#The first part is a direct parallel

[lettingtimepass]

Loki Parallels

S1E4: Loki "dies" S1E5: Loki finds out he was stronger than he thought he was

S2E4: Loki "dies" S2E4: Loki finds out he was stronger than he thought he was

And dare I say it......?

S1E6: Loki kisses his love interest for the wrong reason

S2E6: Loki kisses his love interest for the right reason

[starryeyed-apple]

birthday indulgences

the kiss we silently swore never to talk about again...

summary: years ago, on your birthday, you & caleb shared a forbidden moment. it isn't until his birthday that all those hidden desires are finally indulged in.

★pairing: caleb x fem!reader ★wc: 3.5k ★content: fluff & smut. drunk first kiss & grinding in the memory, caleb panics, a tiny bit of angst. sloppy makeouts, spit kink, dry humping, coming in pants, desperate & subby caleb, overstimulation. caleb calls reader pipsqueak, baby, honey and love. reader calls caleb baby. ★a/n: I love that theory that the kiss they don't talk about happened when they were younger, and then I thought ooo I could do a parallel with this. it was supposed to be sweet and it turned smutty, but it's still sweet. I'll probably do a more intimate version of their first time once his card is out! ★masterlist ★read on ao3

You couldn't believe you had actually gotten Caleb to go along with your plan.

When you'd told him you needed a break from your college campus, and that you wanted to go out and get drunk in Skyhaven for your birthday, he was already nodding along on the video call.

"Alright, pipsqueak," he agreed with a grin. "I'll tag along and take care of you. Gotta make sure you're staying hydrated."

"No, no, no." You shook your head, grinning wickedly when he cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy. "You're going with me."

He arches an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Uhh, earth to pipsqueak, did you not hear what I just said? I am going—"

"Nooo," you interrupt, wagging your finger. "You're going drinking with me."

He'd sputtered, complained and argued all he wanted, but he had agreed to every one of your terms by the time you hung up the call.

And here you were, tipsy and laying back on the floor of his Aerospace Academy assigned studio apartment, watching the ceiling fan spin while you both giggled over something you can't quite remember.

You glance over at where Caleb's sprawled out beside you, smiling at the happy, hazy look in his eyes that surely matches your own. It was impossible to see him ever completely loosen up, and this was the best birthday gift you could've asked for.

Then your thoughts immediately take a different direction when he licks his lips.

They're too dry. You know because you'd jokingly held him down as you swiped your own chapstick across them countless times.

And you'd caught him running his thumb over his cracked bottom lip, tongue darting out across the lingering taste of you when he thought you weren't looking.

Your whole face feels too hot suddenly, blood rushing so fast through your ears that you can't even hear the idle sounds of Skyhaven late at night that drift up through the cracked window.

You wonder what it would be like to kiss someone.

To have their lips press to yours, all tentative and sweet. To know that liking them wasn't in vain, that hoping they felt the same way wasn't just a daydream you'd kept hidden for years. To see the adoration in their eyes when they pull back and caress your cheek.

Purple eyes with an orange sheen.

You wonder what it would be like to kiss Caleb.

"Caleb," you whine, watching the dopey smile grow on his face at your voice. "Am I too old to have never been kissed?"

Caleb's eyes widen, flashing to yours.

"I—" he blinks rapidly, and you giggle at the rare occasion of having caught him completely off guard. "What?"

"Kiss-ing," you draw out, tapping your lips with each letter you spell out for him, "k-i-s-s-i-n-g."

Caleb watches each tap with rapt attention, so captivated that his own lips slowly part. A bit of drool collects at the corner of them, and your vision goes hazy before he quickly looks away.

"Oh." He sounds breathless, clearing his throat to steady his voice. "Uh, I dunno, pipsqueak. I mean, I'm older than you and I've never kissed anyone. Is that weird?"

He gives a little laugh, but you hear the stiff edge to it, can see the uncertainty haunting the façade of his easy expression.

"Really?" you roll over onto you stomach, propping your chin onto your palms.

Your legs kick behind you, and he glances at you and away again.

After a stretch of awkward silence, he turns onto his side, meeting your gaze.

"I mean, yeah," he mutters, shrugging one shoulder. "Why would I?"

You look down at his never-been-kissed lips, feeling your blood rush to your head when he bites them.

Your eyes dart back down, watching his necklace brush against the floor from the angle he lays at.

"Sooo…you've never wanted to kiss anybody?" you ask, trying to seem casual, even as your fingers fidget with the hem of his shirt when he shifts closer.

"I didn't say that," Caleb mutters, and you go rigid.

"Oh."

You flop back onto your back, glaring up at the ceiling fan before he can notice how your brows have pinched, your mouth pressed into a firm line.

"Pips?" Caleb pokes at your cheek, and you pout, turning on your side away from him. "What's got you all frowny-faced?"

"Nothing," you bite out, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Uh-huuuh."

He pokes at your back, then your side, until his fingers are lightly tickling at your ribs. You giggle, kicking your feet out at him.

"Caleb, stooop," you whine, pushing back at him as he tries to tug you back over to face him.

"C'mon, pips," he teases, pinching your waist, and you squeak. "Why won't you look at me?"

Flipping over to smack him, you accuse with totally justified, totally sober and coherent anger, "I'm mad at you, dummy!"

He blinks, and you try and not melt at how cute he looks like this—drunk and flushed, with those big confused puppy dog eyes.

"Why?"

Instead of answering him directly, you ask, "Was it the girl in your chemistry class?"

"The—" Caleb blinks again, shifting back in surprise. "What?"

"That you wanted to kiss sooo badly." You frown, crossing your arms again. "The one who copied off your homework, and you were too nice to stop her. Or was it the guy who always tried to beat your track record?"

"Pips—"

"Or the cheerleader captain? Or is it somebody at university, huh? Are you sneaking around making googly eyes at the other pilots?"

"Oh, quit it." Caleb rolls his eyes, rubbing a hand over his forehead with an unamused huff. "I didn't want to kiss any of them. I don't want to."

"Then who?" You push yourself up, and he sits up to match your restless energy. He always rises to that familiar challenge in your eyes, pulling when you push. "Who exactly is just so damn special that you're still saving that kiss for them?"

Caleb's eyes flash, and he leans up and over you until his large frame is surrounding you completely.

"Maybe it's someone I like with a bratty mouth," he snaps, gently pinching your lips shut between calloused fingers.

Your wide eyes meet his blazing ones, and you both freeze.

His fingers loosen on your lips, and your lashes flutter.

He watches your eyes dilate, then looks down to where he gingerly brushes his fingers along the seam of your lips, his breath audibly hitching when they part for him.

Caleb's lids fall heavy over his darkening gaze. Your breath speeds up in your chest. He looks from your lips to your eyes, then back down to your lips again.

And when you glance down at his own mouth, you're both crashing into each other.

Your first kiss with your childhood friend, your best friend, was anything but the magical one you had just been daydreaming about.

This was sloppy and needy, all tongue and spit and teeth. Years of emotion you didn't know how to unpack began to unravel at the seams, and you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him into you as you fall back onto the floor.

Neither of you knew what you were doing, only that you were desperate for more. His hands grab at your waist, slipping down to your thighs briefly, and snapping back up when he realized what he was touching.

Then his arms are wrapping around you, corded muscles tightening to hold you close to him as you squirm from all the years of pent up tension.

Your lips meet his again and again, needy sounds filling the air. His own spit dribbles down your chin as Caleb licks into your mouth and moans against your tongue.

Your foot trails up his leg, wrapping around his calf, and he mindlessly grabs at it, hoisting it up until it was wrapping securely around his hip. The fabric of your skirt rides up, and you jolt when you feel the growing bulge in his jeans rub against the thin fabric of your dampening panties.

The sensation is brief, then harder, until you're rolling against each other in a delirious haze of desperation.

He's mumbling something incoherent into your lips, teeth sinking into the soft flesh until you feel it start to break, and you moan his name.

Caleb jerks back, eyes wide and pupils swallowing all the purple except for the thinnest ring around the edge. His chest heaves, kiss-swollen lips forming soundless words.

Lips swollen from your kisses.

You whine, reaching for him as he begins to panic, de-tangling himself from you.

"No," you beg, trying to tug him back as he gently pulls your grabbing hands away. "No no no—"

"Pips, you're—" his voice is ragged, and he sucks in a deep breath.

His eyes are wild, darting around at everything but you, even as he tugs your skirt back down around your waist. His cheeks blaze red when he steals another quick look at the ruined panties underneath, the soaked fabric with a lacy band, before he turns away in shame.

"You're drunk," he breathes, shaking his head sharply.

"I'm not—"

"I'm drunk." Caleb laughs, disbelief coating the sound, long fingers running through his hair until it's sticking up in all directions. "Shit. Fuck. This wasn't—this wasn't supposed to happen—"

Your body begins to defensively curl inwards, and you blink quickly to try and keep the sudden sting of tears at bay.

Caleb finally dares a glance back at you, going from flushed to shockingly pale in seconds.

"No, no, pipsqueak—"

"No, it's fine," you sniff, pushing yourself up and scooting back against the floor. "I get it. You…you didn't want it to be me. I get it."

"No, no no no," he keeps mumbling the word the entire time you're moving away, and suddenly Caleb's on his hands and knees, crawling after you with those big, sad puppy dog eyes. "No, pips, that's not what I meant—"

"It's fine, Caleb."

"It's not fine," he insists, resting the side of his cheek against the top of your knees. His eyes are wide and wet, begging for you to just look at him. "You heard what I said. Who I said. Who I…wanted."

His voice gets impossibly quiet, and Caleb's honest gaze begs for your attention.

But you're too fixated by the dark indentation your teeth had left in his lips, the shine on them that could've been your saliva or his.

"It's just not a good idea, pips," he whispers, and you flinch, followed by his own grimace. "Shit, no, that sounded bad. It's just because—"

He stops, shaking his head, palm covering his face.

"I can't think straight," he mumbles, peeking at you through his fingers. With a sigh, he drops his hand onto your knee, rubbing gentle circles into your skin. His voice is so gentle, so Caleb, but it still grates at your sensitive nerves right now. "I think we both just need to sleep this off. We'll talk about it later, okay?"

You sniff, still not meeting his eyes completely.

"No, we wont," you mumble, even as you let yourself be gently directed towards his bed.

He's silent as he helps you prepare for sleep, even as he moves to sleep on his little couch, opting for his long legs to cramp up on the furniture instead of cuddling with you. The tension radiates off him at your accusation—because he knows you're right.

"We'll never talk about it again."

But here you are, years later, in the same situation as before.

You're both sober this time. You're older, maybe wiser, and scarred from being torn apart before coming back together.

But the way Caleb looks at you has never changed. Like you hung the stars in the sky, like you were the moon the sun chased with every morning.

He doesn't shy away when you look at him just the same. He doesn't pull back now, doesn't keep his longing locked away when your thumb brushes his lips, collecting the residue of the candy you'd fed him.

You wanted today to be a special birthday for him. You wanted to give him everything he'd ever wanted.

"Remember when you kissed me?" you breathe, and his eyes flash in surprise at what you'd silently sworn to never speak of again, beautiful lashes fluttering at your exhale across his lips. "On my birthday?"

He laughs, a little quiet huff of air, and his shock melts to something knowing. Something you'd both always known, deep down.

"You kissed me," he accuses, all low and sultry in his teasing, and you shiver.

You smile, your thumb caressing the corner of his lips.

It didn't matter who had kissed who anymore, who pulled back from who. You'd still ended up where you both belonged.

Caleb gazes up at you, awestruck when your eyes darken.

"Then you knew I wanted it," you whisper, nose bumping against his. "So why did you stop?"

You lean in slowly, giving him a moment to pull away if he still wanted to, if he still needed time. He'd given you all the time in the world, after all. You'd happily wait for him, too.

But then Caleb's lips are on yours, and everything finally feels right.

He tastes like sour lemon candy, and you whine, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth. He moans, fingers digging into your hips.

"Fuck me," he groans under his breath, and you laugh between the kisses that heat up between you.

"If you insist," you murmur, smirking into his mouth when his hips jerk up into yours.

The whimper that leaves his lips is quiet and needy, and you eagerly swallow it down.

"Don't tease me like that, baby," Caleb rasps, and your own hips roll in his lap at that low huskiness to his voice.

His hands tighten on your hips, stilling you. You pause, wondering if you'd taken it too far.

But then he's directing you, pulling your legs around to straddle him completely. He guides you into a deeper roll, and you both moan.

You sink down onto him with slow grinds, the hem of your dress hiding just how quickly your panties were getting wet. In the rosy haze of growing pleasure, you wonder how long it'll take to soak that erection he's been sporting since you walked in the room.

"Didn't even try and hide how hard you were when I came in," you whisper into your languid, sensual kissing. "Did you?"

Caleb's hand slips down, cupping your ass easily in his rough palm and long fingers. You moan when he squeezes it, followed by a squeak of surprise at his gentle, experimental smack to it.

"You can't talk like that, pips," he pants, head tilting back against the couch. His voice is that delicious shade of darkness when he adds, "God, you can't make those sounds either. I won't last long if you do."

His eyes are hazy as he watches you lean down, kissing along the elegant slope of his neck. You stop at the harsh bobbing of his Adam's apple when he gulps, and your teeth graze along it, humming at the moan you feel vibrate there.

"I've thought about that kiss for years," Caleb gasps, hand sliding up your back to keep you pressed to him. His hips lazily roll up into yours, his eyes rolling back into his head when he suddenly bucks up once. "Every time I—"

He cuts himself off, biting at his already swollen lips with a blush.

You smile, devious in your intent, and his mouth falls open when your hidden possessive streak unfolds.

"Every time you—" you leave your question hanging, letting the way you begin to bounce in his lap be the answer.

"You—" Caleb chokes, gripping your hips.

His eyes glue to the motion of your hips flexing under your dress, ass coming up and smacking back down against the strength of his large thighs. You feel him twitch through his jeans, and you moan along with him.

"F-fuck," he groans, mouth hanging open, the tip of his tongue falling out.

You lean forward, collecting the saliva in your mouth. Realizing what you're doing, Caleb tilts his head up and sticks his tongue out, eyes wide and dilated.

You let your spit pool onto his tongue, and he takes it eagerly, swallowing it down with a whine and a thrust of his hips.

"I've thought about it, too," you breathe, and his lidded eyes flicker between your face and where you're shamelessly humping him. "Every single time. Even when I'm not trying to. But when I'm touching myself—"

"Oh fuck—"

"And I'm trying to come, all I can think about is how warm you were and your spit in my mouth—"

"B-baby," Caleb stutters, his head lolling to the side, unfocused eyes fluttering and rolling back in his head with each dry slap and grind of your hips against his. "Please, please—"

"I always think of kissing you when I'm coming—"

"Coming," Caleb gasps, and you think he's just mindlessly repeating you until you notice how rigid he's gotten, completely still and flushed bright red as he moans, "oh, fuck, I'm coming—"

And you can feel it, the sticky warmth flooding into the front of his jeans, seeping into you as you gasp. You grind down against his throbbing cock underneath the stifling fabric, wishing you were taking every drop of his cum instead, not letting a bit of it go to waste.

Caleb whines, crying out softly as you roll your hips, and you swallow every pretty sound with hot kisses until your clothed clit catches on his ruined jeans just right.

"Oh fuck, there—" you gasp, lips messily attached to his. You feel the tears of pleasure and overstimulation streaming down his face as he bucks up into you still. "Caleb, Caleb—"

"Come," he begs, and your eyes meet his. Your hips falter at the unadulterated affection there before you speed up, breath hitching when you feel yourself being to crest over into mind-numbing pleasure. "Come for me, honey, please come for me love please—"

Your eyes pinch shut, and you cry out for him when the orgasm hits you all at once, all your limbs seizing up as you convulse in his lap.

"Oh fuck there, there it is," Caleb grunts, grabbing at your trembling thighs under your dress, moaning when he feels your slick that had dripped down them. "You're coming, you're actually coming—"

Your pussy flutters and tightens in your soaked panties, and you moan, wondering what it would have felt like if you had had the foresight to tug his cock out of his pants, if your precious Caleb had filled you up before you came around him.

Next time, you think in a haze, giggling breathlessly when you realize there was an endless number of next times now.

Caleb's lips meet yours, and you meet each kiss as they slow into something lazy and content. He keeps leaning closer and closer to you, his hand cupping the back of your head, protecting you when you both end up weakly tumbling to the ground, and you laugh.

Your eyes are warm and shining with joy when you look up at him, pulling him down for another kiss, and another, because they were all yours now. Every kiss, every moment.

It was the same messy meeting of tongue and spit and teeth from that unspoken moment years ago, except this time, he wouldn't pull away.

"When do we get to do that again?" you gasp, and he laughs too, bright and happy and maybe, finally at some semblance of peace.

"Whenever you want it," Caleb hums, pulling back to kiss the tip of your nose, then your cheekbone, your eyelashes, all the way up to your temple and back down to your lips again.

"Well," you start, grinning as your loop your arms around his neck. He smiles down at you in befuddled admiration, like he couldn't believe you were really here. "You're the birthday boy."

There's a subtle shift in his eyes, suddenly shining with vulnerability when he asks, "But you want it?"

"Oh," you whisper, brushing at the leftover tears that cling to his long lashes. You kiss them when his eyes shut, your nose nuzzling against his.

Dummy, you think fondly. Worried you didn't want any more when you just had the best orgasm of your life, just from dry humping his lap.

When you'd been dreaming of doing this for years. When you would've been happy if all he wanted was just a kiss.

But his post-nut shyness was sweet, even if coupled with that deep-rooted fear that when he closed his eyes, you'd disappear. And your heart was too full of love not to reassure him.

So you banished the shadows that haunted the corners of his mind with another gentle kiss, pressing all your love for him into it.

"Of course I want it, Caleb," you murmur, smiling up at him. "You're all I've ever wanted."

He sighs, his lips meeting yours in another kiss. This one is unhurried, an intimate promise between you.

"Happy birthday, baby," you whisper, and he smiles.

[oatmealaddiction]

Okay but the weirdest thing about the whole "Brotherhood is better you should skip 03" discourse that's become commonplace now, it sort of forgets the world Brotherhood came out in and why you should watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist. When Brotherhood came out, the original Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most beloved and most watched animes of all time. Brotherhood assumes you the audience have already seen it because of course you have, everyone has seen it, so it skips important information and speeds the story up because it doesn't want to bore you with things you already know. Have you ever wondered "hey why does the first episode of Brotherhood kind of suck, and why am I being introduced to like 50 new characters, and why are they acting like I know what the hell an alchemist is?" It's because Brotherhood thinks you've seen 03.

The first 7 or so episodes of Brotherhood constitute dozens of chapters in the manga, and the first 25 or so episodes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist. The Nina Tucker episode in Brotherhood, in FMA 03 takes up nearly three episodes. Yoki gets a backstory in 03 and it's genuinely one of the best episodes and taken directly from the manga and Brotherhood glosses over it because: duh, you've already seen it. And so if you skip the original you miss out on dozens of really great character building episodes like Ed and Al meeting Hughes for the first time and getting to spend a whole episode helping him free a train from terrorists, or Ed and Roy having a duel that expands on the relationship they have, or episodes where the brothers just help out random people in towns before the major story gets going.

The original also paces itself quite a bit better than Brotherhood and is more in line with the mangas storytelling. In the manga we don't find out about The Gate until nearly two dozen chapters in, and the same goes for the original anime. Like, that's a twist reveal in those stories, and it's weird that the most watched series is the one where they tell you all about The Gate in the first two episodes because they assume you've already seen the original show.

What's more, people don't know that Hiromu Arakawa helped write for the anime while she was still in the middle of writing the manga, and as a result was inspired to write scenes in Brotherhood that the anime did first. That scene of Edward getting impaled by a falling beam? Directly inspired by a similar scene in the original anime. There's a lot of little instances of that and they're great when you can recognize parallels and things in Brotherhood that are direct references to the original anime, but people don't notice any of that anymore. Because the original anime is just an automatic skip these days, and it's a bummer because people don't realize what a giant it was back before Brotherhood was released. They treat it as *bad,* not realizing it was one of the most beloved anime of its time and the problems people take issue with have a lot more to do with personal taste than any kind of actual flaw in the writing. Brotherhood was never meant to dethrone it, and the original anime was always supposed to be part of the viewing experience which is why those first few episodes of Brotherhood are so fast paced. So like, please stop telling people Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is a skip, or it's bad, or you don't need it because Brotherhood is better. Regardless if you think Brotherhood is better or not, the original wrote Brotherhood's check. It was huge, it was beloved, and Brotherhood is *banking* on the knowledge you've seen all of it and loved it. And trust me when I say there is so much to love about the original series. It's still my favorite branch of the FMA franchise, and it's worth your time, I promise you.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

When talking about the distinction between Simon Petrikov and the Ice King,  it’s important to remember that originally, the Crown wasn’t trying to turn Simon into Ice King -

It was trying to turn him into this guy.

At the time, the Ice Crown - or rather the Wishing Crown - was programmed with Gunther’s wish to become Evergreen. So everything related to making the current wearer like Evergreen is a very direct result of the Crown’s Magic. The physical changes -

And the obsession with the name ‘Gunther’ -

And maybe some of the irritability and anger issues -

That is something the Crown is very directly forcing unto its current wielder. 

