly, he accrues random objects. Sketchbooks, games, figurines, Monkey King comics? He watches the show near religiously, and Monkey King is both flattered and weirded out.

A super fan, huh? Okay then.

And when he isn’t working, or watching “Monkey King: The Animated Series,” or reading Monkey King comics, he’s begging the resident bookworm, Tang, for stories, which he then sketches out.

Monkey King actually goes through the sketchbook once, when Kid’s asleep. Yup, Kid’s really, really good at this. Monkey King actually thinks about stealing a drawing, but that would be both very obvious and also stupid.

So he lets it go. He ought to look for his successor, anyway. He hears the Demon Bull family is getting close.

He leaves Kid to his life and moves on to his own.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He can’t find a successor. Somehow. It’s like every person in this city (and it would have to be in this city, because you need to be close to the staff in some regard if you want to have a connection with it. Being born near it, living near it-makes it easy for the energy, the chi, to find you) doesn’t want anything to do with hero business. The kids he considers are too small, the adults too...boring.

And he’s getting pretty frustrated here, because he thinks he might just have to fight the Demon Bull King all over again, which, ugh.

And then, it clicks.

He’s watching Kid drive around town, delivering orders, and somehow the kid steers towards the construction site. Toward the staff.

Of course.

God, it was literally staring him in the face. He feels kind of dumb, now that it hits him, but whatever. Not like anyone’s around to tease him about it.

He watches Kid waltz towards danger, music in his headphones too loud to notice the literal demon family, until Kid opens his eyes and sees the whole demon army there, and hoo boy, is this comical.

Monkey King wonders if they’ll succeed this time, in lifting his staff. They certainly seem confident. He’s kind of curious, kind of bored. The whole ‘take our rightful place as rulers of this world’ schtick is super annoying, and Red Son’s voice is grating.

The light show is pretty nice, though, and then.

Then.

Demon Bull King’s a lot smaller than he remembers, but his voice is the same, as is his attitude. Monkey King can feel Kid shaking and takes a quick sweep of the area. Seems his successor is right above Red Son.

He smirks to himself, not that anyone can see considering he’s a bird right now.

This is going to be hilarious.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Kid touches the staff, Monkey King isn’t prepared for the feeling he gets.

It’s like he’s been the single Sun in an endless galaxy, surrounded by darkness, when suddenly another star appears from nowhere, throwing him into orbit with it. The galaxy shifts, the light doubles, the darkness recedes.

Monkey King’s own center, his sun, feels red hot, warm, and tempered by years of life, with a spark of yellow and white in its center. Kid’s is bright, brilliant golden yellow, more white than any color, bursting with energy.

That energy gets put to work pretty quickly, as the Kid fumbles his way out of the demon’s den, and Monkey King soars after him, watching the escape with a smile.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He doesn’t properly meet Kid until he gets shot all the way to Flower Fruit mountain. After Kid escapes Red Son, he panickedly tells his friends what’s going on and tries to get there on his own.

Well, all the way is a bit much. Maybe Monkey King had to catch Kid and fly him there, because Kid was looking half dead and Monkey King was a little worried, but that’s beside the point. He leaves Kid on the shore, and follows him when Kid gets up.

He isn’t expecting the frustration, when he can’t be found, but he supposes that’s his cue.

Getting stepped on is unpleasant. Guess Kid doesn’t like bugs.

God, the look on Kid’s face, when it hits him that Monkey King’s been watching him! If he could frame a memory, that would be it. Hoo, boy, is that going to be replaying in his head for a while. Kid seems more bewildered than anything else, and the idea of being Monkey King’s successor doesn’t sit well with him.

Which, Monkey King doesn’t get that. Who wouldn’t want to be taught by him?

But maybe he overestimates the kid’s spunk, his confidence, because waving off his worries doesn’t spur him on; rather, it seems to deflate him.

Ugh. Why is being a teacher difficult? It’s not like his teacher had a hard time with him, right?

Distantly, he thinks he can hear his master shouting at him. He hops off his cloud, says just the right thing to get Kid pumped up, and watches him race off.

He considers just sitting back and not watching, but then, that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He isn’t actually sure what having a successor means, really. How much their powers, their lives, would mirror his own. A part of him was terrified by the prospect—could he even be known as anything special, if he was no longer one of a kind?

But there’s also something quite exciting about this. The idea that your life is being rewritten, the story unfinished and yet also repeating itself. The Demon Bull King is on the loose, with his army and family, trying to take over the world.

And only one person can stop him. The Monkey King.

Kid’s powers are volatile. He can feel them flare up from time to time, wildly flickering out of control. A lack of self confidence, that might be causing it. A part of him is annoyed by that, a part of him is relieved. Far better to have to teach someone to believe in themselves than teach them humility. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t learned that latter lesson all the way yet.

Kid vanishes into the Demon Bull King’s chest, where the staff lies, and for a moment, the new sun vanishes. Monkey King feels the cold rush of space in its absence, and feels panic, even though he’s only known this warmth for a few hours.

But then, it bursts back into existence, as a familiar stone drops from the Demon Bull King’s chest, cracking open, and, well, it’s history being written the same way over and over again, isn’t it?

Kid has a flair for silliness, childish maneuvers. He likes to have fun, and that’s the best part of the powers they share. To be invincible, to have fun while saving the day.

It’s a repeat, until, well, it isn’t.

The blow Kid takes makes Monkey King wince. The body becoming invulnerable takes time. It doesn’t just immediately show up. Every second, Kid’s body is absorbing and meshing with the powers thrust upon it, but that doesn’t mean getting hit a mile by a guy twenty times your size doesn’t still hurt, at this point.

But Monkey King knows this is what has to happen. Because heroes aren’t heroes if they never feel pain, never get hit.

Heroes, he thinks, as Kid tears himself from the wall he’s embedded in, as Kid stands, eyes ablaze, are heroes when they get hit and they get back up.

And Kid sure as hell does.

“I’m the Monkey Kid!” He shouts, like a battle cry, like a challenge, and Monkey King smirks. Monkey Kid, huh? It suits him. And then, Kid slams the staff on the ground, and the world shifts.

A part of him is kind of jealous. How come he never got a mech?! Has that been a thing this entire time? Another part is in awe of this Kid’s creativity, ability, at such a young age.

And seeing DBK get trounced again certainly keeps the jealous part of him quiet.

Kid’s got a nice group of friends. Reminds him of his journey days, him and a rag tag group of idiots going around wreaking havoc and learning moral lessons at the end of it. He’s glad Kid isn’t alone or on the streets anymore. A strong foundation leads to a stronger ability to grow.

Well, he’d better get some sort of training regimen ready. Or, at least, start thinking of some things to do to train this kid. He’s sure at some point Kid is going to bug him for a lesson or two.

Somehow, the thought doesn’t bother him as much as he thinks it should.

#lego monkie kid #monkie kid mk #monkie kid monkey king #sun wukong #kitkat1003 #monkie kid mei

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bittywitches · 4 years

Text

3. “It’s three in the morning.”

38: “You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?”

42: “I’m only here to establish an alibi.”

44: “I still remember the way you taste.”

Thank you to @reidscriminal and the lovely anon for requesting this :) (It got a bit long (~3.5k) so I thought I’d make a separate post lol)

WARNINGS: Alcohol addiction, Murder mention (sorry this got intense)

“Please, I really dont wanna be alone right now.”

“Y/N, it’s three in the morning. Go the fuck to bed.”

Grayson’s groggy, scratchy voice was the only sound that could be heard in his pitch black bedroom, the only source of light being the luminescent beams coming from the cellphone that he held pressed to his ear. Half of his face was still smushed into the cold surface of his pillow, no doubt a pool of drool probably printed onto it. His phone dangled loosely in his hand’s grip, it basically balancing on his left ear. Grayson had yet to gain full consciousness, only aware that he was currently speaking to his best friend, and for some reason she wasn’t asleep.

“Cmon, I can’t trust myself to be alone right now. Plus, when’s the last time we hung out together, hm? Don’t you miss me?” Her purr over the line was enough to finally wake him up, getting him to sit up and lean back against his headboard before stretching an arm over his head.

“‘Course I miss you. Doesn’t mean I wanna hear your dumb voice in the middle of the night.”

“Hurt. I’m hurt.” She moaned, and Grayson rolled his eyes. “Come oooon, Gray. We’ll have fun, I promise.”

It was the suggestiveness in her voice that finally tipped him off to what was going on. “are you drunk?”

“Hah!” She snorted, then guffawed, which then diminished to a few chortles and chuckles. “Okay maybe a little. But I have a valid reason!”

“And is it better than ‘we happened to have some left over bottles’?”

“Yes!! It is. And I’ll only tell you what it is once you come overrrr.” She almost whined like a little girl.

Grayson groaned. “Y/N, you know that I-“

“Hate it when I drink, I know.” Her voice actually sounded a bit pained, and Grayson almost felt bad for bringing it up. “I’m sorry, Okay? I wasn’t thinking straight, like usual. Now please come over?”

Grayson hesitated, letting the silence of his room fill his head while he sat in thought.

“Pretty please?”

Her small voice echoed through his phone, and never in a million years would he ever admit how much it made his heart ache.

He groaned. “God, fine. I’ll be over in a half hour.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“I thought I was doing you the favour.”

“You are, but you love me. Shit, bring your wacko vegan pasta. We’ll have a slumber party.”

“Fucking Christ you are the worst-“ but then she hung up on him.

Despite his frustration, Grayson still made it to her door 15 minutes later, tired, confused, and a little out of breath. As soon as it opened to reveal Y/N’s face, however, all remaining signs of those feelings disappeared; because the only thing he could think of now was how terrible his best friend looked.

Typically speaking, she didn’t look that bad, considering how late it was and how drunk she probably was. But it wasn’t her messed up hair or her glazed over eyes, the stains on her old pyjama shirt or the mess of blankets and turned over bottles laid sporadically over the coffee table. No, it was just her. The feeling he got from her. The look in her eye that wasn’t filled with their usual temperamental spark; it seemed hollow, missing, a dark crevice missing it’s light. It worried him.

“You know, this is technically a booty call.” She grinned, her usual tenacity seeming to resurface as she grabbed the bag that was in Grayson’s arms. “Yknow, without the boning down.” She raised her eyebrow. “Although that could be arranged-”

“God just stop talking would you.” Grayson’s face burned as he walked past her, her laughs filling the room as he threw his shoes in the general area of the shoe rack.

“What’s going on?” Grayson finally asked as she closed the door behind him.

“Nothin’. Slumber party, remember?” Her hunched over shoulders turned back toward him, and the way her face seemed so sunken and desperate while her eyes tried to tell a different story- It scared the shit out of him.

“‘Mgonna make pasta.” Y/N announced to what seemed to be herself, dumping the bag’s contents out onto the kitchen counter before grabbing the pasta box.

“Alright…” Grayson was used to these types of nights. They tended to happen once or twice every few months, usually after a night of partying where Y/N got just a little too intense, or during a rather stressful week where she just wasn’t able to pace herself. Yes, it was obvious that Y/N wasn’t the greatest when it came to coping. She didn’t like to feel, or think either to be quiet honest. She liked that dull haze, that numbness she felt where she could just go about everything without feeling everything.

And yes, Grayson hated it when she did this. He despised it, really. But he’d known her for so long, and she’d been like this for longer. He didn’t know what to do other than just be there when she asked for him. And usually it was fine, although she could be handful. Y/N seemed to double on her energy whenever she drank, so it would take him some time to wear her out. But once he did, it was smooth-sailing. This time however, it was so different. She wasn’t being her usual hectic self. She looked tired, but that itself wasn’t enough to describe it. For some reason the word that kept coming back to him was expired. She looked like she was about to expire. She’d found her limit, her pushing point, her finish line. She was done, she was finished.

Grayson was scared to see what would happen when she was finished.

The pot fell out Y/N’s hands and fell into the sink, getting a “shit” out of her and a jolt from Grayson.

“Jesus, give it here.” He finally trudged towards her, pushing her away from the sink, then reached into it to grab the pot and fill it with water.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

She sighed, leaning her back against the counter and watching as the water rose in the cool metal. “Joanna broke up with me.”

Grayson’s head whipped over his shoulder to look at her, his eyes widening at the words. “Oh.”

She smiled, though her eyes didn’t leave the tap. “Yeah. she actually broke up with me yesterday, at lunch.”

“Wha- Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d wanna jump on this as soon as you found out.”

“Christ Y/N, I-”

She waved away at him, shaking her head. “No I understand, I am a hot piece of ass. But you need to control yourself, I need a cool down period-”

“Y/N!”

She sighed, then shrugged. “Because I knew you’d say I told you so.”

Grayson scoffed. “Y/N-”

“Come on, I know how much you hate her! You kept saying that she was going to.”

“Well I mean come on with how on-and-off you guys were- and besides this is probably just another one of your ‘breaks’. She’ll be calling you again any day now-”

“No.” Her voice was dark now, dropping all the flirty undertones in her voice, and Grayson had to look away from the now boiling pot of pasta at her face when she said it. “No. it was real this time.”

“How do you know?”

She reached into her pyjama pant pocket and brought her phone out, turning it on and unlocking it to show the screen that she’d obviously been looking at before since it was still open. She turned her phone to show him.

It was Joanna’s instagram story, and it was a picture of her at a party, making out with some red-headed girl.

Grayson only knew one read-head.

“Wait, is that-”

“That bitch I accused her of cheating on me with?” The sudden power in her voice startled him. “Yep. Turns out I was right all along, and wasn’t just being paranoid.”

He was at a loss for words. “Y/N… I’m so sorry.”

“Like hell you are.”

“I am.”

“Shut up.” She sighed, jumping up to sit on the counter. “I know for a fact you feel like gloating right now. And I don’t blame you.”

In reality, Grayson really didn’t. Sure, he was glad that Joanna was gone. He knew she was never good for Y/N. But he hated how she’d left her. This broken shell that was supposed to hold the girl he loved with all his heart but for some reason appeared to just be some sort of apparition instead.

