#And how profoundly difficult it would be to convince him to take care of himself at all

[password-door-lock]

“Don't you ever get tired, boss?” You ask, peering over Unknown's shoulder at his screen.

He turns around to scowl at you. Yes, of course he gets fucking tired. That's by no means something he's proud of, and it's by no means something he wants to hear you prattling on about. Unknown has discovered that he likes having you around— it's nice to have someone to talk to, and even better that you're usually able to entertain him, at least to some degree— but he could do without the constant questions. You always want to know what he's working on (which is classified), what you can do to help (nothing whatsoever, unless you're sitting on a bunch of useful skills that have somehow managed to escape Unknown’s notice thus far), and, worst of all, how he's feeling (which is none of your goddamn business, actually). Unknown has no interest in anything even remotely resembling a conversation about emotions with you, let alone one about his physical state. 

“Hm,” he says eventually, not caring how you interpret the sound. It's none of his business how you interpret things, at least as long as you're keeping those interpretations to yourself and staying out of trouble.

“Then you should sleep,” you suggest, “I'm sure that it'll help you work better.”

“Oh, is that so?” Unknown hums, still not looking up from his screen— truth be told, he's barely listening to you. He couldn't care less what you think about his methods, though that certainly doesn't stop you from peppering him with moral qualms and concerns about his health under these working conditions— as if Unknown has any control over that, anyway. Why do you want to make him feel so powerless? Can't you just stay securely under his thumb and let him go about his business? 

“Yeah,” you reply, “It is. If you're tired, you should sleep. That’s kind of, like, basic knowledge 101, you know?”

“I can't sleep, prince(ss),” Unknown grits out. He’s annoyed that this is even a discussion. 

“Oh, you mean you can’t fall asleep?” You ask, probably trying to be helpful. Normally, Unknown wouldn't give a shit about anybody's intentions but his own or his Savior's... however, lately, he's begun to pick up on the fact that people can mean very well while somehow managing to remain insufferably annoying. He wouldn't have thought that this combination was possible until he met you— you should be proud of yourself, Unknown supposes, though not too proud— that would be a bit much. “Then that might be because of all the monitors. Maybe you’d be able to rest better if you turned a couple of them off.” 

“No,” he growls before you can give him another useless suggestion. Just because Unknown understands your motivations doesn't mean he's going to entertain any more nonsense from you. After all, he's your boss, not your friend— and honestly, boss isn't the term he originally would have selected, but it would be too much of a hassle to change anything now that you seem married to the idea. “I can't sleep unless that redhead sleeps, get it? He’ll attack and undo all my progress while I’m wasting time in dreamland.” And if that redhead is sleeping, then Unknown isn't going to sleep, either, because it'll give him an opportunity to get a leg up. If he rests only when his exhaustible body forces him to do so, then eventually, he’ll arrive at his revenge. 

“Well, if you're not sleeping, I'm not sleeping,” you declare, “And if you think I'm annoying now, you're just gonna love me when I'm sleep deprived.”

Unknown rolls his eyes at your sheer audacity. “Aw, do you think you're being clever?” He coos. “You can't control me that easily, assistant.” Lately, Unknown has gotten into the habit of calling you by your title as if it were a pet name of some kind. He likes the reaction that it gets from you, though he doesn’t understand it— if you’re so proud to be his assistant, then why do you constantly question him? Can’t you just leave well enough alone? 

“I’m just showing you how ridiculous and stubborn you’re being, boss. What are you gonna do about it?” You ask.

You’re challenging him, trusting that he’ll humor you as you test him in a vain attempt to prove a really useless point. Unknown isn’t sure why you couldn’t have applied this determination to chatting with the RFA, or at least going into that apartment. Maybe you would have been happier there, with people who would accept and embrace your affection and concern. But there’s no point in thinking about that now— you’re stuck with Unknown, and for all intents and purposes, he is equally stuck with you. 

Unknown just rolls his eyes at you again. Honestly, maybe he is starting to get tired, if you've managed to get under his skin so easily— but it doesn't matter whether he's tired or not. Unknown will get his work done regardless of his physical condition, and you should get that through your head as soon as possible. “You're gonna go lay down on the couch and shut your mouth,” he intones, “Or else I'll send you to your room, and you can stay there alone. How does that sound, cutie?”