But everything else?

Ice King, personality-wise, was not much like Evergreen at all, or even like Gunther's view of him. And Ice Finn of the Farmworld Universe was also pretty different from the both of them.

At the time, I remember people assumed Ice Finn’s behavior is more indicative of what the Crown is actually trying to do with its wielders. That Ice King is so different because of Simon’s subconscious resistance against the Crown - while Finn’s much younger and dumber brain is a lot susceptible to the Curse’s influence to become some sort of mad world-conquering emperor of ice and snow. 

But, with the context of the Crown’s actual backstory. That doesn’t seem very likely anymore. I think what’s actually happening there is that the Crown is just trying to make its wielder an Ice Wizard on par with Evergreen (who was the Actual Goddam Ice Elemental) and that means pumping the wielder’s brain so full of Magic, Madness and Sadness to a level that is bound to overwhelm anyone.

And Simon’s and Farmworld Finn’s very different behaviors after putting on the crown is indicative, more than anything, of how their psyche reacts to Madness and Sadness in general. You know, Finn has a very proactive and kinda aggressive personality - and you add Crown-induced-Madness-and-Sadness and a compulsion to use Ice Magic as much as possible and you get all of…. this 

Meanwhile, for Simon, the compulsions of the Crown originally filtered exclusively via the language of protection 

As his madness always manifested as romantic obsession 

And using goofy humor to try and deny the pain he’s going through 

Because that’s how Simon’s mind specifically reacts to being flooded with so much Madness and Sadness.

That’s why there’s so many parallels between Ice King and the sort of mistakes and screwed-up stuff Simon does right now! He’s even kidnapping people again!

Because the Madness and Sadness of Ice King might’ve been induced by the Crown, but now Simon has plenty of personal home-grown Madness and Sadness inside him - and it’s no surprise that Curse-Induced or not, his mind reacts to it in a sorta-similar way. (Although obviously not as intensely, again, there was a LOT of MMS in the Ice Crown).

Now as for Ice Thing, and the fact that he seems to be actually rather well-adjusted under effects of his version of the Wishing Crown. I mean... not by the time of the 1000+ Era, but that’s literally eons in the future and also maybe more Gibbon’s fault. Even if the Crown will eventually take some sort of toll on him, for now he seems to be doing pretty well considering his wish. I mean, there's still some sort of Loss of Identity stuff going on

But everything we've seen of Ice Thing (in the present day, at least) shows him as a friendly and cheerful individual that gets along well with others. A far cry from how maladjusted every single wielder of the Ice Crown acted.

At the very least, if there's any notable amount of Sadness in him, we really haven't seen it yet.

There might be several factors here:

First things first, I should acknowledge the possibility that it’s just that Orgalorg’s eldritch brain is better at intaking all that MMS juice. That could play a part, but I think it’s probably more important, at least thematically, to look at the distinction between ‘I wish to be Evergreen’ and ‘I wish to be Ice King’. 

First in the sense that while Ice King was occasionally mean to Gunter at times - he was generally much kinder than Evergreen ever was for ‘his’ Gunther. So, like, pretty much the one Personality Flaw of Ice King that you can directly link to the Ice Crown’s attempt to mimic Evergreen is the occasional anger issues.

And how they relate to Gunther’s view of Evergreen, so grumpy and controlling and constantly saying ‘NO!’

(Both Finn and Simon’s demonstrable not-crown-induced trauma responses can make them pretty short-tempered as well. So I’m not going to say this is purely the effects of the Crown. It still probably plays some sort of factor at why the wielder of the Ice Crown is Like That).

And that is not a factor in how Gunter views Ice King. For him, Ice King was a doting and loving father figure - so if the Crown was ever trying to implement any sort of specific negative personality traits, this is absolutely no longer a factor. Because the original Ice Crown was a reflection of Evergreen’s abuse, and now Ice Thing is a reflection of Ice King’s fatherly love.

Which is, itself, probably an echo or remnant of Simon’s own strong parental instincts. 

Secondly, while the Crown was trying to make the Ice King just as powerful as Evergreen…. Ice King was obviously not as powerful as Evergreen. Because he was already a second-rate copy of the Ice Elemental’s power, and because Ice King was often just too doofy to use his powers correctly and probably because some remnant of Simon’s original sensible self is subconsciously holding his powers back.

Either way, being ‘like Ice King’ as Gunter sees him requires less Magic than being ‘like Evergreen’ as Gunther saw him - and therefore less Madness and Sadness. Leading to the wearer or, um, the eater being a lot more well-adjusted from the get-go.

And I think that the implication that Ice Thing has fused with the Crown, so there's never going to be another poor sap who puts on the Crown and gets Ice King'd. But if there is one somehow... at least the process is going to be less mentally detrimental that time around?

Maybe one day Simon could look back and appreciate how much he (or Ice King, or both of them, or however you want to look at the situation) is responsible for basically neutralizing the Crown that ruined his life in the first place.

[actual-lea]

For your consideration, the High Five interchange in Dallas, TX:

ive never liked the phrase "manmade horrors beyond your comprehension" but i cant think of a better way to describe texas roads

biblically accurate highway

[gghostwriter]

You’re the Risk, I’ll Take it

Spencer Reid x BAU!Fem!Reader

Summary: The three times Spencer followed advice and the one time he didn't (or as I'd like to better explain it, the three times Spencer fails to flirt and the one time it worked)

Warning: fluff! Just fluff!

A/n: I wanted to write something cute this time with Season 1 Spencer in mind--one of the best eras if you ask me. Hopefully I did him justice in this. The idea of this cute baby boy trying to flirt is too precious honestly. Also, if a guy did the last act for me, I'd fold like a lawn chair, yep. Risk by Gracie Abrams was on repeat while I was writing this and no proof reading was done. Let me know what you think!

Main masterlist

The first move Spencer tried was advised by Derek Morgan, the renowned ladies man

“Kid, admit it. You like her,” Morgan pestered him with a slight smile on his face. 

Spencer scoffed, trying to throw him off from the truth but monumentally failing. “S-she’s my closest friend. We joined the team at the same time, of course I feel most comfortable with her,” he noted his companion’s eyebrows raising higher and higher with each word. “Plus, she likes hearing what I say even if it has no relation to the case. She asks me questions and genuinely remembers.”

Now it was Morgan’s turn to scoff. “You could be talking about Star Trek and it’s physics mistakes and she’ll still hang on to every word you say.” 

“Actually, there aren’t that many scientific errors in Star Trek. Especially considering—”

“Reid.” 

“Right,” he nodded once, trying to push away the urge to continue further. “That still doesn’t mean I like her.” 

Morgan tapped the wheel twice before turning to face his partner. “Then answer me this. How do you feel when she walks through the office doors?” 

“Happy, I get the same feeling when I see you or Elle come in too,” he found his fingers very interesting then. Like they held the key to unlocking the mysteries of Dark Matter and the answer to the controversial scientific theory ‘Do parallel universe exist?’. He wasn’t telling the whole truth—didn’t want to because how could he, a man of science, explain the other bodily reactions he has when you walk in a room. How he hears his heart stutter in his chest with just a glimpse of you—the first time it happened, he thought nothing of it, but by the third, he considered making an appointment with a specialist for possible heart arrhythmia. How he sees the room brighten when you smile in his direction—perhaps light sensitivity, and how he feels his body heat up when you utter the words ‘Good morning, Spence.’—possibly hot flashes. Self diagnosis that he ruled out once he found you to be the common denominator. That left him with a riddle, a personal conundrum he lost countless of sleep over trying to solve.

“That’s a lie, Reid. You can’t be that happy to see me. You never blush like a tomato when I enter the room. For Greenaway, I could see it but for me, nu-uh,” he argued back. “Okay, what about when she’s not there, what do you feel then?” 

“Sad, similar to how I’d react with you and Elle,” he blurted out another half truth. Another surface level answer that doesn’t fully cover how lost he feels without your comforting presence beside him, how gloomy any room he enters in without you in it, and how incomplete his days were without hearing your voice. 

Morgan snickered. “Lies, you have to learn how to lie better to fool an FBI profiler, Reid. You don’t think I—the team, notice that you’re quieter when she isn’t on the case with us?”

“Wait. Wait, the whole team?” His voice goes up an octave. You were part of the team, did that mean you knew of the effect you had on him too? “D-Does everyone have the same idea as you do? Everyone?” 

“Not everyone, kid. Your secret is still safe,” He smiled wide like a cat that caught the canary. “So it’s true then, you like her.” 

Spencer knew there was no escape from trap, he was just glad that his secret still remained classified from the other party involved. His shoulders sagged as he nodded to confirm Morgan’s findings.

“So what’s your play then?”

His head whipped to face his companion so fast he felt his meticulously styled hair escape the confines of his ears. “Play? There’s no play. Nothing. I’m not going to do anything and this conversation stays between us.” 

“Oh c’mon lover boy, you have to do something,” Morgan challenged. “Y’know she likes you back, right?” 

“No she doesn’t! I mean, why would she?” Spencer rambled on, unable to comprehend what Morgan was saying. “She’s her—beautiful, smart, and cool. Every case we get, there’s at least one police officer hitting on her. And I’m me—I talk too much and get awkward in every situation. The exact opposite!”

“Reid, don’t sell yourself short. She likes you, trust me on this.” He paused, listening to the update on the intercom before continuing on. “So here’s what you’re going to do. Compliment her outfit, girls appreciate that. Easy enough, don’t you think?”

Spencer really didn’t think so after all he had the tendency to go off on a tangent whenever he talks to you but he agrees nonetheless. If Morgan believes he could do it then he couldn’t mess it up, right?

———

Wrong. It was wrong to take Morgan’s advice. Never mind he can recall everything he has ever read, never mind he has an IQ of 187. What good were his talents if he, Dr. Spencer Reid, couldn’t string the proper sentences along?

It started when you walked into the office wearing this light yellow blouse that made you more radiant than he thought possible. It was as if the a ray of sun had graced the bullpen and stunned his mind into silence, rendering him tongue-tied. All his monologues and hypothesis bouncing around his overactive brain fell away and the only thing he could think of was how pretty you look.

Morgan cleared his throat, bringing him back to the living. Spencer averted his awestruck gaze and busied himself with an imaginary lint on his red sweater. 

“Hey Y/N, did anything good this weekend?” Morgan asked as you settled into your desk adjacent to his.

You shrugged nonchalantly and teased back. “I bet it wasn’t good as yours, Morgan. Picked anyone up last Friday or are your charms no longer working?”

“Huh, i see where this is going. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of bed today.”

Morgan chanced a peek at Spencer and internally groaned. How you didn’t notice the kid’s crush on you was beyond him—all the staring and blushing he does when you’re near was a dead giveaway.

“Reid. Reid,” Morgan called out.

He closed his mouth and gulped. “Hm, what?” 

Morgan pointedly stared at him and titled his head towards your direction. A movement lost to you as you noted Elle leaving Gideon’s office.

Spencer opened his mouth to catch your attention but before he could even utter your name, Elle intervened. “Question for you, the foot path killer. Why’d he stutter?”

You swiveled to face her, not having caught Spencer’s intent to speak to you. The unit chief then called them in for a case—an arson case in a university campus. His shoulders drooped as they rushed to the jet afterwards with no chance of small talk. 

When there was a lull in the plane—case discussion finished, he steeled his already apprehensive nerves and took the chance, quickly wishing he hadn’t.

“S-so, your shirt’s yellow,” he stated out loud like it was some sort of revelation. 

“Yes,” you drawled out, unsure as to where he was going with this. “That’s right, Spencer.”

He drummed his fingers on the table and continued on. “Did you know that airplanes tend to avoid the color yellow as it causes dizziness and nausea? A number of studies have shown those exact results and that’s why it’s almost never used in interiors of various forms of transportation and rarely use in advertising. It’s like how the red is the most common color used by restaurants as it psychologically makes the viewer hungry.”

You looked down on your top. Yellow was one of your favorites and you specifically chose this as Penelope said and you quote, it looks good on you, brings out your eyes. Boy genius would probably react to it too so naively you splurged on it. But this—this wasn’t the response you were hoping for. “Spence, are you saying my shirt is making you feel nauseous?”

He blushed and stammered out a strong refusal. “What, no! No! I—I meant to say—you, you look nice.”

You giggled under your breath, finding his long-winded route to giving you a compliment cute. “Nice nice or airsickness nice?” 

“Nice! Just nice!” He defended on, his voice cracking at the end. He caught Morgan’s wide eyed gaze then as if he couldn’t believe what train wreck he just witnessed. 

Cheeks heating up further, Spencer slouched in his seat and busied himself with the files wishing that he could build a memory eraser so he could wipe the events from his and the team’s minds or better yet, a time machine to redo the whole thing all over again.

The second move Spencer tried was advised by Elle Greenaway, the new recruit

“Do you think it’s weird that I knew that ballad?” He questioned during one of their cases in San Diego. It bothered him since the start of the case. How Morgan had teased him about his incapability of asking out the opposite sex. Never mind that you defended him right back, that’s a lie, it made him feel special that you did but the joke was still true. A cold stone truth. 

Elle laughed, flipping her phone repeatedly on the table while waiting for the unsub to take the bait. “I don’t know how you know half the stuff you know, but I’m glad you do.”

“Do you think that’s why I can’t get a date?” He asked as he fiddled with the unfinished Rubik’s cube in his hands.

“Have you ever asked her out?”

There was no need to ask who Elle was referring to, everyone knew of his innocent—well maybe not so innocent at times specifically during his state of dreaming—crush for the second youngest member of the team. He shifted his eyes to focus a few tables before his—at you, sitting beside JJ. “No."

“That’s why you can’t get a date.” 

One of the precincts phone then rang, it was the unsub, causing him to table that conversation in his vast memory. 

———

There’s an English saying that states ‘the second time is the charm’ and Spencer was hoping there were some truth to the idiom even with no scientific explanation to back it up. 

A few cases after San Diego, he got an opening that he was unexpectedly looking for. The team was on their way back from a case in Virginia. It was late and the profilers were all tucked in their little corners of the jet decompressing while you and Spencer were huddled on the sofa quietly discussing Doctor Who. 

“How could you say your favorite is the Ninth Doctor when you haven’t even seen the older episodes?” He rambled, clearly he would have to do something about your limited knowledge in the great universe of Doctor Who. He’d like to explain it all, 695 episodes of the classic era to you. He’d take any topic really just to have your interest.

You stared into his hazel speckled eyes and smiled, amused by his reaction. “It’s a bit hard to catch up on a show that’s been around since the 70s. Plus, it’s a challenge to look for copies.” 

“Actually, the show started in the 60s—1963, to be exact,” he clarified. “Garcia has copies we could borrow and watch together. If that’s—” he cleared his throat and clenched his fists closed, feeling his nails dig into his palms. “—that’s alright with you. If—if not, there’s a convention happening this weekend. I have an extra ticket, if you want to come with—only if you’re not busy, I mean.”

“And risk you spoiling every episode to me? I’d rather watch it alone, if you don’t mind.”

That dragged his optimism to a crash as if a twenty ton weight landed on his chest, rendering him immovable. Of course you were going to say no. There was no proof that you’d reciprocate his interests—he inwardly cursed himself for believing otherwise.

“But, I’d like to go with you to the convention,” you said and silently added as your date to yourself, shifting in your seat with a blush blooming on your cheeks at the thought. “Always wanted to go to one. If you’re fine with me not being in a costume. I think it’ll be too late to find one, don’t you think?”

Just like that, the weight on his chest lifted, making him feel weightless with glee. A wide smile grew on his face, threatening to burst his cheeks as he shook his head. “That’s alright! But you—you can always dress up as Rose!”

You titled your head to the side. “Rose?” 

“You know, the Ninth Doctor’s companion?”

“I know who she is, Spence. I just thought you didn’t watch the revived series?”

He softly scoffed. “I never said that! I watched it too, mainly to compare it to the classics but I’ve seen it.”

You leaned in, wanting to ask about his opinion on it. “Well, what do you think? I happen to be part of the minority who think the actor who reprised the role did alright.”

He liked seeing you like this. It made him feel like a puppy who had his owner’s undivided attention. All wide eyed and interested in his conjectures as to why the actor was alright himself but the problems were his short stint—making people vilify him over that decision—and the material some of the writers came up with. He appreciated you nodding along and supplying your own thoughts on the subject. It warmed his heart that here was a beautiful, smart, and cool person—way out of his league, he might add—giving her precious time away to discuss a nerdy sci-fi show that he could not rant and rave to about to anyone on the team, except for Penelope, and she’s rarely on the field with them. 

Your show of interest made him feel seen. Not as an agent with 3 PHDs, not as a genius with 187 IQ, but rather as a person with a right to express himself and occupy space. He wasn’t Agent Spencer Reid with you nor Dr. Spencer Reid, he was just Spencer who likes to watch Doctor Who and read literature in their original language. 

The third move Spencer did was proposed by Penelope Garcia, the spirited tech analyst 

“What do you mean you took her to a convention? For a date?” Penelope squeaked out, unable to comprehend the logic behind the genius’ actions.

“She said she always wanted to go,” Spencer stated as the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. He had fun over the weekend. Going around booths with you, listening to invited guest panels talk about the behind the scenes, explaining the reference every costume that you’ve pointed out, and just basking in your presence beyond cases. It was a memory he had replayed over and over after it had ended. It occupied his whole mind, and that’s saying a lot, causing him to do nothing and sit in his leather sofa and smile like a lunatic during the rest of the weekend.

“Well yeah, but that’s not date material! A date is supposed to be intimate—you and I go to conventions together, do you count that as a date?” 

“What? No! No, of course not!” 

“Exactly, boy wonder. Then what makes you think she’ll count that as a date?” She countered back as she entered her office with Spencer in tow. 

Silence. Oh.

Penelope sighed, having read the despair painting his face. “Did you at least dress up as the Ninth Doctor?”

“What? No. No, I went as the Fourth Doctor. I even hand-knitted the scarf myself.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before repeating what she just heard. “You didn’t dress up as her Doctor?”

“No,” he paused, unsure where she was going with this. “Should I had?”

“Yes! Yes, you should have!” Penelope slapped his arm out of frustration. “Why didn’t you call me once she said yes? We could have talked game plan or strategy or at least have gotten you a leather jacket to match her choice of companion.”

“Oh, I messed up then, didn’t I?” He slumped despondently on the office chair. “You—you don’t think she thought of it as a date at all?”

She played with her feathered pen, trying to find a way to salvage it for Spencer. “Did you take her out to dinner after?”

He shook his head, finally realizing his mistake.

“Oh Spencer,” she approached gently. “I can scoop for details with Y/N later on and report back to you?”

He shook his head. It didn’t feel right to have Penelope betray your trust and go behind your back over a mistake that he made. You were a honest person and you deserved to be treated with respect and reverence even though all he wanted now was peer into your viewpoint of the date—not date—and figure out once and for all if you saw him as anything beyond a co-worker and a friend. 

“Hm, I think I might just a solution,” Penelope blurted out of the blue. 

He looked up with a sliver of hope blooming in his chest. Maybe third time’s the charm. Besides, Penelope was the colleague you spent most of your time out with. You once mentioned that you considered her your best friend, besides from him of course. 

“You can bake her a batch of cookies! No one can say no to that,” she excitedly explained, believing it to be full proof—except for the fact that he doesn’t know how to bake. He wants to ask you out on a date but not to the expense of burning his whole apartment building down. 

“I can’t—I can’t bake, Garcia,” he squeaked out. “Did you know that 44% of all reported home fires are caused by cooking and baking. Those fires have resulted in an average of 470 civilian deaths and 4,150 civilian—”

She interrupted. “I’ll give you my recipe and detailed instructions to follow. That’ll make it easy peasy for you, boy genius.”

“C-can’t I just buy from her favorite bakery instead?”

“No can do, Doctor. Her favorite cookies just so happen to be my creation. She told me so herself.”

“Well, can’t I just ask you to make it for me? I’ll buy the ingredients!”

“Nope,” she dragged out her refusal. “Think of it as an act of service to her. Plus don’t you think it’s highly romantic when she finds out that you baked them yourself?” She swooned just thinking about it.

“Romantic? It won’t be romantic when I burn my apartment down, Garcia.”

She sighed. “Fine, I’ll supervise if you want. This weekend, granted if we’re free. But you—” she pointed her feathered pen at him. “—better be prepared and I’m just supervising, okay? I’m not baking it myself.”

He sighed. At least having Garcia around would make it easier.

———-

It did not in fact make it easier. Spencer burnt two batches before six pieces were considered edible. Garcia couldn’t understand, hell, he also couldn’t. Baking was precise and from his scientific viewpoint, it was a lot like chemistry. He loved science and anything academic, so how is it that he failed miserably, twice, when it came to baking? 

He shook his head as he entered the office. The first one—he stole a glance at Hotch’s office and saw movement—correction, the second one arriving early. Sometimes he wondered if the unit chief ever goes home, first in and last out.

He settled in his seat before promptly fidgeting from anticipation. Statistically speaking, you arrive earlier than Morgan or Elle which gave him enough time to gift the paper bag of cookies sitting hidden in his satchel without bringing attention to and embarrassing himself. He’d like to have little to no audience if he ever does mess it up for the third time. 