She put her head in her hands. “Yea, I really don’t blame you. God, that BITCH!” She yelled that last part, and threw a spoon she had at some point grabbed into the sink, it hitting the faucet and causing a huge clang sound that continued to ring seconds afterwards.

“Jesus Christ Y/N calm down.” Grayson went to her, grabbing her arms firmly into his fists to steady her, because he could see her nostrils flaring.

“What is there to be calm about? God I fucking hate her! I just wanna- I don’t know, smash her head against-” She stopped, her eyes widening before she let out an almost maniacal laugh. “Oh my god. I want to smash her head against that stupid lamp that asshole red-head Quinn got her for her birthday. That fucking lamp she keeps on her bedside table right next to the photo of the two of us- oh my GOD that fucking BITCH-”

“Y/N?” Grayson’s voice was small. “Maybe you should-”

“I’m going to kill her. I’m literally going to kill her. I’m going go down to her apartment, that dumbass forget to ask for her key, and I’m gonna take that damn lamp’s chord and strangle her in her SLEEP-”

“Y/N!” Grayson’s hands came up to grip her face; his eyes frantic as they flickered between her seething ones. “You’ve got to breathe. You’re raving like a maniac! You're talking like you’ve actually thought about how you’re gonna-” He looked at her eyes once more, and his arms fell limp next to her on the counter.

“Oh dear god, you’ve thought about this, haven't you?” When she didn’t reply, his hand came up to rub his face. “Y/N tell me you haven’t thought about how you’re going to kill Joanna.”

“Hey, come on!” She threw her hands in the air. “It’s my right as the crazy bitch ex-girlfriend.” She began to laugh.

“Oh my god-” He spun around, rubbing his hair up his scalp and resting his hands on the back of his neck.

“Oh come on I’m not gonna do anything. You just have to let me be crazy for a little bit.”

“Who the fuck is being this loud this early?” The both of them looked over to see Y/N’s roommate walking into the living room.

“Sorry Tam.” Y/N mumbled, and her eyes widened when she saw her roommate’s eyes go to the coffee table.

“Oh Y/N not again-”

“I’ll clean it up I promise please don’t get mad.” She rushed, jumping off the counter and rushing to the sofa, starting to messily pick up glasses and snack bags.

Tam sighed. “Babe you know I don’t care about the mess, I care about you-” She paused when she saw Grayson awkwardly standing in the kitchen, and she groaned. “And what is Spartacus doing here?”

“Don’t mind me, I’m only here to establish an alibi. You know, in case Joanna’s found dead in her bathtub tomorrow morning.”

“Ah. so she told you.”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, and she is doing just fine so you can go back to sleep, so sorry for waking you-” Y/N shuffled passed her, chucking a whole armful of trash into the garbage bin and some dirty dishes into the sink, a loud clang following.

Tam winced. “Hon your breath stinks-”

“Tam I know, okay?” Her voice cracked a bit there, that similar pain Grayson had heard on the phone returning to her voice. “I fucking know. It won’t happen again. You can go sleep.”

Tam raised her eyebrows, then looked at Grayson, and he just nodded at her, letting her know that he’d take care of her.

“Alright. Goodnight.”

“Gnight.”

“Gnight Gray.”

He smiled at her, and she disappeared into her room, her door shutting closed behind her.

As soon as Y/N heard that click, her hot tears began to stream down her cheeks, a stifled sob coming out.

Grayson’s head shot towards her. “Y/N-”

He immediately went and wrapped his arms around her, her sobs getting muffled in his shirt. He stroked her back and she gripped his shoulders, trying to calm herself.

“God I hate her. I hate her so fucking much.”

“Hey, hey, It’s okay.” He pushed her back a bit to look at her, and it pained him so much to see her look the way she did. “Okay, how about you go sit on the couch and watch something on the TV while I finish this pasta, hm?”

She sniffled. “‘Kay.”

“Okay.” She shuffled back towards the couch, plopping herself down and draping the covers over her before turning the TV on and putting on an episode of Friends.

Grayson sighed, turning back to the stove. He worked mindlessly, listening to the fake laugh track coming from the TV as he did, but really thinking about Y/N. He kept glancing over at her, and it really astonished him just how shit she looked. She looked awful. Her eyes were puffy and her hair was in knots and tangles and she now had Tostito crumbs peppered all across her blanket and chest. God she was doing so bad Grayson felt bad that Tam had to deal with her. And how angry he was at her for dealing with everything like this; he knew she was going through a rough time, but it killed him, maddened him every time he had to see her with those hazy eyes.

In a messed up way, right now, looking at her, Grayson was fairly sure that he hated her. He hated her so much that it pained him because she wouldn’t listen. For some reason Y/N wanted this terrible girl that was nothing but bad news for her. For some reason she kept going back to her despite all the shit she put her through. Y/N was stubborn and she was stupid and she was selfish and yet here he was, standing in her kitchen, making her his stupid vegan pasta.

Why?

He sighed. Because for some reason only god knows, I still love her.

And that was when it clicked.

He turned around to look at her again, and his eyes finally softened for the first time that night.

They were one and the same, weren’t they?

***

Grayson sat next to Y/N, her feet thrown over his lap, her empty bowl of pasta sat atop the coffee table dangerously close to the edge. She had been lying there silently for a bit, her eyes closed and her arms folded on top of her chest.

Grayson had been sitting their, stewing in his thoughts for a bit while he absentmindedly rubbed Y/N’s leg. He’d been thinking about her, about him, about him and her together and all of the fucked up feelings that were stuck in between.

But he was mainly thinking about a certain night from a few months ago. A night similar to this one, yet had ended much differently, and had possible changed the way he would think about Y/N for the rest of forever. And there was just one question that kept arising in his head, in his chest, but mainly in his heart, that he just needed to know the answer to.

“Hey, Y/N?”

“Mm?” He was surprised. She wasn’t asleep.

“You know that I have feelings for you, right?”

The abruptness of the question startled Y/N, making her look up at him with her eyes wide. “What?”

But he continued on as if what he’d said wasn’t any weirder than asking what she’d eaten that afternoon. “I’m only asking because it’s not like I ever try and hide it. And yknow, you’re always teasing me with your flirting.”

To him it looked like there was a buffer in Y/N’s brain, because it took her a second before she could say anything. “Yea. Yea, I do know.”

“Right.” He inhaled. “Do you remember what happened June 27th?”

Her eyebrow quirked up now. “Uh…”

“That time you and Joanna went on a break because she got sick of the smell of your shampoo. And you got drunk. And I came over.”

Her eyes widened. She did remember. She remembered so well. “Why?”

“Do you remember how you were flirting with me that day?”

A lump was forming in Y/N’s throat. Yes she remembered. She just decided she wasn’t going to care about it. “Yes. I do. But-”

“Yeah I know you do that all the time but-”

“Grayson I remember. I kissed you that night.”

His eyes widened now, his head turning to hers. “You- you remember that?”

“Grayson, I still remember the way you taste.”

His face flushed. “Why the fuck are you like this.”

“Wha-” She furrowed her eyebrows. “No, I’m not- I’m not trying to joke around this time. I’m trying to say yes I remember that night. Incredibly vividly.”

He blinked at her. “Then why did you do it?”

“I-” She caught herself, and she laid back, hands on her forehead. “I don’t know, Gray.”

“What do you mean? I mean, do you like me? Is it like-”

“Of course I like you Grayson-”

“No like do- do you have feelings for me?”

“I-” She sat up, bringing her knees up to her chest, and looking at him intently. “Gray, I love you. You know that. And you just-” She exhaled. “You feel good. You feel safe. You feel like- You feel like home.”

He tilted his head at her. He didn’t understand.

She sighed. “Look, I know I’m not the most, I guess you could say ‘stable’ person. I’m reckless and I’m stupid and- if you hadn’t stopped me that day I probably would’ve ended up fucking you.” Gray’s face flushed again. “But that doesn’t mean that I- God, I was just emotional, and drunk, and, quite frankly I was feeling like I am right now. I feel lost and scared and stupid and you’re like, my anchor. You hold me in place. Things turn to shit and I fuck myself over but you’re still always here, and I don’t fucking know why.” There was a sob beginning to prickle within her throat. “I don’t know why you put up with me and my shit because all I do is hurt you and honestly if I was actually a good friend I’d tell you to drop me. Leave me and let me be self-destructive on my own. I don’t need to drag you down with me. But- but-” Her voice hitched. “But you stay, and you help me, and you rebuild me, and it makes me love you more and more but then I just go and fuck it all up again and I-”

“You stupid emotional drunk.” Grayson mumbled, wrapping his arms her. She trembled, but she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t let herself. She felt like she owed him that much.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s…” He paused. “It’s okay.”

He sighed, and she breathed out into his shoulder. “I’m not gonna drop you.” He finally said. “You just scare me sometimes.”

She nodded. “I know.”

She leaned back so she could look at him again. “I do love you. I love you so much.”

Grayson smiled. “I know.”

“I think I just love you in a way I’ve never loved anybody else before. And my brain just doesn’t know what to do with that.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“But you’re not getting it I-”

“Y/N.”

“Wouldn’t your life just be better without me fucking it up?”

“You don’t fuck it up.”

“That’s the biggest lie of the century.”

“You fuck yourself up, and I hate that you do that.”

The pained expression. “I know.”

“But I stick around because I believe that you’ll stop.” He looked at her, and he realized that, maybe his love for her was something his brain couldn’t understand too. “I believe you’ll get better.”

She nodded. “I will.” She took his hand. “I mean it this time.”

He squeezed hers. “I know.”

“How?”

He looked at how her eyes glistened now, how they seemed to shine differently, more meaningfully. Like they were determined. Hopeful. Cleansed and new.

He smiled. “I just do.”

#grayson dolan #dolan twins #grayson dolan concept #grayson dolan blurb #grayson dolan imagine #dolan twins concept #dolan twins blurb #dolan twins imagine #grayson dolan x reader #grayson dolan fanfic

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transsexualhamlet · 3 years

Text

the many sins of tokyo ghoul :re

or: 13 reasons why :re is fucking terrible not clickbait

Disclaimer: I think no matter how long this post gets I’m missing something, so let’s just outline the worst ones. And I mean to be transparent, the only reason I actually read :re was so I could make this post... (and bc i wanted to see the what, five panels of hide) Well, I couldn’t stand hating it without evidence beyond hearsay and General Vibes. But I knew it was gonna be bad, I knew it was going to ruin me jesus christ. Obviously I’m not hating on people that like it, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with genuinely enjoying it (I do genuinely enjoy parts of it, and by parts i mean chapters 1-50 with exceptions and 75) I think it’s wonderful if you can derive joy from it (lmao) but I can say that through my lens in life, there’s so much fucking wrong with this goddamn fucking piece of shit manga and I feel the need to yell about it because i am ✨autism✨ so let’s get going (this is r e a l l y long just a warning)

tl;dr Ishida stay in your fucking lane

1. Transphobia and Homophobia:

alright here we are first off with the big one and if I had to choose, one of Ishida’s greatest sins here. It’s quite unusual in mangas like these to have any sort of representation for such things in and of itself, and yeah of course that annoys me, but having no represntation at all is like so much better than getting actively harmful representation. Most manga that aren’t specifically about those things shy away from those topics, and it’s tiring but it’s normal. You wouldn’t want a mangaka to try to write about something like that without experience or informed opinions. So I say if you can’t write something correct, just don’t write something like that in at all. Ishida clearly,,, does not get this.

And it’s not just the case of Mutsuki, who, well, gets it bad enough, there are three full fucking trans characters Ishida made like, just to shit on.

Big Madame- god, made like that specifically to perpetuate the predatory trans woman trope jesus christ is Ishida friends with JK fuckface Rowling. Ah yes the ugly, human trafficking, predatory, pedophilic killer that tried to make their male child more feminine? Has a dick. Really? Could you be a single bit more transparent about your fucking agenda here? I really don’t have to say much here.

Kanae von Fuckwald- Technically Ishida says here that basically this bitch was just like??? Pretending to be a guy for years just to what?? I don’t even know?? Get together with Tsukiyama? Cause he’s fucking gay or something? I don’t even get it but like i read this post yesterday and that’s a whole ass thermian argument. It’s like “oh well this is fine because well this person’s not actually trans and therefore the representation thing doesn’t apply”... it’s useless. You created the character that way and you made it intentionally to for whatever way promote this idea that people would “pretend” to be a different gender and that eventually they’ll realize that it’s a “lie” and they never really wanted it. This is what you’re saying about the real people who are,,, actually trans? Jesus christ. Also thinking that a twink like that would be trans? God yeah trans guys can be feminine but buddy that’s clearly not what you’re going for here.

And of course, Mutsuki- There’s just... so much wrong here. I mean like. Before we even get into anything about his character and what they did to him let me just discuss his entire design. Buddy like if you had to choose one person in that show to be trans that’s the least likely one. Ah yes, the feminine one. With the androgynous haircut and the shy disposition and the physical weakness compared to the others. God that’s like, a fujoshi’s take on ao3 of what character should be trans. As much as yeah of course, trans guys can be feminine, they are in no way obligated to be such and you shouldn’t make them more so to be more “believably” so. Ask any actual trans person ever. A character like that is just perpetuating the notion of trans guys being inherently more feminine or trying to pretend to be otherwise.ThEn, of course, there’s the ridiculous sexualization, infantilization and fetishization of this character, going through a thousand plot hurdles to make him constantly stripped, put in girls clothing, chased by perverts, assaulted, ET FUCKING CETERA. Give him a fUCKING BREAK. Creating this character the way he’s portrayed in canon (including so called backstory of murdering parents because of sexual and physical abuse) is perpetuating a notion that someone would be a trans guy because of internalized misogyny and/or trauma instead of because they’re just... a guy. It’s just it’s just it’s just Really bad. Plus taking his character, demonizing him and making him like, supposedly love haise (which i Really hate for a thousand reasons, god that’s like, a parent and child type relationship they have there not romantic,,, god,,,) try to like fucking murder touka and stop seeing sense, and then just... return him to being infantalized. God. Jesus christ fucking goddamn it I love Mutsuki and he deserves better.