Even if you insist on staying awake to prove some useless point to him, eventually, you’ll drift off if you’re laying there not doing anything. That way, Unknown won’t have to worry about you while he’s working— of course, he isn’t at all concerned with your well being, he reminds himself. He just doesn’t want to have to waste time thinking about what kind of trouble you might be causing behind the scenes. 

“Wow, so cruel,” you pretend to lament with a pouting expression as you throw yourself onto the couch. You’re just joking, of course— you don’t actually think that about him. If you did, you wouldn't be able to say it so flippantly. You’re convinced that he’s a good person somewhere deep down, but Unknown might very well be cruel— no, scratch that. He knows for a fact that he's a bad guy to his core, a monster in every sense of the word. Unknown is by no means a nice person, but he knows how to get what he wants. That’s got to count for something, right? “But just promise me you’ll rest eventually, okay?” Your concern is evident in your voice, even if you try to hide it behind that playful tone. 

“Mhm. Maybe I’ll be able to rest when my assistant isn’t causing me so many problems,” he hums. It’s best to just humor you, to keep you from wasting time worrying when you could be helping Unknown with his revenge. Besides, he’s not even really lying— he’ll have to sleep eventually. No matter how many times he pushes his body to its limits, it never seems to get any stronger or better at staying awake when he needs it to.  “But if you want to stay with me, then you should start being quiet now.”

You don't respond, and for his part, Unknown counts it as a win.

[norahastuff]

Damn 5x17 and Cas is some intense stuff...I mean an angel losing what’s left of his faith? Sure he lost faith in heaven a while ago but he never lost faith in God. He needed that, his whole existence was based on devotion and faith to an unknowable absentee father but that was ok because Cas was convinced that his father was righteous. That despite not being around, he cared and wanted what was best for him, and when things were at their lowest he would be there.

Is there anyone who can relate to that? Hmmm...

Dean wasn’t on board with Cas’ quest to find God, at least not at first, but he recognised the same blind loyalty and desperate need in Cas that he’d had when he was looking for his father. When Dean tells Cas “there were times I was looking for my dad when all logic told said that he was dead,”  you know what the logic was? It wasn’t that there was no sign of him or that he was difficult to find, no, rather it was that he didn’t show up when Sam and Dean were alone and broken and needed him. When Dean called him desperate and crying in “Home” pleading for his help. Or when Sam tried to call him when Dean was dying in “Faith.” And yet he still didn’t answer.

Dean sees Cas going through the same thing and encourages Cas to keep looking, to keep the faith. It’s interesting because by encouraging Cas to do so, there’s a tiny part of Dean that begins to have a little faith in Cas’ plan too, a part that only grows the more desperate he gets. By 5x16 he is fully on board the “If God doesn’t help there’s no hope” train with Cas. If I’m remembering right, 5x14 is one of only two occasions he’s ever prayed to God, the other being in 13x01 when he pleads with God with the heartbreaking “we’ve lost everything and now you’re going to bring him back(...)You’re going to bring them all back” prayer. 

But yeah 5x16, Dean and Cas are both equally desperate to find God and Cas is hanging on by this last thread. He alternates between being mad at Dean for making quips about God and Joshua and desperately pleading for them to help. Dean tells him he should come talk to Joshua instead and you can see how it hits him when Cas says “I can’t return to heaven” and Dean is once again reminded that he did this to Cas. He’s the reason Cas can’t return to heaven, he’s the one that convinced him to fall and that it was going to be worth it (kudos to Jensen for the reaction shot in that moment.) 

So they find Joshua. They get their answer. God doesn’t care. He hasn’t for a very long time. And right there it’s over for Dean and Cas. Sam hadn’t pinned all his hopes on this plan in the same way, he’s disappointed of course, but it hasn’t broken him. Drunk Cas in 5x17 is hilarious and yet so profoundly sad (just like endverse Cas.) Sure he quips at Sam about how he finds him irritating and makes jokes about breeding with the mouth of a goat, but really he’s just miserable. Even after he fell from heaven he still saw himself as an angel of the lord. He still had an identity, hope, purpose. All of that has just been stamped out of him, so who is he now? When the pastor asks Cas who he is, he quietly tells him “I’m an angel of the lord” and by God Misha puts so much pain and sadness into that one line, because he’s not. Not anymore. 