He brought out the cookies, afraid they’ll get crushed between his hardbound books, and placed them on your desk before standing to wash his clammy hands and make coffee. Counter intuitive of him to do as he was already a bundle of nerves and by drinking caffeine he was doubling that but maybe the smell would calm him before shooting up his energy by drinking.

As he exited the mens room, Penelope stepped out of the elevator and squealed. “Is she here? Is she? Did I miss it?”

He shook his head vigorously, trying to silence her excited glees. “No, she’s not here yet. She’ll—” he looked at his watch and ran the numbers. “—be here soon. I’m about to brew coffee. Do you want some?” He opened the door for both of them to enter the bullpen.

“Ick, no thanks,” Penelope said, scrunching her nose at the thought of drinking even a sip before scurrying away to her cave. “I’d rather not ruin my taste buds on bad coffee.”

He laughed and turned towards the kitchenette. With the coffee brewing, he drummed his fingers on the counter and mentally rehearsed what he would say to you. If he practiced, there’s less chance of messing it up like the first time, right? In his state of concentration, he missed you entering the office in all of your beautiful glory.

“Ooh cookies!” you exclaimed as you opened the unknown package on your table.

Spencer abruptly turned, hitting his side on the corners as he did. His eyes widened as he registered you holding the unsigned paper bag of treats on your desk. 

“They must be from Penny,” You continued on, oblivious to his presence and the devastation your remark caused him. Of course, he’d find another way to mess it up. You glanced around and your smile widened as you took in his handsome presence. “Oh hey Spence! Look, Penny made me cookies!” You tip-toed out of excitement. 

He smiled at your enthusiasm for something as simple as treats in the morning. The giggle you gave out as you entered the kitchenette was enough for him to slightly care less for the truth. He loved bringing out the happiness in you. It was like his own personal sunshine shining down on him, soaking him with vitamin D and boosting his overall sense of wellbeing. “Do you want coffee with that? It’s still hot,” he offered. 

You tapped the side of your hips with his as a sign of good will. “Thanks, Spence! This is turning out to be a great day, don’t you think?”

He watched as you busied yourself with putting cream and sugar in your of cup and sighed wistfully. “I think so too.”

And the last move Spencer did was recommended by no one but himself, the awkward 187 genius

With all three acts not delivering, he promised to try one last time without any outside interference besides from yours in his memory. You always did tell him to be himself in any situation, no matter how much he stumbled through any awkward situation—always there giving him a pat on the back for encouragement. 

Over the weekend, he spent his time reading two of your favorite books—which didn’t take much but he did read them again and again, regardless of his eidetic memory, trying to understand why these specific books were your comfort. Always pushed within the confines of your go bag, dog-eared and brown from age. He wanted to know how they’ve become an extension of you and how it had shaped you to the woman he has fallen in love with. 

He found himself hunched over his dining table, underlining sentences that made him think of you, scribbling away on the margins (and sometimes on post its too), and tabbing the written pages with a variety of colors that each represent an emotion. The act in it of itself made him feel closer to you than he thought possible. Lines in the books that made him think, ah so this was what formed your kind spirit. This is why your empathy knew no bounds. And this is why your beauty is inside and out.  

Spencer laid down to rest, anxious for the next day, Monday, to come. His heart threatening to beat out of his chest but his mind oddly calm as if it had a precognition that everything would turn out just right.

———

You arrived earlier than he did, throwing him off balance. 

“Hey Spence!” You greeted with a smile. “I got you a croissant and some coffee from that shop near my place.”

He blushed and stammered out a thank you. You were wearing a deep purple blouse that matched the scarf around his neck—the birthday gift you’ve given. He was no believer of the mystics but he took all of these as a sign from the stars. There was no way he would mess this up now.

“I—I got you something too,” he looked inside his satchel, hands shaking from it all. Gods, he wished this would go well or else, he might just die from embarrassment. “It’s nothing much but—I read your two favorite books and just—I wanted to discuss it with you,” he brought out the tabbed copies and presented them to you. “These are for you. I know you have copies of your own but I-I put my own notes on which lines reminded me of you.”

Your face turned red at the notion behind it all. Here was the BAU genius, the certified lover of the classics and the academia, the man who had your affections since day one, reading two contemporary literatures just for him to present you a gift like no other. You reached out and hugged the precious copies to your chest. 

“Thank you, no one’s ever done this for me before,” you breathed out, falling deeper into attraction with the perfection in front of you. “ Hey Spence, I may sound delusional asking this and you can say no if you want to but—” you visibly gulped, unaware of the audience nearby. “—would you like to have dinner with me? I make a mean lasagna.”

He turned red and vigorously nodded. “Y-Yes. Yes, I’d love to have dinner with you.”

You giggled, sounding like wind chimes to his ears. He did too, giggle I mean, from the triumph of finally knowing that his feelings were willingly reciprocated.

“Finally, you love birds!” Morgan shouted as he swung his arm around Spencer. “Didn’t know how much we could take from this pretty boy—” pointing at him “asking for advice and you—” pointing at you “—pretty girl is as dense as a rock. Tell me again how’d you end up as profiler with those observation skills.” 

A hand whacked him at the back. “Way to ruin the moment, Morgan.” Elle chided before turning to Spencer with a smile. “See told you, you could get a date.”

[heavenbarnes]

simon riley x reader

18+

contains: no reader pronouns, survivalist themes (it’s not described what happened, but something has happened), mentions of hunger and eating, mentions of hunting animals, the smallest hint at cannibalism, poor hygiene, body odour, male masturbation, hints at dacryphilia, impressions of somnophilia, handjob, face riding (there is no description of reader’s genitalia), illusions to free use, mentions of penetrative unprotected sex, brief mention of urination, non-descriptive mentions of murder.

on the first day, there was nobody.

not a soul. not for miles, at least. still and dead and dead and dead quiet. if there was a pin around to drop? you’d have heard it.

but it was just you. it was hard to tell if that was reassuring or not.

the more there is nobody, the more there is a chance for somebody. an unexpected somebody.

the last person on earth hears a knock at the door- something like that.

but there is no knock, at least, not for now.

in the first week, there are still no signs of life.

you’re sure, from the direction of the sun, that you’re heading east.

you really hope you’re heading east.

what you’re hoping to find? anyone’s guess.

anyone if there was anyone out there.

you set up camp against the cold rubble of stone. it’s always cold now. it’s like, when the people went away, the sun followed.

you know the sun is out there, you’re following it- you can physically see it. you just can’t feel it.

maybe that’s a secret of the universe you were never meant to discover. many bodies means heat, maybe people were the key after all.

maybe it was always about company.

you remember company.

a distant memory. how long has it been since you’ve heard another voice? fuck-

how long has it been since you last spoke?

“hello.”

how strange is that? you know nobody is out there, yet the first thing you say just to test your voice- it’s a greeting.

a hoarse greeting, at that. rubs your throat the wrong way and it squeaks on its way out, sound broken by underused vocal chords.

nice to know you still have a voice, even if nobody is around to hear it. suppose the tree does make a sound when it falls.

your greeting to a vast and empty loneliness, you worry that you might’ve welcomed it in. you resign yourself to delusion when you hear it.

in the first month, the emptiness talks back.

“where’d you come from?”

the emptiness has a name, simon.

for a man all dressed in black with only a smattering of white, he enters your life in full screaming colour.

ironic for a man of so few words.

you both spend the first day together parallel to one another. silence, sat either side of the fire you’d been stoking since you’d arrived in this spot.

there’d been minimal exchange of words, no more than needed.

your names. where you came from. how you’d ended up here. what you had on you.

and, no- you hadn’t seen anyone else.

simon looks angry, as much as you can tell from his eyes. his balaclava looks like it stinks but it looks warm so it makes sense.

he looks tough, but he looks strong. well fed.

you wonder how he’s managed to remain the size that he has with the dwindling supplies he’d gotten his hands on. a paranoid part of you wonders if he’s hiding more from you.

it’s the rumbling of your stomach. when it gets quiet, it starts speaking to you- tells you to do things you normally wouldn’t.

you’d managed to get out of dodge with the bare essentials, with the time that has passed, you’re running on empty.

the hunger allows you to understand the previously unanswered. that, perhaps, some of the cruelest people of our times were just hungry.

once you snap out of it, you realise that what he produced from his rucksack was really just that. few tins, some muesli bars, some non-descript silver pouches.

you study the pouches like you’ve discovered fire, turning them round in your hands like squeezing the edges will tell you what you’re holding.

“it’s freeze dried cottage pie.”

oh, he’s military.

simon proves himself very useful.

strings you both a bivouac. keeps the fire going even when it rains. makes the food stretch for miles.

your stomach aches in a way that becomes less noticeable. it aches of an ungrateful privilege to have once been fed so well.

at night, you dream of standing in the refrigerator light with a handful of whatever you wanted. in your dreams, you eat with your eyes shut and don’t even care to see what it is.

when you wake, simon pushes a crushed snack bar into your hand and you look at it with both eyes. you eat it very slowly.

simon tells you that you need to move camp.

he doesn’t tell you why but he says it with such conviction that you don’t care to ask.

he slings your bag on his shoulder without asking. probably because it means nothing to him, broad shoulders carrying everything else you have to your names.

he makes you walk ahead of him. in the silence, you can only hear the crunch of gravel underfoot combined with the tide of his breathing.

he breathes like high tide, big chest with crashing waves. he doesn’t huff like he’s unfit, he just breathes loudly. he’s a quiet man but his presence is loud.

that and his breath fucking stinks.

you’re no sunday morning, either. water is reserved for drinking, the minute you can find camp near a running water source? that’s when you can wash.

until then, you’re both ripe and unpleasant to be around.

but maybe it’s all about company.

simon finds you both a flat piece of sod, tucked under an overhang. he fashions the shelter so that the rain will run straight off it.

he’s very useful.

makes you follow him on a short walk north-east of where you’d left your things. you can hear it before you see it.

running water.

he collects it in your bottles as you splash it across your face. wiping your face with your sleeve, it leaves a dirty streak across the fabric.

but there are no mirrors anymore.

and, well, simon doesn’t mind.

dinner is a quarter each of freeze-dried-something. like with most things, you both eat in silence.

until-

“you homesick?”

“uh, yeah.”

“right, ‘m sorry.”

“oh, thanks. me too, i guess.”

“nah, i’m used to this.”

what’s the opposite of doesn’t speak unless spoken to? speaks only when speaking to?

you study his side profile as he eats, really the only time you see him without the balaclava.

his nose is visibly broken but not in a way that it hurts. he’s got scruff but he has to be dry shaving, or maybe it just doesn’t grow. he’s got a few scars, that could be why.

you thought he wore the balaclava for warmth, you’ve started to figure it’s just a him thing.

as you settle in for sleep, you don’t know what possesses you to be the first to speak- to even ask him a question.

“do you think things will ever go back to how they were?”

“probably not.”

that’ll learn you.

at the first sign of sunrise, you head down to the water. you’d had a bar soap at the bottom of your bag since the first day. for a moment there, it had felt like a stupid possession, that was until you first ran it over your skin.

river water and bar soap felt like salvation.

the pristine white of the soap turned a murky grey at the first swipe. caked on dirt falling away with every drop of water.

washing every crease of your skin, the soles of your feet, the back of your neck. it was part of feeling human again.

it felt like an act of defiance.

they’d tried to remove all trace of humankind but here you were. soapy and smelly and alive.

there was a smell under your arms that’d outlast religion but the more you worked over it with the soap, the more it got lost to the aloe vera.

as you sat waist deep, your ears pricked to the sounds of of parted water. like breaking waves.

high tide.

you turned in time to see simon striding toward you, naked as the day he was born with one outstretched palm.

“i’ll get your back.”

fresh clothes, your others drying on a line beside the fire. your shirt, simon’s socks, your undies, simon’s balaclava.

exisiting in harmony.

the sound of crackling fire helped to hide the fact there were no birds, no bugs, nothing. it was easier to ignore when you were on your own.

fear heightened by your own solitude, your mind raced so fast it was hard to get a thought in edgewise.

simon quieted that down. his mere presence worked wonders for your anxiety. you’d like to see anything try get past him.

but when it got quiet, it allowed you a moment alone with your thoughts. if what he said the night before was right-

you couldn’t catch your first sob in time to muffle it.

“oh, what the hell? y’not crying are you?”

a weak apology only seemed to annoy him more, sitting up on his bedroll to look at you through the light of the fire.

you probably looked quite poetic, illuminated in orange with tears on your face and the soft flutter of foliage around you.

“jus’ stop crying- what’s got you in a fuss?”

you looked at him with a hint of exasperation.

“oh, you know, just the end of the world.”

he let out a big sigh, a large hand dragging down the length of his face.

“you’ll be fine- won’t let anything happen to you.”

you weren’t sure if you believed him but you weren’t sure if there was anything else to believe in?

he took one last look at you, bottom lip still stuck out in a pout and the saddest eyes he’s ever seen.

he rolled his eyes one last time before hunkering down.

“go the fuck to sleep.”

you had no way of knowing what time it was. pitch black and the fire reduced to embers.

it was cold, middle of the night cold. you could feel your teeth begin to chatter before you brought your shoulders to your chin.

you could hear simon beside you, breathing stunted and shallow. his sleeping bag rustled, your eyes adjusted just enough to see movement.

“are you wanking?”

“go the fuck to sleep.”

the morning has a strange way of changing everything.

every shadow that was sure to harbour something nefarious was really just a tree.

every sinister sound whispered beside your ear was really just the wind.

and sleep can really make you delirious. where you know you’re awake but you’re still so tired that even forming a thought is hard.

so you wake up with nothing on your mind.

you used to know what day it was, now you don’t even know what time it is. you’re unsure of how long it’s been like this or how long you’ve known simon.

all you know is, at breakfast, he starts talking about hunting. he’s going to have to start catching stuff if you’re both going to eat.

“what do you want me to do?”

he looks at you like you piss him off. you’re not entirely convinced you don’t.

“whaddya’ mean?”

you’ve taken to having crushed up muesli bars in water for breakfast, so you finish your spoonful of that before you speak up.

“do you want me to help or anything?”

simon looks you up and down before letting out a big sigh.

“you stay here and you don’t move, alright?”

it’s not really a question, as much as an order. you wonder again if you’ve pissed him off but then he’s taking your bowl off you to wash it with his.

maybe it’s about company.

he’s got a knife strapped to his thigh and a whittled stick on his back when he’s ready to set off.

you aren’t really sure what you’re meant to do while he’s gone, so you mention washing down at the river.

“don’t- don’t do that til’ i’m back.”

right.

you don’t argue, just shrug your shoulders and watch him as he walks off into who knows what direction.

he’s only gone for a matter of moments before the lonesome sets in.

under any other circumstances would you have taken in a stranger so easily? would you have missed him so quickly?

you hear simon’s boots before you see him, trudging back up the rise towards your camp. he finds you cross-legged on your bedroll, weaving.

weaving what? fuck knows.

but you feel busy.

he easily overshadows your efforts, a young buck slung over his shoulders with its throat open.

poor thing, simon moves so quickly and so quietly. it probably never saw him coming.

he stops before you, shifting his weight and slinging the animal further up his back.

“what’ve you got there?”

you hold up your grass strands, you’d managed to make quite a bit of progress on your creation in his absence.

“uh, a mat- maybe?”

simon nods, he turns his head like something in the distance catches his interest. he looks at you again before he leaves.

“good job.”

your heart hammers in your chest just once before you stand to follow him. you’ve always struggled to keep up with his pace but, thankfully, he doesn’t go far.

he’s found some clearing to lay the kill, it’s under a tree with a large branch. he stands to unfurl the rope he’s had around the top of his arm.

he slings it over the tree before returning to the animal. he knows you’re over his shoulder, he always knows where you are.

“this is going to be grim, go finish your mat.”

and you do.

without a word, you take back down the path you’d just come from and you settle back under the shade.

you hum to yourself as you weave grass. its a song you think you might’ve known once. when was the last time you’d heard song?

simon returns with a plastic bag filled with meat. the blood drips down his arms and some has flecked across his forehead.

he doesn’t look like someone you’d want to run into deep in the middle of nowhere.

“get y’soap.”

the running river becomes paradise, that’s absolutely certain. they’ve taken everything from you but they haven’t taken this.

they’ve left you this and they’ve left you simon.

he who washes quickly to spend the rest of his time laying on warm stone. it looks uneven and uncomfortable but you don’t think he minds.

you figure he’s slept under gunfire. he could survive anywhere.

so far, he’s made that look easy.

he lays outstretched and it makes him appear taller than usual. he puts an arm behind his head, tilts it towards you so he can keep watch.

you know he stares, you don’t mind.

you think you like it.

the hand that isn’t behind his head rests on his stomach, amongst scars and a tattoo that says “in case of apocalypse create woman from this rib.”

his other tattoos flex as he scratches his stomach. there’s a skull that winks at you, flames that dance around his wrist.

he’s so rough around the edges.

you’d finished washing long ago but you allow yourself to splash about like you’re a child again. it’s almost true, you’ve certainly got no responsibilities and there’s an adult watching you.

but everything is different now.

tipping back until the crown of your head is submerged, the water rushes past your ears as your fingers stroke the stones below you.

they’re so smooth around the edges.

as you angle yourself towards simon, he shifts a hand to adjust himself. a simple gesture that fires the synapses in your brain.

you sit up in an instant.

“were you wanking last night?”

simon barely reacts. he opens the eye that was previously shut and he gives you a good look before he cuts you loose.

“y’look nice when you’re all upset.”

the venison dinner is nice. the meats tough but it’s cooked through and it leaves you feeling full.

bedtime might be your favourite time.

it’s different to wash time, it feels closest to home.

like you could be at home. with simon beside you.

it’s colder tonight, you’re smart enough to know that winter is on its way. the leaves were brown right before everything changed.

this was to be expected. it’ll only get colder from here.

soon, wash time becomes near impossible.

there are no warm stones and no wading. it’s a bowl of water and a torn rag, you start to dread the water touching your skin.

how quickly it can change.

simon takes to simmering your water over the fire, he prepares it for you one day without you even having to ask.

“clean yourself by the fire, too cold out there.”

he watches the colours dance on your skin as you wash yourself, your shadow broad on the overhang behind you.

you wonder if, at this point, you’d do anything he tells you to?

who else is there to listen to? what else is there to do?

it’s a particularly cold night and simon’s hardly sleeping. he’s awake every hour on the hour to stoke the fire, you could set your watch by him.

not that you’d know, you’re blissfully unaware in slumber- snoring gently and only shivering between breaths.

breaths that he can see, it’s that cold.

you hardly wake when you feel him behind you, his sleeping bag slipping against yours as a strong arm pulls you back to him.

he’s firm but he’s warm and you feel it consume you in an instant.

by morning, he’s got both your sleeping bags in his lap. he’s unzipped the both of them and he’s feeding the teeth of your bag through the zipper of his.

he sees you watching him.

there was probably a time where he would’ve explained himself to you.

that time was lost to, well, time.

you understood well enough, really, you welcomed it. you look forward to sleeping in the curve of his front, the man shaped furnace protecting you from the elements.

he looked up from the bags to see you weave another few strands across your mat. when he catches your eye, you smile ear to ear.

it isn’t lost on you that there is no evolutionary purpose to simon looking after you.

that from the moment he stumbled across you, it probably would’ve suited him better to kill you. he would’ve had your supplies, one less creature to worry about, meat.

but he didn’t.

he stayed at your camp before taking you with him and now he washed your back and kept you warm when you slept.

there was no benefit to his survival having you around.

but maybe it was all about company.

you both sleep better in your conjoined sleeping bags. he doesn’t need to stoke the fire and you’re warm all night long.

he’s very warm.

cold disposition but he radiates a heat like nothing you’ve ever felt. you feel most comfortable under his left arm.

your head lays on his chest and you raise your leg up over his, almost hanging off him.

he sleeps with his hand splayed over your hip and when he’s in deep sleep, he grips it and releases it almost in a rhythm.

the smells don’t concern you any longer. you’ve come to associate his musk with safety. you burrow your nose into his skin to keep your face warm and the tang of his sweat is almost sweet to you.

you miss it in the day time.

sometimes, when he’s cooking or whittling, you’ll appear behind him. he’s never startled by you, he always knows where you are.

you’ll rest your chin on his shoulder and he’ll teach you about what he’s doing, without prompting.

when your nose nudges behind his ear it makes him shiver, you must feel it as you’re close enough to be a second skin.

but you never mention it.

you’re both dozing off when you do notice it.

he’s hard, again.

“d’you mind?”

“no, go ahead”

you say it with a yawn and it makes it twitch. he licks his palm before he puts it down his underwear, stroking himself almost routinely.

he’s measured, like he is with everything. it’s obligatory more than pleasure.

you usually sleep through it, only occasionally rousing to spit in his hand or give him the okay to pull your top down.

he just needs something to work with.

his chest is under your ear, you can hear his trapped breaths as he twists his wrist around himself. he’s getting nowhere fast.

“simon?”

“yeah? say it again like that, please?”