Oh yeah and then the homophobia, this one’s smaller because... most of the trans people are here to go “it’s gay... wait it’s not Really gay so it’s ok” but I would like to leave a small note here for all the gay characters who got thrown under the bus not just in re but in the original, like, you know, Nico and shit? I really do not know shit about Nico but all the things about Jason? God if I had a thing for one person that you shouldn’t try to portray as representation it’s Jason. IDK what’s up with him and Naki but god it wasn’t healthy. (i’d like to say here that i love naki and i think naki deserves the world but honey there are better heroes than yamori) Anyway yeah I think that’s also bullshit and Ishida should stay in his fucking lane. (or her i guess, i just feel like it’s probably a guy bc of just... so much sexism)

Ok, now that we have the big one out of the way-

2. The mishandling of portrayals of various mental illnesses:

I’m not an expert on this one like I can say about the gays TM but just like in general, the whole manga’s very messy and portrays a lot of gritty stuff, and Ishida clearly attempts to throw in some mental illness for fun, but god fUcking damn it they’re bad. I couldn’t really even give you examples bc it’s pretty widespread and i’m stupid, but it was really like trump throwing paper towels “and you get a demonization, and you get an infantalization, and you get a butchered character, and you get a fetishization-”

3. Ishida having no fucking clue how science works

This particular factoid led me to have a very hard time reading this manga because it went from being about like, yknow, torture and fights and crying and stuff to weird experimentation bullshit and mutated whatever and everyone’s a hybrid now I guess. When I heard this thing about the quinxes, I thought that made no sense, because I was like “yeah but wait,,, how tf does that work didn’t Ishida say earlier that kagune literally were fueled by human meat isn’t that like the entire point the ccg is against?” and then Ishida’s explanation of how they’re not just exactly like Kaneki is that “oh yeah well there’s like, metal around it, so it’s different.” OH YEAH OK THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE NOW, THANKS.

The thing is... there’s no way of actually regulating that. You couldn’t move a kagune unless it was attached to your cells, and if it’s attached man, it’s attached and it’s part of you. Also yelling “frame two” won’t like make it any bigger lmao, either you’re gonna have it based on theoretical science in this universe or you’re going to have a dumb supernatural magic pokemon fight deal. The whole thing makes no sense. The science issue isn’t just about this either, it’s also about how the entire thing basically undermines the point of the whole story. When you blur the lines between human and ghoul with little to no real rules or basis in real science, every rule kind of just becomes cheap plot convenience.

So the Quinxes can eat human food unless they use their kagune too much, alright, but Kaneki couldn’t eat human food before he’d even ever used his though the only difference between their bodies was this,,, theoretical metal thing?? And Haise... was never really covered, before he went black hair emo bastard and like vored Eto, did he eat human food like the rest of the CCG? He certainly cooked it. And the squad that lived with him wasn’t aware he was a ghoul until he pulled out the kagune. So I’d assume so, but then how could he have a kagune, how could he survive when his body still was like that?

Is it the RC suppressents? Then couldn’t he just have taken those and lived as a human the entire time? Is that all he fucking needed, is that the only difference between human and ghoul? It doesn’t make sense and the rules are bent so much they don’t function anymore. Ishida like write down your rules somewhere even if they’re bullshit, they shouldn’t contradict each other.

Damn man I’m not even going to go into the dumbass rules of the half humans or the special fast aging thing or the fucking,,, folded up cells deal,,, or the Imagination Kagune, or the fucking,,, Dragon, or the zombie ghoul apocalypse or the “whole new species made of just kagune” i don’t even have the time it is fucking ridiculous and I can’t even with it. Physics. Laws of physics. If not biology, at least follow physics Ishida??? Please???? And if you’re not you need to do that consistently??

4. character glow ups actually being character glow downs

(with the exception of nishiki, he baby now, and akira, i think her development was valid af)

God, this one gets me every time. Touka was cool. Touka was fucking badass, she had a complex character with many motivations and wants, and in the original having her eventually kind of soften bc of Kaneki is valid. But taking her and turning her into like literally nothing but Pretty Housewife Yearning For Husband At War? God, kill me. She’s a strong person. She can like Kaneki without the guy being her only character trait. Also uh, Touka and Kaneki being a couple was valid before this change, now I honestly can’t stomach it. Like they were the kind of “both bisexual” m/f couple that we stan. No longer I guess.

She’s the most egregious example, but I’d also like to point out Juuzou, not everything they changed about him is bad, honestly we fucking stan his knife legs, but he’s kind of like a rip off L now? You got rid of his ~unhinged~, we do not stan. I’m on the fence about him bc i think that kind of is a valid transition to adulthood and I guess he’s grown up, but again, why change his fucking hair color? What is the explanation for this?

Also Hinami. I mean, I don’t really care about her a lot in general, but it’s weird to see her as like an adult when Ayato emo boy looks like exactly the fucking same and they’re like,,, supposedly the same age.

There are definitely more I’m missing here. Honestly, Hide was valid. God him with his fucking burlap sack. With a fucking lenny face on it. I can’t with him. That’s so Hide. But there were some bad ones.

5. one hair color change was my limit, enough said

black white black and white black white more white god bitch get some variety

6. Showing me great new characters and then promptly ruining them

And you can tell this one’s about quinx squad, my favorite bastard children. God, I love them. They’re the only good things about Re other than Hide and Haise and like everything else, Ishida took them and went “what if i *guts*” god why. I love these kids with all my heart. Why. Why. Why did you do that to Mutsuki. Why as soon as Haise isn’t in the room they all get themselves tangled up with pedos. Why they gotta break up the squad. Why make all of them lose all the wholesomeness and lessons they learned from Haise. Why do you ruin them all with weird unreciprocated random crushes on each other when they’re like basically siblings. Why fuckinG KILL SHIRAZU HE IS THE APPOINTED CHIEF DUMBASS OF THE SQUAD WHY HIM. WHY. WITH SO LITTLE IMPACT. YOU COULD FUCKING MISS IT SO EASILY. THAT’S NOT RIGHT. AND KANEKI JUST FUCKING ABANDONS THEM BC HE HAS HIS MEMORIES AGAIN N O ? NO ACTUALLY NO.

7. the casual racism and sexism :)

i just :) can you stop having girls constantly bring themselves down for being female :) and making them be oversexualized, less full characters :) always in some way connected to a guy :) more weak and hurt more often :) my fucking god :) also yeah it’s way less prevalent but there were a few racist caricatures thrown in there for taste if you don’t know how to draw lips just don’t

8. Ishida being too much of a pissbaby for a real death scene

Basically: undermining the impact of “deaths” fom the first series while also randomly and badly killing off new characters. Oh that character that died in the original in a really cinematic way that made you cry and think about the meaning of life and how beautifully tragic this story was? Oh lol they’re not Actually dead. (x10) Doing that with Hide (at least in the manga, not the anime, god root A really did it with him but we’re not talking about that) was valid, seeing as I love him your honor and in the manga one of the lessons that his character hinges on was like in chapter 75 to live on instead of giving up even if it hurts and all that... (this is obviously kind of the opposite from root A where his character was like more about sacrificing for kaneki since kaneki had already done so much, i think both are valid but we’re Talking About The Manga) he was done well. That was right (even though i think they should have done More of it) but there were so many characters this kind of thing was done to without the proper adjustment in the handling of the messages given here.

Like with Koma and Irimi, who,,, honestly should have stayed dead because their entire character arc kinda ended there and showed how they were sorry for their actions and this was how they were making it up. And then they just like... come back. And fight more. Really? This wasn’t the only instance either, same deal with Shinohara (though him coming back made me cry) it like, kind of undermines it if you’re going to have Juuzou derive his character development from that. Either Juuzou gets to keep his unhinged and his dad, or he loses his dad for real and he also grows up. God guys choose. What’s the message you’re playing here. (at least they kept Yoshimura dead, his death made me cry and I would have stabbed something if it wasn’t real, probably Ishida.) And even with Kaneki himself, god, if he can’t die from being stabbed straight through the fucking eye, what COULD kill him? It really diminishes the anxiety you feel about “omg is this person gonna die i want them to be ok” if they basically evade the laws of physics and their own previous character arcs 70 times. I’m definitely forgetting more of the same, Ishida can’t write a good death, he needed the anime writers to do it for him.

9. Kaneki. Just. Kaneki.

God they fucking butchered this man. I could go on about his character is weird and confusing in the manga from the beginning, but we’re focusing on mostly all his weird :re character development, the bad handling of Haise and his memories, and all his iterations.

Before I read :re, what I could glean from fanart and the occasional fic that wasn’t tagged properly was really confusing and kind of a mixed bag. I knew Haise was Kaneki but without his memories, now in the ccg trying to be a pacifist and going :DDDDD a lot yknow. And what I came up with in my own mind for that change was a deal of (this makes more sense with the anime canon tbh, the manga honestly doesn’t do any of this well) like Kaneki after The Shit Went Down With Hide (whichever canon you’d like to interpret that as) he basically realized that he really couldn’t be a ghoul, he didn’t want to be, he didn’t want to hurt people and he wanted to be happy and make other people happy instead of what he thought was right before (trying to fight to protect others on his own etc) because that mentality had gotten people he loved hurt, and well subconsciously I guess that kind of factored into his development into Haise and maybe caused his memory loss (along with the, yknow, shanked eye.) So when I started to read it that kind of checked out, this is what he’s trying so hard to be now. But then this whole bullshit of the whole other like, 37 different versions of kaneki complicated things.

Haise was scared that when he got his memories back he would cease to be, well, Haise, and he would just like revert back to what he was before everything. Which I can understand him being scared of and I think was a good point in the plot for him to worry about that, but I was like “oh honey don’t worry that’s not how it works” and was kind of vying for him to eventually get his memories back, come to terms with the fact that those were his memories, he did do those things, he was half a ghoul, and maybe come back to his original fight of wanting to bring the humans and ghouls together, still caring about his human people in the ccg and all. That development was real, and it wouldn’t just go away if he got his memories back, he learned a lot and grew a lot and he has a different outlook on life now. Right?

Fucking wrong I guess. Dude gets his memories back (very ambiguously, it was really hard to tell when that even happened tbh) and like. Turns into a flaming ass looking like ebony darkness dementia raven way. Haise gone. Fucking completely. No trace left. Doesn’t care about his kids anymore. When he’s done with that and goes white again he’s just Kaneki again and there’s really not enough left of things that like, really wouldn’t go away? He loses the flair? The dumbass? The :D? The Extra? WHY? Why would those things go away? Haise shouldn’t have been right that he would disappear when he got back his memories. That killed me. I love Kaneki and all but H a i s e. He is my b o y. H i m. With his e n e r g y s h o r t s. And his m o m. And his c o o k i n g. And his k i d s, I l o v e him. And Ishida doesn’t seem to realize that they’re... literally the same person. Haise isn’t just some stupid bastard occupying Kaneki’s body, he’s a valid part of Kaneki himself and to be honest, peak Kaneki. Should have stayed that way. Would have been great for Hide tbh. Not just having him pretty much revert to his old self, but basically respond equally to both names and balance the world between human and ghoul. I would have loved that. What happened for real? It doesn’t make sense and it breaks my heart.

Some people on the interwebz try to kind of even that whole deal out by trying to say he like, has DID, which although is obviously a valid thing, like, so does not apply to him. God I’m like so not an expert on this but I feel like it’s not that hard to tell. His 87 little Kanekis in his head aren’t separate personas, they’re metaphorical representations of his past morals, experiences, and ideologies that all conflict. Again Haise here is peak conflict because when he gets his memories back, he has all these different conflicting ideas that were all previously separate. They’re all him. Tortured Kaneki constantly yelling at him in Jason’s chamber is basically again, a metaphor for how he’s denying his ghoulhood and the trauma that he’s been dealt. It’s not that this dude still exists just the way he is ready to show up at any moment lmao. Ishida kind of dealt with that badly too because Haise really said

after his memories happened so I can see why people might, but it’s... not right, and it’s Ishida’s fault about that which is Incorrect

Also just blanket statement, black reaper Kaneki? Fuck him and all he stands for. 0% valid. I can excuse literally every other version of him. But wh y. God he leaves the room and Urie starts misusing his power and getting groomed by a pedo, Saiko is just, left behind and sad, Mutsuki gets captured by a perv and mentally destroyed again, Shirazu dies and the bitch is like like “lol it’s your fault” yeah helpful, die

10. P- the- the porn chapter-

Idk about you but that was so fucking unecessary??? Not even going off of how terribly awkward and weird it was to have it there when the opening was “i’m sad about my best friend who’s gonna get executed what do you do when you’re sad about your best friend” “i simply do not think of him or i might actually just curl up and die” “yo lmao same” “wanna fuck” Like ok um I’m biased bc i’m not straight but I like, really hated that. Even just flipping through the pages as fast as I could to get to the end of it like. God. It’s not a fucking hentai. I’m here for the plot. If you’re not gonna release the director’s cut of kaneki fucking voring hide, i don’t think i need to see 20 pages of straight fucking sex. And if you absolutely must have porn, kaneki is a fucking bottom. That man gets pegged do not try to prove otherwise. You started it out that way god I love how they’re like “oh god wait that looks kind of gay, the woman being dominant, better stop that right now” god Ishida not having a single iota of knowlege about his own characters aND THEN SHE GETS PREGNANT? NO. Excuse me. No. I just. I. Why. This isn’t. A fucking porno. This isn’t tentacle porn i swear oh my god kill me

11. Giving the wrong characters attention

Basically, redeeming characters that should have been redeemed and not going into/discussing characters that should have been redeemed/had more backstory. For example, Tsukiyama can go fucking die. I like, do not even care rich boy. I don’t understand how anyone could think he needed to be redeemed he’s just a gay attention whore who really needs to let this kid get on with his merry fucking life. I don’t care. I literally did not need to read three whole books about his dumbass hangup over eating Kaneki. Kaneki doesn’t fucking want you bitch move on. He didn’t need to be redeemed or seen to be in any way sympathetic, no one wanted it. Same with that bitch ass Furuta, he wasn’t really redeemed but he was given w a y too much time to play out his sob story. God man Rize doesn’t fucking want you. These gross ass simps. I swear.