Similarly when the pastor once again brings up that Cas is an angel he responds by saying he’s “a poor example of one.”

Which brings us to Cas and Dean’s conversation outside the motel in 5x17. Dean sees what Cas is going through and recognises the feelings all too well. He’s a big expert on deadbeat dads after all. For the first time since he found out that his father didn’t care, Cas looks for hope, for something to cling to. “How do you manage it?” he asks Dean. Oh Cas...he doesn’t. He hasn’t figured out how to handle it. Not with John, not with God, Dean can commiserate with Cas but he doesn’t have a solution. All he knows is to keep fighting, which is what he tells Cas when he deflects the question, they can kill the whore of babylon, they can wrack up another small victory. 

It’s a lie though. Dean doesn’t believe it. He’s already done and he doesn’t see the point in fighting anymore and when Dean decides to say yes to Michael, Cas loses the last thing he had any faith in, the last person that he had any connection to and boy does he take that personally. I already talked about how in 5x18 Cas feels so betrayed by Dean, but it’s also worth noting how in that fight in the alley Cas doesn’t talk about saving the world and Dean’s role in that, no instead it’s about them and their relationship:

“I rebelled for this? So that you could surrender to them. I gave everything for you and this is what you give to me.”

Is it any wonder over the course of the show their faith just gets more and more tangled up in each other? What they’ve done for each other, what they owe to each other, what they need from each other, it evolves into something very different over the years, but it’s built on this foundation of their complicated relationship with faith and knowing and truly seeing the other, all of which are things that have been there from the beginning.

[shitty-marvel-fan732]

Cuddles and Pick Up Lines

Hello all! I present to you an unedited one shot that is my first attempt at writing Peter Parker! If you like it, let me know with a like or reblog! 

“Hey Pete, are you made of copper and tellurium?”, I asked, fingers absentmindedly threading through his chocolate brown locks. Peter hummed lightly in response, eyes shut. 

“Cause you’re Cu-Te”, I grinned. His lips quirked upwards in a small smile briefly before it disappeared. He was still, eyes remaining closed, but he couldn’t fight the small amount of pink that was creeping its way up his neck. He was laying tangled with me as we cuddled on his bed. His head laid softly on my chest, arms wrapped tightly around my waist and legs intertwined with mine. His eyes were closed and his face was beginning to look peaceful.

“Funny”, he muttered sarcastically. My smile widened. 

“I’m serious babe. You must have 11 protons cause you are sodium fine”, I giggled. Peter chuckled lightly, the gentle vibrations across my body prompting me to continue. “I wish I were adenine; that way I could be paired with U”. 

Peter still didn’t open his eyes, but he couldn’t fight the sweet smile that overtook his soft features nor the raging blush covering his entire face. He snuggled his head even further into the crook of my neck in a vain effort to conceal his reaction. The move did little to convince me of his nonchalance-- as I could now feel the heat from his cheeks radiating to my own skin. I shivered unintentionally, and decided to momentarily give up on my playful assault and simply revel in our peaceful embrace.

 Moments like this weren’t uncommon by any means, practically a daily occurrence at this point, but that didn’t diminish my desire to live within this feeling forever. Though I rarely voiced it to Peter, I was perpetually worried that there would be a day he wouldn’t come back to me. A day when I was forced to contemplate life on my own, without these soft cuddles and gentle conversations. A life without Peter. Just the thought of it made my stomach turn and my hands begin to shake. 

At first when I’d found out about my boyfriend’s, shall we say, extracurricular nighttime activities I was a wreck; I was nervous all the time and I distanced myself from him in a pathetic attempt to save my sanity. Eventually I’d come to the realization that being away from Peter was just as bad (if not worse) for my anxiety; now I preferred to cope by throwing myself into my relationship with as much effort as I could. I savored every minute that I got with my sweet boy. Peter, thankfully, was more than relieved at my conclusion and too seemed to relish the time we shared. 

