#can we actually just talk about how genius that scene is

[thedanceronthestreets]

Just saw a post explaining that the bball scene is referencing topgun which is considerate for those unaware . Not me though, i became mentally ill after seeing 0.1 seconds of that bball spinning on buck's finger

[8gyus]

ln vol 5

"three hundred silver would be cheap at the price of this girl"

can i just talk about this specific arc in volume 5 of the apothecary diaries T—T

so this is the part where they’re investigating the village of the quack doctor and i just want to HIGHLIGHT how insane it is how quickly jinshi picks up on whatever maomao is thinking.

to be loved is to be known.

he doesn’t need the full explanation. he doesn’t ask questions. he sees her in action, understands the direction she’s taking, and silently backs her up.

i fully believe jinshi is constantly amazed by maomao’s mind. he’s in AWE of her. her intelligence? her skills? her way of thinking? he watches her work and his eyes practically sparkle. he is the poster boy of “supportive malewife who lets the girlboss thrive.” and the best part?? he’s never once felt threatened by it.

never once has he been insecure about how smart she is. never once did he try to downplay her. never once been dismissive. never once been competitive. in fact, he actually tries to learn from her. remember when maomao was kidnapped and jinshi tried to think like her, to figure out where she might be and how she’d act? THAT’S HIM APPLYING WHAT HE’S LEARNED. that’s him treating her intelligence as something worth listening to, learning from, protecting. this man said “wow she’s incredible, i’m gonna start doing that too.” 😭

also can we talk about how at this point, jinshi is literally jus there to make sure maomao can do whatever she wants 😭😭 he is using his position to create space for maomao to move freely. ane he does it silently, without demanding recognition or credit. like. she has the freedom to act, investigate, speak out—because jinshi has the status and he uses that power so SHE can keep doing what she loves.

he’s not the type to put her in a cage and call it love—he’s the type to open the door wider.

maomao’s a low-born woman in a rigid society, and yet she’s moving through rooms she shouldn’t be allowed in, questioning people way above her rank, throwing herself into danger—and she gets away with it. because jinshi is behind her.

and the beauty of it is he never rubs that in her face. he never says “you can only do this because of me.”

NO. he simply uses his status to create space for her—a safe space where she can be brilliant, reckless, clever, infuriatingly blunt, and still be protected.

we love a supportive malewife who’s just out here empowering his genius goblin girlfriend 😭

he’s not just in love—he respects her.

SEE WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT 😭😭 he just lets her do stuff.

LET PEOPLE ENJOY THEIR INTERESTS!!!!!!! even if it’s borderline unhinged, even if it involves starting a drinking bet with 5 men and other maomao-coded behavior.

jinshi has so much faith in her. he doesn’t hover. he doesn’t interrupt. he just trusts that she knows what she’s doing—even when literally no one else does.

and GOD. may this love find me.

the kind of love that doesn’t try to change you or dim you down.

just watches you go feral in your weird little field of expertise and thinks, “yeah. that’s them. that’s the person I trust.”

jinshi NEVER holds her back. (okay, MAYBE sometimes he takes away her mushrooms and poison samples but THATS BECAUSE SHES INSANE. that’s not control, that’s just him trying to keep her from dying LMAO 😭)

but even then, he never tells her to stop being herself. he just wants her alive long enough to keep being brilliant. like… imagine someone believing in you that much. not just tolerating your interests. not romanticizing them either. but respecting them, supporting them, helping make sure you get the space to keep doing what you love.

and now as the scene progresses, all that “trust her” energy?? YEAH. it’s still there. but he’s also 1000% ready to step in the moment she crosses the line.

because like… let’s be real. maomao?? out of her mind sometimes LMAO 😭 she’ll do unhinged things without flinching. she’ll walk headfirst into danger with zero self-preservation and just go “yeah it’s fine <3” GIRL. STOP.

and jinshi??? he knows this. he respects her intellect, he trusts her judgment— but he also knows she needs someone to pull her back when she goes too far.

so the moment it gets tense? the moment the landlord starts getting pissed?

he stands.

his chair SCRAPES BACK.

everyone else is still sitting there stunned, but jinshi’s already up—because if anything happens to her, he’s already decided he won’t just watch.

this is what I love about them so much.

they balance each other perfectly. she pulls him out of his perfect palace persona. he pulls her back from the edge of self-destruction she’s the chaotic gremlin genius with zero self-preservation. he’s the calm, composed, high-ranking disaster with a soft spot the size of the moon, and together they function like one complete human being 😭😭😭

they are the definition of equal and opposite.

not trying to change each other—just naturally falling into place like two puzzle pieces.

they just fit.

he is her stability. she is his clarity. and neither of them asks the other to change.

okay but can we TALK about how maomao literally just accepts pain?? like. “yeah i’m probably gonna get punched but whatever, i need that info.” GIRL. what do you MEAN "its fine" 😭😭 this woman treats her own life like a tool. like a thing she can offer up to science or logic or knowledge or whatever cause she’s chasing at the moment. she was READY to get beat up if it meant getting closer to an answer. and this isn’t even the first time!!!

this girl has literally:

tested poisons on herself

walked around with reopened stitches like it’s no big deal

been punched in the face and brushed it off

was ABOUT TO CUT OFF HER PINKY

AND SHE THOUGHT THAT WAS FINE. she didn’t flinch. no hesitation. because that’s how little she thinks her body matters. to her, pain is just another step in the process. if she has to bleed for the answer, then so be it.

but Jinshi? Jinshi sees that. and it kills him.

he's the only one who stops her. he’s the one who sees her sacrificing herself over and over and goes “no. not like this.” the way he literally won’t let her hurt herself, even when she’s convinced it’s necessary.

like that one last scene in season 2— she’s about to CUT OFF HER OWN PINKY to test a medicine (she hasn’t seen jinshi in a while, she’s not in the rear palace anymore, she’s fully gone goblin mode with no one to stop her)

and then??? jinshi walks in. and she STOPS.

she doesn’t even argue. she just stops. because he’s there again. and he’s always been the one to keep her grounded.

girlie’s ready to bleed for her answers and this man is out here being like “no you are NOT cutting off your damn pinky, are you INSANE—”

jinshi is the reason maomao doesn’t self-destruct completely.

he takes care of her like she’s breakable—not because he thinks she’s weak, but because he loves her that much.

he treats her like she’s fragile. like she’s precious. like she’s someone who deserves to be protected—even from herself.

he’s the only one who reminds her she’s not disposable. he’s the one keeping her grounded. keeping her alive. she pushes herself too far and he pulls her back every. single. time.

they balance each other in the most painfully beautiful way.

maomao brings out his true self—the silly, unfiltered, messy version of him that no one else gets to see. and jinshi brings out the part of maomao that still wants to be human. to be cared for. to be held.

when he’s stuck being the perfect, composed, unreachable official, she’s the only one who treats him like a human being.

she calls him out. makes him sulk. brings out his bratty, petty, real self.

she gives him space to breathe.

they balance each other in every way.

they are each other's anchors and i am LOSING IT

"three hundred silver would be cheap at the price of this girl" that’s it. that’s the whole thesis. that’s the line.

you can write entire essays about their dynamic but THIS. RIGHT. HERE. is the mic drop.

maomao, who would willingly slice her own finger off in the name of science, who shrugs off bruises and reopened stitches like they’re part of the process, who thinks her value is in what she can do, not who she is.

and then there’s jinshi, saying with his whole chest that even 300 silver would be a bargain. even that wouldn't be enough. like he’s not just protecting her anymore, he’s putting worth on her in front of a whole room of people. redefining her value out loud.

and the way he says it so casually, brushing away the hand of the man holding her, like “don’t touch her. she’s not for you. she’s not for harm.”

that level of possessive protection??? ARE YOU KIDDING???

she risks herself like she doesn’t matter.

he guards her like she’s everything.

HE VALUES HER MORE THAN SHE VALUES HERSELF.

[lostreverb]

not like the movies

(virgin!luke cooper x fem!reader) in where your boyfriend invites you over to his house to watch a movie, but there seems to be a change of plans not long after you arrive content: pure smut (p in v), y/n is also an intern, fluff a bit? definitely not proofread a/n: kinda got obsessed with the way luke looks like he's never felt the touch of a woman (this is a very self serving write) THIS IS A WIP FROM A VERY LONG TIME AGO and i'm not good at smut sorry

--

in an act of courage, luke had invited you over to his place to watch a movie- which meant he hovered around your desk all day pestering you until you begrudgingly asked him what he wanted.

"come to my house" the words blurted out of his mouth, more blunt than he intended. "tonight, i mean- please"

your features softened as you listened to luke's proposal, finding it absolutely endearing how his nonchalant demeanor did an 180 when he was around you. his hands were stuffed in his pockets (probably to hide the fact they were shaking) and he was looking off into the distance as he spoke to avoid eye contact. he only periodically looked down to make sure you were still listening. which, of course you were.

that's what he loved about you.

you were the only person (other than his two friends) who could stand listening to his endless ramblings about whatever movie had his attention at the moment.

and that night was no different.

luke had picked inception (how he already had the DVD you had no clue, since the movie only came out 3 months prior) and was explaining in great detail how the effects for the café scene were done.

he sat crossed legged on the couch, dark eyes vibrant as he excitedly spoke.

"so basically they took like a shitton of plate shots of all these things just flying in the air-"

you had absolutely no idea what a plate shot was but that didn't matter. you were just happy to see him so passionate. it really surprised you how talkative he could get since he was always so quiet at work. and as he rambled on your eyes got lost in his features, the way his curls lay on his head, the softness of his cheeks and his smile...

"y/n?"

"sorry- what were you saying?"

luke grabs a bit of popcorn before continuing. "i said nolan is like a fucking genius when it comes to special effects. practical is ALWAYS better. none of that CGI crap. speaking of, I went to go see transformers and-"

you cut luke off with a kiss, the popcorn in his hand immediately falling out of his grasp and onto the couch. you tongued him deeply, hands lightly tugging his hair. luke responds with a moan, somehow finding the confidence to guide you into his lap to straddle him. he'd watched enough movies to know where this was going.

but once you had reached down to the bulging crotch of his sweats, his breath hitched, and he slightly pulled away.

"oh.. sorry-" you murmured.

"uh- no it's okay it's just-"

"we can take things slow-"

"no it's- i haven't done this... before..."

oh. oh.

well that made sense. it made perfect sense actually. between the both of you, you had always initiated anything intimate. luke always completely fell apart whenever things got a little pg-13. you thought he was just shy.

he must've noticed your surprised expression, because even in the dark of the living room you could tell he was blushing. you brought your head down to put your lips against his again, caressing his cheek.

"I don't mind" you whispered.

and that's how you both ended up on the couch, half naked. luke didn't have any condoms, but luckily you had a hunch this would go down when he invited you over, so you had some in your bag.

as you lowered yourself onto him, luke let out an embarrassingly loud mewl, your wet cunt cocooning his cock.

this was nothing like the movies.

absolutely nothing like them.

no matter how it was done, no close-up montage of half naked celebrities getting it on could ever compare to the euphoric feeling of you on top of him.

and you hadn't even started moving yet.

wait, you hadn't started moving yet?

luke eyes shot open, lifting his head off the back of the couch. you tilted your head, looking down at him with an intrigued smirk.

"you okay?"

his gaze flickered over your figure once before he gulped and slowly nodded, unable to open his mouth in fear of letting out another embarrassing sound.

despite luke's assurance, you seriously considered simply getting off him and just giving him a blowjob. i mean the poor boy looked delirious, body trembling and all.

but before you could act on your thought, a shock of pleasure coursed through you. luke had begun to roll his hips, his face still wearing a strained expression as he familiarized himself with the feeling of sliding in and out of you.

in response, you matched his slow rhythm then gradually picked up speed, coaxing him to follow. immediately, his jaw fell again, his eyes shut tight.

"ah.. fuck- fuck- shi- oh my god" he heaved and groaned, gripping your hips harder to guide your movements.

with how things were going, he was about to skip to the third act and didn't want to disappoint you by pushing things along too quickly. but god you were making it hard for him to hold back.

reaching a hand to his curly mess of hair, you combed it back and kissed his forehead. "look at me.." you whispered into his ear, the hot air sending a shiver down his spine.

luke opened his eyes and stared up at you riding him. only the flashing light of the tv behind you provided any illumination, the sounds of grunting from the fight scene playing mirroring both of your own moans. the way it brought out your silhouette was almost angelic to him, like a perfect movie still.

he wished he could capture it.

but a frame is short, just like how long he could hold out.

with a couple of deep moans followed by a high-pitched whine, you felt the warmth of luke's release through the condom. your body twitched from the sensation and as you continued to grind your hips to bring him down from his high, you reached yours, your moan a perfect soundbite into his ear. something that's definitely going to echo in his mind forever. you lazily draped your arms around his shoulders trying to catch your breath, when you felt luke shift underneath you.

"oh wait fuck-" luke tapped your shoulder and pointed to the tv, turning up the volume with the remote. "this part is so good- watch watch-"

--

tags (ask to be added or removed anytime!): @fear-is-truth @juliamaximoff @jazz-berry @violetsghosts @quickreider @tiffysdeath @honeymoon8 @wcnderlnds @lacucarachapisser @xrag-dollx @oceanblvd111 @andiloveher @vi0l3tgard3ns @acrosstheunivcrse

[amore-memento]

How do you win the heart of a cold genius Zayne who’s still in love with someone else? (aka: I want to be Kotoko, fight me)

🌸 SOMEONE PLEASE. I’m begging.

Can someone please write a Zayne x non-MC reader loooooong fic - something inspired by Itazura na Kiss, where the reader has been in love with Zayne since their first year of high school?

And now it’s their final year - and she finally builds up the courage to confess her love to him.

But he turns her down.

Because... yep, you guessed it - he’s still hung up on the MC, the girl he hasn’t even talked to in years. Silly Zayne 😩

And yet... she can’t give up on him.

She’s just like Kotoko - sweet, stubborn, a little hopeless but so full of love it hurts.

So she makes a choice:

💕 “If he won’t fall for me now… I’ll make him fall later”

Make it an AU - no Evols, no Astra, no sci-fi powers - just normal high school/college life.

Zayne is the same cold, brilliant, emotionally constipated genius who dreams of becoming a doctor.

And our girl - our sunshiney, persistent reader-chan - decides she’s going to win his heart no matter what.

But then - disaster strikes.

Just like in the anime, something happens to her family’s home (a fire? financial ruin? flood?) and she ends up…

✨ Living in Zayne’s house.

(Yes, yes, just like Kotoko and Irie-kun. We need the forced proximity!)

And Zayne’s mom?

SHE'S A SUNBEAM ☀️

100% on Team Non MC Reader. Constantly cheering her on in the background like Naoki’s mom from Itazura na Kiss, and maybe even scheming a little to make sure they “accidentally” spend more time together 💅

Then… we get the moments.

The accidental closeness. The long study nights.

The time Zayne opens up about why he wants to be a doctor.

And the reader jokes:

“Then I’ll become your nurse!” She laughs, but something shifts in his expression - just for a second.

Then... they kiss (or maybe hehe more than kissing) and it feels like maybe she’s finally reaching him…

But of course - as always - MC returns.

Out of nowhere.

She wants Zayne back.