On the other hand, I kind of liked Eto even though she’s a pile of shit, and I got mad when they didn’t really go into much about her. And you know who could have gotten much more screen time/development? TOUKA. God, I love her and she was just sitting around in the background being straight. Let her have some spicy development. Also obviously, Hide. He was... so underappreciated and underexplained? What happened with him? He didn’t just pick himself off the ground in the sewers and go ‘well i’d better get back to the ccg now’ we have a whole two years which are completely unexplained, most of which he was off mysteriously being involved in things but completely missing the eye of Haise and other major players. Where tf was he? How did he get around? What was he even doing??? I wanna know about that! Not all the characters I hate’s tragic backstories that make me feel 0% more sympathetic towards them :)

12. ARE WE ALL JUST GONNA COLLECTIVELY IGNORE THE WHOLE VORE THING???

Ok like i know i say “the entire reason I read :re was __” but like to be honest this was the turning point, I saw pictures of hide’s vore face and went like

So I was like “god fucking damn it ok, Ishida would you care to explain this to me” *cracks open re*

And then they DIDN’T.

Like. It’s actually laughable how much that entire situation was just glossed over. They gave that maybe like two pages. Like what. I. This manga has more sex scene than no homoing that. They just don’t even bother to. I feel like Ishida had that as a plot point but realized halfway in how it looked (i.e., really fucking gay) and decided that was something that he was just gonna, not deal with. Just act like that’s a completely normal heterosexual bro thing to do. Like of course anywhere would be pretty gay but Kaneki chose his face. His face. Like his face and his wholeass neck and his shoulders and nowhere else. (and assumedly like, his tongue, seeing as how the dude can’t talk... bruh) Dude really said extreme hickey. French kiss to the max. Ishida clearly did realize that generally, you can only get a bitten off face by,,, having your face bitten off, which is just inherently really fucking gay. Like, I’m just at a loss as to how it even makes sense. You wouldn’t think that the skin off his face, and specifically around his mouth, would really be the most nutritious thing to consume? I can get like the shoulders but generally you’d think something like his arm or leg would be 1.less inconvenient, and 2.much more logical and nutritious? But NO, Kaneki was like “you know what i’m gonna do? eat your Face” and hide’s like “lmao sounds cool”

(not to mention, wasn’t there another guy with a vore face somewhere? like that old guy in the ccg with the bigass turtleneck, i wanna know about him) But like... my bro Ishida went “yeah this happened but i’m going to cover it up with speech bubbles and the ends of panels guys they clearly had their socks on” Dude didn’t even TRY to explain otherwise. Like hey man, that’s pretty damn gay, you are kind of at liberty to either tell me why otherwise, or accept those implications and acknowledge them?? It’s really hilarious when you ignore it cause it’s like

kind of

pretty damn

WEAK of you to leave it at that fucking pissbaby

hmmmmmmmmm however could this happen i guess we’ll never know

13. What the fuck was even the plot omg

God I’ve been writing this post for like five hours so like, I’ll keep it short but like it made sense in the original, not to be like an anime fan but the anime made fucking sense (not re i mean like the original) this lore is so fucking stupid god, the horrors of the entire fucking dragon arc bleach my eyes, unresolved plotlines who???? (the whole ‘oh yeah also ur dying of old age’ thing etc, is kaneki like??? still doing that?? or was that randomly resolved with the whole spewing ovary bullshit i’m going to fucking kill myself) and to top it off, good job Ishida at a real fucking cheap ending.

You gave them. Fake human. Really? They just come up with artificial human at the end. Kind of undermines the entire fucking story my guy. Ah yes throw out our whole plot. That was the whole tragedy. You gotta eat human. The ghouls have to eat human and that’s tragic bc they have to kill people or whatever. Or i guess they fucking don’t well fucking ok. God you could have just had them negotiate a kind of peace where the ghouls can get dead humans and such, there are plenty of them and no one has to kill anyone then, there could be a rule system for it, it would be messy but eventually everyone would be ok with it, and I think that would work a lot better than “quick fix i made some hamburger helper human you can eat it fine” guys wtf. It’s like Ishida started plotting out the ending for re approximately 2 hours before his deadline. Anyway yes I hate re and I love yelling about it thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul re #essay post #god just fucking kill me #rowan's hyperfixation essays

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lonelyghosts-stuff · 3 years

Text

Avengers Infinity War-First Time Watching Reaction Play-by-Play (Pt. 2)

Part 1

I wonder how many people Gamora has killed? What made her finally snap to not serve Thanos anymore?

How DID Gamora find it? Like, who told her?

How did Thanos capture nebula?

Poor nebula. She’s literally been through hell and back.

Ohhhh she snuck on board...

Thanos you suck so much. You favor one daughter over another.

Oh. Where was said map to the soul stone?

Gosh I feel so damn bad for nebula. She was raised as his daughter too but he tortured her and tore her apart. Nebula never had the chance to be her equal. She deserves so much.

Taught groot as an elective? What about all speak?

Buckle up rocket. It’s gonna get emotional.

Thor is literally all alone. He needs a time to sit alone and cry and break a whole building.

Rocket and Thor friends? Please

1500 years old? Jane, honey, you escaped.

Gotta give it up to Hemsworth’s acting chops here. Especially talking to nobody in reality. Just a bunch of cgi

Ew ew ew eye socket

Should have washed that yikes

Snuck it out by hiding it up your? Huh? You watch too many movies rocket.

Huge title card. Thank you. I wouldn’t have known where we were despite them saying their location many times.

How is that video game battery not dead?

Perceptive rabbit

I LOVE that they used a dwarf to play a giant character!!! This is brilliant! (And that dwarves are giant for some reason lol.)

Soooo again Thanos killed everyone EXCEPT Eitri despite his “morality” supposedly being balance

Poor hands

Poor nebula

Smart nebula

Maybe should have waited to be fixed fully first

Ah crap. SOMEONE PICK UP THE SPACE PHONE

MANTIS

Love how Stark asks for peters help in steering and not Stephen lmao

Nice parking job

Peter, stop popping pop culture refs

Lmao ITS ABOUT TO BE THE ICONIC SCENE

YES PLEASE

Blanket of Death. Capey has a new nickname.

Where’s Gamora

Who’s Gamora

Why is Gamora

What master do you serve?

Jesus?

I mean, yea I do. So does Pratt lmaoo.

LMAO PARKER’S FACE WHEN QUILL SAID THOR WASNT HANDSOME

Storm breaker time baby

“In theory it could summon the bifrost” who theorized this? How do you only theorize and not know?

Oh my gosh mantis is just bouncing around

Mr. Clean lmao

Kick names, take ass

Hey now, these guys saved the galaxy and universe from Ego so lmao

Oh no I know the scene coming up

Poor quill lmao

“I’m half human. So the 50% of me that’s stupid, that’s 100% of you.” “Your math is, blowing my mind.” What’s funny is that Quill’s math was actually completely accurate lol

Stephen having a stroke or a seizure? You good homie?

Soooo if Strange looked to the future and so possible outcomes, what does that mean for the TVA? According to them, there’s ONE sacred timeline, so all other branches are erased (which again messes up what smart hulk eventually says in end game. See kids, this is why you don’t mess with time travel in stories. There’s no way to go back in time without creating a time loop). Ehhhhh I’ll let it slide. Just ignore it... sigh... I can’t help it if I’ve studied paradoxes

Hmmmm not good odds I’ve gotta say...

Watch like, outside of the millions of realities that strange saw, there were like a million or billion more he missed where they won with no casualties lol

Hey Red Skull. Long time no see. How did he get here anyways and why?

Yea you’re prepared all right...

Gotta say, Lord Elrond has seen better days

I’m not ready to say good bye to this Gamora. Gamora and Loki and Nat go down as my favorite characters, gotta say. I know that Tony does and it’s sad, but his feels more satisfying because his sacrifice directly results in them winning. Loki is murdered. Gamora is murdered. Nat died just for a stepping stone for the avengers. She has no idea whether or not they will actually win in the end.

I’m hopeful they may bring Nat back like in the comics, red room clone style.

We got back vision, Loki (kinda), variant Gamora, a new captain America, why not Nat? Yea we have a prequel, but gosh I love her so much.

“You must lose that which you love.” Couldn’t that apply to like an object or something? Could I not throw my Nintendo switch over the cliff? Or my dog? (I would hate that just as much as a person, don’t get me wrong, I’m just curious about the rules)

Yea boohoo sad for Thanos... loses his favorite daughter. I don’t care about him. He deserves suffering.

Poor Gamora doesn’t think he’s willing to do it.. GIRL RUN!!!

Thanos deserves all the suffering.

He does love you Gamora... but that love... it’s selfish. It’s blind... Thanos seems to be a chaotic vigilante who is narrowminded, tunnel vision on his goal with no regards of the cost. But he is evil. If there is ever an alternate route to an end that doesn’t result in the loss of innocent lives, and you know that but you willingly choose the once that costs innocent lives, that is an evil decision. Maybe Thanos isn’t evil, but he’s not good. Far from it. He’s obsessed with this idyllic Utopia but he rushes to one method of getting there. Yes, people suffer. It sucks... it’s unfair... it’s horrible. But it is never the right of someone else to dictate whether or not said person would be better off dead. Who lives, who dies. If Thanos truly was neutral and not selfish, he would have thrown his own life into the mix of the potential 50/50 snap. Thanos is not good. He’s not misunderstood. He’s a murderer. A genocidal cult leader. I have no tears for him. Only for those who suffered more at his hands.

Rant over, time to try not to cry about Gamora...

Her face of realization

Gamora run please

Thanos, I hate you. (Great character her, but not a good person)

Poor Gamora

Oh my gosh the emotion here is great but I’ve heard this sound used as a meme on TikTok too many times aghhhh

Gamora!

What a way to die

I’m crying again. I miss her already...

Who the hell designed this place and put the stone here???? Who did this?

Cry Thanos. Suffer. My only comfort here is that you are sad. You deserve suffering. You really do...

The TVA is laughing here and I’m not okay..

Poor Peter Quill... he’s also lost a lot like Thor, but has had the “luck” of not knowing his family too close.

Wakanda babyyyy

No, you don’t want Starbucks, you want Dutch bros

Lmao I love rhodey. Poor Bruce.

BUCKY BUCKY BUCKY

HUG

NO CMON HAVE A LONG HUG

MALE FRIENDSHIPS ARE SO IMPORTANT.

Yea Shuri show em up.

Okay quick pause, I love love LOVE how Shuri is smarter. It’s a powerful moment for females BUT it’s not done in a way that’s condescending to males! It’s not saying women power because men bad, she’s just good! (And she has had access to technology they never could have but I digress). More of this please Hollywood. Don’t let being a female be the power. I don’t want strong female characters, I want strong characters who happen to be female. Ones who hold their own, have faults like anyone else, struggle, have weaknesses and strengths, but are strong without putting down others. Just a comment, just because a woman character may not be as strong as a man character, that is not saying she’s weak. If you’re the second strongest human in the world, you are NOT weak. You’re just not as strong as the strongest human ever, but that’s nothing against you. LET WOMEN STAND ON THEIR OWN MERITS WITHOUT SEX AFFECTING THEM!

Anyways

I love Shuri

I wish they had more time. She definitely could have done it. But stupid Thanos

Ughhhghhg

I know what many scenes are upcoming... with quill and peter and vision and everyone else

Let👏🏻Bucky👏🏻Have👏🏻Peace👏🏻

Thank you Nat!!! I love that Nat is so protective and selfless.

GET THIS MAN A SHIELD

Bucky needs love please. He’s my stand in, manipulated, greasy, long haired, dark and mysterious, stabby boy. (Also I need Bucky and Loki to meet. But let Loki finish his show (and come out of it alive because if he doesn’t I will sue) and be the antihero hero we need. Please. If he doesn’t get reintroduced into the mcu as a hero I will sue.

Thor, sweetie, are you a masochist?

Back to wakanda

Oh no, bad CGI, floating head Bruce banner. I’ll let it slide... sigh....

Can’t like, you just rain bombs on them forever?

JIBARI TRIBE YEA BOYYYYY

Sorry Proxima Midnight, you look like a frog and your name sounds like a middle schooler’s OC.

How nice. Diplomatic meeting.

“Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood.” Reeeeeeally wish you didn’t say that, T’Challa...

Yay big CGI battle commence! It’s like a really expensive animated cartoon at this point

WAKANDA FOREVER!

Poor Bucky. Forgot this dude doesn’t know much about the modern world.

Ahhhh Kamikazi aliens

I just wanna say that I love that Wakanda still has the artistic culture in their clothing and tradition all the while having badass, super advanced technology.

Why can’t they just rain bombs down the whole fight lol. Rhodey has those super nice bombs, like, do that they he whole time? Please? Why do you not have a barrier around the entire king.

No M’Baku, it’s not the end of wakanda. But half of all life, yea

WAKANDA FOREVER YEAAAAAAA

They should honesty all have nano tech suits like black panther lol. Or iron man suits. Fine maybe the most powerful one with the best quality material for the king, but besides that, yknow.

Wow Steve is hot with a beard.

So much happening at once. Thor, Wakanda, Vormir, Knowhere, am I missing anything?

Okay, but what IS the full force of a star? Like in Newton’s or something? Juls? Is it heat?

What’s this metal? How does it fare with vibranium?

Get off your wooden butt, groot.

“He needs the axe” are you Thor, the god of axes?

Soooo, I thought Thor didn’t NEED the hammer, it just helped him concentrate his powers or act as a conduit. Is that retconned already?

Cmon groot, put down your game. Soooo, is Groot worthy? He technically lifted it. Or is it a technicality because it wasn’t fully finished yet?