“I love you”, he murmured into the crook of my neck, voice so soft I barely caught it. My heart picked up speed instantly at his gentle admission and my stomach erupted into a flurry of butterflies. It amazed me that after all we've been through, first as friends and then as a couple-- all the sweet moments, each tender word and gentle caress still affected me as profoundly as the first. Instinctively, my arms tightened their grip around my sweet boyfriend and I felt the way Peter’s smile widened against my neck, smug at the reaction he caused. Damned spidey-senses. 

“And I love you bug”, I hummed lightly, fingers returning to their previous ministrations and threading across the wispy curls that littered his forehead. Peter sighed, practically purring at the soft touches. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”, I questioned gently, voice breaking the peaceful silence. It had been clear since the moment I’d met up with him after school that there was something off with Peter. His normally soft brown eyes had lost a little of their natural sparkle, and he was almost eerily quiet. Ordinarily after the last bell I was greeted with the welcome sights and sounds of my eager boyfriend already chattering away about whatever topic, but this afternoon he’d been practically silent. Today I’d had to reach out first to link our hands together, when usually I was barely out of my last class of the day before he was already latched to my side. The usual easy flow of conversation between us had been strained, the majority of speaking coming from me with only sparse hums of acknowledgement from Peter. Rather than pressure him for an explanation, I’d simply guided us toward his apartment and immediately pulled the troubled boy down onto his bed for cuddles once we'd arrived. We’d laid wrapped up together for a while, and now that I was more confident in his headspace I was hopeful for some answers for his very un-Peter-like behavior. He groaned. 

“You’re gonna think it’s stupid”, he muttered. My fingers abruptly stopped their gentle dance within his chocolate locks at his statement, brows furrowing. I softly pulled his face from its hiding spot in the crook of my neck and looked him directly in the eyes. 

“Peter, something that bothers you could never be stupid to me”, I scolded lightly. He sighed once more, eyes closing once more as he practically shoved his face back into my side. 

“I think it’s stupid”, he grumbled stubbornly. I remained silent, patiently waiting for him to continue. 

“It’s just...I overheard Flash and some of his friends talking last period about me- about Spiderman. Stuff like how he- how I’m just some loser in spandex trying to be the next Iron Man. How I didn’t even do anything important for anyone, and that I’d be forgotten by next year. Just got in my head I guess”, he mumbled, voice trailing off near the end. 

My heart practically tore in two at the defeat and hurt that laced Peter’s soft voice. No wonder he’d been so off. 

“Oh my sweet boy”, I sighed, tucking him tighter against my body protectively. “I’m so so sorry Pete. But you have to know that they're just jealous, teenage morons right?”. 

“I mean...yeah. I guess”, he whispered near inaudibly. 

“But?”, I probed gently, sensing that there was more. Peter sighed again, this time more aggressively than before as he abruptly sat up and rested his head against the wall behind us. 

“It’s just so freaking hard!”, he exclaimed, hands flying wildly to demonstrate his frustration. “I mean, I work so hard and I give up so much for this city and for what? Assholes like them? I sacrifice an honest relationship with May, time I could be spending with you, and just a normal freaking existence, all for people who don’t even care! For all the cops who try to arrest me whenever they see me, all the criminals that don't even take me seriously, and idiots like Flash and his friends who will never understand what I do for them. It sucks that to know I'm hurting people close to me over it too, like, I know May knows something is different and that it hurts her that I won't tell her, ya know? And you, you're anxious all the time because you're worried about me. I mean, you almost even left me because of Spiderman, and yet I still stick with it like the idiot I am hoping that I make a difference to this city. It just feels so pointless sometimes”.