And the reader? She sees it. She hears the way MC says his name and the way Zayne smiles to her.

And she crumbles.

Thinking she never had a chance from the start, she gives up quietly. Maybe she even starts getting closer to Grayson - sweet, gentle, funny Grayson - and there’s a part of her that thinks:

“Maybe this is where my story begins. Maybe it was never Zayne’s to begin with”

But Zayne finally snaps realizing he’s actually been head over heels for our girl this whole time.

Jealousy? Activated.

Possessiveness? Unlocked.

Mr. Ice Prince finally crumbles and confesses his love, for real this time.

Reader.exe has achieved success 💘

They get married (YES), she follows in his footsteps and becomes a nurse - just like she joked.

They fight sometimes - because Zayne is still Zayne, and she’s still sunshine and chaos.

But she teaches him warmth.

And he teaches her strength.

And in the end, they’re happy.

Maybe they have a daughter. Or a son.

And in the final scene, we see her in scrubs, tired from a long shift, but glowing - because she got everything she dreamed of.

✨ “You made me work for your heart… but it was worth it, Zayne”

🩵 Pleeeeeeeease. If anyone out there writes this, tag me. I will scream, cry, write sonnets in the comments. This would be my entire personality.

[jedijenkins]

About the structure of The Librarians: The Next Chapter and the potential Future of the Franchise (from a longtime obsessive fan):

sometimes i genuinely forget that your average person is not knowledgeable about how making television works, and don't really pay attention at all to the behind the scenes activities of the people who make television.

to everyone responding to The Librarians: The Next Chapter trailer with negativity along the lines of "why are there new Librarians" "why is Stone the only one there",

i am actually shocked to realize you guys are unaware of the entire reason the first Librarians show exists in the form it does. But then i realize i'm probably the weird one for knowing all of these specific details but here we go: The only reason Eve, Ezekiel, Jenkins, Cassandra and Jake even EXIST is because of scheduling conflicts. Noah Wyle wanted to come back to star in a spin off of the original movies very badly, but he was currently under contract in the middle of filming the final few seasons of Falling Skies. If you're unaware, when you're under contract to finish a certain amount of filming, you can't just break that contract without serious legal repercussions. Not to mention, Noah wanted to do Falling Skies justice. So the executives behind both projects and Noah came to a scheduling compromise - something that Noah was only able to do because of the pull he, Dean Devlin and John Rogers have, not something most actors can easily swing - to where he could finish his work on Falling Skies while also appearing in The Librarians in the time he wasn't filming for Falling Skies. This meant that Noah would be able to be there for at least a couple episodes for the first few seasons, but not all of them. Naturally, you can't have a show where the ONLY main character, the ONLY Librarian, is gone half the time for the first few seasons. So the obvious and genius solution they came up with? More Librarians.

An ensemble main cast that would be able to hold down the fort and keep the show moving forward when Noah/Flynn wasn't there. And they specifically wrote it in a way to where it made perfect sense character wise for Flynn to be absent, both because of the plot and because of Flynn's trauma and fear of commitment. They made Noah Wyle's inability to be there the whole time an integral part of the plot and themes, and constructed the rest of the show around it.

And then when Falling Skies was finished filming, Noah was able to appear more regularly in s3 and s4 of the show, while still being absent sometimes to maintain the consistency of his character arc. The group and plot was set up to allow it to make sense for him to be able to come and go as needed.

I want you to take a second to digest this information. Your favorite characters and their relationships with each other would never have even existed if Noah Wyle had been completely free at the time the show was being started. We would have no Eve Baird, no Ezekiel Jones, no Jacob Stone, no Jenkins, no Cassandra. It would be just the Flynn Carson show, just like the movies. Flash forward seven or so years, and Dean finally gets the chance to bring the franchise back again - but all the actors from the first show are now, just like Noah was, tied up in contracts and schedules for stuff they are already doing. The person with the most schedule flexibility? Christian Kane, because the other shows he's working on currently are also under Electric Entertainment. All of the actors have confirmed they DO WANT TO RETURN WHEN THEY ARE AVAILABLE. They have told Dean this, they talked about this at the convention panel at ElectricCon, and I even personally talked to John Harlan Kim during the meet and greet about how excited he is to eventually return whenever he can. They will return when they can, and these new characters are perfectly set up to work alongside them smoothly the second they do.

Therefore Jake is the best choice to be the first returning character to bring in the new characters and establish their connection to the Library, because they are new recruits, not replacements. This is a CONTINUATION spin off, not a reboot. The Library is once again expanding it's employee base and becoming even more of a capital-O Organization than it already was in the first show. This makes sense both externally and internally.

Externally, this is exactly what they did when they made the first continuation spin off show based on the movies. They created a new ensemble cast of main characters to form relationships with the previous characters in the franchise, and to hold down the fort when those characters are off screen because their actors are currently busy. Internally, expanding the Library even more is the natural progression of the plot and themes that where being explored in the original show. The entire point of the final season, if not the show, is that it was always a mistake to have only one Librarian, a mistake made out of fear. The natural endgame of the themes of the show was to invite even more people to join the Library - there where even multiple side characters heavily set up to potentially become future Librarians themselves. (Lucy Lyons for example). These new characters are not replacing the old ones, they are holding down the fort so that the old characters have a franchise to come back to in the first place. Because if they had to wait for all the actors to be available again to make the new Librarians show, it wouldn't get made, because the people with the money don't wanna wait when they're greenlighting a show. When you get greenlit on a concept, you make it now or you never make it. This was true when Noah was too busy to be the sole main character of the first show, and it's true now when the actors where too busy in 2022-2023 to all return at once for the new show's first season. And a final but EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT: Dean announced this show while talking about expanding The Librarians universe, and then at ElectricCon he announced that what he REALLY wants to do is bring back the original show if next chapter is successful, and have both the next chapter and the original librarians team's show airing at the same time while crossing over constantly with each other. Essentially creating a shared Librarians television landscape for characters to move throughout. But that will only happen if The Next Chapter is successful enough. So PLEASE, open your hearts to these new characters and these new actors, because they are in the exact same position the cast of the original show was in. I was there, movie fans where complaining that it wasn't a show solely about Flynn and Flynn alone. But when once the show actually aired, they all quickly shut up, because the day Dean Devlin makes Librarians characters that aren't worth obsessing over is the day hell freezes over. If you don't support The Next Chapter, you will completely lose any chance of seeing those older characters return. Trust me, guys. Relax. You will love these new characters just as much, and you will see the old ones again if this show gets more seasons. So if you want that, you better start getting hyped!

[laauranenn]

Can we talk about chapter 60? I'd like to talk about chapter 60: A Place I Belong.

I specifically want to talk about the sections with the tightrope. It's one of my favorite parts of Wind Breaker and I could praise it for ages. I know it's a kind of common metaphor for struggles and isn't anything too special, but I really do adore it.

And whoever decided to add that anime only scene to the start of the first episode? Absolute genius and I love them for it. It works beautifully without it in the manga, but I think it's going to add a little extra something to the anime!

But for the tightrope section in the manga? It's so good and so well executed!! I absolutely love the way the style changes throughout the chapter!!

We start with white lineart on a black background. The lines are messy, sketchy, and even the boxes don't have clean lines.

I also want to point out how the only clean lines we get from this section are from the adults in his life, as well as the wind chime and the sprout pushing out from the ground.

The wind chime and the sprout clearly allude to Furin and the way both Furin and the rest of the town have shown that he, too, can be loved and accepted as he is.

The wind chime is also the thing that seems to be the transition to Sakura going from walking along the tightrope to considering that there might be another path for him.

I'm going to be real here and say that I don't have a lot to say about the other adults also having clean lineart. I'm sure there's someone out there who'd have something really smart to say about it, though. If I were to say something about it, it'd be that I think it might represent his shaky sense of self, compared to other people who have it figured out.

After that we get to the middle section, with Sakura in the "real world" again and with the rest of the class. I won't focus on the dialogue itself too much, but I'd like to talk about the way we go between the tightrope and reality.

I really like how the panels with the tightrope are woven in. They show us what's going on inside his head while also showing us how it looks like in reality. We see visual representation of how this feels like to him.

It's shown in how before he speaks, as he's gathering the courage for it, we can see him changing his stance on the rope. We get shown the way this is him preparing for that leap. He also mirrors himself with the way he's clenching his hands both in reality and around the tightrope.

A little later, as he's talking, we can see him directly mirror himself in both realities.

We see the way he's holding on preparing for that leap, as well as the way his face is split in two here. It doesn't directly match up, but it doesn't have to, because it already works so well here. I'd maybe even argue that I prefer it this way around as opposed to if this was a direct split of his face.

And then we see the leap itself, the way he throws himself into the unknown.

And then he gets called out on his bullshit, gets told that he's insane for thinking they'd cast him out. That they love him as he is and that they want him around. They actually want him. For maybe the first time in his life, he's wanted, appreciated, and needed.

And it's just this "Oh." moment for him. You can see the way it just clicks for him.

And after this we get to an absolutely beautiful scene, the part that makes me love this chapter so much.

We see that it all isn't so terrible after all, that there is hope. The tightrope isn't a drop to certain death, just a drop.

The colors have changed and we're now looking at Sakura on a white background with black lineart. Though at this point Sakura himself is the only part of the scene with messy lineart. The field of flowers and grass, as well as the edges of the panels, are all cleanly lined. Except for Sakura. Even if it's still messy, I'd say it's definitely a little cleaner than it was before.

You can see the way he's a little more faint, a little less solid than the rest of the lineart.

And then we see Bofurin, the rest of his class specifically. They're all there and they're all cleanly lined. And as Sakura reaches out to grab the hand he's offered, his lineart becomes clean. His lineart is no longer messy, it's no longer a sketch. This is him finding and accepting himself.

And as he grabs that hand, his clothes also change. Before all he was wearing was a plain shirt with plain pants, nothing remarkable, just plain clothes. But as soon as he takes that hand, his clothes change to a Furin uniform.

This entire chapter is so beautiful and I cannot wait to see it animated. I really hope the anime does it justice. From the lineart to the colors swapping around to the dialogue, it's an amazing chapter overall. I know I didn't really talk about the dialogue, but it's also good :)! I don't have much to say about it, though.

Moral of the story is that I really love this chapter and just wrote around 900 words about it.

[vinntea]

OK WAIT HOLD ON EVERYONE SHUT UP WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS??

In this scene, our Ekko just woke up in an alternate timeline. This is the frame where he sees Benzo, his father figure who's dead in his reality. Obviously he's in shock. He doesn't know where he is, what's going on, he's seeing his dead dad, probably a million thoughts running through his head. In response to seeing Ekko like this, Benzo says:

"One of those days, huh?" I'm sorry, WHAT????? WHAT DOES HE MEAN ONE OF THOSE DAYS???? Then Powder says

"You know those ugly twins, genius and madness!" It's clear she's saying this to redirect the focus off of Ekko, dude needs a moment and she sees that. What's interesting to me is Benzo isn't at all shocked that Ekko is having a moment. Powder saying the line above also implies this isn't out of the ordinary. The ugly twins Powder's talking about are likely akin to an angel and devil on his shoulders, two halves of a whole that make up Ekko. This sudden moment of panic that he's having is regular enough that Powder and Benzo consider it a sort of side effect to his intelligence. The FASCINATING part of this implication is that it mirrors his world's Jinx. In his reality, Jinx is the crazy genius who has 'those days'. If Ekko in this reality is the one who experiences that 'craziness' then not only does that mean Ekko and Powder are reflections of each other, but it means something's CAUSED Ekko to have a 'madness' side to him. In our reality, Jinx is 'crazy' due to the trauma and brainwashing she goes through with the death of her loved ones and being used as a weapon by Silco. There are some signs in season 1 arc 1 that Powder could've had a chemical imbalance even before that, but we can see through this other Powder that she would've turned out mostly ok. In the nearly perfect reality of this alternate timeline, what could've caused Ekko to be the 'crazy one'? In my mind, there are two possibilities. The first one being, he's traumatized from causing Vi's death. He didn't kill her, and everyone around him knows that, but he still thinks it's his fault for giving them the tip to steal from Jayce, which lead to Vi's death. If he hadn't given them the tip, they never would've gone there and Vi wouldn't have died. This would also line up with the mirror dynamic, as Jinx in our reality thinks Vander, Milo, and Clagger's deaths are her fault. The guilt of it has driven him mad just as it did her. This makes other interactions make sense as well. Powder inviting Ekko to go see Vi, (she probably does this to help Ekko cope when he's having these episodes) Then he turns to her and says "Was it you" and you see how upset she is. She looks as if she has something to say, but holds back and walks off instead. What if she was thinking "What? No, it was your fault???" Or maybe she does secretly think it was her fault too and her helping the guy who feels the same way is her way of coping, making it all the more insulting that he'd accuse her just cus he's having an episode. She's very willing to forgive him because she understands his psychological struggles. That brings me to possibility 2. What if Ekko was always crazy? What if Ekko has dealt with a chemical imbalance and struggled with that madness on top of his trauma? Just like Jinx. The only reason we actually get to see that madness on display for this Ekko is because our Ekko never has a moment to show that side of him. He's never allowed a moment to think to himself or at the very least we never see it. With Jinx, we get tons of scenes with her madness on full display. If Ekko had similar struggles in our reality just not as severe or noticeable, then in comparison to Jinx, he seems completely fine. These small implications of the alternate timeline tells me that we had it wrong. Ekko is also crazy and always has been. THAT'S why he's able to get to Jinx and understand her, accept her for who she is when Vi couldn't. It's also possible his hatred for Jinx in season 1 may have been him projecting his issues onto her. He knows what that madness looks like and he fears that if he doesn't keep his together, he could end up like Jinx. It's only until he sees the other Powder, sees the way she understands him and is there for him, that he realizes that he is worthy of love and compassion, madness and all. Only then does he accept himself for who he is and is able to accept Jinx for who she is. Accepting Jinx as Jinx and loving her madness and all, was part of him accepting himself too.

[amethystarachnid]

"Manifesting a Stark wedding and mini Starks immediately."

THIS IS SO REAL, MANIFESTING THE SECOND PART 🙏🏻

THE STARK REALITY (SHOW) - part 2

⤷ ANTHONY “TONY” E. STARK

ᯓ★ Pairing: Anthony “Tony” E. Stark x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: fluff, romance

ᯓ★ Word count: 8.1k

ᯓ★ Summary: you and Tony are getting married, so it's time to hold his promise and start a new reality show...with lots of plot twists

ᯓ★ TW(s): nothing I think?

ᯓ★ Part 1

ᯓ★ Love is in the air - Valentine's Day special game

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Holiday Special

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

Two years.

Two years since The Stark Reality ended. Two years since Tony teased the world with talk of weddings and kids, leaving the internet in absolute chaos. Two years of you and Tony living your lives in relative peace—well, as much peace as you can get when dating Tony Stark.

And now?

Now, you’re about to break the internet again.

Because, without warning, without so much as a single leak, a brand-new reality show drops.

The Stark Wedding

The first episode airs unannounced on a Friday night, and the world loses its mind.

The intro alone is enough to send social media into a tailspin.

Tony stands in front of the camera in his usual smug, effortlessly charming way, arms crossed, that signature Stark smirk playing on his lips.