Cmon bucky, use that fancy arm of yours.

Wow they’re getting destroyed.

They need wanda to help.

BADASS ENTRANCE BABYYYY

How did Thor know to come to wakanda?

Floaty head Bruce

“BRING ME THANOS!”

Ahhhhhahahaha yeaaaaaa

Cry Thanos. Do it. I hate you.

Much more of a purple grape nutsack.

Oh gosh... I know what Peter Quill is going to do. I still don’t hate him.

“With all six stone I would simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist.” Orrrr, now hear me out, I know I sound like a broken record now but... MAYBE DOUBLE THE RESOURCES INSTEAD?? That’s not mercy. That’s not up to you to decide whether or not someone’s better off dead.

Smoosh

Yea quill has experience with the power stone

AIM FOR THE HEAD

Cmon it’s basic zombie tactics

I love peter quill lmao

Go capey!!!

Magic with a kick!

Poor Peter

CAPEY NOOOOOO

Wow he’s OP

Ouch quill just got majorly clotheslined

NEBULA

“Where’s Gamora?” 😭😭😭 SHE CARES AGHHHH

Restrain him! Work it mantis!!!

Why even remove the gauntlet, just slit his throat... kill him....

Quill no... stop being cocky...

Oh no

Quill please don’t

JUST SLIT THANOS’ THROAT

Quill please....

Poor quill. Just lost the person who really really loved him

Okay, I still love star lord. Idc what others think. He reacted realistically. If you hate peter quill for how he reacted, you better also hate Tony Stark for how he reacted to bucky when he learned bucky killed his parents despite knowing for a fact that bucky was brainwashed. Yes it was annoying... yes they were so close, but quill is so human here. I don’t hate him. He gets too much hate for acting like any normal person would have. Distraught, grief filled, he lost his love. Someone who helped him open up and finally move on from his mother’s death and fathers villainy.

Spider man saving mantis gives me life

How did that power stone blast not kill them?

Clearly Thanos has played Majora’s Mask. At least he has good taste.

So close vision.... but I know... I know what happens.

YES BUCKY AND ROCKET GUN CIRCLE.

Lmao give rocket Bucky’s old arm.

“I am Groot.” “I am Steve Rogers.” Comedy gold

Cmon Thor, go after the big one first.

Cmon wanda, save them. We need some scarlet witch magic up here to stop these

Okay that was so cool. AND THEN SHE USED THE BLADES

Oh no but now Shuri is alone

So close yet so far.... Dangit... vision was almost good

Ouch. Bonk to the head

YEA BLACK WIDOW

BADASS TIME

AND OKOYE!!

LETS GOOOOOOO

BADASS WOMEN

Ouch poor vision

Cmon Thor back up vision

Please

Hulk is in his feels

Cmon hulk grow up

Ooooh smart move banner

Aaaaand he’s gone

Giant blade look oit

Corvus, screw off.

YEA STEVE

WHERE IS THOR WHEN YOU NEED HIM

CMON NAT

Oh dang. Nice one wanda. But also, sheesh. Helluva way to go. But no big.

Yea vision. Stabby time.

Now vision and Steve, kiss.

Spider man saving everyone’s lives.

YEA STRANGE

Where was this in New York???

MULTIPLYING

WHY DIDNT YOU DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE????

Oh no

Well then... ouch. Soooo where’s the real stone???

Hey look Tony, you have a fan.

Okay I’m just pissed odd they didn’t just kill Thanos when they had him subdued. Like, worry about the glove AFTER he’s not longer a threat

Oof

Tony is taking a beating

HE WAS STABBED

WHAT

I don’t want your respect Thanos. That’s an insult.

They will remember him. They will remember him Thanos. When he kills you.

DOCTOR STRANGE WHAT?

You really doing this??? I guess he knows what needs to unfold for them to win... dang. I wouldn’t trust him tho.

Peter Quill in berserker mode

Where’d he go?

Name dropping the second movie

Strange knows everything about to go down. Who dies, who lives, what Thanos is about to do... he’s accepting his soon dusted demise because Stark needs to live...

AIM FOR THE HEAD UGHHHHH

Stop teleporting. That’s Loki’s gimmick.

KILL THIS RAISIN LOOKING NUTSACK UGH

Homie way too OP

Poor wanda and Vis...

HER LIP TREMBLE

PHENOMENAL ACTING

SAY I LOVE YOU

I JUST FEEL YOU

AGGHHHH IM CRYING AGAIN

Poor wanda. To have to kill her love... this.. this is a sacrifice Thanos... not your murder....

Wow Steve is holding back Thanos with pure brute

WANDA IS SO STRONG

HOLDING BACK THANOS WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY BREAKING THE MIND STONE

I LOVE YOU

AGHHHHHHHHH

And I know what happens next...

Poor wanda

Piss off thanos you understand nothing

You lost more than she could know? Bull crap. You are causing everyone to lose...

Cruel reality. Wanda has to see him die twice. RIP Vision

RIP half of all life...

AIM FOR THE DAMN HEAD

IF THOR KILLED HIM THEY COULD HAVE USED THE GAUNTLET TO BRING EVERYONE BACK TO LIFE. USED THE TIME STONE TO REVIVE THEM ALL.

How did that not kill Thanos tho. It may not have been a head shot but still.

Lil Gamora

What is this place?

Is this the soul realm?

Thanos, I hope you suffer forever. You deserve all the pain...

Rest In Peace: Vision, Loki, Bucky, T’Challa, Groot, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Mantis, Drax, Peter Quill, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker (I don’t feel so good), and everyone else...

Thank you Nebula.

Thanos, you do NOT deserve to retire peacefully—wipe that smile off of your face

Oop, Rest In Peace Maria Hill and Nick Fury too... Motherfu— (so close Sammy boy...)

Yea Thanos you didn’t really think that through. Much more than half will died since other people rely on other peoples lives

Good thing he hit that button last minute huh? I wonder how captain marvel would fare in the TVA? are her powers considered magic? I mean, she clearly doesn’t know everything since she only just learned about Thanos (which is funny because she was supposedly traversing the universe to protect people)

Welp... onto movie two!

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pinkysfaultorbrainsfault · 4 years

Text

animaniacs - s1e44: the world can wait

episode summary: brain puts off his plan of taking over the world so he can try to pick up a girl mouse he met and instantly fell in love with for some reason.

there’s no plan in this episode, but it’s funny, so it goes here anyway.

the rundown:

we open with pinky bothering brain about how they’re going to take over the world tonight. his initial plan is to “trap them in super sticky chewing gum”, which i’m not entirely convinced by, but as we learn later pinky kind of has a knack for this sort of thing, so i’m willing to go with it if they are.

but no! apparently not. pinky’s next suggestion is “how about we wrestle the president?” before suplexing himself. shame this episode was made in the 90s, huh. keep that energy for the 2020 reboot please, pinky.

zort.

yet another refusal has pinky worried. as he questions “but gee, brain, we are going to take over the world, aren’t we?” brain replies with the unthinkable.

“not tonight, pinky. the world can wait.”

“egad, brain. are you feeling alright?”

turns out that brain is putting off his plans for world conquest for more noble, heterosexual persuits - namely, a girl mouse who lives in a cage on the opposite shelf. pinky finds the prospect of brain being into anyone completely fucking hilarious, apparently, and makes fun of him in the background as brain witters on about his new waifu.

“she is of simple folk, fair and true.” “you mean she’s stupid?” “a bit.” mean. pinky keeps negging brain about it until he gets bonked on the head for his troubles, and then brain puts on a fancy jacket and drags pinky off to be his wingman.

isn’t he cute?

but anyway, here comes billie. apparently she lives in this sparse, empty cage by herself, which you’re really not supposed to do with female mice. they need companions otherwise they get lonely and actually you’re not supposed to keep male mice together either.....

.............................................................................................

everyone in this show is trans.

ok that was half a joke. undeterred, brain goes off to harass his Fair Damsel.

“i, my lady, am the brain,” he says, introducing himself without his fedora, for a change. “we met together in the maze.”

“oh yeah. i remember you. egghead.” what the fuck is her accent?? new york?? i’m genuinely lost. this is not a voice normal people have.

pinky thinks this is hilarious, and agrees enthustically that brain is, in fact, Egg Head, so brain bonks him over the head with a baseball bat he found somewhere. undeterred, he moves onto presenting billie with a “precious, simple gift.”

“it’s an actual working mockup of the betatron particle accelerator.”

that’s... cute, brain. not entirely sure what she’s going to do with a particle accelerator in her otherwise totally empty cage, but he’s trying! and that’s what matters.

“it kinda looks like a--”

“BIG METAL DONUT.”

HAHAHEHEHAHAHA.

“yeah, like a big metal donut. say, egghead? who’s your friend? he’s funny.”

oh dear.

oh dear. this date has been going for like two minutes and already, brain is getting cucked. still, he introduces pinky, out of politeness.

and then he decides “fuck that” and puts him in the particle accelerator and spins him away.

which is just kind of mean, honestly.

“aw, i like him.” “pinky? but he’s barely verbal.”

“well pardon me, mr egghead, but i happen to like that. goodnight.”

ouch. brain tries to change her mind, and has all of two seconds to do that before pinky bonks him off the shelf.

if you love me let me go, etc.

cut to back in the cage, where pinky is bandaging brain’s head. he must have bonked it on his fall, which is very sad. pinky seems otherwise unharmed, and is bullying brain over how the previous three minutes or so of the short went. “i think she likes you!” he chortles, amidst brain’s protests. haha, narf.

“no, pinky, the fact of the matter is, she likes you.” “but brain, i’ve already got a girlfriend.”

“pinky. you are a mouse. that is a horse.”

still, unconventional taste in partners aside (and how cute it is that he has a little picture of fignewton by their bed!) brain eventually figures out that in order to win billie’s heart, he should ask pinky what he would say to woo her. this obviously goes about as well as one would expect.

ok i wasn’t going to talk about this but when he gets there billie is like “who’s there? pinky? is that you pinky?” and brain makes this face.

“no.”

which i thought was very funny.

billie is less enthused by this particular mouse, until he starts saying some completely nonsensical shit, to which she is instantly on board.

“please, call me eggy. n. narf.”

“now, tell her-- poit-- i like your toenails.”

thanks! i got them from the president.

brain goes above and beyond, also mentioning that her head looks like a “really clean carrot”-- yknow what, i really don’t think these were serious suggestions from pinky. i think he was just being a dick. but it works! billie is swayed.

“i guess i got you pegged all wrong. why don’t you come up here? i like you.”

hee hee.

conclusion:

alas, unfortunately, brain never gets the opportunity to get pegged correctly, this time. hoo hoo. at that exact moment a bunch of scientists show up. despite complaining that they’re “going to be late for bowling”, homeboy needs to electrocute a mouse right now, immediately, so he goes ahead and does that.

the boys do their best! unfortunately, they don’t quite get there in time to stop this from happening.

(at this point brain gives off the most unconvincing “oh no, we’re too late” that i have perhaps ever heard, but i don’t blame maurice for that, because i understand it must be hard to make drunk orson welles sound sympathetic. hrrraaarrrgh. french excellence.)

still, he does seem genuinely concerned. “billie, are you alright?”

“eggy?” she asks, on the verge of death. “is that you, eggy?” brain confirms that he is, in fact, Eggy, and she goes in for a hug.

“oh, eggy. i thought the electro-polarity had altered the reticular formation in my medulla oblongata.”

oh no.

“egad, brain,” says pinky, who is bad at helping. “she’s probably even smarter than you.”

oh no indeed.

so.... yeah. turns out she is. she even makes a habit of correcting brain’s formula. as brain has a small breakdown over the fact that he’s been obsessing over that for the past five months... um. actually, that’s like... ~17 years to a mouse, give or take. how old are these guys??? what did acme do to them?

brain makes this face.

and then leaves.

“but brain! oh, so you don’t love her any more just because she’s smarter than you?” you can’t really see it in this screencap, but pinky does look genuinely concerned. good on him for calling out this fuckboy behaviour! absolutely appalling. you’re definitely not getting pegged with that attitude, brain. work on yourself.

“oh, i do love her, pinky. i do. but i must quickly go develop a plan so that we can take over the world.”

“why.”

“because if i don’t, she may beat us to it.”

so, theoretically, the tally stays the same. nothing happened in this episode. there was no plan. it was just brain being straight for seven minutes or so.

brain: 3 pinky: 3 outside influence: 5

but billie also gets a fair few points for not pegging brain while she had the chance, so there’s that.

billie: however many points that is

this has been another

useless review.

#patb #pinky and the brain #a!#animaniacs #i have the next review in the works bc i started it earlier lol #i won't be able to get it out before the stream but! hopefully tomorrow...