By the end of his small rant his face was almost entirely covered in red and pink splotches and his eyes began to water with unshed tears. Typically I was the person who always seemed to know what to say; friends and family often came to me with their issues because I was admittedly pretty good at talking people off the ledge and comforting them. But in this moment I felt my brain nearly shut down at Peter's broken expression. What could I, or anyone for that matter, say? Peter was right, his life wasn't fair. It hurt me deeply to think about what went on in his head everyday, all the responsibilities and pressure that was thrust upon him. I'd always been amazed at Peter's ability to remain so sweet and kind despite the things he's seen and been through, and his outburst today only confirmed just how difficult it was for him to maintain his demeanor with his new obligations. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and opened my arms to him once more in invitation. Peter willingly allowed himself to lay across my chest once more, arms encircling me tightly and head resting under the tip of my chin. 

"I've been circling around in my head all afternoon, trying to figure out why I even care what they think. I mean, I didn't become Spiderman for people to like me. I started because I thought people in this neighborhood deserved to feel safe. I do it to protect you, and May, and Ned, and Mr. Delmar, and anyone else that calls this place home. But even so, to hear them say those things so casually and out loud just…", he sniffed, and I began to rub his back slowly as I felt his tears begin to soak through the thin fabric of my t-shirt. 

"Hurts", I supplied quietly. Peter nodded against my chest and sniffled. I pressed my cheek to the crown of his head, leaving a soft kiss in my wake. I breathed in the comforting scent of his shampoo deeply before pulling back from his embrace and taking his face in my hands. I bored my own gaze into his puffy, reddened eyes and rubbed small circles over his still tense jawline. 

"Bug, there is nothing that I can say or do that'll make that pain go away, not completely, and for that I'm so sorry. But what I can tell you is how incredibly proud I am of you. Not just as Spiderman, I'm proud of you: Peter Benjamin Parker, because you are the sweetest, kindest, smartest, and most selfless person I have or will ever have met. You take so much on your shoulders everyday that I can't even begin to imagine, and you're right. Sometimes it does suck, and there will always be people like those assholes that make you feel like it's all for nothing, but they're wrong”, I began, voice already shaking with emotion and eyes filling with tears. Peter’s eyes darted downward, expression doubtful. Frowning, I placed my fingers under his chin, yanking his face back level with mine. 

“I’m serious Peter. You do so much for so many people, and I'm honestly amazed by you every single day. You know as well as I do that those people you've helped will never forget you, and that you matter to them. You matter to me, and to May, and to Ned, and MJ, and your teachers, and to Tony, and to everyone you meet because as soon as you open that cute little mouth of yours people can't help but love you. The fact that you even care about what they think is just a testament to how kind-hearted and genuine you are as a person”, I continued. 

Peter’s tears were still falling steadily, but the way his eyes remained focused on me and hands had steadied in my own lead me to throw in one last plea. 

“And, just for the record, if you ever decide one day that you don't want to be Spiderman anymore, I'll still be here. Because Spiderman may be this city's superhero, but you're my hero. I love you Peter, never ever forget that". 

I choked a little on the final word, hot tears that had gathered in my eyes early on in my little speech finally beginning to fall. Peter's eyes never left mine as I spoke, and though he had stopped crying there were still tear tracks visible, marring the soft skin of his cheeks. He didn't hesitate long after I finished speaking, placing his hands roughly on my hips and closing the small gap between our bodies with the speed only a superhuman could. His lips attached immediately to mine, moving with an urgency that took me by surprise. 

Generally speaking, Peter was exactly how he seemed: sweet, gentle, and a little bit timid-- especially when it came to intimate moments. I found it adorable how he was typically so gentle and tender with me, but the way he was kissing me now made my entire body feel as though it had caught fire. His mouth was pressed against mine so hard that it was almost painful, and his normally gentle fingers were squeezing my hips roughly. Somewhere beneath the Peter-induced fog that had completely taken over my brain, I briefly considered the fact that there would more than likely be bruises there later. Somehow, the thought only made the fire in my body burn hotter. I reciprocated with fervor, trying desperately to convey my sincerity and adoration for Peter through my touch. I moaned unintentionally into his mouth as his tongue roamed freely in mine, causing his lips to quirk into a smug smirk against my own. 