“Miss us?” he drawls, looking directly into the lens.

You’re sitting beside him, arms folded, shooting him an amused look. “Really? That’s how you’re opening this?”

“Absolutely.” He grins, reaching over to lace his fingers with yours. “It’s been two years. Thought we’d give you guys an update.”

You raise an eyebrow. “We?”

“Okay, I thought we’d give you guys an update.”

He turns back to the camera, smirk widening. “And what better way to do that than by showing you every little detail of how we’re planning the biggest, most extravagant, most ridiculous wedding of the century?”

You sigh. “I feel like I should clarify that it wasn’t my idea to film this.”

Tony squeezes your hand. “No, but you love me, so here we are.”

You shake your head, but there’s no hiding the smile on your face.

Tony looks back at the camera. “Welcome to The Stark Wedding—a reality show where I, a genius billionaire, somehow convince the love of my life to marry me on national television.”

Cue the opening credits.

And just like that, the internet explodes.

"THEY DID IT. THEY ACTUALLY DID IT. A REALITY SHOW ABOUT THEIR WEDDING. I CAN’T BREATHE."

"TONY STARK YOU ARE A DRAMATIC GENIUS AND I LOVE YOU FOR IT."

"The fact that this man teased it TWO YEARS AGO and actually followed through?? ICONIC."

"We went from The Stark Reality to The Stark Wedding. What’s next? The Stark Family with little mini Starks running around??"

The first episode is chaos—but it’s exactly what everyone wants.

It opens with you and Tony meeting with an over-the-top wedding planner, a woman who immediately realizes that organizing a Stark-level wedding is not for the faint of heart.

You, ever the voice of reason, suggest something relatively normal. A big wedding, sure, but not insane.

Tony?

Tony looks the planner dead in the eye and says, “How hard would it be to get fireworks shaped like our faces?”

You slap a hand over your face. “Tony—”

“What?” He gestures vaguely. “It’s our wedding. Go big or go home.”

The planner, to her credit, doesn’t even blink. “I can make it happen.”

And that’s how you realize you’re in way over your head.

The episode is a ride.

Tony suggests having Iron Man suits for all the groomsmen. You veto that immediately.

You pick elegant, tasteful floral arrangements. Tony tries to sneak in Stark Industries logos made of roses.

There’s a scene of you two cake tasting, where Tony very seriously insists that the cake should be at least five tiers high because, and you quote, “What’s the point of being a billionaire if you can’t have an unnecessarily large cake?”

The cameras catch every moment—the teasing, the bickering, the way Tony sneaks little kisses whenever he thinks no one is watching.

And the audience eats it up.

"THE WAY HE LOOKS AT HER. TWO YEARS AND HE’S STILL COMPLETELY WHIPPED."

"No because Tony is SO unserious about this wedding but also so in love with her I’m crying."

"’Go big or go home’—sir, you’re already Tony Stark. How much bigger can you GO??"

"The chemistry is even better than The Stark Reality days. This show is gonna ruin me."

And it’s only the first episode.

Tony? Tony is thriving.

You catch him scrolling through reactions on his phone that night, smirking at all the chaos he’s caused.

“People are obsessed with us,” he says, clearly pleased.

You roll your eyes. “You say that like you didn’t plan for this exact reaction.”

He shrugs, setting his phone down before pulling you into his lap. “Hey, can you blame them?” He kisses your shoulder. “We’re very interesting.”

You shake your head, but you can’t argue.

Because as much as you protested, as much as you acted like filming another reality show was too much—you’re secretly having the time of your life.

You get to plan your wedding your way. You get to share the excitement with the world. And most of all, you get to do it with Tony.

And honestly? That’s all that matters.

Planning a wedding with Tony Stark is a nightmare.

A fun, chaotic, over-the-top nightmare.

It’s not that he doesn’t care—if anything, he cares too much. But in the most Tony way possible. Meaning, every decision has to be extravagant, ridiculous, or, in his words, "something only a Stark wedding could pull off."

The cameras are there, of course, capturing every insane conversation, every time you have to rein him in, and every moment when you both completely forget that the whole world is watching.

Like when you're sitting in the living room, flipping through invitations, trying to pick a design.

Tony flops dramatically onto the couch beside you, peering over your shoulder. "Boring. Too boring. Way too boring—oh, that one's not bad, but what if we made them holographic?"

You blink. "Holographic invitations?"

"Yeah," he says, like it's obvious. "Imagine it—someone opens the invite, and BAM! A tiny projection of me and you personally inviting them to the wedding."

You stare at him. "Tony."

He grins. "Genius, right?"

"Absolutely not."

The internet gets a kick out of moments like these.

"Tony Stark is the most extra fiancé of all time, and I love that for him."

"A holographic wedding invite??? Let the man COOK."

"I need Y/N to drop her patience routine because the way she handles him is ICONIC."

Then there’s the venue selection.

You originally had a normal idea—something elegant, something grand but tasteful. But, of course, Tony being Tony, the list of locations he provides is absolutely ridiculous.

A private island.

The top of the Stark Tower.

A literal castle in Europe.

A Stark-designed floating wedding platform above the ocean.

You almost have a stroke reading the list.

"Tony," you say slowly, pinching the bridge of your nose. "Do you understand that normal people get married in normal places?"

Tony shrugs, completely unbothered. "Yeah, and we are not normal people."

"We are not, but the wedding should be!"

"Disagree," he says. "The wedding should be memorable. Stark-level memorable."

The internet sides with him.

"THE FLOATING PLATFORM THO. I NEED IT TO HAPPEN."

"Let’s be honest, a Stark wedding HAS to be insane. I respect it."

"If they don’t get married in a castle, I’m rioting."

Eventually, you settle on a stunning cliffside estate with breathtaking ocean views, and Tony begrudgingly agrees, as long as he gets at least one insane element.

(You don’t know what that element is yet, but you know it’s coming.)

Then there’s the issue of your dress.

It’s the one thing you’re keeping a complete secret.

Not just from the cameras, but from Tony.

And it drives him insane.

The first time he asks, he plays it cool.

“So,” he says one evening while you’re finalizing fittings. “You’re really not gonna let me see the dress?”

You smirk. “Nope.”

He tilts his head. “Not even a hint?”

“Nope.”

A pause. Then he leans in, voice dropping. “Not even if I—”

“No.” You press a finger against his lips before he can try whatever he was about to say. “Not happening, Stark.”

And that’s the start of his mission.

Because from then on, Tony tries everything.

One night, he casually brings you a glass of wine, massages your shoulders, and then very sweetly asks, “Sooo… about the dress?”

You laugh. “Nice try.”

Another time, he attempts to bribe you.

“I will personally upgrade your entire wardrobe—custom designed—if you just give me a tiny detail.”

“Nope.”

“What if I—”

“No.”

At one point, he actually tries to hack into the bridal shop’s files.

Thankfully, FRIDAY blocks him before he can succeed.

“Sir,” FRIDAY says dryly, “Miss Y/N has specifically ordered me not to let you access this information.”

Tony groans. “Traitor.”

The internet loses it at his antics.

"THE WAY HE TRIED TO HACK INTO THE BRIDAL SHOP IM SCREAMING."

"Tony Stark acting like a child because he can’t see a dress is my new favorite thing."

"The man can build a metal suit but can’t crack his fiancée’s wedding dress secrets. HILARIOUS."

His last-ditch effort happens one night when you’re curled up in bed, half-asleep.

Tony, ever the opportunist, pulls you close, tracing lazy circles on your back.

“You love me, right?” he murmurs.

You hum sleepily. “Mmhmm.”

He presses a kiss to your shoulder. “So you’d trust me with anything, right?”

“Of course.”

Another kiss, this time against your jaw. “Sooo… you could tell me about the dress.”

Even in your half-asleep state, you snort.

“Tony,” you mumble, “go to sleep.”

He groans dramatically. “Unbelievable.”

The cameras don’t catch that moment—but you tell the story later, and people eat it up.

"THE WAY HE TRIED TO TRICK HER WHEN SHE WAS HALF ASLEEP I CAN’T."

"Y/N: sleeps. Tony: This is my chance."

"Protect Tony Stark at all costs. The man is suffering."

Despite all the madness, the wedding is coming together.

There are moments—little ones, away from the chaos—where you and Tony completely forget about the cameras.

Like the time you're picking music for the first dance, and Tony, without warning, pulls you into his arms, swaying with you in the middle of the living room.

Or the time you're stressed about floral arrangements, and he just grabs you, dips you dramatically, and kisses you senseless until you're laughing.

Or the night before the big bachelor and bachelorette parties, when you're curled up together, and he murmurs against your hair, “You sure you wanna marry a pain in the ass like me?”

And you just smile, pressing closer. “Absolutely.”

Those moments? They belong to you.

The rest of the world may be watching, but at the end of the day, this is your love story.

And it’s perfect.

The world is watching.

Millions of people are tuned in, their eyes glued to screens, eagerly anticipating the moment Tony Stark finally—finally—says I do. The wedding is being streamed live, the most anticipated event of the decade, and yet, in this moment, Tony doesn’t care about any of them.

Because as soon as the music starts and you step into view, all he can see is you.

He swears he forgets how to breathe.

You look stunning. Absolutely, breathtakingly perfect. Your dress is everything he imagined and yet so much more, and it physically hurts that he had to wait this long to see it. The way the fabric flows, the way it hugs you in all the right places, the way you walk toward him like there’s no one else in the world—he’s done for.

And then you smile at him.

And that is what almost breaks him.

He has to blink rapidly, has to fight the lump in his throat, has to force himself to keep it together because Tony Stark does not cry at weddings—except apparently, when it’s his own.

Pepper, standing nearby as his best woman, leans in just enough to whisper, “Don’t you dare start crying, Stark.”

“Shut up,” he murmurs back, voice thick, eyes locked on you. “I can cry if I want to.”

The internet immediately notices.

—

"TONY STARK IS ABOUT TO CRY I REPEAT THIS MAN IS ABOUT TO CRY"

"THE WAY HE LOOKS AT HER IM IN PAIN"

"IF TONY CRIES IM CRYING TOO"

—

When you finally reach him, your hands slide into his without hesitation, and he clings to you like you’re the only thing keeping him standing. His thumb brushes over your knuckles, and you squeeze his fingers in return, eyes shining with so much love it makes his chest ache.

“Hi,” you whisper.

He exhales a shaky breath, grinning. “Hey, future Mrs. Stark.”

The ceremony is perfect. The vows are heartfelt, the laughter genuine, and when Tony finally gets to kiss you—when he gets to hold your face in his hands and seal this moment—it’s electric. The world may be watching, but in this instant, it’s just you and him.

You’re married.

And that means the real party is just beginning.

—

The reception is pure chaos, exactly as expected from a Stark event.

The music is loud, the drinks are flowing, and Tony is in his element, working the room, grinning like he just won the lottery. Because he did. He got you.

At some point, he finds himself on the dance floor, his hands firmly on your waist as you sway together, pressed close, your wedding rings glinting under the lights.

“Did I mention how good you look today?” he murmurs against your ear.

You smirk. “Once or twice.”

“Not nearly enough,” he says, twirling you before pulling you back in. “You look so good, it’s actually unfair.”

You roll your eyes, but the blush creeping up your neck gives you away. “You’re not so bad yourself, Stark.”

He grins. “Damn right I’m not.”

The cameras catch every moment—the stolen kisses, the teasing whispers, the way Tony can’t keep his hands off you. Fans are losing their minds.

—

"THIS WEDDING IS EVERYTHING I WANTED AND MORE"

"TONY LOOKS SO IN LOVE IM GONNA CRY"

"THE DANCING SCENE OH MY GODDDD"

—

At some point, Rhodey and Happy pull Tony away for a toast, and that’s when he realizes something’s up.

Because you’re suspiciously missing.

He glances around, searching the room. “Where’s my wife?”

Rhodey smirks. “She’s got a surprise for you.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Oh? What kind of surprise? Because if it’s strippers, I—”

“I can assure you it’s not strippers,” Pepper interjects, amused.

Tony sighs dramatically. “Damn. I mean, I’d only accept if the stripper was Y/N, and only if it was private, so I’m the only one who gets to see—”

“You’re insufferable,” Rhodey groans.

A few moments later, the lights dim slightly, and then—

You appear.

Standing on the small stage, microphone in hand, smiling right at him.

His heart stops.

You give him a soft look before speaking into the mic. “So, I know Tony loves being the one with all the surprises, but tonight, I get to have one for him.”

He watches, utterly entranced, as you take a deep breath.

“There’s something I’ve been keeping to myself for a little while,” you continue, “and I figured… what better time to share it than right now?”

Tony leans forward slightly, eyes locked on you. “Sweetheart, you’re killing me.”

You laugh, then, still holding the mic, you place a hand over your stomach.

And that’s when it clicks.

It takes him a second—his brain scrambling to catch up—but then it hits him all at once.

You’re pregnant.

He staggers.

Literally stumbles backward, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, hands in his hair because holy shit.

You giggle at his reaction, nodding just enough to confirm it.

The entire room erupts. Cheers, gasps, screams. Somewhere, Pepper is definitely wiping away a tear.

Tony?

Tony is frozen.

Then, all at once, he moves. Practically bolts toward the stage, barely making it up the steps before he’s grabbing you, kissing you so fiercely it takes your breath away.

When he finally pulls back, his hands frame your face, his eyes searching yours. “You’re serious?”

You nod, eyes shining. “Dead serious.”

And that’s it. That’s all it takes for Tony Stark, the man who once swore he’d never be tied down, to break completely.

He presses his forehead against yours, exhaling shakily. “Holy shit.”

You laugh softly. “Good surprise?”

He huffs out a breathless chuckle, his hands sliding down to rest over your stomach. “Best surprise ever.”

The cameras catch everything.

And the internet?

The internet shatters.

—

"Y/N IS PREGNANT OH MY GOD"

"TONY STARK IS GOING TO BE A DAD I AM NOT OKAY"

"THE WAY HE REACTED IM SOBBING"

"I THOUGHT THIS WEDDING COULDN’T GET ANY BETTER AND THEN SHE DROPPED A PLOT TWIST"

"DOES THIS MEAN THE STARK FAMILY REALITY SHOW IS NEXT???"

—

Tony does not let go of you for the rest of the night. His hand stays firmly over your stomach, his lips constantly finding yours, his eyes soft in a way the cameras never caught before.

He’s never been happier.

He has you. He has this future—your future.

And for once, he doesn’t care that the whole world is watching.

Because this?

This is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Pregnancy with Tony Stark is anything but normal.

For starters, he is convinced that you should not lift a single finger for the next nine months. The moment the news is out, he goes into full-on Stark mode, meaning he spares no expense in making sure you’re comfortable.

And by no expense, that means:

A custom-built pregnancy suite in the tower, complete with the most advanced medical technology and luxury furniture.

FRIDAY monitoring everything—your vitals, your stress levels, even your hydration.

A dedicated craving station in the kitchen stocked with anything you might want.

The cameras capture everything, of course.

Like the first time you wake up at three in the morning with a craving for something weird.

You shift in bed, sighing heavily. Tony stirs beside you, groggy. “What’s wrong?”

You hesitate, then mumble, “I really want pickles. And peanut butter.”