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nothingunrealistic · 3 years

Text

just for fun, some snapshots of this fic as it was being written, with commentary. under a cut to avoid dumping dozens of screenshots in a row on anyone’s dash. also i’m going to reblog this and add some more because tumblr is cutting me off from saving any more changes but i’m not done saying what i wanted to say.

i got this prompt back in july, dropped it into a new google doc, and then didn’t do anything with it until october. as you can see, i didn’t immediately have any good ideas, so i just let it percolate in the back of my mind (along with one or two dozen other writing prompts and projects) for a while.

then, three and a half months later, i finally had an idea! at three in the morning! (not pictured: half a dozen links to pages about autistic burnout, meltdowns, and shutdowns. research is important but it’s not as fun to look at.)

sometimes you think of dialogue well before you think of how to fit it into a scene.

this was eleven days later.

finally! some actual prose! and a way to tie the story to the events of canon! (after this, i worked on this particular fic every day until it was done.)

just putting stuff in brackets works basically every time. the bracketed notes start out as a more high-level interview of what’s going to happen, then get broken down / separated / elaborated on further until they pretty much stand in for individual paragraphs / sentences / lines of dialogue or inner monologue.

see: stuff from the Big Block Of Text getting copied and pasted to where it should be.

pretty sure *this* big block of text got written on one of the rare occasions where i actually managed to write for the entire hour i have set aside specifically For writing. if i were to break down the revision history further, it’d almost certainly show that many of these paragraphs started out as bracketed not-quite-prose, some of which still remained at this point. (also pictured: one particular line from mafee that did not make it into the final draft.)

more details from canon and just details in general.

mafee does Not have rights. (also, it turns out it’s much easier for someone to press their hands against their whole face if they’re not wearing glasses.)

by far the funniest change i made while writing this.

writing any new character’s pov is an adventure in trying to nail down how they’d talk inside their own head. doubly true for any new billions character given that no one talks like a normal person on billions; triply true when it’s a character like rian who Knows no one talks normally and is trying to fit in with the Accepted Dialect.

i’m like dropping hints that winston is having a bad time right now.

winston is having a bad time right now.

rip post-it note fidgeting; long live pen fidgeting. (another research topic: what *do* quants do all day that they might still be working on late at night? well, possibly, backtesting and optimization of algorithms.)

two character threads that started here: rian trying (and ultimately failing) not to make it obvious that she Cares about winston, and winston speaking more tersely than usual, for obvious reasons.

i watched Many clips from the show trying to figure out whether the doors at axe capital ever stayed open on their own, what sound they made when people opened them, and if it was even plausible for characters to hear construction noise through the glass when the doors were shut. (on that last point, i ultimately decided that if the mase cappers could hear becky lynch yelling through a closed door — and most likely they did hear her before they saw her — they could certainly hear power tools.)

“everyone else went home” was the best reason for mafee to walk back into the tmc office that i could think of. he just wants to hang out with Someone yknow?

mafee’s made the noise worse not only by leaving the door open, but also by sitting down loudly and talking a lot!

mafee’s use of “quisling” is a very specific shoutout to the incident he’s describing. axe declared that there was a quisling in the office; mafee had to ask what that meant, and donnie defined it for him; a few episodes later, mafee went out of his way to drop “quisling” into the conversation when talking about it to someone he wanted to impress.

getting the wording of this exchange just right was tricky. also rip mafee’s chair spinning.

switched up the placement of hammer noises and drill noises so that it’d be a Continuous, unrelenting noise that forced mafee to talk louder still and ultimately became too much for winston.

also had to figure out how to fit this comment from mafee into the flow of the scene.

mafee jumps to act as soon as he realizes something’s wrong; rian thinks about what the best course of action would be first.

rian’s got a pretty idealistic perspective on how taylor operates. (this connects nicely to a canon comment from wendy about how taylor tries “to solve every problem [they] see.”) she’s also still working out How people talk here.

wanted to include this early point about it being quieter in taylor’s office, but i couldn’t really make it work.

this was the first point at which i had a clear idea of how this fic was going to end / would conclude in any satisfactory way. bringing that “rian cares but doesn’t want that to be Known” detail full circle.

punctuation pickiness! (and the door is finally closed!)

you know what sounds even worse than metal on wood? metal on metal!

i spent so much of one day just working on these few paragraphs.

and then i got the idea to throw in rian’s recollection of winston’s description of the mase cap office either late that night or the next morning and wrote most of it down while sitting through a meeting. (ft. more emphasis on the Separation between rian and winston & taylor.)

DUMBO is an acronym (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) but it isn’t always written in all caps. i found a style guide (from a college department in nyc, though i can’t remember which one) that declared it should be written as Dumbo rather than DUMBO and decided to go with that.

mafee is WELL out of the loop here. no wonder he wants to leave.

i went pretty hard on “mafee is being Less Than Kind And Understanding about this whole situation” and eventually had to have him walk it back with “well i didn’t WANT him to suffer or anything.”

this is everything i managed to get done in the Designated Writing Hour (and then some) the night that the supernatural finale aired. oops.

i was torn between rian hearing Something to alert her of taylor’s presence and hearing nothing at all; ultimately i chose the latter. (this revision was also from the brief period of time where i changed the google doc to a landscape layout in the hopes that the Changed Visual would shake some more ideas loose. it worked, a bit.)

see: rian Not hearing taylor.

this detail was added pretty late — one of the last changes i’d made the day before posting. (i’d also switched the google doc back to portrait mode at this point.)

#sometimes i write #Soph's Writing Podcast: Text Edition

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smoljamswrites · 4 years

Text

all is fair in love & war | bts x reader | chapter two

pairing: bts x female reader

genre: mafia!au, series fic, angst, fluff, (eventual) smut

warnings for this chapter: stalker-ish kinda? y/n is uncomfortable, mentions of abuse, my bad writing!!

a/n: hey, I’m trying my best to make the chapters longer than the previous and including more things, so please stay tuned!!

the fic playlist is here, if you wanted to hear it x

He flew down the stairs, eager to find the two at the bar and fulfill his ‘mission’. Well, if there’s anything Taehyung is good at, it’s distracting people. He was regularly sent out to divert people’s attention, and boy was he quite the distraction. With his boxy grin and beautifully sculpted face, it was hard to leave him. He couldn’t wait to see you properly! With all these years of staring at old photographs of you, he couldn’t believe this was his chance to finally talk to you. This, of course, only made him run faster. And it was at this great speed that Taehyung could barely see what was ahead of him and bounded straight into Jungkook.

“Watch where you’re going-“Jungkook started, “What? Why are you looking at me like that for?”

“Did you let her leave?” Tae deadpanned.

“…yeah, but I got her number!” he smirked, walking up the stairs smugly.

---------------------

Your last 3 days have consisted of three things; sleeping, eating, and texting the bartender. He keeps asking when he’ll see you next and you want to see him too, you really do, but it’s too risky to leave again.

The lights behind you are blaring, good at hiding the blush forming on your cheeks. He leans in, mouth by your ear. He smells quite musky, with a touch of vanilla. It’s so sweet and hypnotizing and God do you love it! With his lips ghosting over your ear, he whispers “do you want me to take you back to your home later? Saves you paying for a taxi, I can drive you?”

You begin to fidget in your seat, squirming at the idea of him taking you home. Not because its him that would take you home - actually you find yourself trusting the bartender more as you continue to speak to him - but rather because what would happen if he did. Would he expect to come into your house? What if they notice he’s there? Would they hurt him? You can’t even get caught coming back in, let alone sneaking in another person! God how long have you been out for?

A small cough interrupts your inner dread, and you notice Jungkook beginning to stand up straight. After you quickly realise that he must have thought you had rejected him, you subconsciously reach out and grab his arm.

“um I’m sorry but I live in a dorm and you see the, um, university is very strict on having strangers on campus and so it’s not-“

“Hey, don’t worry about it, I completely understand!” he says, rather gently “but can I at least have your number?”

----------------------

Your mind wanders back into reality as you hear footsteps heading towards the kitchen. Immediately your hands move to play with your bracelet, your eyes darting to the door of the kitchen, fingers twisting the metal on your wrist. 3 of the main members of Sin Syndicate enter the kitchen as an uneasy feeling sets in your stomach. You look up expectantly at the men, and they look down back at you. The one member, who’s name you know to be Ju-Won, walks around the table and stands directly behind you; as for the other two, one stands in front of you, on the opposite side of the table, and the other stands at the door. A tingly sensation creeps up over you, as you feel Ju-Won touching and twisting strands of your hair through his fingers. You hide the urge to cringe, as you think about the things those hands have done – the lives they have taken.

“So sweetheart, Yunseo says that you can’t keep scrounging off us anymore. You’re a big girl now, and we can’t keep paying for you, can we? You have to start working for your life now. Ju-Won suggested you could work in one of our brothels, but we don’t want you too tired for us when you come back home, so we have decided you’re going to be working at ‘Angels’. You start tomorrow!” the greasy smile in front of you makes you want to throw up.

As Ju-Won lets go of your hair, and you nod politely at the 3 members (much to your resentment) you head back into your room. It seems really out of place in this big mansion of the Syndicates. The room has a cream colour scheme and is filled by a single-bed and a small chest of drawers. Reaching around your socks in your drawer, you search for the one that hides your phone. The phone springs to life, with the brand logo flashing on the screen when you turn it on. Sitting down on your bed, notifications begin to come through.

Jungkook: Hey, how are you today? [11:34✓✓]

Butterflies arise in your stomach as you lie back onto your bed, smiling to yourself. Your fingers move faster than your brain, and before you know it you have already replied.

You: Hey, I’m alright thank you, I’m actually starting a new job tomorrow! I’m a little nervous about it to be honest, but I’m so glad to be getting out the house more! [13:26✓]

You reread the message you sent and panic. It definitely sounds like you’re being held captive, you think.

You: Yknow, getting out the house more than usual because of college and everything haha! [13:27✓]

You put your phone away in your drawer, feeling calm now that you had saved your little mistake.

-----------------------------

“Um Joon?”

Jungkook, adorned in a complete black outfit, enters the living room, phone in hand. His eyes search the 6 other pairs in the room, until he lands on Namjoon’s. He nervously walks over to the couch and sits on the arm of it before continuing,

“as you know, I’ve been texting Y/N for the past few days, and well...she says she has a job?”

“A job?”

“Yeah. She said she starts tomorrow and she’s nervous. You don’t think-“

A shorter man, but equal in fierceness and determination, interrupts Jungkook’s fretting, ”Well they aren’t going to let her go and work for a legitimate place, that’d be stupid. And as the Syndicates only run drug chains, strip clubs and brothels, then she’s obviously working in one of them.”

Jungkook’s face morphs into one of outrage; almost disgust,” A fucking brothel!? They better not be sending her to work there Yoongi, I swear to God, I’ll fucking torch the lot of them”

Taehyung can’t stop himself for giggling at his younger’s outburst, “Why do you even care!? You hardly know her, and be realistic yeah? She’s probably working for one of their strip clubs to get her started, because it’s not like they’re gonna let her run riot on a drug chain. And sending her straight into a brothel? Unlikely.”

“Tae’s got a point. I’ll try and work out which one they have likely sent her too.” Their leader places his hand on Jungkook’s shoulder comfortingly, and then continues to head to his office.

--------------------------------

A bright purple neon sign, declaring the title ‘Angels’ flickers above the bar. The ‘A’ has devil horns above it, completely ridding the name of its suggested innocence. Most of the place looks like it is following an open plan design. Yellow leather chairs meet black shiny counters; tacky turquoise poles stand tall on top of the surface. You are pretty sure, that just in the 2 minutes you have spent here, you have seen every colour existing.

It’s quite busy in here already to say it is only the late afternoon, you think. Men dressed in suits occupy most of the room, but you are surprised to see female clients lurking around. From all the movies you watched, you always gathered it was only men that visited these types of places. Clearly, you were wrong. Your eyes continue to search the place, whilst you are waiting for further instructions from Yunseo. On the opposite side of the room you see a raised platform, with black, leather seats and small, red, circular tables surrounding it. You quickly conclude that this must be the stage where main performances are given. Focusing on that area, you see the a few silver poles coming out of the stage. You gulp, wondering if they are expecting you to be able to pole dance. You could never do that, you muse, you can barely walk in a straight line half the time! As for the employees, they are absolutely stunning. Long hair swaying in sync with their hips, their golden skin hypnotizing every person to watch their every move. You really don’t know how you’re going to fit in here.

As you take a sip of your water, a gentleman joins you at the bar. You can’t help but to take notice of him as he orders himself a drink, engaging in conversation with the Syndicate Bartender.

“You’re new ‘round here, right? I haven’t ever seen you here before?”

“Yeah, a friend recommended me the club, said I should check it out, so here I am” the dark black hair of the gentleman is parted, allowing any lurking eyes a better scope of his handsome face.

Just as you begin to listen to the rest of their conversation, Yunseo taps your shoulder.

“Okay Y/N, you’re going to have to get practicing because I’ve booked you a performance slot ready for Saturday, and you better not disappoint us!”

“Wait? For Saturday? That’s just 3 days away! How am I supposed-“

“You’d watch your mouth if you know what’s good for you sweetheart”

And just like that your head tilts down, hands in lap. Yunseo has always scared you, and has always took advantage of this whenever he has a chance.

“Good girl,” he hums, hand moving to cup your face, “Come with me and I’ll show you where you can practice”

As you get out of your seat to follow Yunseo, through the pungent scent of sweat and arousal, the gentleman at the bar catches your eye once more. It’s the way he is looking at you that you notice the most. With a prominent frown filling his features, he seems to be thinking about something. But you don’t have time to ask him about it or continue to ponder, so you turn back around and walk after Yunseo.

The rest of the evening is filled by your frustration. Yunseo had left you in this room, filled with only a stripper pole, a speaker and leather sofa, and these 4 walls are now driving you insane. It’s not like you’re the worst dancer in the world, it’s just you don’t have enough confidence. Just when you were about to hit play on the music, someone bursts into the room.

“That’s enough for today! Yunseo told me to get you home” a member you recall being named ‘Seojun’ says.

That’s right, you smile to yourself, if Yunseo told him to fetch he’d do it – he’s like a little puppy dog, a follower, and he always has been.

As you exit the room with him, Seojun’s phone starts to ring in his back pocket. As he picks up the call, you can’t help but to watch and listen,

“Hello?......How long did he stay here for?.....I don’t think it’s too strange no…….He could have been telling the truth I guess……bring it up with Yunseo, he’ll know what to do.”

You wonder for a moment who ‘he’ was. But then you remember where you are, and that it literally could have been anyone. Seojun closes the door behind you and leads you out the back entrance to the car.

next chapter update: Saturday 1st February 2020 8pm gmt

tagging: @dearlydreadful @honeydewseoks @whimsicalwoodlands @toddsgirl27 @wendyiiwl @asifetch7 @barbyisafangirl @miraculyfe @btsxdoll @laluzdirectioner @slutkoo @bubbletae7 @h5naaa

let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters!

Thank you so so much for reading!

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manyothermusingsofmine · 3 years

Text

Blinding Lights || Pokemon Drabble (Gym Leader OC)

Summary: Not being able to sleep for whatever reason sucks, but at least in Galar most other towns are within walking distance when you need a change of scenery A/N: I’ve seen quite a few nice oc x canon things floating around the pokemon fandom so I wanted to write some of my own so I just -slides this into the tags.