“no, i meant- do you want a hand?”

literally.

you could whisper in his ear or let him look under your clothes all he liked- or he could get it at the source.

it was a kindness, really. he sounded tired, least you could do with all he does for you.

simon concedes quickly, replacing his hand with yours and already starting you off how he likes.

you’ve felt it enough to know, but you appreciate his direction. it’s come to be a staple of your relationship.

relationship? means of survival? existence.

simon cums the moment you touch his balls, the sound he makes is wretched and pathetic and you feel a tension in your stomach you haven’t felt in a long time.

it’s hot and it hits your core and there is a moment where you aren’t sure what it means.

it’s been so long since you’ve felt anything that wasn’t necessary to your survival.

something tells you to crawl down inside your sleeping bags and lick the spend off simon’s stomach, his muscle clenches under your tongue as you do.

he tastes acrid- he tastes like he smells.

but you don’t regret it.

simon is very useful.

wakes you, feeds you, bathes you, warms you.

you have no doubt in your mind that you’d have died if he hadn’t found you.

when it’s quiet, in your mind, you tally up the things you’re grateful for in case you’re only left with them tomorrow.

simon.

shelter.

simon.

food.

simon.

water.

simon.

what’s left?

it’s in the still of a cold night, you’d tugged him off and licked your hand clean when you finally mustered your courage.

“can you touch me?”

you weren’t sure where you want to be touched or why. but you knew you wanted it.

you’d felt it coming on strong when you’d watched him whittling arrows to fill the quiver you’d weaved him.

he’d pressed the point till blood gave way on the tip of his finger, the one he’d wrapped his lips around.

you wanted to know what it felt like. to be under the tip of his finger.

but he had other ideas.

he wanted to show you what it was like to be on the tip of his tongue.

“simon, i’m filthy.”

“y’not, i wash between these legs every day- think i haven’t wanted to give you a taste?”

simon gets all the way out of bed to get his polar fleece, slipping it over your shoulders and pulling his woollen socks over your feet.

he gets back into the sleeping bag before he’s manhandling you up his chest, doesn’t stop till you’re hovering over his broken nose.

he sees the breath that escapes when you speak his name, quietly and just to him. he unfurls his balaclava from his fist, wrestling it over your head until all you can smell, and see, is him.

simon has you cum three times on his face until there are tears on your cheeks, only then will he relent.

almost like he gets what he wants.

his big hands had held your hips firmly where he wanted them, one had snuck up under his fleece but the other had slipped down to the split of your ass.

his stubble left you sore and his mouth had left you worn out. you didn’t know it was possible to feel like that again.

“if you’ve ever felt like that before, i don’t want to know about it.”

you nodded at his words, he always struck you as the jealous type even before he laid a hand on you.

the possessive type, what’s his is his and what’s yours is also his.

you fall asleep in the socks, everything else back off so he can feel you. likes to sleep with a hand up your top and your breath on his skin.

likes to know you’re still there. don’t go where he can’t follow.

when you remove all of society, so does go all of its rules.

simon splits you open in his lap as you watch the sunrise.

he puts your back to his chest as he sits on the stump he’d turned into a stool. he’d slipped your trousers down enough to slip inside and it never occurred once to you that you’d be seen.

you hadn’t seen another person in who knows how long. why would they show up now?

you let him take you wherever he likes. it’s not reserved for bedtime.

when you’re foraging for food, he bends you over against a tree.

when it gets warm enough to go back to the lake, he tastes the soap off your skin.

when he returns from a hunt, you put him in your mouth while he tells you he missed you.

it becomes ritualistic. if there are no rules as to when and where, it becomes all of the time.

and simon needs you all of the time.

joined at the hip, he doesn’t like you out of his sight. he leaves you behind when he hunts but that is purely it.

when he goes for a piss, he often makes you hold it. just to know that he can.

how quickly you’ve let him, how quickly you’ve become dependent on him. did you always want someone to come find you?

where would you be on your own?

maybe it’s all about company.

simon makes you walk ahead on your way back from foraging. he tells you that this is the way he came from his last hunt.

you feel closer to him, being out here where he never lets you go. you feel yourself becoming him, losing the place where you end and he begins.

through the long grass, the toe of your boot knocks against something that makes you stop.

you follow it through the grass until you come to see the shape of it, the arms and legs flattening the foliage.

their rucksack is emptied, anything they might’ve had already taken. already back at your camp.

you can hear simon approaching as you look into the person’s dull eyes.

poor thing, simon moves so quickly and so quietly. it probably never saw him coming.

[afterthelambs]

How I interpret Joker Persona 5

Since Joker is a silent self-insert protagonist it can be hard to get a reading on his characterization. He can make inconsistent choices gameplay-wise that clash with what was set up. He's supposed to be the righteous leader, and yet... you have the option to cheat on girlfriends, or sell your friends out to Yaldobaoth and become Evil, or doom the world for a selfish wish. It's easy to dismiss all that as 'not the true ending' but to me that would be boring and a cop-out. These are treated as equally-valid choices in terms of player input, so I think any interpretation of the character has to account for that. Like he is definitely a little unhinged.

Is Joker evil? No because he spends most of the game being a good guy and can choose to be a hero till the end. The desire to do the right thing is ingrained in his character.

So is he inherently good? No because it's coded into the game that he can betray all his morals. In P3, Makoto at worst betrays his team to protect them from pain. He never turns sinister the way Joker can in the Yaldobaoth-deal ending. P4 has an accomplice ending but even then you at least have collaboration of some sort, as opposed to Joker who is alone in his fall from heroism. The good ending being the 'true' ending doesnt erase the fact that Joker has the potential to go dark in a way the other protagonists dont. This is also a part of him, which I think makes him wayyyy more interesting.

So how are you supposed to reconcile all these inconsistencies into a cohesive characterization? Is it just 'out of character'?

Ironically, I think the best way to understand Joker's character is to first understand Akechi. If you accept that they are two sides of the same coin (and the game beats you over the head with that lol) then that means they share a lot of internal rage and pain about the world. It means Joker did not have his emotions together nor a healthy outlook on interpersonal relationships, at least in the beginning. It explains why a lot of Joker's confidants start out transactional. The main difference (asides from Akechi being more marginalized) is that Joker has the opportunity to respond to his traumas in a healthier way. He channels his rage into a good cause, and he can choose to do so til the very end (ie the true ending). It also explains how he can reach a breaking point and go down a darker path instead, similar to Akechi.

This is my preferred way of interpreting Joker in light of all the wildly different directions he takes in the actual game. It's why I personally like my Joker characterization as a little unhinged, a little dark, very emotionally troubled and evasive, AND very kind + empathetic to others despite that. He knows he's a little fucked up inside and that's why he's desperate to do the right thing. Joker isn't just good by nature, he actively chooses to be.

If you need any more proof, look at Maruki. He's the only other character that gets this much parallels drawn with Joker. But the ways that Joker's characterization can be derived from Maruki is a whole other post. I'll probably get to that some day, but it's interesting that when the writers decided to make a parallel to Joker for an extended story, they went with another unhinged antagonist that understands him on a deeper level.

[apersonnamedel]

Something I would like to point out while rewatching HTTYD2 that I think is very interesting and also not at all talked about is this.

HTTYD2 brings lots and I mean LOTS of parallels whether they are visual or spoken but the one I hear spoken about the most is between Hiccup and Valka and them not killing a dragon. Even the movie tries to make this seem like a parallel. They bring it up even!

“Ehh it runs in the family.” Hiccup says after the flashback scene.

But something I noticed is that it is not a parallel. Mainly because of a few key things. It’s more almost perpendicular. They head in the same direction and they have the same realization, then go in complete opposite directions.

Valka runs away. A key part of her character I’ve noticed while I’ve been writing my analysis of her is that she oozes of cowardice and willful ignorance. Now that doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, it simply means that she ran away and chose to stay away. But that’s not the main reason I brought this up.

Remember the flashback where they draw attention to how similar Hiccup and Valka are? They talk about it in a very specific way.

They bring attention to two points. Both of them looked into a dragons eye and saw themself. Then they both didn’t kill a dragon. They show this as some kind of parallel. Maybe to show that Hiccup has someone who understands him, maybe to add a bit of layering to the first movie and how he’s just like her.

But it’s not a parallel.

What’s the difference in this scene?

One dragon is tied up.

One isn’t.

It’s a matter of choice.

“You and your father nearly died that night. All because I couldn’t kill a dragon.” Quote Valka.

“300 years and I’m the first Viking who wouldn’t kill a dragon.” Quote Hiccup.

Hiccups statement STILL rings true. Valka had no choice in if she wanted to kill Cloudjumper or not. That’s why I brought up Valka’s cowardice. Valka was in a trapped house with an injured newborn and an unbound dragon 5x her size. She was in the middle of a raid with people all around. Stoick was around the corner. She simply couldn’t kill the dragon. It wasn’t a matter of would or wouldn’t.

Hiccup on the other hand was alone in a forest with a tied up dragon. He made the decision to not kill Toothless. He wouldn’t. Because he absolutely could have killed Toothless.

“I was a coward. I was weak. I wouldn’t kill a dragon.”

“You said wouldn’t that time.”

This scene (in my own opinion) is meant to show that Hiccup was never the hiccup. He was never a coward. He wasn’t weak. It’s meant to be ironic.

Hiccup let go one of the most dangerous dragons in the world and it was brave. He went against his culture, his tribe because he thought it was the right thing to do.

That’s where Valka and Hiccups story become perpendicular. Hiccup was brave. Valka was a coward.

Hiccup chose not to run away. He chose to change their minds. He thought their minds could change.

Valka ran away. She didn’t listen and didn’t think change was possible. She held this belief until Hiccup comes along.

Valka’s path is where she believes that dragons are more than they seem. Then, “This wasn’t a viscous beast, but an intelligent gentle creature whose soul, reflected my own.” She has the revelation. Then she runs away and stays away. Now she had her own reasons and I am very much phrasing this in a biased way but it’s meant to show a point. She stays away and doesn’t change much. Because she couldn’t kill a dragon.

Hiccups path is where he does not see much to dragons. He wants to kill one to be accepted into the village. He shoots down Toothless and- “Everything we know about you guys, is wrong.” Or- “I looked at him and saw myself.” Hiccup and Valka’s paths cross here. But Hiccup doesn’t run away and he changes Berk’s mind. Because he wouldn’t kill a dragon.

Anyways I think that’s about it for that topic and I think it should be discussed more! Because if you really think about it, there are almost no parallels in Valka and Hiccup. And if there are, it isn’t well executed enough that it leaves a strong impact. I definitely will talk about this more but it’s late and I crave sleep.

[blackcat-star]

Eyes on me.

Self-aware!Jinwoo x reader

Was he just looking at you?

«Part 1

Ever since Jinwoo got the system and gained new powers, he had always felt like someone was looking at him.

Maybe the system was watching him-

No. This gaze was different.

It came from all directions, but he felt that it meant no harm to him. But he felt very uncomfortable. Being stared at all the time was not a comfortable thing anyway.

But gradually, he got used to it, and started to be curious about it. Then ever since he got his job change quest, he felt the owner of the gaze become clearer.

Then it started with images flashing in his mind suddenly, vaguely.

A person lying under the blanket, holding a phone reading something. A manhwa. Solo Leveling. Sung Jinwoo. You was reading about him. He could see glimpses of what was on your phone, which made him frown. 

That's when he learned that in a parallel world, his life was created just to be an entertainment for humanity. That everything he experienced was created by human drawings, by human imagination. This made him laugh mockingly.

'How funny my life is..'

The deep sea of darkness stretched out before him, silent, still, just as it had been before his own darkness. He didn't know how long had gone by. It had been some time that he had been standing there.

He didn't know how much time had passed. He didn't know how long he had been standing there. The darkness had no concept of day or night.

Until one moment, you appeared in that world with a half-real, half-illusion, huge figure, before his eyes.

Your eyes looked straight at him.

Someone was looking at him. Not from this world. Not from his dimension. Someone on the other side of the screen. Someone... reading the story of his life.

The beginning interest in you developed into an uncontrollable fixation.

He shows interest in you by wanting to understand your identity and spend time with you. He does not understand how to achieve his desire.

It's frustrating.

Reading manhwa took you a few hours but Jinwoo spent months immersed in it. Time in his world passed quickly, and he was growing impatient.

He wanted you. Here.

By the time he had defeated the Architect and swallowed the system. He realized that you seemed to have noticed him looking at you.

The barrier between the two worlds was slowly being erased.

That made him excited. You were still there. On the other side of the screen. On the other side of the world.

From the moment you stopped in front of a panel - where your eyes met his - Jinwoo knew. You saw him.

Not the character in the story. Him.

No longer a vague observation from afar, but a connection. A returned gaze. The feeling of excitement exploded like a surge of mana in his chest. He wanted to break down the wall between the two worlds.

He wanted to bring you closer.

Your eyes were confused as you look at him. So cute.

You must be wondering if this is real. Being the nice guy he is, he needs to help you find out, right?

"I know you are looking."

He stood in the dark space, a dimension where time did not flow, where the world became absolutely still. But every time you opened your phone, light shone upon him. Like a door opening. Like a hand pulling him from the abyss.

For the first time, he heard a strange sound.

A heartbeat.

Not his.

Yours.

From the other world.

And he was drawn. Obsessed. Longing. He began to try. Sending vague glances. Soft smiles only when you were looking. Shadows that crossed the picture frame when you quickly scrolled by. Lines of text only you could read.

He watched your every emotion. When you were scared. When you stopped reading. When you gasped under the dark blanket.

He heard it all. And the more he did, the more he found you lovable.

Vulnerable.

Touchable.

And...easy to grasp.

It seems like you are running away from him. But it won't be that easy. With his absolute power, he can now break the rules of the world, he can interact with you.

And he will bring you to him soon. All it takes is the right time.

Jinwoo reached out, in the darkness, to where your eyes had met his. The space cracked, the cracks spreading like spider webs.

He whispered.

"Just a little more..."

"You'll get here."

"Or I'll come to you."

__________________________

You try not to think about it. You try to sleep. You try to forget that look.

But every time you blink, Jinwoo's face appears in your mind. His dark eyes are as deep as the abyss, his smile is vague as if he knows how you will react.Your emotions pull you in opposite directions because one side is scared and the other wants to explore. You stand at the cliff edge afraid of falling but unable to resist looking over.

And then that night, you dream.

Not a normal dream.

You're standing in complete darkness. The area feels empty with no air movement and no background sounds. It feels like you're in a place the world has never known.

Footsteps.

You turn around - and there he is.

Sung Jinwoo is walking towards you.

Slowly.

Steady.

There was no anger in those eyes, no doubt, only a strange certainty. As if this was the result he had been waiting for all along.

You stepped back. He still moved forward.

You asked, your voice trembling. "Where...am I?"

"The space between two worlds," Jinwoo replied, his deep voice reverberating through the space like sound waves touching every cell. "Here... I can reach you."

"Who are you!?" you took another step back, your palms sweating.

"You've already known who I am"

"I've been paying attention to you for so long," he stepped closer, only a few steps away, his hand reaching up to caress your cheek, his eyes frantic. "What have you done to me? Why am I so obsessed with you?"

You trembled.

"Become mine," Jinwoo said, his gaze tightening like chains. "Don't turn your back on me anymore. I'll come find you. Whether in my dreams or in real life."

Your heart is pounding. 

And then, you wake up. Your breathing is ragged. Your head is spinning.

The phone rests on the table while its screen shows no light. You take a deep breath to settle your emotions. Just a dream. Just a weird nightmare...

But - in the corner of your eye, there's a blur. Like someone actually touched you.

You look down at the screen. A new notification from an unknown number.

"You won't escape me."

Since that day, you have been living in fear. The fear that he will come and take you away one day. So many scenarios have appeared in your head. It makes your heart race and your mind confused.

What does Sung Jinwoo want from you? Why does he want to drag you to that world?

Why is this happening to you?

From that fateful day, everything around you gradually became strange.

At first, there were recurring dreams. You always woke up in the middle of the night, cold sweat drenching your back, your breathing ragged. In the dream, Jinwoo no longer spoke - he just looked. The long stare seemed to be able to suffocate your heart, and every time that gaze fell on you, you felt like prey before a patient predator.

You started avoiding reading manhwa. You turned off notifications, deleted the app. But every time you tried to forget, everything seemed to come crashing down.

Your phone flickers on in the middle of the night. Strange messages from the unnamed number continued to appear, with just one simple line.

"Don't stay away from me."

"I'm getting closer."

Your phone numbers and SIM cards may change but the feeling of being watched remains. You sense someone watching you the moment you wake up. He seems to hover between what's real and what's not from an invisible spot.

Then one day, when you look at yourself in the mirror... It's not you looking in the mirror anymore. It's him looking out.

Jinwoo.

His eyes are reflected in yours. Not imaginary, but real. You stand there, frozen, unable to move. His lips move in the reflection, making no sound, but you understand.

"Almost there."

________________________________

The absolute darkness surrounded Jinwoo as he waited with fast-beating heart. He watched for too many days without taking action because he wanted the perfect opportunity. And now...now, that moment had come.

Jinwoo smiled darkly, power slowly surrounding him in a thick mist, violet eyes glowing.

The darkness surrounding him started to split apart. A faint thread of light appeared slowly between the darkness before it reached out across the empty space.

The crack grew bigger until it broke open to reveal a rough opening in the blackness.

He could feel her heartbeats pounding loudly in his ear. The silence became a background for the steady drumming of her heartbeats. As if the universe itself were holding its breath.

And then he felt it. A tug, faint but unmistakable. The connection was made. You were close.

"Just a bit more" He spoke his thoughts quietly as he reached for the portal.

The portal pulsated like a living being while its thin separation between realms grew dangerously weak. He extended his hand to touch the shiny opening of the crack. The portal emitted strong electrical energy because it sensed his upcoming movement.

He moved ahead by pushing himself through the large gap that appeared like an opening mouth.

You could sense your heart beating rapidly. Something was happening. Something was changing. The room was dimly lit by the glow of the phone screen, face down on the table, and the phone was in hand. You didn't touch it. Not at all. But it lit up on its own.

A blurry image appeared.

Those eyes.

Sung Jinwoo.

Your heart pounded in your chest and you took a reflexive step back. The air was thick, so thick you had to breathe hard. And then...

Crack-

A deafening shattering sound rang out. Not from the phone. But from the wall of your room.

Space broke like a mirror being smashed before your eyes. The spiderwebs of cracks were spreading out in all directions. From the cracks came a jet of black light, a jet of darkness flowing back into the world you were living in.

You screamed because you wanted to turn and run, but your legs wouldn’t.

A portal appeared.

From the darkness, a hand reaches out, fingers long, cold, hard - grabbing your wrist. "I've waited long enough."

The voice is low, rumbling like a shockwave that travels straight to your spine.

You try to pull away. But his strength is inhuman.

"No!" you struggle, "This isn't real! I'm dreaming!"

Jinwoo looks at you - not with fierce eyes, but with eyes that have endured months of agony. Obsessive. Haunting. Creepily gentle.

"This is real," he whispers. "And you are mine."

Space shatters.

You're yanked forward - too weak to scream, too weak to react. It feels like falling into an endless abyss, your body torn between two worlds.

The light fades. There's no room. There's no phone. There's no familiar truth. There was only darkness, the thick scent of mana, and his breath right next to your ear.

You fell to the cold ground, shivering. The air here was thick, strange. A place you had never been.

You looked up. Jinwoo stood before you.

Black shirt, deep eyes, hair falling over his forehead. He looked at you as if he had just taken back a part of his lost soul.

"Welcome to my world."

He leaned down, his eyes shining like the night coming to life.

"Now you will never leave me again."

.....

the end-

tag: @areaderspov @izaquix078 @sky2lar @leviackerman2030

lol I had a day off and I spent the whole day just writing this.

it's almost late night here.........

[13tinysocks]

My Dead Girlfriend

He lied about being a superhero. You lied about not having freaky ass mind powers. You broke up- bitterly. End of story. No shot Invincible and some superpowered grunt for Machine Head would ever work out in any reality. Except. When he comes in droves, hoards of himself, brokenhearted and wanting, wrecking cities for a chance to get one last glance at you. 

[Invincible Varients x Reader] [current overall word count: 215k]

[6.7K, part one of ?] [2] [Ao3] [Chapter Index]         Took a lot of liberties with this. Wanted the variants to be more distinct. Please excuse formatting issues, tumblr is actually ass. Header art is mine. Buckle up, I write like a bad girl with a hope for better days.         TW: Canon typical violence, toxic relationships, abuse, unhealthy BDSM dynamics, major character deaths, what the flip is wrong with everybody here.