Tony blinks. Then, without a word, he gets up, throws on a hoodie, and leaves the room.

You frown. “Tony?”

“I’ll be back,” he calls over his shoulder.

The footage from that night becomes legendary.

Because the next thing the cameras catch is Tony, half-asleep, standing in the kitchen in pajama pants and a hoodie, making a sandwich with way too much peanut butter and an absurd amount of pickles.

FRIDAY, always watching, chimes in. “Sir, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“FRIDAY, she wants this,” Tony grumbles, spreading the peanut butter aggressively. “If my wife wants peanut butter pickles at three AM, she gets peanut butter pickles at three AM.”

The internet loves it.

—

"TONY MAKING A PICKLE PB SANDWICH WHILE HALF ASLEEP IS KILLING ME"

"HE DIDN’T EVEN QUESTION IT HE JUST WENT"

"IMAGINE HAVING TONY STARK AS YOUR HUSBAND LIKE SHE IS LIVING THE DREAM"

—

It doesn’t stop there.

Anytime you so much as mention a craving, Tony is on it.

“Babe,” you say one afternoon, scrolling through your phone, “you know what sounds really good right now?”

Tony looks up from his laptop. “What?”

You hum. “Those tiny little powdered donuts.”

He closes his laptop immediately. “I’ll be back in ten.”

You laugh. “Tony, you don’t have to—”

But he’s already gone.

The next scene the cameras catch is Tony showing up exactly ten minutes later with six different brands of tiny powdered donuts.

You stare. “Tony.”

He shrugs. “Wasn’t sure which ones you meant.”

The footage goes viral.

—

"HE BOUGHT SIX DIFFERENT KINDS I CANT"

"TONY STARK SPOILING HIS PREGNANT WIFE IS MY ROMAN EMPIRE"

"THE WAY HE JUST GOES EVERY TIME SHE WANTS SOMETHING"

—

The worst craving situation happens one evening when you desperately want something so specific, you almost cry.

“I just—” You huff, rubbing your belly. “I need spicy curly fries, but only from that place, and I need a chocolate shake, but it has to be thick, not too watery—”

Tony doesn’t even hesitate.

“I’m on it.”

And he leaves.

The cameras catch him driving across the city, personally picking up the fries and shake, taste-testing them in the car to make sure they meet your standards, and then rushing back like a man on a mission.

By the time he gets back, you’re curled up on the couch, watching TV, and when he hands you the food, you actually get teary-eyed.

“You love me,” you murmur.

Tony grins, sitting beside you. “Damn right I do.”

And then you sob, because hormones, and he just pulls you close, kissing your temple, whispering, “You’re so cute when you cry over fries.”

The internet melts.

—

"IF MY MAN DOESN’T LOVE ME LIKE THIS I DON’T WANT HIM"

"TONY STARK TASTE-TESTING FOOD BEFORE GIVING IT TO HER STOPPPP"

"THIS IS THE BEST REALITY SHOW IN THE WORLD"

—

Of course, cravings aren’t the only thing the cameras catch.

There’s also the way Tony talks to your belly.

At first, he does it when he thinks no one is listening.

Like one night, when he’s helping you into bed, and you’re already half-asleep. The cameras are subtle, just enough to catch Tony kneeling beside you, pressing his lips to your stomach.

“Hey, little Stark,” he murmurs against your skin. “You’re giving your mom a hard time with these cravings, huh?”

He pauses, then chuckles. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep bringing her whatever she wants. But you gotta promise me something, kiddo. You gotta promise me you’ll be good to her, okay? Because she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

You don’t respond, too lost in sleep, but the cameras do.

And when that footage airs, the internet shatters.

—

"TONY WHISPERING TO HER BELLY I CAN’T"

"HE LOVES HER SO MUCH IM GONNA SCREAM"

"IF THIS MAN ISN’T THE BEST HUSBAND IN THE WORLD THEN WHO IS"

—

Eventually, he stops hiding it.

Like the time you’re lounging on the couch, and he just casually flops down, rests his head on your belly, and starts talking.

“So, kid, listen, we gotta talk about your mom’s sleep schedule, because I think you’re keeping her up on purpose, and I will hold that against you when you’re born.”

You flick his ear, amused. “Stop bullying our child.”

“I’m just saying,” Tony grins, rubbing your stomach, “we gotta negotiate bedtime rules.”

You roll your eyes. “You are bedtime rules.”

The cameras love it.

—

"TONY STARK IS A MENACE TO HIS OWN UNBORN CHILD"

"THE WAY HE JUST LAYS ON HER BELLY LIKE IT’S NOTHING"

"THIS IS THE PUREST THING I’VE EVER SEEN"

—

Despite all the antics, one thing is clear—Tony is all in.

He’s there for every check-up, every doctor’s visit, every late-night craving. When you start getting tired more often, he carries you to bed. When your feet start hurting, he massages them without hesitation.

The cameras capture all of it.

And the world?

The world is obsessed.

Tony Stark, former playboy, genius billionaire, Iron Man, is completely and utterly devoted to you and your growing family.

And the best part?

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Pregnancy is a rollercoaster, and Tony is strapped in for the ride whether he’s ready or not.

As the months pass, your belly grows, swelling more and more until it becomes impossible to ignore. Not that Tony ever ignores it—if anything, he’s obsessed. He constantly finds excuses to touch your stomach, his palm resting there whenever you're close enough, his thumb absently rubbing slow circles against your skin.

And then there are the comments.

“Look at you,” he murmurs one evening, watching as you struggle to get comfortable on the couch. “My wife is smuggling a whole-ass basketball.”

You glare at him. “If I wasn’t carrying your child, I’d throw something at you.”

He smirks. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

You huff and shift again, groaning. Your body feels heavy, everything aches, and Tony—ever the problem solver—just has to fix it.

“Here.” He pulls you into his lap, adjusting you until you’re comfortable. “Better?”

You sigh, letting yourself relax against him. “Yeah.”

The cameras, discreetly placed around the house, capture everything.

The world watches as Tony rubs your back, presses kisses to your temple, and whispers soft reassurances whenever you feel like your body isn’t your own anymore.

—

"TONY SPOILING HIS PREGNANT WIFE AGAIN, I LOVE TO SEE IT"

"HE LOOKS SO OBSESSED WITH HER BUMP, IT’S SO CUTE"

"IF MY MAN DOESN’T HOLD ME LIKE THIS WHEN I’M PREGNANT I DON’T WANT HIM"

—

But if Tony thinks the belly is the biggest challenge, he’s in for a rude awakening.

Because the mood swings?

They hit hard.

One minute, you’re perfectly fine, the next, you’re crying over the fact that a character in a movie didn’t get a happy ending.

Tony, sitting beside you, blinks in confusion. “Babe, you do know it’s just a movie, right?”

You sniffle. “But he loved her so much.”

He stares for a second, then immediately pulls you into his arms. “Alright, c’mere, emotional wreck.”

You sob into his chest while he strokes your hair, sending a helpless look at the nearest camera.

—

"TONY STARING AT THE CAMERA LIKE HE’S ON THE OFFICE HELP"

"MY MAN IS GOING THROUGH IT"

"HE’S SO PATIENT THO, LIKE HE JUST LETS HER CRY AND HOLDS HER"

—

Then there’s the anger.

Like the time Tony absentmindedly ate the last slice of cake from the fridge.

You stand there, staring at the empty plate in his hands, your eye twitching. “You ate it?”

Tony swallows, suddenly realizing his mistake. “I—I didn’t know you wanted it.”

You inhale sharply. “That was my cake, Tony.”

“…I can buy another one?”

Big mistake.

Because the next thing the cameras catch is you chucking a pillow at his head, followed by you storming off while mumbling about divorce.

Tony just sits there, rubbing his face, sighing. “This kid is gonna be the death of me.”

—

"TONY STARK RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE OVER CAKE I CAN’T"

"WHY IS HE JUST SITTING THERE HE NEEDS TO RUN"

"THE WAY HE JUST ACCEPTS HIS FATE"

—

Despite the chaos, Tony never complains. If anything, he loves it. Loves that you trust him enough to show all your emotions, loves being the one to comfort you, loves knowing that he’s going to be a dad soon.

And then comes the gender reveal.

Tony being Tony, there’s no way he’s doing something basic.

So, naturally, he builds a custom fireworks system on the roof of the tower, programmed to explode in either blue or pink.

The cameras capture everything—the way Tony stands beside you, arm wrapped around your waist, the way you squeeze his hand, the anticipation in the air.

Then—boom.

The sky lights up in pink.

A girl.

You gasp, turning to Tony, but his reaction stuns you.

Because for a second, he’s completely frozen. Just staring at the sky, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

Then, all at once, he laughs—loud, disbelieving, softer than anyone’s ever heard him. He turns to you, hands cupping your face, kissing you so fiercely it takes your breath away.

“We’re having a girl,” he whispers against your lips, awestruck.

And then, the reality sinks in.

A girl.

A little Stark.

Suddenly, Tony is thinking about everything—about the world she’ll grow up in, about all the dangers, about all the idiots who will try to hurt her.

And just like that, his entire brain shifts.

“We need to start designing a security system for her nursery,” he blurts, already calculating in his head. “No, for the entire tower. Maybe a shield system. JARVIS, remind me to upgrade all tower protocols—”

You groan, pressing a hand to his chest. “Tony. Breathe.”

He exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just—she’s gonna be perfect and I need to make sure she’s safe.”

You cup his cheek, smiling. “She’s going to have the best dad in the world.”

Tony melts, pressing his forehead to yours.

“Damn right she is.”

The internet explodes.

—

"TONY’S FACE WHEN HE SEES THE PINK LIGHTS IM GONNA CRY"

"THE WAY HE JUST FREEZES LIKE HE CAN’T BELIEVE IT"

"HE’S ALREADY PLANNING HER SECURITY SYSTEM SOMEONE STOP HIM"

"Y/N CALLING HIM THE BEST DAD IM SOBBING"

—

From that moment on, Tony doubles his efforts. He talks to your belly even more, spoils you even more, and starts designing little things for the baby—tiny arc reactor-themed onesies, custom-made stuffed animals, even a baby-sized Iron Man helmet (which you immediately veto).

The cameras catch everything, but at this point, Tony doesn’t care.

Because soon, his little girl is going to be here.

And he’ll do everything to make sure she has the best life possible.

The cameras aren’t in your bedroom.

That was one of the first things you and Tony agreed on when the reality show started. No matter how open your life became, some things had to stay just for you.

Tonight, you’re curled up in bed, Tony’s arm draped protectively over your belly, his fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns against your skin. Layla kicks, and Tony chuckles softly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“She’s active tonight,” he murmurs.

You hum, shifting slightly. “She always is when you talk to her.”

He grins. “What can I say? She loves her dad.”

Your heart clenches, and for a moment, all you can do is watch him—how his face softens whenever he talks about Layla, how his hand never strays too far from your belly, how his love for your daughter is already so obvious.

And that’s when the thought really sinks in.

The whole world is watching you.

They have been for years now. Every step of your relationship, every milestone, every intimate moment—recorded, edited, aired for millions of people to see.

But Layla?

Layla isn’t a reality show. She isn’t entertainment. She isn’t a spectacle for people to comment on.

She’s your daughter.

You take a deep breath. “Tony?”

He makes a sleepy sound in response, his fingers stilling against your skin. “Mm?”

You hesitate, then sigh. “I think we should stop the show.”

Tony immediately perks up, blinking down at you. “Wait, what?”

You shift, turning on your side so you can meet his eyes. “Not forever,” you clarify. “Just… until Layla is old enough to make that choice for herself.”

He’s quiet, considering. You can see his mind working, his lips pressing together as he thinks.

And then—

“You’re right.”

You blink. “Wait, really?”

Tony exhales, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I mean, I love the attention, obviously,” he jokes, but then his expression softens. “But this isn’t just about us anymore. It’s about her.”

He shifts, propping himself up on his elbow, his other hand still resting on your belly. “I don’t want Layla growing up with a camera in her face twenty-four seven,” he continues. “I don’t want strangers on the internet dissecting her every move, turning her into some… public figure before she even knows who she is.”

You nod, relieved. “Exactly.”

Tony sighs, leaning down to kiss your forehead. “I still want to document everything, though.”

You smile. “Obviously.”

“No, but I mean us,” he says. “Like… personal videos. Just for her. So she can look back and see how much we loved her before she was even born.”

Your heart melts. “That’s a great idea.”

His lips quirk up. “Of course it is.”

You roll your eyes but pull him down for a kiss anyway.

—

The next morning, you and Tony sit down in the living room, facing the cameras for one last announcement.

“Well, folks,” Tony starts, draping an arm around your shoulders, “we’ve got some bittersweet news.”

You glance at him, amused. “Bittersweet?”

“Hey, I like to think our audience loves us,” he grins. “They’re gonna be devastated.”

You shake your head but look back at the camera. “As you all know, we’re expecting our first child soon.”

“Little Miss Layla Stark,” Tony adds proudly.

You smile. “And because of that, we’ve decided to put the show on pause.”

Tony nods. “Yeah, we’re gonna take a break from the whole ‘constant surveillance’ thing. Give our kid some privacy, let her be a kid before throwing her into the media circus.”

You squeeze his hand. “This isn’t goodbye forever. Maybe one day, when Layla’s old enough, we’ll come back.”

Tony smirks. “I mean, obviously we’ll have a big return special. Maybe Layla’s first TV appearance.”

You laugh. “Only if she wants to.”

Tony sighs dramatically. “Fine.”

Then, he looks straight into the camera, grinning. “But don’t think you’ve seen the last of us. We’ll be back. Maybe for a wedding anniversary special. Maybe a family special.”

You nudge him playfully. “Maybe not.”

Tony winks. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

The camera fades to black.

—

The internet erupts.

—

"THE SHOW IS ENDING????"

"NOOOO I NEED MY WEEKLY DOSE OF TONY & Y/N"

"Okay but respect, they’re doing what’s best for their daughter"

"Not me crying like they’re my real family"

"Imagine the RETURN SPECIAL THO, we’re gonna be starving for years"

—

With the cameras finally off, your home feels different. Quieter. More yours.

Tony still records little videos—private ones, just for you and Layla. Some are just the two of you talking to the camera, telling her about your day. Others are candid, like Tony whispering to your belly, or the moment Layla’s nursery is finished, or late-night cravings runs.

But this time?

It’s not for the world.

It’s just for her.

It happens in the middle of the night.

One moment, you’re peacefully sleeping—well, as peaceful as you can be at nearly nine months pregnant. The next, a sharp, undeniable pain rips through your lower abdomen, jolting you awake with a startled gasp.

At first, you think it’s just another Braxton Hicks contraction. You’ve had plenty of those lately, and they always come at the most inconvenient times. But then the pain doesn’t stop—it intensifies, making your entire body tense.

Then, the feeling of something wet.

Oh, shit.

Your water just broke.

For a second, you just sit there, blinking in the dim light of your bedroom, trying to process what’s happening. And then, it hits you—

This is it.

Layla is coming.

Your hand immediately reaches out, shaking Tony’s shoulder. “Tony.”

He groans, still half-asleep, mumbling something incoherent as he tries to turn over.

You shake him harder. “Tony, wake up!”

His eyes flutter open, unfocused. “Huh? What—?”