Honestly this is the first time I actually fully want to introduce an OC to the fandom while I have her pine for my favorite character in the game so I’m actually kinda nervous about this lol

Song is ofcourse The Weeknd - Blinding Lights because it just vibes right, yknow?

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All she heard was the soft ticking of the clock in her room, and her own racing breath as she tried to calm down from jolting awake in the middle of the night.

She had never been particularly fond of the way she dreamed, everything too real and too tangible even if it happened during her slumber.

Levyna’s phone buzzed awake when she grabbed it, the Rotom in in making sure the phone was full of battery life whenever the user needed it, even if that was at half past one in the morning. Scrolling through her contact list, she hovered over one of the names for a while, before pressing down and calling the number.

“Sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave your message after the beep and I’ll call you when I can,” informed the voicemail. Figures. Not many people would be up and about at this time.

Stretching her body a little, Levyna sat up and slipped her legs over the edge of the bed. She turned a little bit to look at the sleeping pokemon at the foot of the end- or at least, she thought it had been asleep. However, her Espeon had been silently watching her from the moment she had jolted awake, and gave a curious purr as he felt the eyes of his trainer on him.

“... Do you mind going on a walk with me, Illusion?”

The pokemon stretched as well, before elegantly hopping of the bed and sitting at the door with an agreeing noise. Levyna nodded, getting up and turning on the light in the room so she could see what she was doing while getting dressed.

For a moment she considered taking her headphones along with her, but really, where she was going everyone would be asleep or not even around. So there was no real need for it, was there?

Followed by her Espeon, she made her way out of the small, minor league village of Bellfair, quietly setting foot on the road away from her home.

“Come on, Illusion. Route 7 isn’t far from here. We’ll be there in no time. ” She knew perfectly well why the dilapidated state of Spikemuth didn't sit well with its Gym Leader. Truthfully, nobody would be too happy to see their city fall off the map the way Spikemuth did, to where only 29 residents remained. The town she came from wasn't much bigger in size, perse, but Bellfair got plenty of attention even if it kept flip flopping between being minor or major League.

But to Levyna, Spikemuth was heaven. With team yell on the road to support Marnie in her journey, only a handful of people remained in Spikemuth; most of them asleep around this time as she had expected.

She sighed in a sense of relief when she got to the main stage, momentarily deserted and with most of its neon lights turned off. Sitting down and leaning back on the steps up to the stage, she soaked in the silence around her.

No conscious thoughts to hear aside from her own. No expectations. Just blissful silence, while softly petting the delicate fur of her Espeon who had curled up in her lap.

Illusion however suddenly sat up, letting out a thrilling noise and looked at his owner with a tilted head. A sign to Levyna that he wanted to explore the area, but was unsure if he could leave his owner by herself when he did.

She smiled, very softly petting his head, getting another purr from her partner pokemon.

“It’s okay. You can go explore if you want. I’ll stay here until you’re back, okay?”

Illusion let out a happy noise, slightly wiggling away from her lap before trotting off in an elegant and quick pace. He did momentarily halt and look back at his trainer, as if to make sure she remained where she was, before fully allowing himself to explore the city of Spikemuth.

There were lots of nooks and crannies in the city the Espeon could have explored, but he stuck to most of the main road until said road took a turn left before the entrance of the town. Illusion halted there, seemingly thinking for a moment, before taking the left turn and peaking around the west entrance of the town that was surrounded by high grass, some fencing and some metal containers.

Illusion purred at the shape he saw leaning back against the biggest container at the entrance to the left, going closer to the shape and sitting down next to it.

Piers watched the pokemon from the corner of his eyes, raising an eyebrow as the lilac feline pokemon sat down beside him. Eeveelutions were an uncommon sighting in Spikemuth either way, but an Espeon seemed an far more unlikely eeveelution for any resident to have than an Umbreon.

“Hm. You’re not from around here, are ya, mate?”

He couldn’t help but smile a little as the Espeon purred, leaning over with a hand reaching over in a relaxed way so the pokemon could sniff it. He didn’t plan on petting it necessarily, he just wanted to show that he was not a threat.

“You must be Levyna’s Espeon, then. Didn’t see her coming in. Mind bringing me to her?”

He stood up straight, pressing against one of his shoulders before rolling it back a little, only to follow the pokemon back into his town and along the main road to the stage where he often held his concerts.

Seeing Levyna there in the middle of the night was not much of a surprise, and he didn’t mind keeping her company on the nights she came to Spikemuth if he had been struggling to get to sleep as well.

“Hey,” he greeted, casually, watching as the Espeon that guided him crawled back into the lap of its trainer.

“Hey,” she greeted back, moving just a little bit so there was enough space for him to sit down next to her. Not that there wasn’t, or like Piers took up a lot of space anyway, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.

“I was planning on calling you back, you know. Missed call and all? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just.. you know. Sleeping got hard, wanted to ask if I could come over. Decided to do so anyway. Hope you don’t mind.” “Of course I don’t mind. Beats standing outside on my own.”

A silence fell between them, but it was hardly an awkward silence. In fact, the gaps in their conversation seemed more comforting than anything else. To just sit there, besides one another to enjoy the company offered, in the calm silence of a town that was asleep.. It seemed to calm both of them down, even just a little.

To share space without the expectation of much else was a luxury neither of them could really afford to have more often during the buzzling hours of the day. Not with their responsibilities as gym leaders, and Piers’ responsibilities towards his music career to boot.

Still, Levyna picked up vibes. Bits and pieces of the thoughts and worries on his mind, despite her trying not to listen in on his thoughts out of respect. However, hearing the thoughts of others was something she couldn’t fully block out without her headphones. Still, maybe if she asked it right she could offer some help?

"You seem worried."

"Same goes for you."

… Fair enough. While Piers didn’t share her telepathic abilities, he seemed to know better than anyone else when something was bothering Levyna- maybe it was some body language thing that she never really seemed to understand as it was something she didn’t particularly needed to focus on herself.

Levyna was never too sure how she felt about Piers’ ability to tell when something was up with her. She knew that sounded bad coming from someone who could literally read minds if she didn’t try her best to block out thoughts that weren’t hers, but still. "You're in the major league, Piers. Does… Does it bother you to be a major league gym?"

"I don’t know. Does it bother you to be a minor league player this year?”

"Not particularly... In the background maybe, but... you know what I'm like."

"Mhh… Actually, it’s more… It’s Marnie. She’s at the age where she's ready to take on the gym challenge, so…"

"She'll do great."

“I know. That’s not what I’m worried about. Just.. letting her go, I guess. Letting her go and travel Galar all by herself, cause I’m stuck here being part of the gym challenge she’s going to take.”

Levyna nodded, very lightly patting his shoulder to try and offer sympathy. It was no secret that Piers was protective over Marnie and wanted her safe, especially as he had been more of a parent figure to her than just an older brother. Levyna could only imagine it was hard for him to let her go and spread her wings even if it was the best thing to do for her.

Another silence fell between them as she withdrew her hand to go back to petting Illusion, hoping she had at least given him some comfort.

“… You just want to be there for her when she battles, huh?”

“Yeah. Wish I could be.”

“I don’t think she’s going to hold that against you. She knows you have responsibilities you can’t shake, no matter how much you wish you could. Plus, well, I don’t have siblings, but I bet it’s going to be fun for her to try and beat you on your home turf.”

Piers gave a slight amused huff. Levyna did have somewhat of a point there. He’d be lying himself if he said he wasn’t looking forward to try and beat his little sister himself, and knew she would put up a great fight against him as well. And for Levyna to have so much faith in Marnie making it far into the competition anyway meant a lot to him.

He knew his sister would make it far. But to hear that same faith in her from someone else was nice.

However, that didn’t explain something else that was on his mind. He looked at her, watching as she silently petted the Espeon in her lap. The purrs from the pokemon were the only noises that broke the peaceful silence between them.

He decided to first place a hand upon her upper arm, much like she had offered a similar kind of affection while they spoke of his worries. “So… why are you here, then? I know something's on your mind, Lev. And unlike you I can't exactly peek in to see what's going on. You can tell me anything, you know?"

She looked at the hand that ever so gently had been placed on her upper arm. She wondered if he even knew how much his slight touches calmed down her racing mind.

".... It's nothing. Nothing huge, anyway. Just too many thoughts making the process of actually shutting down my brain and getting some damn sleep incredibly hard and... I mean this in the best way possible, but Spikemuth is.. calm. quiet. I can actually hear myself think around here. I know how that's not something necessarily positive though. Makes me feel like a wandering Absol."

"Didn't realise disaster omens came in hues of purple."

That drew a small laugh out of her as she lightly swatted at his shoulder, fully aware that it was just a joke between friends.

"I'm glad you can find some peace and quiet here, Lev. At least until the gym challenge starts, I suppose."

"Yeah."

They sat there together for quite a while, just talking about the upcoming gym challenge and the differences between the major league qualifications and leader responsibilities in comparison to those of a minor league gym, talking about Marnie and the journey she was soon about to make.

And talking about just anything in between that came to their minds until rays of the sun slowly started to creep through the cracks of the ceiling that kept the whole of Spikemuth protected from the cold weather blowing around route 9. With the hours slowly creeping towards the daylight, Levyna decided it was about time for her to go home and get some rest there. Even just a light nap would help her get through the rest of the day.

Illusion left her lap as she gave even the slightest motion that she wanted to get up. She patted down her clothes a little to make sure there were no weird folds from the way she had been sitting, readjusted her gloves and pulled her fingers through her long blond hair to push it back into shape. She thanked Piers for keeping her company, which he assured was no big deal as he thanked her as well for doing the same for him.

As Levyna told him to take care, she started to walk towards the main entrance of the city. She halted, however, as she got a few steps onto the gym floor where Piers usually held his battles or kept his audience during concert. She bit her lower lip for a moment, thinking about something else she had been wanting to tell him. "Piers-" she started, turning back around towards where he still sat, and immediately held back what she wanted to say. He looked up at the mentioning of his name, looking at her curiously.

"Hmm?"

".... Let me know if there's ever anything I can do for you, okay? You... help me with so much of my problems, and I know you don't do it so I owe you but... I want to help you if you need me to."

"... Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

With that they said their goodbyes for then, and Levyna walked along the main road before leaving Spikemuth through the main entrance. Standing out on route 9, she sighed before pressing her back against one of the brick pillars that held the shutters in place. She stared down at Illusion who had followed her along, sat down beside her and now seemed to be disappointedly glaring at her.

".... Don't you judge me," she muttered.

"Let's just go home. I have to get some rest before starting the day, anyhow. Hmm… Maybe I could try to visit Milo somewhere in between my breaks. Speaking to him would be nice.”

Illusion just purred in agreement as he followed his trainer home.

I said, ooh, I'm blinded by the lights. No, I can't sleep until I feel your touch

#pokemon swsh #pokemon writing #piers pokemon #pokemon gym leader oc #my writing

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billhaderlovebot · 5 years

Text

to kiss the skin that crawls from you - barry berkman

this is an au in which the shade of the blood depends on what kind of person you are. the blood is black if you do bad things etc etc.

tagging @a-second-hand-sorrow ily

---

cuts and scrapes were normal in childhood, and the frost-white blood that flowed from them was equally as normal.

it was in childhood that the blood was the purest.

the purest white, like snow.

it didn't stay that way, though.

in adulthood, when thoughts and deeds were less than innocent, the shade of blood would change accordingly.

evil things would darken the blood, your mother had always said. evil things would make your veins run black. black like the soot in the hearth, black like the raven.

and you knew she was right.

because you'd seen it.

when the mumbling, shaking, erratic man who your mother had always kept you away from had sliced himself open in the street, blood like coal pouring from him, you had seen it.

as it ran down the asphalt and pooled in the gutter, you watched, in morbid curiosity, before your mother shut the drapes.

it wasn't until later, much later, that you had learned of the many bodies that man had buried.

your own blood, now, was still white, not as pure as it was when you were growing up, but that was to be expected.

you had nothing to fear when you fell and scraped your hands or cut yourself while cooking, because whatever you bled was acceptable and nowhere near dark enough to indicate you were dangerous.

you knew a startling amount of people, though, who were reluctant to do anything that could result in the breaking of the skin.

when they did happen to cut themselves in front of you, you chose never to judge the varying shades of grey they would bleed. blood tore whole families apart. everyone has a past. everyone makes mistakes.

everyone.

even him.

he had captured your full attention from the moment he had shuffled into your coffee shop, looking lost and apologising quietly every time he brushed shoulders with someone.

he was also very, very attractive, but that wasn't the point.

it was late, really late.

he leaned against the counter, pulling out his wallet, and uttered his first words to you.

"hi, uh... black."

"sorry?"

"no, shit, sorry. um, black. coffee. please. can i... get one?" the man exhaled loudly, frustrated with himself. he looked fucking exhausted.

his soft, red rimmed blue eyes met yours for a moment, and you almost melted into the floorboards.

you blinked.

"rough night?" you asked, breaking the tension as you turned around to the coffee machine, flicking the switch.

"y-yeah, i... yeah. working on a scene for, um, my acting class. had to go to a difficult place."

"oh yeah?" you pulled down one of your biggest cups from the shelf, remembering how tired he looked.

"uh huh. it's great, though. the class. my teacher, uh, gene cousineau, he's a little much, but he says i have potential, yknow?"

looking over your shoulder, your stomach fluttered at the sight of his soft smile.

"i'm sure you do." you said, and a comfortable quiet settled over the shop. the only sound being the whirring of the coffee machine, the late night chatter of the last people in there, and the interesting man pulling up a stool.

the man, who you later learned was called barry, finished the large coffee in four gulps, placing it back down on the counter with a resounding clink.

he didn't make a move to ask for another, nor did he get up from his seat. he just... sat.

made him another coffee, however, because you were a barista and it was late and he was gorgeous and very tired looking.