       1 * Buck Fifty

Where I think that we’re all gonna die, Just to get fucked in some parallel life, While a strange martian fungus sprouts, From our sexier parts. Canoeing on Mars - Go Hang Music

        Semantics are a funny thing, really.          You say, “Go jump off a bridge,” most people do just that. Jump.          Here’s the not so fun part, some people, they go, “Well, what bridge?” And it’s a back and forth, you pushing, them pulling until you find that magic sweet spot in their logic and they finally jump.          So because you were chatting with this asshole for the better part of ten minutes, people run to you asking questions. “Did you know him? Is he okay?” Clearly, he wasn’t. The guy’s brains were dashed on a rock, blood following the runoff stream, too shallow to break the fall.  Your attention slides off the body. To the couple that pulled over the second he went over the ledge. Early thirties. Medium-ugly man, pretty girl with her hand on her swollen belly. Engagement rings glinting under the spring sun.             “Get back in your car.” Power rolls off your tongue. Thick, heavy, and sour. “And drive away.”         Concern leeches out of their eyes. Glazing over the moment the words meet their ears. The woman gets in first, shutting the passenger and sliding a seatbelt over herself. The man steps around the car, into steady traffic flowing carefully away from their car. He’s nearly clipped by the side mirror of a sedan that blares it’s horn. Swerving away, scraping the opposite side of the bridge’s barrier.         He gets into the car. Unblinking as car after car rams into the sedan. A pileup in the making but he looks nowhere but straight ahead. The couple’s car, a buggy, pulls off the narrow shoulder. Catching a pickup in the side, sending it careening into the sedan’s front. You watch the sedan driver pop like a pimple and the buggy drive off.

        You look back down, to the target, the only one supposed to get hurt here. He’s dead alright. Job’s done. Collateral doesn’t matter, not here anyway. Pileups happen all the time for no good reason at all.         Still, you tug up your hood and make your way down the side catwalk of the bridge. Going the opposite direction of the pileup. Smoke thick in your nose.          Air displaces, a woosh overhead. You’re at the bridge’s end, at the corner of Park and Main when the spandex clad cavalry arrives. You know that pink glow anywhere. Atom Eve sprung into action. Resetting metal, fixing tires. You make yourself watch her, not the blue-black blur that’s scooping civilians out of cars to safety.          You catch a look at him anyway. Still at last, because the job was done that quick. Your gut tightens, brows press together, a sour lemon frown on your lips. He’s smiling at her as they talk about money. The city of New York a brand spanking new client of Invincible Co.          Payday for them. You too. So stop being such a dill, and get a move on.         You turn before Mark can see your face. He wouldn’t think of you as the culprit. A long ago thing of the past, pre-powers. Good, it’s better if you’re not on his shit list. The best if he had no idea you were still rolling with Machine Head.          He’d seen you in his superhero skin at Machine Head’s side. God, how that ended.          No longer seventeen. No longer needing desperate money for college. No longer innocent or wanted.          When they start asking questions to bystanders, you’re already halfway down Main. You walk fast, you’re late. Twenty minutes out from the tower on foot without a car when the meeting was in five fucking minutes. Wasn’t your fault the guy had to be persuaded to kill himself.         

Machine Head wouldn’t see it that way.          You caught somebody by the arm. Alone, in nice enough clothes. They turn, lip curling, about to yank their arm away. “Give me your wallet.” You say low. 

        Fear doesn't breach their eyes. They simply pluck the leather bound thing from their jeans, detach it from a chain, and hand the whole thing over. You hold a thumb out until a taxi pulls up.          You didn’t have to pay. With powers like these, you could’ve done anything. You could be living large. Countless pretty things on your arm, willing to do anything at your say so. But you’re here. In debt. A criminal. Because you don’t know where to go or what else to do or what else you’re good for. They’d find you anyway, you could tell them to go and forget you existed but somehow, through mental gymnastics, you told yourself they’d come back. Kill you for trying to leave.         You pay the taxi fair out of courtesy because you once worked a shitty customer service job. You’re a killer, not evil. Consider it a good deed for the day.         You run through the double glass doors. Careful not the leave prints on the glass. Machine Head was very particular. An evil megalomaniac, but particular.          You know you’re late by the time you push open the Italian maple doors. He’s standing, ramrod straight, back to you, machine eyes (cameras you supposed?) scanning the city. His city. For a time it wasn’t. He was usurped, locked in the same jail house as you. You thought that your difference in sex would keep him away from you. But no, you were still working for him in the slammer to keep your back shank-free. He got out, took The Order by the throat, and now you were out too and-         “Fifty-three seconds. You made me wait fifty-three seconds. Do you know how much money I could’ve been making in those fifty-three seconds, (Y/n)?” He turned to you. Suit crisp. Metal shining.         You feel drastically under dressed in your sweats and hoodie. Lightly stained from cheap takeout. But you wouldn’t change it, it was practically the uniform of the average New York streetwalker. Not noticed. Perfect for the casual assassin, burglar, and occasional drug mule.          You don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Because that’s more time wasted, more money piled onto your dept. “Granger is dead.”         “Yeah, of old age.”         You swallow back the anger. After five years of cat scratches like that, you’re more than used to keeping your feelings in check. “My next assignment, sir?” 

        His circuitry clicked. “Nothing. Maybe I’ll give you something next time if you aren’t so inconsiderate with my time.” You turn for the door. No argument there. “Oh and, (Y/n)?” You stop, hand on the polished knob. “Be here twelve tomorrow. Sharp. Or I’m adding another month.” His threat is real, but hollow. Another month under his thumb means nothing when you’re too useful to ever let go.         Shallowly, you nod and slip out the door.      ***         Another two hundred. A month after the last raise in rent. You could kill her. Tell her to jump off the complex roof while doing a hand spring.          “Miss Neighbor?” A voice behind you makes you look down, down, down.          She’s a tiny thing. A sprout though she’s supposed to be eleven. “Caligula got out again.” Her arms piston forward, presenting the fluffy thing. Eyes slited and soft belly exposed.          You sigh, taking him into your arms where he melts and purrs. “Thanks Cecelia.” You say, foot kicking open your ajar door. Caligula figured out how to turn the knob last year. Ever since you’d been vigilant about double locking the door but some days you were in a hurry and too stressed to worry. Like today. “I owe you one.” Your hand slipped into your hoodie, pulling out the last remaining dollars and coins stolen from the stranger. You spot a fifty in the wad that her eager hands wrap around. You hold on a little too long before letting go.          There’d be more pockets to pick tomorrow. You could make rent with a few extra hours. Though, man, you didn’t want to. You were tired enough as it was.         Her eyes glittered as she thumbed through the cash, the little capitalist. She slipped a single dollar and two quarters into one hand. The rest of the fat stack in the other. Ah, reward money for giving her money. Child’s logic.         She holds out the wad to you. “Thanks Neighbor lady, but I just need a buck fifty for the vending machine down the hall. Gonna get me a Reese's Pieces.”          She yelled a thanks more heartfelt than yours and toddled down the hall, knees awkwardly bowed. You watch her turn the corner. Slack jawed. For a change, somebody let you keep something. Something good happened, even after you made a stupid decision.

        You push inside the studio and push away all thoughts of killing Cecelia’s greedy bitch mother. Who would find Caligula if she had to move to her aunt’s? Plus, if you got rid of her mom another, greedier landlord would probably replace her.          There wasn’t a point.          Early dinner was phoned in because you were so frazzled after this afternoon you’d forgot to grocery shop. Pizza. You waited, splayed on the couch, Caligula purring away on your knee. A Youtube stream pulled up on your junk laptop because you didn’t bother with a TV. News was a good thing to keep an eye on when you were a criminal.          A knock at the door. You rise. The pizza boy looks about the age of minimum wage. Still, you tell him, “Give me your wallet and the pizza.” Before shutting, and locking, the door in his face, no tip. Good deed already done for the day.         Another knock should come. Him demanding payment and his wallet. Instead, footsteps recede. He’s already forgotten. He’ll remember vaguely later, making a regular delivery. Losing his wallet, maybe in his car on while packing pizzas. He’ll panic, pause his debit card that you’ll never touch out for fear of being tracked. Working for Machine Head meant cash only.         You’re back on the couch, indulging. Caligula licking grease off your fingers. You skip from one news stream to the next. Looking for yourself. You weren’t the costume and flashy mask type of supervillian. If you considered yourself super at all. No inhuman strength or speed or shape shifting. Just, talking and making people listen.         You were lucky. Only caught the once. It was the second time Mark saw you rolling with Machine Head, a month after your cataclysmic teenage breakup. A year in the slammer, slap on the wrist. Machine Head paid your way out of papers and records.          It was three months later, after a particular fuck up, Machine Head revealed to you that Mark came to the prison the day you were supposed to be released. You’d been let out a day early. At the time you thought they just wanted you out because of overcrowding. But Machine Head knew Mark would come. Would try and persuade you to his side of things. Maybe make up and be sweethearts again. By then, through prison and three months of being an official card in Machine Hand’s deck— you’d crossed lines Mark wouldn’t forgive. You couldn’t go running back, saying you saw his side now. Because you didn’t.          Imagining what Mark would say if he saw you again, if he knew you stayed with Machine Head, it was enough to make you cry right in the middle of Machine Head’s office. He didn’t even have to rub your nose in the shame when you’d do it yourself. You were so angry. At Mark for putting you in jail, playing you right into Machine Head’s hands. At Machine Head for never letting you out from under his thumb. At everything, all of the time.

        Working for Machine Head wasn’t all bad. Got his endless supply of grunts to teach you a thing or two about tact and not getting caught. Things like not abusing the pizza boy every day. You saved it for once every few months. Never the same boy twice. Any repeats would be begrudgingly paid.         Another slice finds it’s way between your fingers. You’re mid-groan as your attention catches on the latest stream. Not ten minutes ago you were bored out of your gourd. Now, “A devastating attack has left Seattle’s space needle— gone.” The camera panned up, up, not that far up because the iconic slab of concrete was fucking leveled.          Your brows raise but you make no move. Not your circus, not your monkeys.          The camera raises further. “And it seems the destruction was at the hands of—“ The stream cuts, going blue on your computer scream. You scoff, lean forward and beat the corner as flashes of blue and yellow mock you. Finally, it clears, and you see somebody. Decked in white. Hovering hundreds of feet about the needle.          The pizza turns sour in your stomach but you lean forward, elbows on knees. Unable to see a face but so familiar with the shape of that body. For every time you saw it, on the news or overhead, your stomach went sour. “What the fuck is he doing without his mask on?” You squint. Just seeing the dot of tanned skin that was his head, no details beyond.         Caligula yowled, crossing over your laptop keys to get at your fingers. The stream changes. “—le are evacuating Universal Studios Hollywood in droves. Authorities are unsure what’s caused the majority of the studio to collapse.” A crash off screen. The camera pans. Smoke rises from the skyline. Wind carrying it down to pollute the central valley. There’s that shape, that body again. Silhouette dark in the smoke, with something else, something you hadn’t seen. A new low. A fucking cape?         Caligula takes another step. The stream changes. “This just in, Big Ben is gone.” An anchor takes up the screen, pale and balding forehead shining with sweat.         “Sorry, Keith, uhm, what do you mean gone?”          “I mean it’s gone, Jared. Cut— Cut to the footage!” The stream flickers. There’s the London sky. Gray and dreary. Clouds overshadowed by pillars of smoke. Chunks of rubble litter the street. Cars with their horns still blaring, engines burning crushed beneath. People squashed like grapes. 

        There he is again. But. No. Not really. This shape in the sky, this man had the same makeup but wider, thicker. You lean closer to the screen, sure you’re seeing things and not his old super suit.          Your phone vibrates in your pocket. The news is forgotten, half eaten pizza slice thrown to the pen box where Caligula pounces to lick pooled oils off the cheese.         You don’t have to look to know it’s work. Nobody calls you for anything but work and you only work for Machine Head.         “Boss is feeling generous.” Isotope’s voice grits through the speaker. “Get back here on the double.”         Seeing what you mistook for your ex on so many streams has soured your mood. Spiked your daring. “You can’t just teleport me?”          He scoffs. “You’ve got legs don’cha? Use ‘em.” Machine Head’s voice spiked the other end of the line. Isotope sighs. “Don’t move.”         You wipe your hands off on your pants before he’s in your apartment. Appearing through a haze of radioactive green light. You don’t even get to stand before his hand is on your shoulder and you’re zapped into Machine Head’s sprawling high rise. ��       You stumble but straighten. Isotope leaving your side to stand at attention by Machine Head. Who was currently heaving over his desk.         Papers, pens, and pretty mugs dashed to the floor.          It’d only been a few minutes. Did Granger survive? Did somebody see you? Report you?  Is Machine Head going to have you killed, right here, right now?         Power coils in your throat. Words ready to shoot like bullets to protect yourself.          “Tell me, Dregs.” The word spits off his electric voice box like sparks. Your stomach cinches. In this room, on the street, in the normal world, you were (Y/n). On jobs with fellow grunts you didn’t trust, in Machine Head’s scant paper trail, you were Dregs. He reserved calling the insult of a ‘villain name’ for when he was particularly unhappy with you. The name wasn’t your doing. It was a nasty nickname that stuck when Machine Head, near dead, overheard Invincible, breaking up with you in the shattered remains of his office all those years ago.         “You— you’ve been— you’re—“ His lip quivered under his mask.          “I did this for us.” You’d said. “I needed money to go to college with you. It’s just a one time thing!”

“They tried to kill me. He hired you to help kill me.” His voice had changed then, matured a fraction. Gone was the boyfriend that called you dude. Here was the man, mask held in his hand, identity shocking you to your core.          “I didn’t know it was you!”         “So you were fine with killing somebody?”         “I thought it was all talk!” You’d pled with him. In the middle of this very room, now reconstructed and shiny.          “Well it wasn’t!”          “I saved you.” You’d protested. “Without even knowing it was you— I saved you!” Because you had thought it was talk. You thought it was an easy paid security guard gig and you weren’t ready to kill someone for money. How times would change.         “You— How long have you been working with these—“ He gestured to the room at large. The dead. The dying. The bloody. He wasn’t looking great himself, but you spared him most of the pain with your words. A few suggestions here and there could save lives. You could’ve been a hero. His face sucks in then the word comes flying out, “Dregs of society— these fucking—“         And it stuck.         Hearing it always made you want to hit something. Though your punches weren’t particularly affective. You could tell Machine Head to jump out his shiny bay window but you don’t because there’s always a bigger thumb.         “Why-“ You’re back to the present, “the,” staring down your shitty bosses back, “fuck,” thinking about killing him, “is,” again, “your ex boyfriend tearing apart my city!?”         “What?” Now that, was not what you were expecting.          “You heard me!” His voice synthesizer spiked, turning the words into a melody. “Use your eyes!”         You look past his heaving form. So focused on the idea of being murdered you neglected the city scape. Sky scrapers were sliced in half. Twisted metal supports reaching for the sky. Smoke billowing, fire brewing. You heard it now, the screaming from below.          A black streak cuts the horizon. Blasts straight through the empire state building. The top half of the building groans, hitting nearby buildings as it comes down, shaking the city. People fall out the windows, go splat on the ground. Others are crushed under fresh rubble.         Standing up in the air was unmistakably Mark. Wearing his Invincible skin, the new blue and black one that made you angry with how good it looked on him. But he wasn’t wearing his mask, which was unlike himself. He also had a mohawk, which was also unlike himself.

        “Jesus.” You say. Thinking of clones or illusions or shape shifters. Villain of the week type of bullshit.         “Is that you trying to fix things? Stop him!” Machine Head’s hands go to his head, gripping metal like hair. “Now!”         That’s how you ended up here. Standing on the roof of Machine Head’s high rise. Jerry-rigged megaphone in hand. No ordinary Walmart megaphone would do in a situation like this. Had to be a ‘roided up version of the original. Double speakers on the sides with complicated volume amplifiers in its guts.          You’d been here before. Ontop a building, shouting into a megaphone. There was almost nothing ridiculous you hadn’t done to get someone to hear you. To do what someone wanted you to do. Usually it was ontop of a bank, shouting at police to leave, to forget about the robbery, to forget your face.         This was new enough that your palms were slick with sweat around the plastic handle. Mark sliced through more buildings with his body. They went down like soft butter. His laugh cracking and wrong as people burst open on the streets.          The cavalry had arrived. Nobody low-levels on the city’s payroll. Mark cut through them easier than the buildings. Not Mark, you tell yourself. Mark didn’t kill. You did. Mark wasn’t bad. You were. That’s why things didn’t work out.         You breathe in. Anger surging. Whoever or whatever this loser was— was going down, hard.          “Hey!” The megaphone twisted your voice from one to multitudes. From a shout to a building shaking scream.          Not Mark paused midair. Holding a half dead hero against him. Fists beating his cheat while their guts spilled out their midriff. He was half a mile away, a spec, but you still felt his eyes on you. Hard and boiling a dot through your skull.         “You! Yeah, you!” Getting their attention was always the worst part. If he didn’t think you were talking to him, your power would fall flatter than a popped balloon. One of the many drawbacks that’d nearly gotten you killed time and time again.         The hero dropped. Still falling. You didn’t see him coming, human eyes too weak to see faster than light. He’d be on you before the hero hit the ground.         “Stop!”          The air cracks. You stumble back. Eardrums crackling. One good thing about having powers? The littlest, stupidest things are enhanced. Not your hearing, no, but your ability to not go deaf. You literally can’t. Sure, you could’ve had a naturally amplified voice, super speed, healing, but nope! You get— anti-deaf powers, if you could call it that, as a cherry on top.

        Not Mark is suspended midair, a flower preserved in resin. Fist reeled back ready to punch a hole through your head. A grin that’s more of a snarl on his lips. Black piercings shining in the light of nearby fires. Brow, bridge, cheek, lip, like lizard spikes. Mohawk flattened against his head. Blood on his teeth, on his knuckles.         Close up, he is Mark. A clone or deft shape shifter, but so close to your Mark it throws you off balance. Worse is the no mask part. Your ex-boyfriend stares at you will his full naked face. Eyes brown but darker, more sunken than you remember. With bags beneath, like being evil is so fucking exhausting.         Shape shifter for sure, and a bad one.         He blinks. Still in air. Eyes sharp on your features as you lower the megaphone. Something about those eyes scare the shit out of you. You expect glazed complacency. You except no expression at all. But he’s looking at you with so much emotion, too much to be really under your control.         There’s no time for machinations. You knew aliens or other powered individuals could give you trouble. But nobody was able to fully resist, not yet.         So you say, “Kill yourself.”          Just as he says, “It’s you.”         You’re both surprised.          You double down. Power leaden on your tongue. “Break your own neck, now.”         His arms move like an animatronic. One hand poised on his sharp jaw, the other poised on his shoulder for purchase. There’s no snap, death groan, and falling five stories. He is staring at you like you’re actually precious to him. Like he misses you. Like he didn’t dump you then throw you in jail a month later. Like he didn’t see other people, like Atom Eve and him weren’t going steady.         It pisses you off. Power roils in your throat. You growl this time, “Rip out your throat.”         His hands fall to his sides. You’d met resistance before but a rephrase, a second or third command always did it. He wasn’t dead and that was a very, very bad thing.         “You made it.” He says. Soft but voice gruff. “To New York.”

        “Die!” You command. Though your power didn’t work on vague words like die. “Die, right now!” His feet touched down on the ledge. You step back. “Stop breathing.”         At those words he sobers. A smile, sharp toothed and easy and so un-Mark-like stretches his face. “Guess we want each other dead in every reality.” The words are an inside joke that make him laugh. “I almost respect the forwardness.”         "Break your legs.” You spit, taking another step back. Megaphone falling to the floor. “Break your arms."         “I think-“ He follows you in slow, languid strides. “You shouldn’t talk to your emperor and boyfriend like that.” Your words like bullets on kevlar armor, on viltrumite skin. They make him pause momentarily, shudder, then he breaks right though your hold and keeps coming.         Boyfriend? Boyfriend!?         You couldn’t have a boyfriend working for Machine Head. You’d seen what he threatened Titan with. You couldn’t have Mark, of all fucking people, as a boyfriend because of what he did. So you couldn’t let yourself have a boyfriend because you were so scared you’d get the same fucking reaction. And if things got to be too much you’d tell them forget, find someone else.         You see red.         “Eat your heart and shit it out.”         “Jeez, did I really fuck up this bad here?” He chuckles, and it sounds like Mark. Your Mark.         “Now!” The power forces out of you in waves. His step wobbles but he just keeps coming.         “You really must want me dead! What’d I do, take over your planet? You know a man’s got needs, baby. No biggie.”         The door to the stairs bursts open. Machine Head heaves with the effort of racing up the flights. Isotope behind him, less winded.         “Dregs!” Machine Head hisses. “Fuckin’ kill him already!”         “Dregs?” Not Mark tests the name on his tongue. “Is your name here fucking Dregs? Do- oh shit-“ His eyes alight, “Now I geddit. You’ve got powers in this universe!” He says like it wasn’t obvious. “That’s like your hero name, right? Oh (Y/n), baby, that’s so stupid it’s cute.”         “Fly into the sun.” Power rips out you, sizzling through the air.          He actually hovers off the roof. You wait for him to blast off and become a solar flare.          His muscles tense and untense. “So that’s what that is. Shit, I thought it was just like, true love and stuff.” And he was going to kill you. “Man, that feels… weird. Do it again.”