Another contraction slams through you, and you whimper, gripping your stomach. “Tony!”

That gets his attention.

His eyes snap open, immediately locking onto your face. He takes in your tense posture, the way you’re clutching your belly, the panic in your expression.

And then—

“Oh, shit.”

He launches out of bed so fast he nearly falls, scrambling for his phone. His hands are shaking so much he drops it, cursing as he bends down to pick it up.

“Uh—okay, okay, uh—hospital! Right! Gotta—gotta get you to the hospital!” He’s moving frantically, throwing on a hoodie, grabbing random things, his brain clearly short-circuiting.

You grip the edge of the bed, breathing through another contraction. “Tony, breathe.”

He spins around, pointing at you wildly. “Me?! Me breathe?! You’re telling me to breathe?! You’re the one in labor!”

Despite the pain, you let out a weak, breathy laugh. “I need you to be calm right now.”

Tony takes a deep, sharp breath. Nods. “Right. Right, okay. Calm. I can do calm.”

Then, another contraction hits, and you whimper in pain.

And just like that, Tony completely loses it again.

“Nope, screw calm, we’re going, we’re leaving NOW!”

—

The drive to the hospital is a mess.

Tony is gripping the steering wheel like his life depends on it, going at least twenty miles over the speed limit.

Meanwhile, you’re in the passenger seat, gripping his hand so tightly he winces every time you squeeze.

“Almost there,” he keeps saying, over and over. “Just hang in there, babe, I got you, we’re almost there.”

The second you arrive, Tony throws the car into park and bolts around to your side, practically scooping you up into his arms before rushing inside.

“SOMEONE HELP!” he shouts at the front desk, frantic. “MY WIFE IS HAVING A BABY—LIKE, RIGHT NOW!”

The nurses immediately jump into action, a wheelchair appearing within seconds. Tony barely has time to process before they’re already wheeling you away, guiding him to change into scrubs, and suddenly—

It’s happening.

—

Tony thought he knew what to expect.

He’s read the books. He’s listened to the doctors. He’s watched the videos.

But nothing—absolutely nothing—could have prepared him for the moment he sees you in that hospital bed, gripping his hand like it’s your lifeline, sweat dripping down your forehead as you struggle to bring your daughter into the world.

He’s never felt so useless in his life.

He hates seeing you in pain. Hates hearing your cries, hates the way you’re struggling, hates that he can’t do anything except whisper encouragements and stroke your hair.

“You’re doing amazing,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead against yours. “Just a little more, baby, you got this.”

You’re exhausted. Every part of you hurts, and you feel like you can’t do this anymore—but then, with one last, desperate push—

The sound of a baby’s cry fills the room.

And just like that—

Layla Stark is here.

Tony freezes.

The doctor lifts her up—tiny, tiny, covered in evidence of birth, her face scrunched up as she screams.

And Tony?

Tony completely falls apart.

Because holy shit.

She’s his.

His daughter.

His heart shatters in the best way possible, his eyes instantly welling up with tears. He doesn’t even care that people are watching—he just laughs, breathless and overwhelmed, completely gone for this tiny, screaming little person.

You’re crying too—exhausted, but so relieved, so happy.

And then—Layla is in your arms.

She’s so small. Tiny little fingers, tiny little toes, her face still red and scrunched as she wails.

And Tony?

Tony is a goner.

He reverently reaches out, tracing a finger over her impossibly small hand—

And then—

Layla Stark wraps her tiny, chubby fingers around his finger.

Tony gasps. His breath catches. His heart stops.

His lips part, eyes wide as he stares at his daughter, completely wrecked.

And then—

“Oh, I’m so screwed.”

You laugh weakly, still breathless. “She’s already got you wrapped around her little finger, huh?”

Tony sniffs, barely holding back tears. “Immediately.”

Layla lets out another tiny wail, and Tony—fully, utterly in love—leans down to press a soft, shaky kiss to her forehead.

“Hey, baby girl,” he whispers. His voice cracks slightly, and he lets out a wet chuckle. “It’s me. It’s your dad.”

Layla squirms, still making little noises, but Tony doesn’t care.

Because she’s here.

She’s real.

And she’s his.

Bringing Layla home is both the most exciting and terrifying moment of your life.

The house feels different the second you step inside with her in your arms—like it’s not just yours and Tony’s anymore. It belongs to her now, too.

Tony hovers the entire time, shifting from overprotective to completely obsessed in the span of seconds. The moment you settle onto the couch, he’s already double-checking the baby monitor, the temperature of the room, the entire security system.

“Tony,” you sigh, exhausted but amused.

He glances up. “What?”

“She’s been home for five minutes.”

“Exactly,” he says, setting his tablet down and moving toward you. “We’ve had her for five minutes, and I’m already considering putting JARVIS on full lockdown mode.”

You roll your eyes. “Just come sit with us.”

Tony doesn’t hesitate. He settles beside you, immediately peering down at Layla, who’s bundled up in soft pink blankets, her tiny chest rising and falling with steady breaths.

“She’s so small,” he murmurs.

You smile. “She won’t be small for long.”

Tony huffs, resting his head against yours. “I don’t like that.”

You laugh. “Well, it’s happening anyway.”

Layla stirs slightly in your arms, her face scrunching up before she lets out a tiny, sleepy sigh.

And just like that—Tony melts all over again.

—

The first few months with a newborn are chaos.

Layla runs your entire lives.

She wakes up at all hours, demanding attention, food, or just a simple snuggle. Some nights, you’re both up, groggy and exhausted as you take turns rocking her back to sleep.

But Tony?

Tony doesn’t mind it.

Sure, he complains—but the second Layla’s in his arms, those complaints turn into soft murmurs and whispered reassurances, his voice gentle as he cradles her against his chest.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he mumbles one night, pacing the nursery at three a.m.. “Otherwise, this whole ‘waking up at random hours’ thing would not be working out.”

Layla lets out a tiny squeak, nuzzling into his chest.

And Tony—completely, utterly wrapped around her tiny little finger—just sighs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Yeah, yeah,” he whispers. “I love you too, kid.”

—

Her first smile happens when she’s about two months old.

Tony swears it’s at him first.

You disagree.

But the second her little face lights up at the sight of her dad, you know there’s no chance of winning this argument.

“See?” Tony says proudly, bouncing her slightly in his arms. “She loves me.”

You roll your eyes. “She loves both of us.”

Layla coos, her tiny hands reaching out to grab Tony’s goatee.

He winces but laughs anyway. “Yeah, yeah, kid, I know you’re obsessed with me.”

—

Her first word comes when she’s nearly a year old.

And of course—because Tony Stark is the most dramatic man on the planet—it has to be something that boosts his ego.

“Dada.”

Tony freezes.

You swear he stops breathing for a second.

Layla looks up at him with wide eyes, a gummy grin on her face, and says it again.

“Dada!”

Tony gasps.

You groan.

“Oh, great,” you mutter. “Like his ego wasn’t big enough already.”

Tony spins toward you, clutching Layla to his chest like she’s just given him the greatest gift in the world. “Did you hear that?!”

You cross your arms. “Yeah, yeah.”

Tony grins so wide it looks like his face might split in half. “SHE SAID DADA.”

Layla claps.

And just like that—Tony is gone for her all over again.

—

Her first steps happen when she’s barely a year and a half old.

She’s been wobbling for weeks, standing on unsteady little feet, holding onto furniture, so close to walking.

And then one day—

Tony is sitting on the floor across from her, arms outstretched, encouraging her with a bright, excited grin.

“C’mon, baby girl,” he coaxes. “You got this.”

Layla wobbles.

Then—

One step.

Then another.

Then—

She launches into Tony’s arms with a delighted squeal.

And Tony?

He immediately scoops her up, spinning her around with a triumphant whoop.

“THAT’S MY GIRL!”

You laugh, shaking your head. “You’re gonna hype her up too much.”

Tony blows a raspberry against Layla’s cheek, making her giggle. “Too much? Impossible.”

—

Layla grows up so fast.

And Tony?

Tony is there for every second of it.

From teaching her how to build tiny, kid-safe machines in his lab, to letting her “help” with his Iron Man suit (which really just means she sticks stickers on it), to indulging every single one of her whims—he’s there.

He adores her.

And she adores him right back.

—

By the time Layla turns six, the house is full of even more life, even more laughter.

And—

You’re pregnant again.

Tony finds out when Layla hands him a handmade card one morning, grinning up at him as she watches him open it.

Inside—

A drawing.

A little stick-figure family.

Tony. You. Layla.

And a tiny fourth figure, drawn with little hearts around it.

Tony stares.

And then—

His head snaps up, his eyes wide as he stares at you.

You just smile.

And Tony?

Tony almost faints.

—

The decision to reopen the show comes naturally.

Layla is older now, old enough to understand what the cameras mean.

And with another baby on the way…

Well.

Why not document it?

So one night, Tony makes the big announcement.

He sits in front of the camera, Layla perched in his lap, you beside him, your belly just barely showing.

“Well, well, well,” he grins. “Bet you all missed us.”

Layla giggles.

Tony winks at the camera. “That’s right, folks. The Stark Reality is back.”

And just like that—

The internet explodes.

The first episode of The Stark Reality: Family Edition premieres on a Friday night, and within minutes, the internet is in shambles.

It starts innocently enough—a sleek title sequence featuring clips of Tony in the lab, you organizing things in the house, and then—

Layla.

The world sees her for the very first time.

A six-year-old hurricane with wild curls, too much energy, and her father’s chaotic tendencies.

And from the moment she appears on screen, people are hooked.

—

The episode kicks off with Tony standing in front of the camera, looking smug.

"Alright, people. You've seen me save the world. You’ve seen me run a company. But you have never seen me do something this terrifying."

A beat.

Then—

"Parenting."

Cue a smash cut to Layla running through the house screaming, a roll of toilet paper streaming behind her like a cape.

Tony chases after her, yelling, "LAYLA, NO! NOT THE STARK TOILET PAPER! THAT'S EXPENSIVE!"

The audience is hooked immediately.

—

One of the highlights of the episode is a segment where Tony tries to teach Layla how to build something in the lab.

It goes about as well as expected.

"Alright, kid," Tony says, crouching next to her. "This is a simple circuit. We just have to connect this wire to—"

Layla, bored already, pokes the machine. "Can I make it explode?"

Tony pauses. "I—okay, yes, technically, but—"

Cue Layla pressing random buttons.

Cue Tony screeching.

Cue an immediate power outage.

JARVIS’s voice echoes through the darkness. “Sir, I must once again request that you supervise your daughter more closely in the lab.”

Tony sighs. “Yeah, yeah.”

—

Another fan-favorite moment is breakfast time in the Stark household.

The clip opens with you making coffee, looking half-asleep, while Tony and Layla sit at the table.

Layla swings her legs under the chair, grinning at her dad. “Can I have ice cream for breakfast?”

Tony doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”

You, without even looking up, say, “No.”

Layla frowns. “But Daddy said—”

Tony clears his throat and looks away. “I never said that.”

A dramatic zoom-in on Layla’s betrayed expression follows.

Cue the internet losing its mind.

—

And of course—because Layla Stark is a menace—there’s a segment of pure chaos.

The camera catches her sneaking into the living room while Tony is distracted. She grins at the camera, one finger over her lips in a shushing motion.

Then—

She grabs the TV remote.

Tony, from the other room: “LAYLA, DON’T YOU DARE—”

The TV blasts to full volume, playing Baby Shark.

Tony screams.

Layla cackles.

JARVIS: “Sir, would you like me to intervene?”

Tony, defeated: “No, let me suffer.”

—

By the time the episode ends, the internet has completely lost its mind.

Twitter explodes within minutes:

NOT TONY STARK GETTING OUTSMARTED BY A SIX-YEAR-OLD. 💀💀💀

Layla Stark world domination WHEN?

I’ve never seen a man so powerful be so weak for someone. Tony said “no” to the Avengers but said yes to Layla asking for a puppy.

Layla Stark is already richer and funnier than me and she’s SIX.

“Let me suffer” - Tony Stark, a broken man.

—

People are obsessed.

Layla goes viral immediately. Clips of her chaotic moments rack up millions of views within hours.

Some fans even make edits of her, complete with dramatic music and captions like "Layla Stark: Agent of Chaos".

Tony, of course, eats up the attention.

“She’s a star,” he tells you smugly, scrolling through Twitter.

You groan, rubbing your temples. “She’s six.”

Layla, from across the room: “I’m famous?”

Tony grins. “Oh yeah, kid. You’re a sensation.”

And Layla, because she’s her father’s daughter, just smirks and says, “Nice.”

—

The first episode is a massive success.

But one thing is clear—

Layla Stark is the real star of the show.

The next few episodes of The Stark Reality: Family Edition only solidify one undeniable fact—Layla Stark is a scene-stealer.

Every episode, every clip, every chaotic six-year-old moment only makes the internet love her more.

And somehow, amidst all the hilarity, the heartwarming family moments make people even more obsessed.

—

The second episode opens with Tony attempting to make breakfast again—because the internet loved the last disaster.

He stands at the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, looking far too confident as he flips a pancake. “See? I got this.”

Layla, sitting on the counter and kicking her legs, watches intently.

You sit at the table, already sipping coffee, waiting for whatever chaos is about to unfold.

Tony flips another pancake. It lands perfectly.

Layla gasps.

The camera zooms in on her starstruck expression. “Daddy, you’re a genius.”

Tony grins, puffing his chest out. “I know.”

And then—because the universe loves to humble him—he tries to flip a third pancake.

It flies straight into his face.

Layla screams with laughter.

You almost spit out your coffee.

The internet loses its mind.

—

NOT TONY STARK GETTING TAKEN OUT BY A PANCAKE.

Layla’s little gasp like she’s watching her hero and then watching him FAIL. 🤣

Every episode, I lose more and more respect for Tony Stark as a competent adult.

Layla’s laugh is literally the best sound in the world. Protect this kid at all costs.

—

Another moment that has the internet screaming is Layla’s… possessiveness.

Specifically, when it comes to her parents.

The first time it happens, the cameras catch Tony wrapping his arms around you from behind, pressing a kiss to your cheek as you laugh.

Cue—

Layla glaring.

She marches over, shoves herself between you two, and plants her hands on her hips.

“Hey!”

Tony blinks. “Uh… hey?”

Layla scowls. “That’s my mommy!”

Tony gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “Excuse me?!”

“You heard me.” Layla crosses her arms, looking way too much like her father. “She’s mine.”

You try so hard not to laugh.

Tony, ever the drama queen, drops to his knees. “Are you telling me… I can’t hug my wife?”

Layla, looking dead serious, nods. “Yes.”

Tony fake cries. “Betrayed by my own daughter.”

And then—Layla suddenly frowns, like she just realized something.

She whips around to you, eyes narrowing. “But he’s my daddy.”

You blink. “Uh… yes?”

She gasps. “So you can’t hug him either!”

Tony chokes. “Wait, wait, wait—”

Layla throws her arms out dramatically, officially declaring, “NO ONE gets hugs!”

The internet dies.

—

LAYLA SAID EQUALITY ONLY. If she can’t have them both, then no one gets them. 😭😭😭

Tony is so dramatic for fake crying on the floor like this isn’t his literal child.