"fuck! you're bleeding." barry exclaimed. you had handed him the other coffee, not even noticing that you'd sliced your finger on the foil of the coffee-bean bag.

"oh." you examined the small cut, wiping on your apron the white blood that had slid down into your palm. it hadn't hurt any. "it's fine. it's only blood." you shrugged, furrowing your brow slightly at his wide eyes.

"yeah... yeah, sorry. you're right."

you fell more than a little bit in love with him that night. his soft blue eyes and the way he spoke like he was being careful of something. the way he walked around as if he felt it was his job to hold everything up.

you wanted to just... hold his hand. and tell him it was going to be okay. whatever it was.

you also wanted him to jump your fucking bones, but you pushed that down and asked him if he wanted anything else to drink.

he said no, but yet he didn't leave. he spoke to you instead. asking tentative questions about your life and your family. you noticed how he stiffened when you asked him about his own, so you chose not to pry any further.

instead, you got him to laugh. a real, genuine laugh.

and your heart might as well have fallen out of your throat and landed on the table. holy fucking fuck, what a sound, that laugh.

it was a silly anecdote from your college days that shouldn't have made him laugh as hard as it did, but, regardless, it was wonderful to hear.

for the next couple of hours, you mopped the place while barry messed around with the jukebox and shot not-so-encouraging remarks from where he was perched on a table.

"mop harder, you fucking goose." was an interesting one.

"can i get your number?" he asked, at the end of the night when he was helping you close up. it was 3am.

you grinned, popping open a sharpie you used to write names on to-go cups and holding out your hand for his arm to write on.

he seemed to stop working for a second, starting blankly at your open palm. then he got it, and slid his arm into your hand, wrist up. he was warm.

you scribbled your number on the soft skin of his forearm, and smiled up at him.

and then you leaned forward on your tip toes and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

he blushed. hard.

"call me when you need a hug." you said. "because you look like you could do with one."

barry nodded, shooting you one of those small, barely-there smiles and heading out of the door.

not twenty-or-so seconds later, as you were hanging up your apron on the small metal hooks behind the counter, your phone buzzed in your pocket.

"hey. it's barry. from the coffee shop."

---

you'd been in love before, sure, but not like this. never like this.

"what're you doing, bear?" you mumbled in sleepy agitation, shifting as barry wrapped his arms around your waist, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder.

"m'just... i miss you."

"i'm right here, bear." you whispered, smiling despite yourself and leaning into his warmth.

"yeah but... i love you." barry kissed the nape of your neck lazily, holding you just a little tighter. not long after, his breathing evened out, and you knew he was asleep again.

much like the night in the cafe, you just about vomited your heart out.

it had been a while since then. almost six months.

six months of soft kisses and hard kisses and a lot of hand holding and 2am kitchen dances and lazy, sleepy early morning sex and barry being 110% interested in everything you had to say and running lines for his acting classes and you were in love with this man.

and that's why it was so hard for you to accept that there was something wrong.

because there was. but you loved him so much that it would've taken a gun to your head to get you to admit it.

it was around two in the morning, and you were dozing on your couch, a half empty beer bottle balancing precariously between your limp fingers. you couldn't quite remember what you were watching, but the dull crackle and mumble of the television and its meaningless, drawling voices alerted some deep, far away place in your head, not letting you completely fall away into sleep. it had been a long fucking day, right?

but something was off. even now, leaning back into the throw pillows, a blanket wrapped tightly around you, something was wrong. it wasn't only the tv that kept you from sleep. something sinister was afoot.

what it was, you didn't know, but you were about to find out.

when barry shuffled into your apartment, you almost didn't notice him. the only light in the apartment drifted slowly from the salt lamp on the shelf above the toaster, and his tall stature cast a looming shadow across the small apartment.

when you did notice him, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. he did this a lot, coming over late to chat or run lines or have sex or watch tv, and you loved it. he had his own key.

what wasn't normal, however, was the blood.

the blood, unstaunched, grotesque upon his light grey sweater.

the blood that stained his trembling fingertips and came pouring from an open wound on his forehead.

and, suddenly, you were painfully awake.

the blood. sticky. hot.

black.

the blacker the soul, the blacker the blood, girl.

"barry..." it didn't sound like your voice. it was too small. like that of a child. "barry, what the fuck."

not him. not him. not him.

good god, please, not him.

but it was there, bleak as a bee.

tar-black and dripping, stark against the now sickly white kitchen tiles.

"baby, i-" his voice broke, no, his voice shattered. and then he was crying. he was fucking sobbing in your kitchen. such strangled sounds.

against your better judgement, against the poignant twisting in the pit of your stomach, you kicked off the blankets, stumbling over the couch and into the kitchen, where he stood, wrapping his arms around himself as if it would keep him together.

so you did it for him. you took him in your arms and held him so fucking tight. barely registering any of your actions and blinking away the tears that welled in your own eyes, stinging. biting.

"don't say a fucking word." you said, voice muffled by his blood-stained shirt. "don't."

---

when you kissed the tears from his cheeks, you tasted the blood.

barry hadn't needed stitches, thank god, but you had got him into the shower, cleaning the last traces of oil-black from his skin, pressing kisses along in your wake. barry was silent, allowing you to dry him and dress him and pull him into your bed, his head on your chest.

"not you." you said, allowing tears to fall. "i won't fucking lose you because of this."

"i'm... a bad person, baby."

"i don't fucking care."

"babe-"

"no. you're gonna go to sleep, 'kay? and tomorrow, you're going to tell me everything, and we'll deal with it then."

"why are you doing this for me?" he asked, his voice quivering.

"because i love you."

#barry berkman x reader #barry berkman #barry block #barry hbo #barry #bill hader

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luci-cunt · 4 years

Text

Hi, welcome to my open worm can, here’s me not being able to shut up Cureless and Cynical version @sargent-major-jane whyyyyyyy do youuuu doooo thiisss too meee aksdjfl;askdj XDD <33

Ok so first of all, here’s the cast: Izyc, a demon; Walter, a vampire; Lou a werewolf 6 year old

The story starts out with Walter summoning a demon (who happens to be Izyc) because he wants to bring his friend (Caine) back from the dead. Walt’s at this point basically a dumbass rich fratboy and him and Caine had this pretty not great friendship that was super co-dependant and toxic because Caine is not a good person. Anyways, Caine ends up dying, but the circumstances seem fishy because no one will talk to Walter about it so he gets the fantastic idea to bring Caine back from the dead.

Izyc’s a little ass tho and he’s like “how do you want him?” and so Walter orders one supersized friend resurrection.

“Alright,” Izyc said, cracking his knuckles and standing up, “which one is he?”

Walter pointed to Caine’s grave and Izyc walked over to stand in front of it. He scanned the grave stone, it was made of lacquered wood, with Caine’s name burned into it. ��A wonderful son and friend with an honest soul, he will be missed.”

“Must be nice to have one of these,” Izyc remarked, more joking than wistful, “I think my parents buried me in a Payless box in the backyard.”

“Sorry,” Walter said, not sure what to say.

Izyc just shrugged, “them’s the apples,” he said, which didn’t make sense to Walter but Izyc was moving on.

There’s just one problem with this whole thing, and that’s the fact that Caine does NOT want to be alive. The reason no one told Walter about Caine’s death in detail was because Caine killed himself, and now he’s back as a nearly unkillable monster.

So Caine mauls the hell out of Walter’s arm and turns HIM into a vampire.

Some details about vampires in this world: they’re nearly unkillable. The only thing that can kill them is another vampire. The sunlight thing is a myth, Walt is allergic to garlic tho. Also he’s got fangs, and has better senses. Oh and there’s a wrinkle: the vampiric disease can be transfered thru bodily fluids--I promise this will be important later XDD

Anywhoo--Walt’s a vampire now and he’s grouchy and grumpy about it. he goes all emo and the story flashes forward 7ish years to him sulking in a bar even though he can’t get drunk he just LiKeS tHe BuRn.

this is where we find out Izyc has stuck around, and that him and Walter hunt monsters. Also that Izyc really likes his pair of jeans.

Izyc cried out as he hit the ground, scrambling to hold onto something as the gnome dragged him down into the tunnels. His arms hit the sides of the tunnel and stopped him and he cursed.

Walter was on him in a second, grabbing him by the coat as Izyc held onto his arms and pulled against the gnome.

“Fucking– catch– fire!” Walter yelled, straining to pull Izyc out of the hole.

“I like these jeans!” Izyc yelled back, “Ow! Shit!” he yelped, probably as the thing’s claws started digging in.

Oh also: since Izyc is a demon he’s got some magic powers, most namely: the ability to set himself on fire, the ability to conjure anything in the world as long as he makes a deal, and an immunity to vampire sicknesss.

Also also: these are gnomes in this universe (description courtesy of Izyc’s bestiology)

Surprisingly large, looks a bit like if a mole and a man decided to shit on god’s face by fucking. Claws for hands and pointy faces with milky eyes covered by big, bushy eyebrows. Does not wear clothing, which is a sight, and known for dragging unsuspecting women into their dens during mating seasons. The species is exclusively male and very reclusive/ meek. Will not inhabit anywhere within a mile of another gnome.

So.... moving on.... Izyc and Walt have an odd relationship, they travel around the US living out of hotels (specifically one that’s run by a man eating ghoul named Klancy who may or may not be 100 years old).

Some details to know about demons: most of them were desperate people who sold their souls to other demons for something in their life. Then when they die they get stuck in this limbo and are basically hellish office workers. People can summon Izyc, but the only ritual most know just pokes at him and he can ignore it. It’s actually how him and Walt get jobs, someone summon’s Izyc and gives him details and then Walt and him zip on over.

So Izyc’s got nothing better to do and Walt was his first ever deal so sue him, he’s lonely, he just kinda sticks with Walt. After a couple of years tho they start fucking, and both claim it’s for convenience sake--mostly Walt tho, cuz he can’t have sex with anyone who isn’t a vampire unless he wants to make them a vampire and -- yeah anyways.

Izyc catches feelings though, and he tries to pipe up about it, but then Lou crashes into the story.

Some details to know about werewolves: they don’t only transform under the full moon, but that is a sacred time for them. They’re very ostracized by the world, forced to live in tiny communities and keep to themselves because they’re “dangerous.”

One day, a vampire comes through and murders Lou’s entire pack

and the two other packs living in the town with them.

Lou is the only survivor, and she’s friends with a woman named Luca who mentions a bitchy-but-nice vampire named Walter.

And so Lou’s grieving 6 y/o brain goes “only a vampire can kill another vampire, this is perfect” and tracks Walt down and twists his heart strings until he agrees to at least check the scene out.

Details about Luca: she’s Walter’s ex-boyfriend’s step-sister and she’s also half banshee. She’s also also one of Walter’s only friends.

Some details about banshee’s: contrary to popular belief they aren’t omens of death, rather just really fucked up people. They’re usually the product of a hateful birth and feel emotion so strongly they’ll only be able to feel one single emotion in their lives. Usually people’s first emotions when their born is fear, and thus--screaming banshee’s. However, if you’re only part banshee you feel other emotions but they’re still super strong, so Luca’s basically cracked out bipolar. She takes meds that help but if she doesn’t take them it gets BAD.

Anyways, Walter goes to the crime scene, it goes a little like this:

It started as splatters, dried and dirty looking on the ground. Then it got thicker, darker, and more concentrated. The walls of surrounding buildings were painted with it, and the street looked like it had been bathed in it. At the end of the street, however, was a schoolhouse, which seemed to be the source of all of it.

Walter’s shiver had nothing to do with the cold.

“Hey!” a voice called suddenly, stirring Walter out of where he’d been standing, staring at the school. It wasn’t very large, just a long, single story building that had a lot of windows and big doors. Above them were rusting metal letters spelling ‘SMITH CREEK ELEMENTARY.’ Most of the windows were broken and the doors had been torn off their hinges. The lawn in front of the school – which had probably been grass before – was now torn up and muddied from countless claws scrambling and tearing it up.

“Hey!” The voice called again, this time closer, “you can’t be here.”

Walter turned to find a man walking up to him. He was wearing an officer’s uniform and his face was scrunched up in annoyance behind a big paper mask that covered his mouth and nose. Walter could smell lavender on it. The officer was also quite a bit shorter than Walter, and he had blond hair and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked at Walter.

“I’m on business,” Walter said, “a consultant,” he lied.

The officer gave him a shrewd look, “we didn’t hear anything about you coming up,” he said.

Walter sighed, “it’s not my fault your department is useless.” The man’s face twitched. “I’m going back to work now, unless you want me to bother my superior and admit you messed up,” Walter said, brushing past the bristling man.

“What kind of consultant are you supposed to be?” he asked, jogging a bit to catch up to Walter as he picked his way up to the school. There was a shallow set of stairs leading to the doors. The stairs were dark with blood and Walter almost expected them to be tacky. It had been days though, and they were dried by now.

“Vampiric expert,” Walter said.

“What are your credentials?”

Walter turned and flashed his fangs. All the blood drained from the mans face and he took a few quick steps back. Walter didn’t stop walking, just tore through the caution tape blocking the doorway and went inside.

We find out later on that this is actually Caine’s doing, and Caine goes on a bit of the murder spree, which is what the book devolves into. Before it was some cases, a bunch of undocumented kishi (people with hyena faces on the backs of their heads) run into a wyvern problem that turns into a monster smuggling scandal. Izyc pisses off pirates which results in them kidnapping him to try and make Walt murder a bunch of mermaids, which just leads to the mermaids and Walt eating all the pirates. They meet another vampire named Marissa who happens to also be a warlock and zips them into a pocket dimension that’s like a 1950′s nuclear family where Izyc goes crazy, manages to escape, and then has to get into Walt’s pocket dimension and kill his alternate self.

yknow, the usual.

This is so fucking long I’m so sorry if you managed to get all the way down here I owe you my whole soul aksjdf;lakjsdf;lkajsdf here’s some snippets:

#this is so long akjdf;laskdjf i'm sorry #c/c

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