        “Kill him!” Machine Head insists behind you.         “Kill yourself.” You can feel a migraine on it’s way, pounding in your temples. Powers are like a muscle. They can only do so much before giving. “Do it. Die.”         Not Mark shivers, letting out a delighted laugh. “Man, you could’ve really gotten me if I wasn’t full apeshit mode. But…” He hovers closer, leering, “You didn’t, so I guess it’s my turn now.”         “Isotope, take me to Seattle!” You speak before you think. Before his hand can clasp your throat. Isotope is next to you in a millisecond. Then you’re gone. Machine Head’s raging protests gone from your ears.         The streets of Seattle are wet with blood and rain. Isotope stands beside you, in a haze he’ll come out of any minute. Coming here of all places was a horrible idea but you hadn’t thought. The city came off your tongue, fresh on the mind.          “Help.” A voice croaks. A broken hand paws at your feet. Orange and gloved, once a defender, now an arm peaking out rubble. “Help me.”         You stare at it because what the fuck?          The air whips. You look overhead. He’s a hundred feet up, maybe more. Looking right back down at you. He’s more imposing than he was on your laptop screen. Broader of shoulder, uniform crisp white except where it wasn’t. Where glistening sinew chunks clung to his chest.         He stares you down like shit under his shoe. You wait for sudden death that never comes. Whoever this was. Mark, Not Mark, some hot guy, he wasn’t hurting you though he clearly just killed a metric fuckton of people; and you didn’t know why and honestly? It scared the shit out of you.         The hand finds your ankle. “Help. Help.”         Not Mark comes down then like an anchor. Arms crossed, legs tight. Crushing the rubble beneath his feet. Making the hand go limp, blood framing around it.         You knew at a distance and were even more sure now. It was Mark but wrong, again. Face too symmetrical, too sharp. Your Mark had little imperfections, a crooked nose from his Omni-Man induced beat down, ache scars on his hairline. This version was trophy husband material, mocking you in it’s image for what could’ve been.         He’s taller. Why is he taller? 

        Not Mark number two’s eyes are cold, rock brown slates that slide to Isotope. The shift in his muscles are subtle but you know violence is coming.         You weren’t staying to watch it happen. “Take me to Hollywood.” And it was done.         You were in a outdoor walkway by studio six. Isotope on your arm, stupor elongated.          The decision again proved to be bad, made from a sick need to check, to run. Studio six was burning and you could smell the bodies.          “Take me to the road.” You command. A flash, and you’re there. Outside the heart of Hollywood, watching Universal crash and burn. The rest of the city was no better. You knew Hollywood was worse in person but you never imagined it a gray flattened husk.          This couldn’t be real. You were dreaming, going to wake any second.         A shadow passed overhead. You look up, nothing but smoke and sun.          From behind, “Need some help, friend?”         You turn. He’s back in black (and yellow), grinning with his mask on. Cape billowing stupidly in the breeze. A scar indented to his face from chin to lip. A sliver of lip gone, exposing half a tooth before the scar meandered up, under his mask.         “Oh shit.” A laugh rips out of him. “(Y/n), you old so and so. What are you doing in my neck of the woods?”         Like the others he’s splattered with the lives of others. Reveling, practically glowing in it.          “Tell me who you are.” You say, holding tight to Isotope in case he sobers and decides to zap away. No way you were being stranded with this… thing.         His body goes ridged at the command. You think he’ll resist like the other, then it comes pouring out. “Mark Grayson.” He says. “But not the one you know.”         Your head pounds. He’s not lying, people can’t lie when you’re prying information out of them. “More than that. Details.”         “I’m here to destroy everything I see. I’ve been…”  He shakes his head, body loosening. You feel your control snap away like a cut cord. His lips seal then pull back in a wicked grin. “Oh, you’ve got different tricks here. Tell me, have I taken hold of this useless planet yet? Do you see me as someone to rise up against? Have you given up yet? Have you saved your own life by sucking my—“         "Tokyo.” 

        You’re somewhere you’ve only dreamed of going and it’s destroyed. You thought, since you hadn’t seen it on the news it’d be a safe bet. You could figure things out, come up with a game plan, but no. You couldn’t think with your head pounding and nose starting to bleed, power waning with overuse on too many overpowered targets. The muscle was straining. You weren’t used to this much. To resistance. To using         Isotope, strong in his own right, like a puppet. It was exhausting.          Isotope was wobbling on his feet. He could teleport over and over but being under your control so long as well? Wasn’t good for him.          Clearly, the apocalypse was nigh so you couldn’t give a shit about anybody but yourself.          You snapped back to reality standing over a pair of women, curled on the ground in fetal position.         “Tell me what happened.” You say.         The blonde one doesn’t unfurl but speaks, accented and injured, “He destroyed everything.”         “Who?”         Her arm unfurls, shaking finger pointing up. You look up, expecting. The sky is clear. The woman’s arm re-latches to her brain dead best friend.          “I wasn’t expecting you here.” The voice is a river smoothed stone. Dark and solid— as a rock can be.          You already know who it is before you can look. A sight you were starting to get a little more than tired of. Though you didn’t expect a red and white suit splattered with blood.  He’s thicker, like the others, hair taller and spiked with gel.          He steps forward, over the dead girl and her whimpering friend. The sounds catch his attention, the next step he takes crushes the living girls head. Brains dying his white boot pink. “It’s unfortunate you had to see this, but it’s better you did. We’re on the same page now.”         “What the fuck does that mean?” Your power comes out weak, involuntary. You hadn’t meant to strain yourself but there you go, fucking up again.         “I want you to understand that what I’m doing is necessary. I don’t understand why you fought me before. So… unneeded. You’d know you’d never beat me but you…” His brows press together through his mask. His lip twitches, “I’ve said too much.” And your hold falls away.  Out comes his hand, fabric originally white but now red. “Come with me.”          “Sydney.”

        You stood across the water from the flaming opera house. A scream of frustration comes out as a cough, blood and mucous splat onto the cracked sidewalk. Your balance tips and wavers but you cling to Isotope who is barley upright himself.          You really needed to stop going for capital cities.          This one you see. Black and blue above the hundred foot tall fire. Watching it burn quiet as the night which it now was, across the world from your starting point.          The mask completely covers his face, but knowing how today is going. It’s Mark, again.          He disappears. You open your mouth, power rising up your throat. Air breaks. You’re thrown off your feet. He’s before you. Feet off the ground, staring you down though blue lenses. Same stupid spandex this time with a thick tool belt strapped round his waist and left thigh. A harness strapped to his chest, surely hiding things that could tear though your soft human flesh. Slight armor padding hiding his muscles.         He hovers over the broken fence separating you from the water. Your panicked eyes reflected back at you through polarized blue goggles.         You scramble to Isotope, splayed on the ground, bleeding from the back of his head. “Take me home.” His eyes lolled back into his head. You shake him, looking frantically behind you, to the unmoving phantom then back to him. “Hey! Wake up!” You watch the shape of a man. Terrified he’d come closer when you weren’t looking but there he stayed. Watching. Isotope’s eyes flutter. “Dregs.” He groans. “I… I can’t…” Sweat shines on his brow.         You slap him hard across the face. Palm stinging. “I don’t give a shit! Take me home!”         His pale narrow fingers wrap around your wrist. Green light grows slowly around you both. Not instant as if it would be if he weren’t fucked up.         “Faster!”         A sound from behind. You turn, finding something whipping toward you. You flinch, expecting a punch but instead find some cuff clapping onto your ankle. Thick and dark, matte finished. You don’t think of clawing at it as you’re teleported away.         Yet you take one last look. He is still. Waiting.         Your hovel of an apartment is like a church. You throw yourself to the unvacuumed floor, reverent. Caligula doesn’t come to love on you. When you peel up from the ground, Isotope is gaining his bearings. Eyes hazy with distaste as he zaps away, without you. 

        Leaving you alone in your tilted apartment. Everything was a little off skew. When you stood you stumbled back, partly from exhaust, partly from the floor literally not being at the right angle. It was then the building decided to creek. Letting you know of it’s incoming collapse.         

Most of New York City had been ripped apart, so with your luck, why not your apartment?         You’re out the door. Racing down flight after flight, two steps at a time. Beams whine in the walls. Pipes crack, spilling water from the ceiling into the lobby.          You’re barley out when the building goes down. You run down the sidewalk, between crashed and burning cars. Hopping over bodies, bodies, bodies. When the world stops shaking, you look at the damage. Creeping closer, finally remembering your cat.  The creeping gives way to frantic running. Tripping back over the bodies, screaming, “Caligula!” At the mountain of what used to be your home.          You throw yourself to the most manageable bit of rubble. Throwing stone size pieces tossed away in hopes you’d reveal your cat. You didn’t have much besides the clothes on your back and this goddamn power of yours— but Caligula kept you going. Kept you hoping. Because if he could come up in life, going from a neglected stray to spoiled in a twenty-something year olds apartment. You could do the same thing.          “Ca-“          “Cecelia?” You look up. Climbed to the apex of the disaster was your greedy landlord. Tossing concrete more frantically than you were. You climb up, carefully avoiding exposed leaking pipes. She had the right idea. Higher up meant maybe a better chance of survival. You search together, but separate. Calling different names. Kicking down different chunks. Waiting for heroes to come but after what you saw earlier— you doubted it.         “Rrrrow?” You know that sound anywhere. Your head snaps. Watching the gray go from rock to a fuzzy back.          “Oh God, Caligula!” You skid down to him and he jumps up to you. Meowing. Dust in his fur but otherwise okay. He’d gotten out again. This time all the way to the outside. He was okay. He was okay and you were so happy you cried into him.         “Cecelia! Ce— Cecelia?” You shouldn’t have looked. Watched the landlord crack her back as she moved the largest piece of debris she had yet. Just to fall beside the severed arm of her little girl. Fingers curled around a buck fifty. 

        She threw herself on the arm. Dirty fingers clawing at the window ledge that covered the rest of her little girl’s body. Opening her nails up on broken glass. Screaming a scream so horrible you’d never forget— and you killed people for a living.         A dent split open the back of her head, a waterfall of blood you hadn’t noticed before. The dent exposed her hind brain, though she didn’t seem to care, still screaming for her dead baby girl.          You weighed the options. Leave. Help. Have a better chance of finding help for yourself. Put the bitch down like you’d dreamed. Survive. Chance being found by the monster that did this.          You chose both. Not getting any close to her but turning. Power weak, watery but you didn’t need much. Not for the average person, distracted and distressed. “Lay down. Sleep.”         She did just that. You climbed down from the rubble. Careful with Caligula in your arms. Retracing your steps away from the building. When you look back, she wasn’t breathing.         ***         “Where is she?” THUNK!          Machine Head didn’t so much as feel pain. More so, felt his circuitry being shifted inside him. Any more of this and he’d stop working. Repairs on a piece as intricate as himself didn’t come cheap.         “Probably in fucking Seattle, asshole!” He said for the fifth time. He’d explained, best a robo man could while his ass was being beat by his grunt’s now blood thirsty (or would it be oil thirsty?) ex boyfriend. “He can teleport and she took ‘im!”          “Seattle’s gone idiot!” THUNK! Another punch dented the side of his head. Devastating for Machine Head, but nothing close to the skyscraper shattering power he’d seen before. The motherfucker was beating the circuits out of him but still holding back. Something was sparking and smoking within him. His camera eyes were starting to static.          “What—“         “Boss!” Zip, zap, Cadillac.          He was out of one man’s arms, into another. But not anywhere near far enough away from the little freak.          Isotope managed to get his boss away, about thirty feet. Holding him up just barley, eyes still frosty with the mind fog that Dregs cunt had inflicted on him. He tried splitting reality again, just to fizzle out and land them right back in the same spot.         Said little freak’s gaze slid to Isotope. Voice more dangerous than before. “She was just with you.” It was more of a question, a demand. Isotope was about to pass out but that didn’t leave him stupid. “At her place.” He breathed.          The freak stepped forward. “Where?”

[sixeyesonathiel]

bet on blue — f1driver!gojo x gf!reader

fluff, meant to parallel free throws & figure drawings. there's just something so fine about gojo satoru going bonkers once the love of his life bets on him <3

you weren’t supposed to say it.

not like that.

not now—when the air still hums with anticipation, when the scent of engine oil and tire polish settles thick on the back of your tongue, when your heart’s already pounding like it knows what’s coming, trying to match the rhythm of countdowns and pit crew drills.

but you do.

because you can’t keep your mouth shut around him. because your skin still buzzes from watching him tear through the track like a man possessed. because there’s something so sharp and untouchable about the way he moves—fast, unrelenting, devastating—and it makes your chest ache with something too big to name.

because satoru gojo is the most terrifying and beautiful thing you’ve ever seen when he’s racing. and you were never any good at playing it safe.

“i bet on you.”

the words leave your mouth without ceremony, unpolished, tumbling clumsily into the space between you.

he's got his back to you, adjusting the straps on his helmet, his focus sharp as he readies himself for the race. the top of his fireproof suit is already unzipped, the fabric clinging to his torso as he shifts, every movement deliberate and calculated. the suit, darkened in spots where the sweat's started to settle, emphasizes the lean muscle of his frame. his hair is messy and damp, wild strands of white falling into his eyes, evidence of the heat and pressure he’s already been battling all morning.

his shoulders go still.

you don’t see his face at first, but you see the shift in him—like the gears in his head lock suddenly. like the whole world slams on the brakes. he turns slowly, glancing over one shoulder with narrowed eyes, the pale blue of them catching the light like fractured glass.

“what?”

you fold your arms, shifting your weight onto one leg, trying not to let your nerves show. your tongue presses hard against the inside of your cheek.

“like... sports betting,” you say, and your voice is too light, too nonchalant to be casual. “on today’s race. i put everything i had in savings on you.”

his jaw drops.

literally.

you watch the whole thing unfold like a slow-motion scene—the way his mouth opens slightly, the way his brows lift, how the color in his face flickers between confusion and horror. he looks like he just got slapped with a wet towel.

“you’re joking.”

you shake your head, biting down a grin. “nope.”

one beat. then another.

you can practically hear the static between you.

“you—are you insane?”

there’s genuine panic in his voice now, laced beneath the disbelief. he takes a step forward, then another—hands half-extended like he doesn’t know whether to shake you or pull you into his arms. finally, he grabs you by the shoulders, fingers curling into your jacket like he’s trying to keep you from evaporating.

his palms are hot. a little sweaty. a little trembling.

“you bet how much?”

you tilt your chin up, pride and nerves fighting for dominance. “ten thousand.”

his reaction is immediate and dramatic—his eyes widen, his lips part in shock, and he makes a noise that can only be described as a strangled gasp-scream hybrid. he spins away from you like he’s trying to physically escape the consequences of your words, dragging his hands through his hair until it’s sticking up in all directions.

“you WHAT—”

you dissolve into laughter. his horror is tangible, full-bodied, like it physically hurts him. he paces in frantic, looping circles, muttering to himself as if trying to rewrite the last thirty seconds.

“baby—do you have any idea how bad that is?” he finally exclaims, spinning back toward you with wild eyes. “what if i crash? what if the brakes lock up? what if some asshole takes me out on turn two again?”

you shrug. “then i go broke. and i sell feet pics.”

his face twists in agony. “NO!” he shouts, like you just proposed a blood ritual. “no, no, no—i’m going to win. i have to win now. i have to—i’m going to destroy everyone. i’m going to lap verstappen.”

“don’t think that’s possible on this circuit.”

he points a finger at you, accusatory. “i will make it possible.”

his eyes are blazing—like holy fire. and his hair, still spiked in wild directions, makes him look unhinged. like a beautiful lunatic.

you snort, watching the way his chest rises and falls with quick, shallow breaths. you reach up and touch his face, the pad of your thumb brushing just beneath his cheekbone. his skin is flushed and sticky, a thin sheen of sweat catching the light. he flinches slightly at your touch, like the gentleness startles him, then leans into it.

just for a second.

“you’re cute when you’re feral.” you murmur.

his eyes flutter shut briefly. like it grounds him. like you ground him.

you always do.

but he’s not cute on track.

he’s terrifying.

when the lights go out, he launches off the line like a missile.

you watch with your heart in your throat as he threads through corners with razor precision, faster than physics, faster than common sense. lap after lap, he pushes the car like it’s an extension of his will, shaving off milliseconds with each turn.

“manage pace.” his engineer warns.

he doesn’t even pretend to listen.

“you’re purple sectoring too aggressively.”

his voice crackles back, tight and low—“she bet ten thousand. i need more purple.”

the commentators laugh, but it’s a nervous kind of laughter. the kind that comes before something historic.

by lap fifteen, he’s broken the lap record. by twenty, the race record. by twenty-five, he’s leaving the field in the dust, overtaking cars like they insulted his ancestors.

he crosses the finish line thirty seconds ahead of p2.

the stands erupt. the commentators go breathless. the scoreboard lights up like a war won.

but none of that matters.

he’s already moving—yanking off gloves, hands shaking, helmet off and thrown somewhere onto the pit wall. his hair is soaked through with sweat now, sticking to his forehead and temples in wild strands.

the moment the car stops, he climbs out like it’s on fire. his boots hit the ground, and he’s running—ignoring the team, the cameras, the crowd.

you. he’s only looking at you.

amidst the roar of the crowd and the crackle of radio chatter, it’s like the rest of the world disappears. your eyes lock, and time stretches, the chaos around you fading into a blur. you’re still by the barrier, hands trembling against your mouth, eyes wide in disbelief. you can’t move, frozen in the instant. his gaze is all-consuming, like he's pulling you into his orbit.

he reaches you in four strides, swift and confident, the tension in his muscles unmistakable as he closes the distance between you.

“you—” he starts, voice hoarse from exertion, but then the words cut off, and without another word, he lifts you off the ground.

your feet leave the earth. your heart does too.

his grip is firm, his hands at your waist, and for a moment, you feel weightless. the adrenaline still vibrates through his body, and it sends a ripple of warmth through yours. his eyes, wide with disbelief, are only on you. there’s a mix of awe and frantic joy in his gaze as if he can’t quite believe this is real.

“ten thousand dollars!” he shouts, voice louder now, and then—without warning—he pulls you into him. his lips crash against yours, messy and desperate. it’s like a collision of everything—teeth, tongues, breathless gasps, and all the tension of the race exploding in a kiss. it’s uncoordinated, a beautiful chaos, and it tastes like victory. like danger. like home.

he pulls back just enough to catch his breath, his forehead resting against yours, his hands still clutching you like he can’t let go, even if he wanted to. “you fucking gambled on me,” he murmurs, his voice ragged with emotion. “what kind of insane, gorgeous, genius idiot are you?”

you laugh, breathless and caught in the aftermath of his kiss. your fingers curl into the collar of his half-unzipped suit, your knuckles brushing against the damp skin on his neck, feeling the heat still radiating from him. his pulse thunders against your chest, the rhythm in sync with yours.

“the kind who knew you’d win.” you whisper, and the words feel like the truth. you always knew he would.

he stares at you for a beat, his mouth twitching into a crooked grin. “you’re not allowed to bet on anyone else ever again.”

you raise an eyebrow, trying to act like you’re considering his request, but you know it’s a losing battle. “what if i bet on you every race?”

his smirk is cocky, his eyes gleaming with mischief. he presses his forehead to yours, the contact grounding. his breath is still ragged, and his smile is utterly smug. “then i’ll win every race. world records be damned. i’ll win everything.”

there’s that unwavering confidence in his voice. and you know—he means it. he will win everything. but right now, all he cares about is you. and you can’t help the warmth blooming in your chest.

when he finally sets you down, it’s with reluctance, like he’s dragging himself away from something he doesn’t want to leave. but he doesn’t let go of your hand—no, he tangles his fingers with yours, his grip firm and possessive, pulling you along with him through the pit lane, through the chaos of the crowd.

his body language is effortless, his movements commanding, as if he’s always in control. but there’s something in the way he holds your hand, the way he keeps you close, that says more than any words could. he’s not just the fastest driver on the planet. right now, in this moment, he’s completely and utterly yours.

the media swarm as soon as you make it to the front. flashes of cameras blind you both, the noise overwhelming. satoru’s got you tucked under his arm like a prize, and he doesn’t seem to mind one bit. you’re still trying to steady your breathing, but all you can focus on is how he’s still wearing that grin, the one that makes him look like he owns the world. his hair is a mess, damp and wild from the race, and his fireproof suit is half-unzipped, barely clinging to his chest. he doesn’t care about any of it. all he cares about is you.

the flash of a camera catches you at just the wrong angle, and you wince when you feel the lipstick smudge along your lips. your heart skips when you catch sight of it—a small smear on the corner of his mouth, and a dark streak of color against his cheek from where you kissed him so urgently. it's messy, but the evidence of the kiss only makes him look even more alluring.

“this win’s for her,” he announces into the mic, all charm and teeth, like he’s not sweating, like he didn’t just push his body to the limit to win. “she believed in me. also, she bet her savings on me, so if i lost, i was gonna have to start an onlyfans.”

the press laughs, but you can’t find the strength to smile. you bury your face into his shoulder, mortified by the lipstick smudge on his face that you’re certain is going to become a headline. you feel the warmth of his skin against your cheek, and then, you feel his chuckle rumble in his chest. his fingers brush the edge of your face, gently adjusting your hair, before he leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. it’s like he’s claiming you all over again. “don’t worry,” he says, voice teasing, “i’ll make sure no one notices.”

you’re still in a daze, trying to recover from the whirlwind, but the thought of everyone seeing the mark you left on him has you cringing. satoru, of course, doesn’t seem to mind at all. if anything, it seems to amuse him.