Layla really said “THAT’S MY MOMMY” like Tony wasn’t married to her. 💀💀💀

Tony’s face when he realized Layla wasn’t only jealous for Y/N but also for him took me out. 🤣

—

But of course, despite her jealousy, Layla is still the sweetest.

Especially when it comes to the baby.

She’s obsessed.

Mostly because she sees Tony constantly talking to your belly and decides she needs to do the exact same thing.

The first time the cameras catch it, Tony is kneeling in front of you, hands on your belly, grinning as he murmurs, “Hey, kiddo. This is your super cool dad speaking.”

Layla, sitting on the couch, watches very closely.

Then—she scrambles down, marches over, and nudges Tony out of the way.

“Move, Daddy.”

Tony blinks. “What—hey!”

Layla presses her hands to your belly, eyes narrowing in concentration.

Then—

She whispers: “Hey. It’s me, your big sister.”

Tony melts.

You bite your lip to hold back a laugh. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to whisper.”

Layla ignores you.

She leans in closer.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she whispers conspiratorially. “But when you come out, I’ll protect you.”

Tony gasps.

Layla nods firmly. “I won’t let Daddy steal you away.”

Tony clutches his chest. “WHAT?!”

Layla turns to him, very serious. “I know your game, Daddy.”

Tony sputters. “My game?!”

Layla narrows her eyes. “You tried to steal Mommy from me. You’re not stealing this one.”

Cue you absolutely dying of laughter.

Cue Tony looking offended.

Cue the internet breaking over how hilarious Layla is.

—

“I won’t let Daddy steal you away” LAYLA I AM SCREAMING.

Layla declared WAR on Tony over a baby who isn’t even born yet. 😭😭😭

The way Layla whispered “I’ll protect you” like she’s on a secret mission. 😭💀

Tony is losing more and more family members every episode. First Y/N, now the baby. By Season 2, he’s gonna be exiled.

—

The new season is already a massive success.

Layla has the world wrapped around her tiny finger—just like she has her father.

And with each new episode, one thing becomes even more obvious—

The Starks are hilarious.

And the world cannot get enough.

[dontjudgemymuffin]

superman and the dumb blonde trope

spoilers ahead, obvi.

But I was thinking about

Eve Teschmacher (side note tech master sounds like a villain name but I don't know/care about Superman's villains enough to make a connection there)

Eve is a genius. I'm not overstating things here; she is. Not only the whole selfie ruse to get all that incriminating evidence, but also:

The way she Knows she's being watched so so closely by Lex that she found an alleyway that doesn't appear on traffic cams.

She's the only regular human in the antarctic who wears a hat? Which sounds just like a fashion thing but Lex was mad dumb walking around with no hair and no face/head covering. That's how you lose an ear.

And finally, the scene where she breaks down and calls Jimmy is played for laughs. But she picked a Good hiding spot actually. It's a service closet with extra computer bits that you Do Not Notice in any other scene of the movie.

The joke is supposed to be that her voice is easily heard from the outside. The camera even passes over to Ultraman who looks up and over to where he immediately knows she is and that she's talking about betraying lex. BUT we don't see anybody else react in that shot why??? Because frickin ULTRA man is the only one that could've heard her, we the audience are experiencing that scene as if we can hear and see what he can.

No shit he heard her. Even if he's not to the level as OG supes, he still got a grab bag of super senses.

Anyway Eve's really smart, she's just also hot so dudes are always underestimating her.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

How do I write mean insults that's in character for a character to say? I'm personally poor at coming up with insults that don't sound generic or would actually cut deep, being mean in general. I want to write a snarky character with a dry sense of humour when it calls for it but don't know how to go about it.

He's also recovering from a superiority and inferiority complex.

As the writer, you know your character best, and what insults would make sense for them to say (also considering the bigger context of the scene). So, I'll just provide you with a compilation of prompts and notes from different sources, and you can choose which ones are most appropriate to incorporate in your story.

Writing Notes: Insults & Dry Humor

A List of "Sophisticated" Insults

Craven - having or showing a complete lack of courage; very cowardly

Fatuous - silly or stupid; complacently or inanely foolish. From Latin infatuate, which once meant "to make foolish," but which now usually means "to inspire with foolish love or admiration."

Insipid - not interesting or exciting; dull or boring

Obstreperous - difficult to control and often noisy

Obtuse - stupid or unintelligent; not able to think clearly or to understand what is obvious or simple

Pusillanimous - weak and afraid of danger. It's been used by such notables as Ralph Waldo Emerson ("It is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbours"), and the disgraced Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who called journalists "pusillanimous pussyfooters."

Sanctimonious - pretending to be morally better than other people. It once meant "possessing sanctity; holy, sacred." The genuinely holy aspect faded, and William Shakespeare is credited with first using sanctimonious to mean "hypocritically pious or devout."

Twee - sweet or cute in a way that is silly or sentimental. Just as buddy is believed to be a baby talk alteration of "brother", twee is a baby talk alteration of "sweet". Although twee is still considered a chiefly British term, it's increasingly popular in American English.

Unctuous - revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, and false earnestness or spirituality. Unction can mean "anointment" or it can name something used to anoint, such as a soothing or lubricating oil. That idea of oiliness led to unctuous, which can describe the slickness of false sincerity.

Vacuous - having or showing a lack of intelligence or serious thought; lacking meaning, importance, or substance

The insult would also depend on which other character it is directed at. Here is a list of "funny" insults for adults from Reader's Digest:

My days of not taking you seriously have come to a middle.

You are the human equivalent of a participation trophy.

If you were a spice, you’d be flour.

You may have a sparsely attended funeral.

I smell something burning. Are you trying to think again?

You’re like a lighthouse in a desert: bright but not very useful.

Don’t worry—the first 30 years of childhood are always the hardest.

May your life be as pleasant as you are.

You’re as useless as the “ueue” in “queue.”

Your face is just fine. It’s your personality that’s the issue.

...and for your character's significant other:

I like you. People say I have no taste, but I like you.

You continue to meet my expectations.

I’ll never forget the first time we met. But I’ll keep trying.

If genius skips a generation, our kids will be brilliant.

We were happily married for a month. Too bad it’s our 10-year anniversary.

I admire the way you try so hard.

You’re entitled to your incorrect opinion.

Have you tried doing it the way I told you to the first time?

The best part of watching a show with you is when you fall asleep because then I can watch my show.

Don’t call me crazy—you’re the one who married me!

You can always alter these to better suit your character. You can read the full list here, which also includes some insults for kids, best friends, and family.

Tips for Better Humor Writing

Humor writing isn’t all about landing a good joke (except for when it is). In creative writing, the effect is usually a bit more nuanced. Here’s a few writing techniques to get you started:

Subvert expectations. Try to undermine the audience’s expectations or reform them with structural elements.

Save the best for last. Humor is often a release of tension, so the sentence builds that tension, and the pay-off—the punchline—happens most naturally at the end. This is also sometimes referred to as the “rule of three,” where two thoughts act as a build-up to the final humorous closer.

Use contrast. Are your characters in a terrifying situation? Add something light, like a man obsessing about his briefcase instead of the T-Rex looming behind him.

Use good wordplay. Sometimes words themselves are funny, and just as often, their placement in a sentence can make a difference. Some words are just funnier than others, so make a list of those that amuse you the most.

Take advantage of cliché. While clichés are something most writers try to avoid, it’s important to recognize them,so you can use them to your advantage. Humor relies in part on twisting a cliché—transforming or undermining it. You do this by setting up an expectation based on the cliché and then providing a surprise outcome. In humor writing, this process is called reforming.

Use humor as a counterbalance. If you just pile on one terrible thing after another, it starts to become ridiculous, and people won’t buy it. Using humor is a great way to achieve the proper balance between fantasy and real life. Remember, if a roller coaster only did twists and turns the whole time, it wouldn’t be as fun to ride.

Level of Intensity

There are people who shrug off an insult (“That’s just the way she is”) and people who commit murder over an insult (“I’m avenging my honor!”). Plus, of course, everything in between. Which is your character?

To be believable, consider the following:

Personality. How hard does your character take events in general? Does s/he get really excited over good fortune and really depressed over setbacks? Then we’ll find it believable that s/he gets really angry and reacts accordingly.

The second cause of an intense reaction is the nature of the specific fight that you’re creating on the page. Lily Owens lets most of her father’s insults go by (“the art of survival”). But when he starts in about her mother, the topic is too important to Lily to gloss over. Lily’s reaction is intense. She runs away. Another type of character might merely have seethed silently. Still another might have fought T. Ray more intensively, setting fire to the house with him inside.

Finally, the strength of fights is culturally determined. Where public or even private scenes are disapproved of (upper-class London, old-money Boston, “well-behaved” families), arguments may be muted, even when the subject matters a great deal. In other cultures, volatility is not frowned on, and people may feel free to scream at each other in public. In extreme cases, murder may even be considered a duty, as in avenging a sister’s sexual assault.

Where is your story taking place? Are your arguers in tune with local or family culture? Maybe not. You can create interesting effects by portraying the rebels against the local mores: the meek child born into a battling family, the furious feminist in polite 19th-century English society.

On Dry Humor

Dry humor - is all about the subtle irony of the facts being stated plainly; it is the contrast between sentiment and reality that makes the situation funny.

The technique is known for its simple, often matter-of-fact declarations that will make the audience laugh or be perplexed (humor is subjective, after all).

With dry humor, delivery and intention create a sort of comedic cognitive dissonance or contrast. Sometimes it is as simple as using a bit of sarcasm, but it can also be more than that.

Dry humor lives and dies on the back of doing less.

Less facial expressions, less props, less setup—less is often more when it comes to landing the joke. You aren’t using a big, dramatic setup or a grandiose vocabulary to make your point.

Essentially, these jokes are derived from saying the opposite of what is meant or delivering them in a way that purposefully counteracts the supposed meaning of what is being said.

Dry Humor in Writing

The function of dry humor has often been to highlight the absurd.

It is effectively executed in moments where satirization of the circumstances at play require little more than noting the facts aloud.

When writing this sort of humor, quick, cutting accuracy is key to making the jokes land.

Simplicity is king, and an honest statement of the facts will always lead the way to finding the funny.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Humour ⚜ Laughter & Humour

Hope this helps with your writing!

[pankowcrumbs]

The interview X Will Poulter

MasterList

Will Poulter Masterlist

Some people prepare for interviews with research, a list of questions, and maybe a cup of tea to steady the nerves.

I, on the other hand, was in a broom cupboard, wearing a wig from the costume department, oversized sunglasses, and a trench coat so long it dragged across the floor like a budget Sherlock Holmes.

“This is stupid,” I muttered to myself, adjusting the blonde wig that was sliding off my head with every breath.

But I’d made a bet. A very public, very ridiculous bet with the crew. If Will could make it through a press day without using the word “mental,” I’d have to conduct an entire interview with him in disguise. His favourite word, for the record, was used so frequently it should’ve been in the film’s script.

Of course, the one day he actually behaved himself was the one day I forgot he was competitive and a little smug.

So here I was. Ready to commit to the bit.

The room was already set up for interviews. Camera crew ready, lighting perfect, the PR rep outside chatting casually with a makeup artist. And there was Will, sitting comfortably in a chair across from the empty one I was meant to fill, looking like a bloody movie star in a plain white t-shirt and black jeans. Hair tousled, smile easy, and completely unaware that I was about to make a fool of myself.

“Alright, who’s this mystery interviewer then?” he asked the room.

“That’d be me,” I said, putting on the worst accent known to mankind somewhere between Scottish and… Australian?

Will turned to me and immediately raised an eyebrow.

“Oh absolutely not,” he said, bursting into laughter.

I strutted in, adjusting my sunglasses. “’Scuse me, sir. Professional journalist here, thank you very much.”

“Y/N, you look like you’ve lost a bet and half your dignity.”

I plopped into the chair opposite him, flipping open a notebook I’d borrowed from props. “I’ll have you know, I am one Gertrude Simmons. I write for Cinema Cuppa. Very exclusive.”

“Cinema Cuppa?” he said, chuckling. “That’s not even a real...wait, hang on, is this wig from the bar scene?”

“I have no idea what you’re referring to, sir,” I said in my very dodgy accent, clinging to character by the thread of my sanity. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

Will leaned back, arms crossed, clearly delighted. “Go on then, Gertrude.”

“Thank you. First question,” I said, looking at my notes. “What drew you to this role? And how does it feel playing the second-best romantic lead in the film?”

He blinked. “Second-best?”

“Yes,” I nodded gravely. “The female lead is just… dazzling. Captivating. Rumour is she’s a genius.”

“Oh is that right?” he said, biting back a grin. “I’ve heard she’s late to set and talks to her snacks.”

I gave him a death glare through my oversized sunglasses. “She’s method.”

He laughed again. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I don’t know who you’re referring to, but I’ll pass the compliment along.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes twinkling. “This is honestly one of the worst disguises I’ve ever seen. I’m so glad we’re recording this.”

“I’ll have you know,” I said, pushing the wig out of my eyes, “this look is intentional. It’s postmodern. Like if Nancy Drew and a telly remote had a baby.”

Will chuckled, shaking his head. “I genuinely can’t believe you’re committing to this.”

I cleared my throat and tried again. “Next question: Do you believe in love at first sight, or do you think that’s just something they made up for bad rom-coms?”

His expression softened, just slightly. “I believe in chemistry. Instant connection, yeah. But love? I think love comes later. When you’ve seen the person on a bad day. When you know how they take their tea. When they’ve seen you sulk because someone ate the last biscuit.”

My chest warmed at that. Typical Will always managing to sound poetic even when talking about biscuits.

“And do you think,” I said, keeping my voice steady, “that chemistry can be acted, or does it have to be real?”

He studied me, the question hanging in the air.

“I think it can be sparked on set, yeah,” he said. “But the best kind? The kind people feel that’s real. That’s the stuff you can’t fake.”

I swallowed, hard. Was it suddenly warm in here?

“Well, how lucky for you that your co-star is so talented, then,” I mumbled, hiding behind the notebook.

He smirked. “Yeah. She is.”

There was a pause. A long, charged one. And then

“Next question!” I blurted.

The rest of the interview was a blur of snark, giggles, and failed attempts to hold character. I asked him about his skincare routine (“mostly just stress and hope”), if he could do a backflip (he tried once, cracked his ankle, never again), and who his favourite Muppet was “Miss Piggy. She’s iconic. Bit of a diva. Reminds me of someone…”.

I retaliated by dramatically adjusting my sunglasses and muttering, “I will end you, sir.”

He was doubled over laughing by that point. The crew, too, had mostly stopped pretending this was anything other than a chaotic fever dream.

By the end, the wig was askew, I’d sweat through the trench coat, and Will had tears of laughter in his eyes.

“I’ve got to hand it to you,” he said as I stood to leave. “That was brilliant.”

“Thank you,” I said, dropping the accent finally. “I’ve decided Gertrude Simmons might get her own talk show.”

“She’d be cancelled by episode two.”

We walked off set together, my disguise slowly disintegrating like Cinderella at midnight.

He nudged me with his elbow. “You know, I’ve worked with a lot of actors. But none of them have ever interviewed me dressed like a crime-fighting pensioner.”

“High praise.”

“I mean it,” he said, smiling. “You’re not just talented. You’re fun. That’s rare.”