Eventually I reluctantly pulled away from the frenzied embrace, breathing heavy and forehead resting on Peter’s. Peter, however, was having none of this; he pulled gently away from my leaning head and began placing sweet kisses to my cheeks. I sat and caught my breath,  reveling in the feeling of my boyfriend’s soft lips against my skin. After a while, Peter slowed his loving assault and leaned back against the wall, pulling my body into his chest. I sighed, snuggling deeper into his side in a mirrored image of the way we’d laid only minutes before.

“I love you”, Peter mumbled, lips leaving yet another kiss to the top of my head. “Thank you”. 

“Anytime Pete. Literally, anytime”, I replied softly before placing a soft kiss to his collarbone. Peter chuckled, the feeling reverberating through our linked bodies. I raised my head to look him in the eyes, and quirked my own brow in silent question. 

“Nothing, it’s just..”, Peter started, chuckling once more. I furrowed my brow even more. 

"Only you would not only know a whole bunch of nerdy pickup lines, but use that strange collection of knowledge to cheer me up”, he finished, grinning wildly down towards me. I felt my face flush. 

“Oh shut up, you know you love it”, I grumbled. 

I felt his chest shake with yet another bout of laughter, and I responded by childishly shoving my head deeper into his chest with a small huff of embarrassment. Eventually the shaking slowed and stopped. Peter’s strong fingers hooked under my chin, forcing my head up to face his own. I began to protest, but the words died out in my throat when I saw the way Peter was looking down at me. At first, I noted with a twinge of pride how his cheeks were still pink and flushed looking and his lips red and swollen from our previous antics-- his hair was beautifully mussed (thanks to me), but it was the look in his eyes that truly made my heart flutter. When I’d first met up with him this afternoon his eyes had lost the sparkle they held now, his coffee brown irises were as dull as I’d ever seen and exuded his discomfort and sadness. Now, he was smiling so widely that he had crinkles on the edges of his eyes and his eyes held nothing but love and mischief. It was the spark of love and sweetness that screamed of Peter. 

“I do”, he stated softly. “I love you y/n/n. So much”.

 My heart fluttered, and I was overwhelmed with affection for the loveable dork. I lunged forward and captured Peter’s lips with my own once more; this kiss was different than the previous. This kiss was sweet, loving, and packed with emotion. Eventually, I pulled slowly back from Peter and rested my head on his shoulder once more.

“I love you too Bug. More than you know”, I murmured. Peter hummed in response, arms wrapping tighter around my form. 

“I do have one question though”, he mentioned nonchalantly. 

“What’s that?”, I replied. 

“Are you into chemistry?”, he wondered thoughtfully. I raised an eyebrow, head moving slightly to look questioningly at Peter. 

“Uh, I’m more of a physics girl I guess?”, I answered, confusion lacing my tone. “Why do you ask?”. 

“Because I LAB you”, he stated proudly, face splitting into a wide grin.

[class1akids]

I agree that the Overhaul arc is poorly done, but I'm curious - what are your thoughts on Nighteye? He's one of my favorite characters, mostly because he clearly cares so deeply about so much yet he's rewarded with pretty much nothing but suffering for it. I felt like his fate was handled...absolutely terribly by Horikoshi, with it being glossed over almost immediately after it happened rather than having the profound effect on Deku, Mirio, and All Might that it should have. (1/2)

I feel like part of the reason the Overhaul arc feels so hollow is because it seems like a means to an end in introducing some new characters - Mirio, Tamaki, Nejire, and Eri, primarily - but the arc ITSELF has very little effect on anyone or anything in it once the story moves on. There’s no lasting impact; it barely even gets referenced again. And again, Nighteye’s care and dedication go largely unrecognized and unrewarded. There’s almost nothing to feel good about in the arc. (2/3 lied again)

The longest time I spent away from staying current on the manga - when I couldn’t muster the will or desire to read - was during the Overhaul arc. I think it was poorly executed all around, that the most sympathetic characters in it were unilaterally punished for their best qualities, and that what should have been important was given the same post-arc treatment as filler fluff. What are your thoughts on the problems with the arc? And what do you think of Nighteye as a character, and his fate?

I have several problems with the arc, but the biggest one is that for such a long, Midoriya-centric arc, I feel like I’ve hardly learnt anything new about him, and that he hasn’t changed much.