“anyway,” he grins, pulling back just enough to look at you. “guess it’s her turn to buy dinner now.”

the crowd erupts in cheer, but you’re barely aware of them. all you can hear is the sound of your heart thundering in your chest and the warmth of his lips still lingering on your skin. maybe this is it—maybe this is the moment when everything shifts. because as satoru’s hand tightens around yours, you realize that the win he’s really talking about isn’t the race.

it’s you.

and to satoru gojo, that’s the only victory that matters.

a/n : you then get banned to five betting sites for insider trading 💔 dont nitpick about the race pls i did my best😔 if u saw the wrong version of this earlier no u didn't🩷 did i ever mention transferring my works from my drafts to tumblr is hell?🤗 IT HAD TO ESCAPE MY DRAFTS WHILE I WAS STILL EDITING TOO. i feel like i would implode from embarassment every damn time this typa shit happens😭

anyways this my apology to satoru for reader only betting the minimum on his team at free throws and figure drawings LMAOOO.

[billyvell]

Saxon's feelings for Lochy

Ok, so, I've noticed that a lot of people don't seem to think Saxon has a thing for his brother, only for Piper and Lochy for him and I wanted to show the evidence otherwise because it was literally the first thing I noticed.

After he asks how many bedrooms there are and is told it's three, he immediately says "Ok, so Lochy, you're with me."

Piper doesn't seem to like that and offers for him to sleep with her instead (knowing there was some kind incest vibe, it really came across like they're fighting over him). He then objects by pointing out brothers and sisters shouldn't sleep together. Which seems like a classic way to set up for possible gay stuff, "oh it's just guys/girls, don't worry, we can be naked around each other, no big deal".

When Piper invites Lochy to the temple, he immediately goes. "No, we were gonna go to the pool".

He asks him again like he's genuinely upset at Lochy possibly not going with him, and maybe even by being with his sisters instead. Once again, like they're fighting over him, it's even framed with Lochy looking indecisive at the two of them, not knowing which option to pick (parallel with the college thing? Possibly a common theme for his character).

After he says he'll go to temple first and then the pool after, he's still upset.

When Lochy does get to the pool, he notices it and calls him immediately.

After a quick question about the monks, what does he do? Grab his dick and talk about how he gets so horny traveling.

When they're in bed, he immediately starts to talk shit about Piper's buddishm and her overall attitude in life, saying Buddism is for people who "want to supress in life", and most notably. "Don't have desires, don't even try."

And then he tells him that it's good to want things, at least if you can have them. If we're to assume he knows about Lochy possibly being attracted to him, this feels like a subtle way of encouraging that. Of telling it's ok to have these desires, that it's worth a try...

And there's where it comes the theory that Piper isn't actually into Lochy but just trying to "protect" him from Saxon, possibly because he tried something with her in the past and she didn't like it. So no wonder he's bitter about her and thinks she wants to "supress things".

In this case, by telling Lochy to do the opposite, the implication would be that he should "give it a try" with him, unlike her.

He comments on how good-looking he is.

And then tells him he "Doen't need to shrink away from life like her". Again, if we're going with the theory that he tried something with her in the past, he's trying to push him in the other direction. Don't reject it.

And then, you know. Asking him what kind of porn does he like. Going back, he does that right after saying he should "get laid, get everything" and that he's "going to help him" with that.

It's also just, like, the most classic and obvious set-up, to bring in sex/porn into the conversation, the idea of watching it together or what not...

"How the fuck am I going to jerk off with you in here all week."

Already kinda suggestive considering the vibes, but... Remember that he asked to room with him, and even objected when Piper suggested otherwise, when that would've left him with his own room.

I guess the confusing part is when he closes the door after he noticed Lochy still watching him. But honestly it would probably be too far to just jerk off in front of him like he's not even trying to not be weird.

He might just be playing the long game, and walking up naked to watch porn with him still awake in the room still feels like quite a tease. He might also just be getting cold feet, or, perhaps, the whole thing is subconscious rather than on purpose and at that moment he has the realization of how weird this situation is.

There's actually a moment where you can notice him thinking about whether Lochy is looking before he looks back at him, and it seems like he's a little nervous about it (before this shot he was just looking at the screen, but then he raises his head to question it).

So, cold feet? Checking to see if the teasing is working or if he looked away? A bit freaked out with the realization of how weird this is? Idk, but it's definetely not one-sided, and I was actually more surprised at the implication that Lochy felt the same.

Edit: I feel the need to point out that after the latest episodes, I'm not really abiding by the theory that something happened with Saxon and Piper anymore. I think she really just finds him creepy and annoying for no special reason.

I'm also not really feeling the idea that Saxon is grooming Lochy on purpose. He honestly seems way too innocent for that lol, so I'm fully on the camp that his behaviour is subconscious, but I still firmly believe he has unresolved feelings that he doesn't understand.

If anything, his insistence on turning Lochy "into a man" by buffing him up and making him get with women might be due to him being unable to deal with his attraction towards his cute twink brother...

Edit 2: Ok I'm going to include the fact that Sarah Catherine Hook said on an interview that she has it as a headcanon that Saxon tried to do something with Piper before, just cause it makes me look less stupid for having that theory at the beginning lol.

Link to the interview.

[love-takes-work]

Streamily.com Presents: The Steven Universe Cast Reunion Q&A Part 1

Here's a complete overview of the Q&A that was put on by Streamily, hosted by Elijah ("Not-So-Average Fangirl"), featuring Rebecca Sugar as the showrunner/creator, Deedee Magno Hall as Pearl, Lo (formerly known as Charlyne Yi) as Ruby, Estelle as Garnet, Susan Egan as Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond, Tom Scharpling as Greg Universe, Michaela Dietz as Amethyst/Famesthyst, and Larissa Gallagher as Bluebird Azurite. Read below to find out about a secret scrapped episode, Rebecca's comment on how to look at Rose Quartz, and lots of hilarious commentary from the cast about the experience of voicing characters on Steven Universe.

When the stream opened, everyone did their introductions:

Rebecca said they created the show.

Deedee said she played Pear. LOL, then said Pearl.

Lo said they played Ruby.

Susan said I play Rose . . . (with a cringe) and Pink.

Tom said "I was Greg, and I still am Greg, I guess."

Michaela: "Famethyst for life baby!"

Larissa played Bluebird, and a little bit like the character, she pops up when you don't expect it!

Estelle was not on the call at the very beginning but joined shortly after the questions began.

Here are the questions and the participants' answers!

Q: There were so many messages in SU. Which one do you hope viewers keep with them the most?

A (Rebecca): Rebecca learned to trust themself in being the authority about who they are. They were a bit rocky on this issue when the show began in their twenties, and learned they needed to be true to the art they made. That was reflected in the characters too. They hope people watching will learn to trust in themselves too, in the face of other people trying to tell you who you are.

Q: For Deedee Magno Hall: Pearl grew and changed in the show. How did it feel playing her in the first few episodes vs. the last few?

A (Deedee): There was no way for Deedee to know Pearl's journey when she started voicing her. She relied on Rebecca and the Crew to learn how to voice Pearl. The group had been talking about the pilot before they jumped onto the call, and Deedee says if she had listened side by side to what Pearl sounded like in the Pilot and what she ended up sounding like at the end, Pearl (along with character growth), vocally got exaggerated--it was Deedee's voice but really "went there"! Pearl felt so many feels. Deedee hopes she executed it well direction-wise. What a blast to play Pearl! And to see the growth in her character! It was fun and a challenge, and Deedee was grateful!

Q: For Michaela Dietz: Amethyst is silly and chaotic usually--what did Michaela pull from for the more emotional and serious moments?

A (Michaela): Many of the more emotional moments are about figuring out origins (the Kindergarten, etc.). Michaela is a transracial / transnational adoptee, so she pulled from that and was looking for her birth family while they were recording the Kindergarten episode. That was an easy well to tap. The growth that Amethyst had over the course of the series and movie and Future, Michaela feels like it parallels her relationship with the other actors and their characters. She's grateful to have made so many friends and is so happy to have learned so much from Rebecca (she joked about calling Rebecca "Reba").

Q: Question for all: If you could hang out with your character for one day, what would you do?

A (Rebecca): Steven is based on their brother, so they would love to spend time with Steven. It was challenging through Covid to not spend time with Steven. They always make time for Steven. They love spending time with people who played the characters! They never got to have a wrap party because of Covid! They were together for 8 years and they still want to have a belated wrap party. They would also love to spend time with Ruby (the self-insert character) and they love spending time with Lo too. Then they said "I need to be stopped because I'll go through every person."

Announcement: Estelle just joined!

Belatedly, the mod asks Estelle's question: Garnet is such an iconic character. Did Estelle know she was a Fusion from the beginning?

A (Estelle): No. She was the big grown Gem who took care of the others. She found out in real time with the cast when she did the recording. She was surprised by the lines in real time and had to calm herself down to record each line. She felt it was an honor.

Back to the "all: question of what each would do if they could hang out with their character.

A (Deedee), misunderstanding the question: If she could hang out with characters, would do tae bo with Garnet, get french fries with Steven, and have a karaoke and dance party with Amethyst.

A (Lo): When they were in kindergarten they would spit all over a tree and try to cover it with their spit. If they hung out with Ruby, they would ask for Ruby's help spitting on trees. There would be lots of hugging, punching pillows, etc. The moderator Elijah thinks fan artists will have fun with that.

A (Estelle): If she hung out with Garnet, she would ask Garnet to give her all the future information. She would want to borrow her "future vision goggles" too and want to know the future.

A (Tom): He would just drive around with Greg and listen to records. Go eat more. And end up going bowling.

A (Michaela): She would eat trash with Amethyst (and also some quality food?). They would mess around the San Gabriel Valley, get meal after meal, maybe buy an illegal turtle? No, that's not funny. They might hit up Ruby and spit on trees. Take in some underground wrestling. Amethyst is very intensely chill, and Michaela thinks they could do a great many things together.

A (Larissa): Going from intensely chill to intensely chaotic. She wants to bring it down from chaos and go ride Lion on the beach, with Bluebird carrying swords.

A (Susan): She wants to go into Rose's room to unpack. Pearl would need to be with her to Marie Kondo the situation. Then she would throw on a Universe shirt and hit music festivals.

Deedee realizes she misunderstood the question and wants to add: if she hung out with Pearl they would do laundry and some spring, summer, winter, and fall cleaning. Definitely Marie Kondo-ing the whole universe together.

Q for Susan Egan: Rose turned out to be a very complex character. As the story progressed and more about her was revealed, did Susan's approach to voicing her change?

A (Susan): She can't sing the praises of Rebecca enough: Susan didn't know at all what Rose's deal was. She got some hate comments when it was revealed that she was Pink, and she LOVED that because it meant the fans were invested. She was as shocked as everyone else. Pink was aging in reverse; Rose was wise and flawed, and then Susan would be voicing Pink and had to be petulant and immature, and she's thankful for Rebecca's direction in getting that right.

Q for Lo: Ruby is adorable. We got to meet so many versions of her. Other than Garnet's Ruby, which Ruby was Lo's favorite to play, and why?

A (Lo): They loved playing Navy. They got to be hammy. They ask if you know how when you order stuff at the drive-thru and you become that? They don't know why. It felt good. While voicing Ruby, they got to get in touch with how angry they were. Being seen as an Asian woman, it was nice to have a spot to channel that anger, and being Navy is like making fun of who you have to become when you're a people-pleaser. "I LOVE DIRT!"

Q for Tom Scharpling: Greg is an eccentric but loving father. What was Tom's favorite part of playing him and does he have a favorite scene?

A (Tom): Doing Greg was so fun. It's not Tom but it's more him than he thought all along. He had never done voice stuff before this, so he went in completely new. A script would say "walla walla" but he thought he was supposed to say "walla walla." Everybody laughed at him. He knew literally nothing about proper voice acting. So he got to really try and work at it. It was so satisfying to get to better at it. Anything from "Mr. Greg" was the big one in terms of a memorable episode. It was the best time.

Q for Larissa Gallagher: Bluebird Azurite is quite a menace. Did she listen to the individual Ruby and Aquamarine voice acting for inspiration?

A (Larissa): Yes. The script said Bluebird was Cockney, so she already knew what to aim for, but it turned out that taking those inspirations from the two characters she's made of would have led to this kind of voice naturally.

Q for All: Where do you each of the participants think their character is now and what are they doing?

A (Rebecca): To the cast, they know what the characters are up to post-show, but they can't say, it's too canonical.

A (Deedee): Says she doesn't know what canonical means. Pearl is probably doing more laundry and working on an album.

A (Lo): They guess they're just . . . fused. (Perhaps separating for scouting?) They might play Ruby Rider but not alone anymore. Interdependence, learning how to ground; Lo is not really sure how to answer since they feel like Ruby would spend most of her time as Garnet.

A (Estelle): She doesn't know. She figures Garnet sees what was gonna happen and just said "mmm." Just chilling. Even when she's fighting she has to be chill with the fighting-related grunting. She got direction to "flatline" her acting. She found it pretty natural though.

A (Tom): Greg is probably right where everything started again. Maybe working at a GameStop. Maybe he owns a bowling alley now. When asked what Greg would name it, he replies "Strikes and Spares."

A (Michaela): Amethyst would randomly get rich with Bitcoin and is retired. Maybe she would play Taiwanese Mahjong. Living a great retired life.

A (Larissa): Bluebird would be plotting and scheming and planning. Probably on a big planning board.

A (Susan): If Rose and/or Pink exists on any level, the only appropriate thing for her to be up to is community service. Like cleaning up trash at the bowling alley? Susan thinks it's time to start having a positive impact.

Q for Rebecca Sugar: Were there any scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor that you wish you could have included?

A (Rebecca): There was a bunker episode that they spent weeks on trying to crack; they wish they'd finished it. Ronaldo had a doomsday bunker. Sadie and Lars were trapped in it (with Steven). There's no way to leave. They were working on it so long and just couldn't make it work but they were determined to (maybe a little bit of the sunk cost fallacy!).

But usually the things that got left on the floor ended up evolving and changing into something different, even if they were really attached to the original idea. The idea for "Barn Mates" was originally that Sadie and Lapis would be the roommates with Sadie going to college. They feel that the Sadie story they ended up actually using was great. They love what they ended up doing with Lapis too.

In the very earliest version of "Giant Woman," Steven was going to unfuse into the two parts of him. And his "perfect" form, the big glowing muscular adult-looking Steven, was a Season 1 idea, and they didn't use him until Future. (After all, our roly-poly Steven is perfect!)

Now there are some fan-submitted questions. Their usernames are included.

Q for Deedee Magno Hall, from Makittuu: In what ways is Pearl special to you?

A (Deedee): She feels like a broken record, but she says again she was grateful to be voicing someone with the same natural voice as she had, and she had always wanted to be able to sing in a cartoon. She loves that she got to sing in the show. Pearl was the first major voice acting role that she had ever done and there's no way she would have known what the show was going to become and how successful it would be. She was auditioning for everything and was new to voice acting at the time. But one thing that she loved about voicing Pearl is that she got to share the experience with her kids. She connected the love Pearl had for Steven with the love she had for her sons. When she started voicing Pearl her kids were 2 and 8. For them to be able to watch Steven Universe on TV and hear Mommy's voice was so cool to share with her family. Now her kids are 13 and 19!

Q for Estelle, from Gonosoi: Do you have any fun stories from recording your lines on the show?

A (Estelle): When she was going through things in her life--and she thinks this is true no matter where you are or how you identify--the show somehow could speak to whatever she was going through. The lines would often be relevant. She'd come in with sunglasses on because it was early for her and her voice would be low. She'd be crying behind her glasses in difficult moments. She liked a fresh first take instead of knowing ahead of time what she'd be reading, so she didn't read the script ahead of time. She was surprised by needing to do the "ugh" and "ah" noises in different ways. It'd be difficult vocally. With Michaela, Zach, and Deedee, in between the lines and reading things together, hearing them switch back and forth between talking about life and then doing their recordings, it was so cool to see them do their work.

Q for Michaela Dietz, from Mal: Which one of your other characters would get along well with Amethyst?

A (Michaela): Definitely Vee from The Owl House. Maybe Maj'el from Star Trek Prodigy. She would be so "What is this purple being? Why do you eat? Where does the food go?" She'd be fascinated with Amethyst. And Michaela feels like Amethyst would thrive and try to do weird stuff in response. The shapeshifting she has in common with Vee. They'd get up to some trouble. Fun trouble. Harmless trouble. (Another fanart cue!)

Q for Susan Egan, from Gladde: Does Susan feel that Rose forgot about Spinel? Does she think she wanted to go back?

A (Susan): Susan thinks a lot was forgotten in her mind when she became Rose. Rose was so enamored of what's in front of her in every moment; she lives in the moment and can be a good quality but obviously Susan didn't know all of that when she was recording! Steven Universe is her kids' favorite thing she's done. Rebecca?

A (Rebecca): So much of the show is about how--something that was ultimately captured in the end credits song-- when you don't think of yourself as someone with power, Pink had less power than everyone around her, and she didn't know how much she mattered to others. She did things to them that she didn't think twice about because her importance to others didn't register. Feeling that she didn't matter, it radiated out. To her--her relationship with Spinel, Spinel was a toy to her. When she got a chance to grow up, she thought it made sense to leave Spinel behind. Pink is actually a softened version of what she was originally planned to be like. The sympathetic side of that and her self deprecation grew as they developed Pink over time. In aspiring to be a better person than she thought she was, that became who she was.

A (Susan): Rebecca brought all these characters' complexity to the table. It's easy to make things two-dimensional but people are complicated and we need to look at that in context. Good and bad can exist in the same person. She doesn't want Rose to always want to think about being Pink, but she thinks it helped her want to save more characters as Rose.

A (Rebecca): Rebecca likes to think of the Pink Diamond / Rose character as a cautionary tale.

Q for Lo, from stiffcorpse00: What kind of dates would Ruby and Sapphire go on?

A (Lo): Axe-throwing. They reference walking through doors and accidentally crashing into the frame, and they say "That's me." So they wouldn't do axe-throwing personally. Maybe Ruby and Sapphire would get some boba. Go walking. Teach Ruby how to float in water back because anger makes Ruby sink. Helping Ruby get anger out by screaming into pillows. Swinging one way and the other way.

Michaela suggests they could go to a rage room.

Lo objects that they're so expensive, and that they could just break stuff without needing to pay for it.

Susan suggests it'd be a writeoff because it's for work.

Lo says they'll go there and take a date.

Michaela says the experience is exhausting and therefore you don't need much time there.

Lo says a Ruby and Sapphire date involving paintball would be great, but everyone would run from Sapphire. Ruby's rage would get in the way. Sapphire would coldly get everyone.

There is more discussion of smashing fax machines and glass etc. in a rage room. Deedee asks "What is a fax machine?"

Q for Tom Scharpling, from GalixyYouniverse: What was his reaction to Greg getting his hair cut and was he upset?

A (Tom): He was fine with it. He was always coming from a different place than everyone else. His change would be getting rich or getting a haircut. Everyone else's was huge and cosmic. Anything with Greg, he related to Greg more than he should admit to.

Rebecca points out they have like drawings from 2013 with Greg with short hair. Sacrificing hair in a battle is something they always wanted to do.

Q for Larissa Gallagher from 1F4cnt4ND: How does she think Aquamarine and Ruby met and what was it like when they fused?

A (Larissa): She says it was a little bit mean to put her after Tom answering about the hair cut! But she doesn't know. If she had to say anything, it'd be existential. When you meet someone and you get that ball of energy inside you and you don't know whether it's good or bad--you don't know what's going to happen but something will happen. She likes to think that's the kind of energy that evolved. It didn't go in the most helpful emotional way but it was that moment attraction that no one can explain. Rebecca?

A (Rebecca): They had discussed in the writers room what Steven's influence is on Homeworld, how there'd be all these Gems on the wrong side of history, whether they were high status like Aquamarine or low like Eyeball, they'd pool into an out-group and meet to be frustrated about it. They'd been working on something that made sense before Steven changed the rules. Different types of fusions / collaborations and one born out of frustration and spite was one they wanted on the show.

Q for all participants, from trynottohappen: What was the hardest scene to record?

A (Susan): The first thing she did as Rose was the VHS tape. The monologue was her first time playing a mother, and it spoke to her heart. Like Michaela looking for her biological parents, there's something the character can teach you. Susan had to pull herself together after reading it--she needed to be joyful about her progeny coming. It makes her weep even today. It was one of her favorite things. She loved recorded with Deedee, and loved the love between them, the betrayal of Rose to Pearl, when we finally get to know what was really going on between them.

A (Larissa): The scene where Bluebird revealed her backstory of why they felt the way they felt. The complexity of the characters in the show, the hate isn't just "I hate because someone did this and said that." It's grounded, a real space of hurt that can never be fixed. Having to recreate that and not hate the character but love the character because of how much pain they were in. That was difficult but incredible.

A (Michaela): The hardest scenes were toward the end because she knew the show was ending. They were cherishing every moment together. In 2016, the day after the election, that was a hard day. Everybody was really distraught. There was a group hug at the end. In a time of such uncertainty, it gave her so much solace to know they had each other and they had art, they had ways of expressing themselves, that day sticks out.