I looked at him, really looked at him. And for a moment, I didn’t feel like we were just co-stars on a job. I felt like maybe we were on the cusp of something else.

“You know,” I said slowly, “if this acting thing doesn’t work out, I might go full-time as an investigative reporter.”

“Let me know when you land your first scoop,” he replied. “I’ll be your inside source. For a price.”

“What’s the price?”

“Dinner,” he said, simply. “Your choice. No trench coats allowed.”

I grinned.

“Deal.”

Later that night, I collapsed on the hotel bed, wig flung across the floor like a dead possum. My phone buzzed with a message from Will:

You, me, dinner. Tomorrow. No disguises. Just us. xx

I smiled, biting my lip.

Who would’ve thought a badly executed prank interview would be the start of something so real?

Sometimes, chemistry doesn’t need a script.

Sometimes, it’s just there even if you’re wearing a wig and talking like a confused tour guide.

[rcmclachlan]

okay, so if you’re not writing the aquarium scene in the 118/217 scheming fix-it (god i love this) can you at least share what mishap and or shenanigan gets them banned from the aquarium?? (since you mentioned it in the tags i assume you picked one!)

The aquarium is Christopher's idea, because getting Buck and Tommy back together is the one thing he and Eddie can talk about without it devolving into shouting or week-long silences that make Eddie want to put his fist through his living room wall.

So if plotting to interfere in the open bear trap that is his idiot friends' breakup gets him an hour of uninterrupted screen time with Chris three times a week? He'll meddle in a way that would make even his abuela say, "cariño, that's a little much." He'll change his legal middle name to el metiche.

"Buck used to take me to see the otters when I was younger; they're his favorite. But the exhibit has been closed for a year because they've been redoing it," Chris says, then texts him a link to the aquarium website. "The big reopening is next week. If someone asked Buck to take Jee-Yun, he wouldn't be suspicious."

"Chris, you're a genius," Eddie says, a little awed. His entire body aches to reach through the laptop screen and across state lines to pull his kid into a hug, but all he can do is sit on his hands and hope his face shows all the love he feels.

A small, but genuine grin unfurls on Chris's face. "That's not news, dad."

Eddie decides to take the aquarium idea to what Chimney keeps calling the weekly 118-217 Shadow Summit to see if the rest of the group thinks it holds water—no pun intended—and is extremely offended when Dana gives him a slow blink and says, "That's actually not bad. Who came up with it?"

"Is it that hard to believe it was my idea?"

"Very."

Dana presses the rim of her wine glass to the sly, crimson curve of her mouth. With her victory rolls, winged eyeliner, and tattoos, she looks like the winner of a car show pinup contest. She also looks like an evil queen out of an old school Disney movie. At least five people in their general vicinity look like they'd thank her if she force-fed them a poisoned apple or turned into a giant dragon.

Eddie reaches into the bowl of popcorn by his elbow and throws a handful of it at her. She just takes a sip of her wine and serenely lets the kernels bounce off her.

"Knock it off before I put you both in a time out." Lucy drains the dregs of her beer and says to Chimney, "Having Buckley take your kid is the perfect excuse—she's, what, two? Three?"

"Five," Chim says with the heartache of a man whose baby is almost old enough to rent a car. "As long as we don't tell my wife that Jee's playing the part of the cutest MacGuffin ever in this little plot, we should be good. But how do we get Tommy there?"

"Short of planting a bomb in the penguin tank, I can't think of a reason Mr. Nature Boy himself would ever voluntarily go." Hen roots around in the popcorn bowl for the kernels with the most butter. "Actually, he might be thrilled if we did that. I don't think he likes birds very much."

Dana lifts a brow. "I smell a story."

"Does it smell like KFC?" Chim pops a pretzel in his mouth and chews loudly, grinning. "Once we've adjourned the cabal for the evening, remind me to tell you about Maurice."

Eddie doesn't know Nico very well—he can't get a read on the guy to save his life—but the smug smirk he's sporting looks entirely out of place. Nico takes the last mozzarella stick off the platter they'd ordered to share and puts it between his teeth like a cigar. He looks like the world's lamest oil baron.

Eddie looks at Dana in askance. Wordlessly, she plucks a piece of popcorn out of her hair and throws it at him. It nails him right between the eyes.

"Let me handle Kinard," Nico says. "I'll get him there, no problem."

To his credit, Nico does get Tommy to the aquarium the day of the sea otter exhibit grand reopening. And thanks to Chimney planting Chris's idea in Buck's head at the start of their next shift, Buck does take Jee-Yun.

Unfortunately, their paths never cross, because while the penguin habitat doesn't explode, the sea jelly gallery does, completely flooding the first floor. When the aquarium is forced to evacuate everyone, Buck and Jee-Yun end up at the Chili's down the street, while Tommy ends up riding in an ambulance with an old woman who gets stung by a box jellyfish.

"I don't understand how this happened!" Lucy shouts, keeping her fingers on the ankle pulse of a man in the middle of an allergic reaction to a lilliputian jelly sting as Hen and Chim pump him full of epinephrine and then start administering compressions.

Eddie would help, but he's carrying three kids—two in his arms, one on his back—through shin-deep water to safety while attempting to dodge all the bluebottles floating on the surface. Dana glides past him to get the next group of kids waiting to be rescued, not a hair out of place. She looks like a fucking mermaid. He's gonna trip her the next time they pass each other.

Annoyed, Lucy casts around and then asks, "Has anyone seen Nico?"

Just in time for the man himself to sedately walk through the pandemonium, two bewildered penguins tucked under his arms like purses. He smiles brightly. "Hey, did Kinard pass through here, by any chance? Phase two of my plan is ready to go."

Eddie stares at him. "What was phase one?"

He never does find out what exactly phase one entailed, but it's enough to get them permanently banned from the aquarium for life.

"If you ask me, the punishment so does not fit the crime," Nico says, digging an elbow into Eddie's side as he jostles for room in the back of Athena's squad car.

Eddie says nothing. He's too busy mentally composing the short-answer portion of his application for the El Paso Fire Department, although, in the end, it doesn't matter. He completely forgets everything he plans on writing when Athena slides in, glances in the rearview mirror, and shouts, "Those better not be penguins in my back seat, Edmundo Diaz!"

He and Chris spend two hours talking about it during their next call, so Eddie calls it a win.

[flights-of-fandom-fancy]

The GENIUS Of Kpop Demon Hunters Third Act Breakup

This is a trope done RIGHT!

KPop Demon Hunters is easily one of the best animated movies I’ve seen this year, with amazing soundtrack, action, voice acting and story beats, and it all comes to the forefront in this movie’s version of the ‘third act breakup’. Please allow me to rant on how I think this movie succeeded immensely in what’s become a grossly overused and therefore predictable story beat throughout the years.

Spoilers under the cut!

1. You can see it coming.

And I don’t mean that as in it’s predictable, or cliche, but as in the movie does the actual work to make sure the breakup feels earned. KPop Demon Hunters is very skillful with how it introduced its structure; we get the first roughly ten minutes of the movie, where it’s pounded into our heads how close these girls are, how much they love each other and what they do together.

Their dynamic feels baked into their characters; they’ve had years together, and are a family who trust each other entirely, fighting by their sides, and they’re all so excited for what comes next, especially Rumi.

So when we see Rumi’s patterns, that she’s been hiding from them, it feels like a surprise to the audience, too. And it’s done in this gorgeous, soft part of this song, where we can feel her struggle and tension, and we can sympathize with this idea of keeping a part of yourself hidden out of fear of how those closest to us would react.

We can feel this scene.

The scene with Celine later, with her telling Rumi to cover up her markings, only makes this make more sense; Rumi is so close to the girls, it wouldn’t make sense for her to keep anything from them. When she loses her voice, she’s entirely honest about it, even if she’s trying to push herself. Even when she’s doubting what she knows about demons due to Jinu, and having trouble with the song Takedown, while she’s not addressing the deeper reason she’s thinking about it, she does talk to them, to try to get them to wonder, too. There is never any doubt that Rumi loves her friends and wants to tell them everything.

She was taught to hide this, that it was better to hide it until it was just gone altogether. Rumi knows it feels bad, but she thinks she’s doing the right thing, and that the problem with literally just go away, because she’s been told that by the person she’s been raised by.

Of course, that makes another one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in this movie hit so much harder, but that’s a whole other post.

Anyway, throughout the entire movie, this tension is building between Rumi and the girls very well. Rumi is repeatedly given the opportunity to admit it, and doesn’t, and we can see the girls (particularly Mira) know something is up, because they’re best friends. And it hurts Rumi, too! The complexity is so beautifully woven and built up, and keeps building at a nice steady pace throughout the entire first and second acts. To be honest, I guessed that the third act breakup was coming, but that didn’t diminish the value of it at all. It doesn’t only feel anticipatory, but almost inevitable.

And that is what most third act breakups are missing; they tend to come out of nowhere, be built on flimsy conflicts, etc, mostly used for a cheap darkest hour. KPop Demon Hunters makes you feel it building from almost the start.

But that’s not the only thing that makes it so genius.

2. We see the worst case scenario before the real one.

“Takedown” was not only a banger, but the scene itself is also Rumi’s absolute worst fear. In her eyes during this scene, not only do Mira and Zoey know, but are publicly humiliating her, shoving her around with no regard for their friendship together anymore. The scales have flipped from absolute love to malicious hatred. Rumi is learning that, somehow, however they learned, their friendship has been destroyed, their group has broken, everything she knows has been destroyed.

And, side note, Takedown was used so perfectly for this. It’s literally one written for the demons taken and turned around on her, not only exposing her identity as a half demon, but making it her whole identity. Narratively amazing.

And then… that’s not the reality.

Rumi dashes off stage exposed and crying, and it was all a hoax. She is absolutely relieved to see Mari and Zoey, and immediately figures out that it wasn’t them on stage; of course it wasn’t, Mari and Zoey would never be that cruel and malicious towards her! They’re her best friends!

…who are finding out the secret she’s been hiding this whole time.

And all at once, the Takedown scene almost seems pale. Rumi hasn’t lost everything, she’s actively losing it. Their friendship and group is being broken in that very moment, and she doesn’t get to miss seeing the heartbreak in their eyes, hear the disbelief in their voices. She’s desperately trying to explain herself, and we can see the conflict in Mira and Zoey both, the same conflict Rumi had, on what she is versus what they know.

The Takedown scene is good, but almost cartoonishly evil. It’s so out of character for Mira and Zoey, but we still feel bad for Rumi. Then, we get the reality, and it’s so much more real, earnest, awful (emotionally). Like the movie is saying “You thought the Takedown scene was bad? Watch this.”

It’s such a subtle way to boost the heartbreak of the scene, and it’s genius. Takedown to disarm Rumi, the actual breakup to hit her through the heart when she’s already down.

3. No one comes out unscathed.

Maybe a bit obvious, but again, this is a common pitfall of the third act breakup. It’ll happen for drama, and come back together for just as little reason, with only a simple “I’m sorry” and jumping back into the fight.

This movie takes the time to make you feel it. In the breakup scene itself, the heartbreak is awful; we feel for all the girls, not just Rumi. I’ve seen some people say that it was awful of Mira and Zoey to pull their weapons on their best friend, as if all their years together meant nothing, but that’s not what’s going on at all; the reason it takes them so long to pull out their weapons is because of those years. Remember one of the first things Mira says?

“Awww, you got the patterns. Now you gotta die.”

Mira and Zoey, just like Rumi, are internally battling everything they’ve been taught throughout their entire training and lives. But, of course, they can’t bring themselves to do it; they half-heartedly summon their weapons with pained expressions, and when Rumi runs away sobbing, they don’t follow.

Instead, they make their way onto the street, where we see them become so distraught by this happening, they’re prone to Gwi-Ma’s manipulation. It’s reinforced to us just how intrinsic their relationship as a group was to how they perceive themselves, and what happens when they break. The breakup stabs, and then twists the knife; all three girls are traumatized and hurt, and this movie makes you feel it.

Meanwhile, Rumi goes to confront Celine, arguably the one at fault for how Rumi sees herself, and how the girls see her now. And Celine hurts, too! We get this confrontation that was obviously a long time coming, and while I could rant about this scene on its own too, the main point is that it hurts. Celine doesn’t admit she’s wrong, she doubles down and still thinks she’s doing good, and it only hurts Rumi more.

I’ve seen some complaints that this conflict doesn’t get resolved, but honestly, I don’t mind it. Rumi reframes how she sees herself, and Celine… doesn’t get that closure. When we last see her, she’s devastated and betrayed, just like how Rumi felt. And I wouldn’t say she deserves it, necessarily, but she facilitated it.

Even after everything is said and done, the Honmoon is restored, etc, we get the bathhouse scene. As much as it’s played for comedy, the acknowledgment of what the girls went through, the risks, and how much they mean to each other is very important. Could’ve been longer, but important. It says that what happened will have a lasting impact, and not just be brushed over.

Conclusion

Of course, as a side note, none of these scenes would’ve hit like they did without the incredible voice acting. To me it was almost too good for this movie, almost. There were times when Rumi’s voice was shaking and sobbing and I was almost taken out of the experience by how genuine it was.

In summary, one of the best movies this year with some of the most well-done story beats. While not without its faults, I hope other movies and storytellers take a lesson from this and make a better-integrated third act as a result, breakup or not.

HUNTR/X DONT MISS 🗣️🗣️🗣️

[lunarriviera]

Hi! Hope you're doimg well! I wanted to ask, what do you do when you get stuck when writing? Like, I know I want to go from point A to point B, but I'm stuck at point A and not sure how to get to point B.

nonny i am busting in here all excitedly like the koolaid man at four in the god o’clock of the morning to answer this, because I ACTUALLY KNOW THIS ONE: 

the solution to this issue is, in fact, square brackets. like this: [???]

what? you say. how works this? you say. READ ON I WILL TELL YOU

so right now in the scene i’m trying to pull together/make into prose, from tattered drafts/sentences/allcaps/bullet points/etc., i have three things that need to happen: 1) police will search a suspect’s house, 2) one of them has to find something incriminating, 3) the suspect’s son has to burst in and cause a lot of trouble. those are my B points. but right now, i’m stuck at point A: shen yi and he rongyue are sitting in the car talking about feelings when they need to get out and go do their damn jobs. how do i get them to move. why aren’t they moving. why are they still sitting there talking, this isn’t brunch goddammit.

at this point as a writer, you get to make a decision: EITHER a) your idea about what needs to happen in this scene was all wrong, and the reason you’re “stuck” at point A is that maybe point A is actually a very interesting place for your characters to linger inside, and maybe they really need to be there a while longer, in case they have things to say or do. and point B maybe isn’t the point B you thought it was going to be, but it’s going to be something different (maybe shen yi and he rongyue realize they need backup, or they decide they’re going someplace else to do something different, instead).

OR: square brackets. it works like this. (and by the way i learned this from @seperis because she is literally a genius, thank you sep darling you should know saved my whole entire life.) here is some of my draft to illustrate:

[shen yi and he rongyue saying a bunch of words about feelings and things not related to the case they’re supposed to be investigating]

“I wonder,” said Shen Yi thoughtfully, “what would happen if you just asked her to go for a walk with you?”