As for my problems with the arc:

1. Mirio

Mirio was obviously introduced as a foil to Deku, to show that Midoriya wasn’t the only possible heir to OfA, he wasn’t even the best choice by far. It’s an interesting setup, but one that I don’t really know what to do with narratively. 

If anything, it soured my opinion on All Might quite a bit. Because he behaves like OfA is just another quirk, something he can do with as he wishes, and bestow it on a good-hearted, but naively idealistic kid with no body strength or combat experience to speak of. And I can’t help but think of all the times Deku almost died, taking OfA (a legacy quirk, nurtured by generations to be able to counter humanity’s big threat, AFO) to the grave with him, and All Might’s choice starts to feel selfish and short-sighted.

I do think at the end of the story, All Might’s choice will be vindicated, because something will make Deku in retrospect the best possible holder (my bet is that due to quirk singularity, Deku’s quirklessness will play into his advantage in hindsight), but for what we know now:

1. All Might passed up on choosing someone with a quirk to help increase the power of OfA.

2. All Might without ever considering the greater implications and wider responsibility, didn’t even look at the candidate chosen by his close allies, who did have a pure heart, had been training hard for years, managed to turn a very difficult quirk into a powerful weapon and was perfect both in body and mind. Instead, he went with a spur of the moment nostalgia, because he SAW HIMSELF in Deku - and I cannot applaud this. 

Before you come @ me angrily - I don’t hate on Deku - I think Deku from his perspective deserves it, and has done as well as he reasonably could, and even going above and beyond trying to make the quirk as his own. 

This is a criticism of All Might’s choice as framed by the narrative. It feels less wisdom and more selfish wish-fulfillment from this perspective. 

Mirio has to fall and lose his quirk because obviously someone so much stronger than Deku cannot stay in the narrative and not bring up more questions going into the battle against Shiggy. But the way Mirio loses and Deku wins against Overhaul I feel also doesn’t have a lot of lessons - when fighting, have the right Loli-backpack with a convenient power just to make up for your current problem???

I don’t even like Mirio that much as a character - he feels a bit too perfect, a bit too powerful to be interesting to me. I like my characters flawed and conflicted. 

So I think the Mirio vs. Deku comparisons didn’t really deliver anything for me. I came out of the arc not having anything convince me that Mirio wouldn’t have been the better choice and just as deserving as Deku. I don’t know what Deku learnt - he has a bit of confidence crisis, but he’s already had confidence problems, and doesn’t seem to last beyond this arc. 

2. Sir Nighteye

Again, his character seems another way to make All Might less likable. We finally learn that a lot of his splendid isolation at the top of the hero-mountain is self-imposed; that he pushed away his allies and refused a helping hand. 

Sir Nighteye is an idealistic All Might fanboy, a lot like young Midoriya, except he was pushed away. 

His quirk is also quite broken in many ways, which makes you wonder where did they hide him in pivotal moments like Kamino?

I honestly didn’t feel much for Sir Nighteye - he felt more like a plot device than a real flesh and blood character to me. But I feel that the points he was created to make (i.e. All Might’s behaviour in choosing Deku was reckless) were not convincingly refuted. 

Yes, the story may have proven that he cannot predict all ends, that the future can be changed - but still, just because he couldn’t foresee Eri (a deus ex machina device) activating in the crucial moment doesn’t change the validity of his criticism. 

I also feel that his death was a bit hollow - it doesn’t profoundly change Deku, Mirio or All Might. It’s a momentary sadness, but not a kind of emotional devastation. 

3. Eri

She’s cute and all, but her power feels a bit too convenient in the sense that now whenever something horrible happens, it never feels permanent, because we are like - oh, well, Eri will just rewind that.  (Mirio’s quirk, Shirakumo, Deku’s deadly wounds…nothing is of consequence.)

I’m not going to pass a judgement on this until we get the picture of what Eri’s power actually is, what are it’s limits, how it is fuelled - but it’s something that can break the narrative. 

4. Overhaul

Chisaki had a great potential and amazing design, but I feel like him as a villain also didn’t quite deliver. 