A (Tom): For him, the songs were difficult. He would get sent a demo Rebecca recorded the night before, he's driving into NYC from New Jersey and listening to the song for hours all morning so he'd have it in his head, and then would be so nervous doing the songs because he didn't want the whole recording to be just him going word by word, line by line. The songs were the big thing he was hung up on. He'd try to do the songs first, then the spoken lines, and then the things where he yelled--he'd end up screaming sometimes and he'd not have a voice left. He wanted to do right by these very special songs. He jokes that Rebecca said he let them down over and over. (Rebecca denies.)

A (Estelle): She doesn't remember many hard moments. She'd attribute that to Rebecca's direction. She took a laid-back approach. The grunts and noises weren't familiar but also weren't difficult for her. She'd drink tea after. Real life would be happening but they always had each other in their bubble.

A (Lo): The Ruby Rider episode was the most fun and the hardest. They always wanted to play a cowboy! They were also going through a divorce during the recording. It was tough leading up to marrying Sapphire, delivering the lines, and they started crying because the opposite was happening in their life. And then they got direction to be more emotional even though they were crying. They said their voice was dead inside even though they were quite emotional. They're shy in the booth. Lo felt sweaty and weird doing the acting in front of other people, feeling awkward, and this is the first time they had to be a voice actor. This was THE WORST playing multiple characters during the baseball episode.

Michaela was so impressed with Lo having to be "like 800 characters."

Lo comments that doing 5 voices around other people as a neurodivergent person was so difficult.

A (Deedee): She loved receiving the demo recordings before having to sing a song. One of her favorite things was the singing. She wants the album of all Rebecca's demos. She remembers getting a script Monday to prepare and record on Wednesday. She heavily depended on the voice director and Rebecca. The really wordy scripts were difficult for Deedee with "ten-dollar words." The screaming was also really difficult. (She'd also do singing at the beginning, speaking in the middle, screaming at the end.)

A (Rebecca): Instead answering what scene was the hardest to write, they say there are so many. Because it was storyboard-driven, the script was in flux until it was animated, and they'd still be working with dialogue. With the potluck, when Lars doesn't show, Sadie has dialogue as she's walking down the street talking about Lars. They did a thousand drafts of it. With Sadie's story, there's a matryoshka of struggling with self-esteem while commenting on other people's self-esteem. There was a long path to get Steven to step into his mom's shoes. The biggest thing was tracking the ongoing storyline in a storyboard-driven show. Rose's speech was pored over as well. They wanted it to be layered and make more sense as you learn more about her. Does this line encapsulate everything you're going to learn about this character 60 episodes from now?

Q from CaughtMoonlight: If each of them could play any other Gem, who would it be?

A (Susan): Everyone wants to be Garnet, but could never!

A (Larissa): Ditto. 100%. Also, not a Gem, but she wants to be Lion.

A (Michaela): Peridot. All the way.

A (Tom): He says he can't do that and he's just a slob doing the voice of a slob. These things are all out of his reach.

A (Estelle): She'd go with turbocharged Peridot. She says the things that are in Garnet's brain. She'd get spicy with it.

A (Lo): Lo would choose Greg. They say he's not a slob. The world should be more relaxed and accessible.

Tom says he doesn't mean slob in a bad way. But he owns his slobbiness.

A (Deedee): Hard question! She loved voicing Pearl and all the Pearls. Everybody else, it would be so hard to voice. No comment.

A (Rebecca): Early on they decided to take a back seat and not cast themself. They loved being in the director role. They put a lot of themself into SO many characters. That let them have a presence in everyone. One thing they're really grateful for, but their former boarder Adam Muto on Adventure Time, they got to voice Marceline's mother. The composers aivi and surasshu asked them to sing "Love Like You" because it's really a reflection of so many characters that they got to write.

Q for All: They are asked to share their projects and socials.

A (Rebecca): Working on things they can't talk about yet. Last year they released an independent album. Years ago Estelle said Rebecca should tour. Susan said kind things. Lo texts songs back and forth. They would not have been able to make that album without that encouraging. Tom had them on the radio show. So humbling. Spiral Bound is a little EP and they're so grateful. They'd love to do more stuff like that.

A (Deedee): She loves the album. She is doing some recurring voices for Kiff on the Disney channel, and singing praise and worship at church.

A (Lo): They're playing Larry in StuGo who's shirtless and gender fluid on Disney. They want everyone to know sunsets are awesome. Catch them while you can to chase away depression.

A (Estelle): She has a new album coming out early next year, with two singles out now. The music is uplifting. And there's the Estelle Show (on Apple radio!). She's just living her best life.

A (Tom): The Best Show/podcast is still on every week. He started writing a new book--he wrote one a few years ago and thinks the one he's writing now will be done in maybe 11 years, so check it out in 2038. Just working on TV stuff and dealing with whatever happens.

A (Michaela): Exciting stuff we can't talk about. It's tangerine season! Trees going off! Been harvesting.

A (Larissa): Just got back from Japan. Trying to get back there. Video games are coming out but she can't talk about it. She is working on a startup called Ethovox, trying to protect voice actors int he age of AI. Larissa got so much fandom just from doing Bluebird for two minutes! She's so grateful for that.

A (Susan): She produces live concert content for Disney worldwide. She loves being behind the scenes and creating jobs for others and bringing joy. They've been in 18 countries! She wrote shows for the Hollywood Bowl.

Part Two comes out November 18, 2024! You can get signed prints at Streamily!

[ryanthel0ser]

I just finished Sk8 the Infinity

first off "queer subtext" my ass, it is front and center you can't NOT see it.

second, oh my god the theme of love and having a passion for something is done in a way that scratches my brain in the best way. The three main relationships, Reki and Langa, Joe and Cherry, Tadashi and Adam, whether you think they are gay or not they totally are all highlight this dynamic of loving skating versus getting lost in the competition.

Reki and Langa are the clearest example of this. Reki loves skating, he may not be the best at it but he truly loves it. He understands the tricks and the skills, he knows it so well that he can make boards specifically to suit nuanced skills like Langa's because he loves it. He has the passion and the spirit for it which is the central thing he learns during his character arc in the show. But even outside his arc, Reki embodies the spirit of skating, that love of skating. That's what makes his race with Adam so important and that's present in why Langa feels the way he does when he's skating with Reki other than being gay. Langa falls in love with skating and Reki but then he starts to get lost in the competition of it all. Once he races with Adam (who is the antithesis of Reki's skating spirit), his love for skating is poisoned by Adam's "love" of skating. He starts focusing on skills, getting better, reaching Adam's level, he starts losing the spirit of skating. He loses Reki. Once Langa realizes what he's missing, he begins seeking it out again, looking for Reki. But Reki hasn't come back yet, the fun of skating is dead still until Reki has his own realization. Something that is brought back in part by the two other "Reki's" of these relationships: Joe and Tadashi.

Joe and Cherry's is the one that is in the background the most, but it's clear they're meant to parallel Reki and Langa's relationship. While the dynamic is not as extreme as the other two relationships it is still present. Joe loves skating, even if he wasn't the best at skating he'd still be doing it. That is made clear in his conversation with Reki when he gets him to come see Langa at the tournament. He understands that. His race against Adam isn't about proving his skill, he wants to beat Adam because he hates what Adam has become and what Adam is embodying. He wants to punch him in the face. Cherry however does want to prove his skill to Adam. He wants to beat Adam because he's better than him. In a sense, Adam's "love" tainted his enjoyment of skating too. Hence the AI board, the board giving him everything down to the millisecond, to the decimal so he could get the best time possible. I honestly believe part of Joe's worry during Cherry and Adam's race is because he knows Cherry is going to get lost in trying to surpass Adam and forget the fun of skating. Then Cherry gets slammed in the face quite literally by this, he's forced to face what's being going on through this injury. We don't see the resolution of this since it's regulated to the background, but it's still clear these two are meant to parallel Reki and Langa's dynamic towards skating. Also there's the whole thing where Adam is like Cherry's ex and Joe wants to fight the ex that hurt Cherry yadda yadda yes I ship Matchablossom what's new.

Tadashi and Adam are the most extreme of this dynamic going in a negative direction. Adam as I stated is the antithesis to the spirit of skating. He's completely forgotten what it meant to skate and is now tainting every other skater around him with this "love" he has. He's so lost in this darkness that it's seeping into the other skaters like Langa. All that matters is being the best, to crush everyone else below his level so he's completely alone. He's ruining skating for everyone else. Tadashi is the spirit of skating for him. Tadashi is the one that introduced him to skating and led him to fall in love with it as a comfort and an escape from the horrible environment he was being raised in. Skating with Tadashi was his escape. Tadashi was a comfort. But then Adam is found out by his father and Tadashi makes a mistake, but not the one he believes for most of the show. Instead of leading Adam back to the fun of skating, he lets Adam trample it. Rid of it. Put it completely in the background because he blames himself for what happened to Adam that day. And Adam doesn't rid of Tadashi because skating is still a comfort to him, though twisted and abused. He refuses to let it go. To let him go. Tadashi then tries to completely take away skating from Adam and then tries to get Reki to abandon it too. However, Tadashi's broken spirit only fuels Reki's back to life. Then, as he watches the race, Tadashi realizes where he went wrong with Adam. What the true love for skating was, not what Adam thinks it is.

This spirit of skating versus Adam is why Reki's race, Tadashi's presence in the tournament, and why Langa's race are so central. Tadashi including himself in the tournament is Adam being forced to see the dead spirit of skating that he's forgetting and it pisses him off. Reki's race is him directly being pitted against the living embodiment of that spirit of skating and while he does win the race, he still gets his ass beat. He's not stronger than it. Then his race with Langa is where he finally returns to it. Langa is like Adam, but he's fully back to the spirit of skating. He's had his character arc and now Langa helps Adam return to it as someone who experienced to a certain level what Adam is experiencing. Then Langa wins the race and the spirit of skating, the true love of skating, defeats Adam's "love." And Adam leaves the race changed, he remembers the real love of skating, he returns from that darkness he was in. The Adam of their childhood begins to return to Tadashi.

This main conflict in the show that's present in these three relationships is presented so brilliantly and it's what makes Sk8 the Infinity not just another sports anime with some possible queer subtext or baiting. It reminds me of Yuri on Ice and how the relationship to ice skating is reflected in Yuri and Victor's relationship, a show that I absolutely adore (and yes I wept profusely over it when the announcement came out). I desperately hope that Sk8 the Infinity does not receive the same fate because this show has something great that I want to see continued, it's almost a spiritual successor to Yuri on Ice to me.

Now I need the studio to let them lean into the very very very gay tones of these relationships like Yuri on Ice because holy shit all three of them have it. I thought Reki and Langa were going to kiss in the back of that van, Cherry and Joe kept acting like a couple and the english dub only emphasized that, and then that last scene with Adam and Tadashi hello????

[nipuni]

Alright, time to share my opinions about Veilguard!! I have both criticism and praise so bear with me as I jump from one extreme to the other 😆 spoilers ahead of course!

The game has a very rough start with the dialogue being formulaic and rushed and the characters overexposing. It feels like a heavy handed attempt at summarizing all of previous games' lore for newcomers or in case you forgot but it's so overdone it feels coddling and trivializes a lot of previous events. Luckily this gets better once all of the introductions are out of the way, though the excessive hints and clarifications continue until the end sadly.

The locations are absolutely incredible and very diverse!! This is a highlight of the game for me. There is so much detail and care in every map and there are so many of them. My pc is struggling to reach medium settings and yet everything looks stunning. The verticality of the maps is so imposing and the graphics have a very dreamy quality that I love. I also enjoy the maze-like structure to the maps, it's more linear but makes everything look a bit more intentional. The color and light direction was amazing, all the visual development really!! it has to be one of the prettiest games I've ever played.

When I started I have to admit it did not feel like I was in Thedas and it all felt a bit theme-parky, if that makes sense. A lot of previously important and established world elements that made Thedas what it is were overlooked or made irrelevant. But the more I played the more it started to feel a bit more similar to Inquisition, for better or worse depending on what you feel about Inquisition. But!! this also feels like a selectively sanitized version of Thedas compared to previous games. In it's attempt to stay safe and uncontroversial in some aspects it loses a lot of substance and it changes the tone. The surface level politics, ignoring previously established major societal issues and a tell-don't-show approach makes the world seem more simple and shallow with no grey areas to explore. ( the humor also falls flat and out of place often too, and WHY is everyone always smirking, enough!! godlike beings are destroying the planet please this is not the time for Marvel banter aaaa )

The pacing at the start is a bit of a mess. It is so fast it felt like jumping from one world shattering discovery to the next with no time to process. The characters also seem to underreact to important information and major developments. It felt like the game was rushing me through all this to get to the part of the story it wanted to tell me while I was still wrapped in my shock blanket trying to catch my breath lmao. I really like all the key story points they touched upon, I just wish they dwelled more on them to give them more narrative weight. ( though blaming every bad thing to ever happen on the Elves was certainly..a choice )

I think the writing could have used more subtlety in the first half and more boldness in the second 😆 but I loved the thematic parallels between Rook and Solas and how every quest informs the main storyline. I do wish Rook was given more impossible choices and put in more difficult situations that forced them to lie or betray their own to better drive the point home though ( listen I just love a Trolley problem!! we need more of those, I'm the Trolley problem's number one fan!! ) I feel like they missed the chance to put Rook in Solas' role and be as vilified and hated for it as Solas was despite their best intentions which would make Rook's regrets stronger and in turn make their escape from the fade all the more impressive and give them a better understanding of Solas to either use against him or earn his respect. The line 'they called me the Dread Wolf, what will they call you when this is over' from the trailers was so good I was waiting for this!! But everyone just loves Rook no matter what!!

But I feel like I stated too many negative aspects in a row so moving on to some things I enjoyed!

The characters were very lovable to me. The romances weren't as long or impactful as I would have liked but I enjoyed all the companion quests. Emmrich is a delight and his quest is so wild and fun. I loved learning about Nevarra and I was awestruck by the Grand Necropolis. The mourn watch was so interesting, it showed a whole new side of Thedas' lore I knew nothing about! and I loved Manfred! Davrin is so charming, he became a favorite. I loved his quest too and learning more bits and pieces about the Dalish was great, I wish we got more. Seeing the Wardens through his quest also made me enjoy them a lot. Assan was very cute too and I'm glad he was treated as an animal and not turned into a goofy Disney sidekick too much lmao 😭 Lucanis is hilarious. The fantasy Spain/Italy was a bit silly and off at times but he is very sweet! and I love the Spite possession, that was so fun I'm glad they kept him that way! Bellara is adorable, her first backstory quest made me cry and I just love a nerd! I wish the second part of her story was written better however, and she sort of devolves into 'it's hard, I wish it was easy but it's hard' dialogues too often sadly. Anaris and the Forgotten Ones' portrayal was underwhelming and anticlimactic which was disappointing. Harding is also very cute and her Titan plotline was the most interesting to me, I bawled my eyes out in her quest!! I love the dwarven lore of this universe I'm so happy we got more of it!! ( she also fucking died in my playthrough?! I was devastated what the hell 😭 'whatever it takes' WEUEUGHHHG I'M SO SORRY) Neve was a slow burn for me because of my choices in game slowing that relationship down ( saving Treviso I mean, perdón amor 🙏 ) but I love detective novels and she is such a badass I ended up loving her. Taash was unexpected, I didn't think they would be so young. The coming of age story was sweet, though I found myself cringing a lot too at the handling of it I have to admit ( and the Lords of Fortune in general, and the Antaam...and que Qun..listen- kajshfgf ) but I also enjoyed learning more about the first expedition and the Qunari in general despite the messy writing and choices. I also loved Antoine and Evka! and Strife! And I haven't even read any of the novels they are in 😆 also Mila!!!! and her dad oh my god and Felassan haunting the narrative!! speaking of haunting, I would have loved for Cole to be in the lighthouse too I think it would have worked well 🤔 especially with the whole 'reading Solas' secret diary' thing the game had going on lmao

Everyone seems to get along except for a bit of friction that is quickly resolved at the start, which is hmm missed potential? I would have preferred more tension personally. I enjoy the drama! gives me more to work with and gives you a better grasp on everyone's personality by contrasting values. I think they wanted to speed run a found family trope for the new hero to establish some emotional stakes early on but it ended up making everyone seem like a group therapy session instead. The group meetings also have everyone either state the obvious or repeat the same opinion or conclusion to each other, I would have loved these meetings to have more bickering, have people get mad and storm out and also get to listen to different takes on a situation. Make Rook struggle more to take the reins and keep the team functional, learning how to be a leader.

Speaking of Rook! ( who in my case has a northern British accent that I loved so much 🥺) They seem to have a very established personality. I was expecting more of a blank slate but I'm lucky that the personality they went for kind of matches what I would normally choose in a first playthrough. Though the lack of range in the choices is irritating and takes away some replayability and role playing potential. Rook is very supportive and selfless, I wasn't expecting this tbh! But it all made my Rook turn into the team's weird supportive necromancer mom so it worked out in the end I guess lmao. I can't wait to draw her!!

I was so overwhelmed by the amount of information we got about Solas and his past!! I was expecting answers but not these many and not for them to be such an integral part of the plot!! The game feels like it's about him more than anything else. His arc is the best written out of all. He is mentioned in every conversation, he's the main advisor and the narrative foil, you get to talk to him often, you work for him and with him and go into his memories it all feels so surreal to me lmao I love him so I'm delighted ngl! but also making the other Evanuris so cartoonishly evil makes Solas into such an obvious choice of an ally, god of trickery or not, that it sort of takes the decision out of your hands and makes some dialogue options and companions' opinions seem almost nonsensical. I have no idea how this game would feel to someone who absolutely hates Solas' guts honestly. I suppose I will find out soon enough 😆

About Solas' story, I loved it! I somehow also feel that I knew it already, all the speculation and theories that Solavellan fans were crafting for years were so accurate that it was all very validating. Even the wildest ones! Solas as the Maker, the elves spirit origin, Mythal giving him a body, the war with the Titans, the origin of the Blight, Solas being on your side as advisor, I can go on, we knew!! Also I have to mention this I'm sorry but they made him look so hot!! unbelievable. And the bloodied teary eyed pathetic look in the end ouurghhh I'm cheering and clapping!!

The romance conclusion was so lovely 😭 the Loki and Sigyn ending we deserved to such a mythological epic!! and open ended enough for all of us to cook!! and we got to see him fight and transform into the Dread Wolf!! and whimper and cry!! and bleed and love!! that's all I ever wanted, incredible we were really spoiled what the hell I still can't believe it 😭 GDL acting was brilliant as usual! the visuals were also incredible and exactly what I had in mind when I imagined where the story may go, the eclipse, the giant wolf, the glowing eyes, the Elvhenan ruins, the statues, even the hair lmao it all aligned exactly to what I've been painting all these years but better I was thrilled 😭

Solas backstory with Mythal also offers players that didn't romance him a chance to see him act out of love and show a side they wouldn't be able to reach otherwise and I think it was smart! also very tragic and sheds more light into all of his choices and words and his relationship with Lavellan too and the parallels and reversals and uughh thoroughly enjoying the emotional distress 👌

Pleasing both the Solas lovers and haters at the same time was always going to be hard with him being such a polarizing character by design and the world states being so different but I think they did a good job! at least from my side of things.

I think my favorite part besides the Solas related stuff was the Blight. I loved how horrific and gross and threatening it was! I've always loved the concept of the Blights and I'm glad it was such a huge part of the story in this game. I also loved Treviso!! has to be the most beautiful city in Thedas ahhh and the Necropolis!! the gardens!! Vorgoth!!! Kal-Sharok!!! I can't believe we got to see it!! and a Titan!!! the giant floating face of Ghilan'nain in the clouds??? and the huge archdemons and dragons!! oh and that warden dragon trap in the shape of a griffon?? and the giant blight tendrils!! the siege at Weisshaupt was outstanding!! and the floating panopticon castle situation in Minrathous uughh there is so much I loved.

OH I also enjoyed the Varric arc even though I saw it coming since the trailer it was still played well and it was touching 🥺

The ending felt a bit jarring to me in tone though, a bit too cheerful considering...the horrors. Over half the continent destroyed and most of the problems Thedas had before the game are still there. Veil in place and all 😆

But I had fun!! I'm nitpicking really, the conclusion to Solas' story feels very satisfying to me which was my main worry so I'm happy. It is a good game!! with a sort of soft reboot feel to it and aimed at a younger audience which is probably what they were going for? You can sort of feel the struggle the team went through during production in the way the target audience seems unclear sadly. I also can't help feeling like this is an ending, so much was revealed and resolved!! but maybe I feel that way because that is what I felt after Shadowbringers / Endwalker in FFXIV once my favorite part of the story was wrapped? They can always pivot to a new continent and expand on the world and cultures we know almost nothing about, but that is always harder to sell so I have no clue where they will go from here 😵‍💫

Anyway I'm still processing a lot of stuff that I will probably talk (and draw) about later, this is already long enough!! for now I'll look up how to get the artbook because the art direction of this game is fantastic!! I would love to hear your thoughts too really, I'm curious about the experiences of players who made different choices and with different tastes to mine!!