[TK]

Shen Yi stopped in front of the painting and looked at it, at first out of habit, and then more closely, as he instinctively stepped back the correct distance to see both the whole canvas at once as well as its technique. From the other room, he could hear He Rongyue and [Name of Her Assistant] doing [something something something]. He still had on nitrile gloves, so he came closer again, to touch the varnish, feel along the grooves of the brushwork. He frowned. This wasn’t a reproduction—this was a genuine [name of painter redacted bc it’s a plot point and a surprise].

[TK]

“What the fuck are you people doing in my house?” came an aggrieved voice from the landing. Everyone turned to look up at the young man standing there, keys in one hand, a cup of iced coffee in the other. He was, Shen Yi realized, Huang Wei, and that was neither unexpected nor a particular problem, but the person with him was probably going to be a very particular problem indeed.

you can see how i gestured towards three different parts of this scene, even though i didn’t finish any of them here and have no idea what the connective tissue will be between them. and i did this by skipping huge wads of prose and just tossing in “[TK]” for now. ”TK” by the way is an abbreviation i learned while working for newspapers/magazines; journalists use it to mean “to come,” as in, “something important is missing here so i promise i will make a bunch of phone calls and get that detail/fact shoved in there before we go to press.” We use TK instead of TC because you can word-search TK and that letter combination isn’t in any english words (or at least very few; anyway i can’t think of any).

at some point, of course, you will have to fill in “[TK]” or rather, i will, here with all the stuff that’s missing—dialogue, action, and description, mostly; i tend not to summarize or use exposition much, but usually default to telling a story in-scene (a time-honored tradition in fanfic). but the beauty of TK and above all, the square brackets, is that you don’t bog down. you don’t go down a research rabbit hole because you can’t remember the name of He Rongyue’s assistant (Xiao something? Feng?) and you don’t wind yourself into knots figuring out how to get them out of the car and into the house. you keep moving, like a shark.

so if you’re stuck getting from A to B? stop trying to get from A to B. just SKIP there, skip to where you want to be. throw in “[something goes here]” so you remember to go back and add it later. if you have a general idea of what goes there, put that instead: “[somehow they get out of the car still talking and head inside. oh wait how do they break the door down. is jiang xue with them?]”—like that.

the trick with any piece of fic longer than, say, 7-8k, is NOT to get bogged down. anything with multiple scenes, really—even if you have, say, five scenes planned for your oneshot, you will find one really easy to write and then you’ll stare at the next one, which SHOULD be easy to write, for eleventy hours, sweating like that gif of jordan peele. don’t do that. just put “[this is the scene where chen fei throws a chair and ruan nanzhu says something cutting and walks out, and that’s the moment chen fei knows he actually likes the bastard.]” then skip! skip, skip. skip to the moment where you know the next thing that will happen! write that part instead! “it’s two years later and chen fei is furious, because he has to see that lovesick look on ruan nanzhu’s face whenever he thinks qiushi isn’t paying attention. the worst part is that lin qiushi is genuinely loveable, so chen fei can’t even hate him. he starts hiding in his room.” etc.

the thing about writing ANYTHING is not to lose momentum, not to get stuck in what novelist robert pirsig called “a gumption trap.” or, as alec baldwin’s character says in glengarry glen ross: always be closing. keep moving! don’t sit in one place too long or you really will get stuck. if you find yourself fussing with a paragraph, or adding more to a scene when you didn’t mean to add more instead of stopping and moving on, or pacing around the house irritated with yourself, drink a lot of very cold water and then SKIP.

skip to the part where you know what happens. if you don’t know what happens, either go for a long walk and think about what exactly Han Juwon or Naruto or Bob the Builder or Taylor Swift or Viktor Nikiforov or Wang Meng or whomstthefuckever would do/say in this situation. after about 15-20 minutes i’m usually either turning around to go home and write it down, or giving myself complicate mnemonics based on trees and street signs, so i have a chance of remembering what i just realized absolutely has to happen next in the story.

in conclusion:

1. [TK!] [square brackets are your friends!] [you can use them!] [to skip ahead!] [and leave a stuck spot BYYYYYEEEE hit da bricks] [and just go to a more pleasant spot where there’s a shady tree and some soft green grass to lie on]

2. …and then later when you take another pass through the document, on some day when you’re mentally fresher and maybe you haven’t read it for a couple days, you’ll find yourself adding a few sentences. or one sentence. or some words. it’s fine. it’s all fine. look we can’t all be out here writing a million words a year. some people do, sure. as writer annie dillard says, some people eat cars. but if you want to write something with some bite to it, some texture and grit and heft, you’re gonna endure some tortuous slowness and a lot of [TK]. so best start getting real comfortable with that now. if you wanted an easy hobby i have some difficult news for you, you picked the wrong fucking one.

3. the reward for your patience with yourself and your writing process will be all those times when you’re driving, showering, cooking, and/or DMing with bestie, and suddenly What's About To Happen Next will hit you like a bolt of lightning and nearly scalp you in the process. holy shit, you’ll say to yourself, stunned. i now know exactly who’s coming through the door with huang wei and it’s not at all who i thought it was. (this jolt of electricity is why people are pantsers, by the way. we suffer through our own cluelessness for an eternity, just to have that one shocking moment of godlike clarity. the crash usually sucks but the high is unbelievable.) (and i say this, but i always have an outline. i just usually mostly ignore it, because apparently my continued survival is predicated on the fact that imaginary people talk in my head and i just write down what they say.)

4. finally i have ABSOLUTELY written fics of every length just to get to One Particular Scene which i wrote first. i wrote the ending of my current long wip really early on, and everything leading up to it has just been me trying to figure out: okay, so what’s it going to take to get them there? in the words of george w. bush, whom i am not much given to quoting, you are the decider. you can decide to write your fic backwards if you want to! write C first and then go back and add B and at the very end A! no one will ever know, it’s between you and your drafts. then you can do what i do, and write an excessively long nervous a/n about it all, when you post.

this got long but tldr just remember: [tk]. love you have fun writing!!! <3 <3

[lemotmo]

I need to lie down and hyperventilate in private

Q. Help! That episode feels too good to be true. Did we actually just see all of that play out? The interviews scared me though because I don't know why any of them chose to talk like they did after everything we just watched. I just want some reassurance. I'm dying.

A. Okay I have a very big meeting today that I have to concentrate on which is wildly unfair because my brain is full of Buddie and I'm afraid I'm going to say it out loud accidentally at some point during the meeting. But because of that meeting I don't have the time today to answer everything in my box so I'm going to cover it all here. Here goes nothing.

I don't want to hear about the interviews. They're mostly irrelevant for now. Neither Oliver or Ryan said anything they wouldn't normally say when answering a question they can't fully honestly answer right now. And as for Tim, Tim likes to hear himself talk. And Tim also very much enjoys the game where he uses the episode post mortems to play with the audience. He likes to make people crazy. He likes to watch the spiral. That's it. This is fun for him. The GA is not reading these articles. He knows who he's speaking too. Giving you assurance means spoiling the story. He's not going to do that. Stop taking every word he says as literal. In the same breath he said he didn't want to lead people into thinking they're doing something they are not doing, he also said he was going to let the episodes speak for themselves. This episode spoke LOUDLY. This episode was basically shouting in our faces (shout-out to the prominently displayed artwork of the guy with the megaphone hanging on Eddie's wall). How loud was this episode? Let's take a look. Take the opening scene and the last scene for instance. The first scene shows Buck and Eddie on the same side of a wall, a glass wall, literally meaning you can see through it. When they start talking about Eddie moving away he physically moves himself to the other side of the wall, directly opposite of Buck. Visually showing a division of the pair, so their differing ways of dealing with their impending bigger separation. At the end of the scene though Buck opens the door to meet Eddie on his side of the wall. Signaling Buck's reluctant willingness to try and do this Eddie s way, but I'll come back to that. At the end of the episode we see the two of them again separated by another wall. However we cannot see through this wall. This wall indicates a separation of the two that will remove them from one another's line of sight, Buck in L.A. and Eddie in Texas. The wall has artwork from Buck's loft, including the pic of the guy with the megaphone, and Buck asks Eddie how he feels about tearing down the wall. The wall represents everything that stands in their way. Texas and everything Eddie has to do there before he can be ready. And this episode proved Buck is not there yet either. Buck needs to work on himself as well. They can't be together until they figure out how to remove their walls. They don't have to be healed, but they have to acknowledge the walls they've each created for themselves. If the episode only had those two scenes it would have been insane enough. But not only did we get those two scenes, we got everything that came in between.

Buck had genuine intentions when he offered to help Eddie show his house, but Buck doesn't want him to leave so he inadvertently, maybe slightly intentionally, sabotaged every single showing. This scene was heaven. This was straight out of a fanfic. They looked like husbands. They acted like husbands. BUCK WAS HOLDING A BASKETBALL WHILE ACTIVELY SABATOGING ONE OF THEM. Having Eddie say to one of them that the only things that matter are in Texas and having Buck overhear that was an amazing choice because it plays into Buck's biggest fear and the part of himself he desperately needs to confront and deal with. Using an actual dog to represent Buck's abandonment issues was genius. The dog was clearly Buck. When the family came to claim the dog Buck's conversation with the dog was for Eddie. He was talking to Eddie, but it was easier to hide behind the dog. Eddie not babying Buck is also huge. I don't know why people want him to make Buck a baby. But Eddie didn't owe him an apology in this episode. Buck was out of line repeatedly. And it's important in their dynamic that Eddie continues to call him out when he gets like that. Because he does listen to Eddie above anyone else. Buck broke my head in this episode but so did Eddie. They're both hurting and trying to deal with it in different ways.

The dialogue choices were jaw dropping. 'I'm sorry I outed you in front of cap and everyone'. That line being canon is bonkers. Because that wasn't nearly the easiest or cleanest way for Buck to say he was sorry. The obvious line would be I'm sorry I told everyone before you were ready. They actively made it more of an awkward line specifically to work a coming out reference into the dialogue. Eddie telling Buck if he's asking him to choose between him or his son he will lose every time was also next level insane because Buck has never, and would never ask Eddie to make that choice. But it's clearly what Eddie feels like he's having to do and right now ,for him, it's easier to make it sound like Buck is the one forcing him to choose. It's a coping mechanism. And not something Eddie is ready to unpack or examine yet. Then there's the fake name Buck gave himself: Freddie Fakeman. It's very on the nose but Freddie = Eddie and Fakeman = Eddie not being who he's supposed to be.

Buck gave up his loft. Just walked away. Because he loves Eddie in a way he doesn't fully understand or realize yet, but it's coming. Buck is close. And he wanted to ease the burden for his person. Eddie has never been loved like that. And right now he doesn't believe he's deserving of love like that. And probably doesn't understand why someone would love him like that. But his face at the end when he realized he doesn't have to ask for it. Buck will just always be there to help in any way he can. He just sometimes takes the more difficult route. That episode was stunning in every way. The Abby parallels are giving me life. Abby left and Buck moved in to wait for her to come home. Eddie is leaving and Buck is moving in fully believing that Eddie is not coming home. This is all intentional and done with purpose. There's no way to put the lid back on this box, anon. There is only one way out and that is getting Eddie out and them together. Things are going to happen between now and then obviously because neither one of them is ready yet but they've started both of them on the journey towards one another and it's not going to take long. This episode was LOUD.

Thank you Nonny!

I feel like I've been talking about this episode all day long now, adding new interesting tidbits to my observations and to my initial episode reaction.

All of the topics Ali touched upon here are so true. I agree with all of this. This is definitely the true point of no return for Buddie. The arc has been set in motion. No stopping them now! 😏

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[presidentofthelipglossclub]

GUESS WHO'S BIRTHDAY IT IS!!

in honor of my birthday here are some more rescue bots headcanons!!

they (as in constructed rescue bots) have extra color receptors which allows them to see more types of light than other bots, as well as advanced hearing (they’re also the only bots with noses so they have an extra sense)

all of them have outliers (its a requirement to be a rescue bot)

blurr changed his paint job (post s4, before he showed up in rid15) because heatwave and blades basically bullied him into it

the academy where they studied was on a moon of cybertron’s, and they actually spent very little time on cybertron itself. it was sorta like a field trip spot, and they went very infrequently

quickshadow was the academy's champion shot, and she won a bunch of competitions

the rescue bots all had specialties outside of what they actually did (heatwave was a history nerd, boulder studied xenobiology, blades took journalism, chase did psychology, quickshadow was a data analyst, hightide took astronomy)

hightide was actually friends with both orion pax and megatronus separately before they realized they all knew each other

in that same vein, servo and lazerbeak were longtime friends because they grew up together

optimus is so ridiculously tolerant towards whatever the rescue bots do that they actually have a running bet on how much they can get away with before optimus gets angry (he never once has)

blurr's reputation as most annoying bot ever has been intact since way before the war when he was a racer

blades got his name through an awkward mishap at an armory that heatwave never let him live down

related to that, all the rescue bots' "names" are really more of nicknames. their names are listed on documents but their primary identification is through serial numbers because they're cold constructs

boulder had a practically bullet proof reputation at the academy as the perfect student so whenever the others wanted to get away with something they always involved him

when salvage heard about DIY's he got super into them and started making tons of pointless stuff. he never even followed the good channels, only stuff like troom troom

chase succumbs to peer pressure ridiculously easy

heatwave gives really good advice but only on accident

quickshadow and hightide like to hang out and trash talk optimus whenever he does something they don't like

blades only has field medicine training, he's not cleared for any actual treatment outside of an emergency (he can do first aid and EMT stuff but can't, like, prescribe things or do surgery). this has not stopped him from trying things though.

salvage is actually from one of cybertron's colony worlds, but he grew up on cybertron

ok here's a fun little surprise in honor of my birthday: the humans are also included in headcanons!!

kade was actually very good at gymnastics, he just got bored of it

chief burns needs glasses but he prefers to wear contacts

dani had a very extreme scene core phase, and her hairstyle is a remnant of that

frankie has super high government security clearance as a super genius and daughter of one of the world's best scientists, so she knows all kinds of military secrets

doc greene and chief burns met in childhood, doc's family moved away, and then when he got older he moved back to griffin rock and reunited with the chief

graham is the biggest night owl because of college. sometimes, when he has trouble falling asleep, the bots invite him to movie night and they all watch reruns of old movies or shows

building off that, there are two kinds of movie night: the first is with the whole burns family, rescue team, and sometimes others such as optimus or the greenes. the second is less of a movie night and more of a "we need something to do while the humans are sleeping, let's watch trashy tv all night." this kind of movie night is really just the bots (minus whoever has night shift)

professor baranova actually used to be pretty upbeat, although she was a bit misunderstood because she's neurodivergent (i also headcanon that after the whole living underwater for 28 years thing she developed DID and multiple alters to cope with the loneliness, so she's now a system)

woodrow and optimus are in a qpr. optimus refers to him as his amica, and also privately thinks of him as his human partner

doc greene at some point developed a working synthetic energon formula completely independently. when ratchet first met him (post war, probably right before he was hired to work at the rescue academy) and learned about this he lost his shit

bumblebee and dani race together all the time when he visits

this is where i'm gonna stop this post, because it's pretty late for me lol. it was my birthday today, so happy birthday to me!!

also y'all PLEASE talk to me abt any of these headcanons i will be thrilled to elaborate!