I guess he’s put in as a foil of Shigaraki. While Shiggy is the guy trying to bring on a new era, but clinging onto the teachings of his master, and has a quirk that’s only hugely destructive, Overhaul is trying to “preserve the old ways” by basically staging a coup in the yakuza, and he has a quirk that could be a powerful healing quirk, which he uses for evil? 

He’s also a bit similar to Eri in this - that his OP quirk could have been turned into pure good if he was saved from the yakuza’s clutches as a child. Still, in the end of the arc, I don’t have much feelings about Overhaul - nothing that really prompts me think in his ideals (like Stain did), or nothing that makes me feel empathy for him (like Shiggy’s or Toga’s backstory does), or nothing to make me intrigued (like Dabi does). 

5. Too large cast - too little character development

We get introduced a ton of new characters - but in the end, the only ones I feel like I learned something substantial about are Fatgum, Mirio, Sir Nighteye and a little bit Amajiki. 

On the negative side - we leave the characters we spent the last 150 chapters learning to care about behind. We only see Uraraka, Froppy (but they are totally sidelined), Deku (who as said above doesn’t feel coming out having grown from this arc - but yeah, 100% OFA looks cool I guess?) and Kirishima (who got a decent backstory and development). 

We also see Aizawa - and similarly to Nighteye - we also see why he needs to be taken out of every fight, because otherwise his presence would resolve it too fast. He has that one nice scene with Deku, showing that he probably realized that he needs to care about the emotional well-being of his students.

Otherwise, because we are fully following the raid, I’m sitting there thinking after 13 episodes, when will I see the class, and the characters I’ve come to be invested in again? 

In the end, for almost 50 chapters and 14 episodes, the really emotionally impactful moments are few and far in between:

 - Deku - All Might - change the future together

- Kirishima: Red Riot Unbreakable

- The Suneater fight

- Kirishima & Fatgum against Rappa

- Mirio standing up to Overhaul after losing his quirk

- Deku vs Overhaul (spectacular, but not very character-driven)

- Sir Nighteye death (but like I said, not as impactful as could have been)

In the end, it tried to grab too much, and it didn’t deliver a coherent whole. I think Horikoshi is better at writing shorter, more compact arcs.

I don’t hate it, but it’s certainly not one I want to rewatch or re-read and mostly I’m just looking forward for it to be over and for us to get on to other storylines. 

[cptnsantiago]

let me stay here by your side, that would be enough

summary: post 7x06. Jake deals with his own emotions by Amy’s side.

read on ao3

.

.

In any other circumstance Jake would make a note of how cool he looked sliding to Amy on his knees.

Now wasn’t the time however, with the negative pregnancy test on the floor and tears silently falling down her face as it hits them — they’re still not pregnant.

It had been eight months now since they had decided together to start their family — almost a full-term pregnancy’s worth of time. Countless other couples had gone through pregnancy and now had a baby to call their own at this point. Everyone except Jake and Amy.

Their doctor had told them countless times, it takes time. Logistically, both heard him when he spoke and seemingly took in what he was saying. But between their jobs packed schedule as of late and the meticulous detail taken to conceive made it more exhausting than they could possibly muster. It takes time, he had said, you’re both healthy so I’m certain you’ll be pregnant in no time.

They left the doctors that day feeling nothing but confidence. Amy obviously knew they were doing everything right to conceive but to hear it from a medical professional was comforting. Holding his wife now, seated in the middle of their apartment with no clue where to go from there, Jake is convinced that the doctor was lying. Maybe he was some evil villain out to make his and Amy’s life plain difficult and he had bum nards, or God forbid, something was wrong with Amy.

Positivity was supposed to get them through the down times; if one of them was thinking optimistically then that person could get the other out of the stump, and it usually worked. As Amy’s soft cries turn into tired sobs, his heart breaks and he finds himself struggling to find anything positive to say. Everything was negative much like the pregnancy test facing down on the floor.

The early preparation of pre-school waiting lists, new couches and a new car had brought them excitement beyond nothing else. It was so long ago now that Jake couldn’t imagine being a father and now that he was ready, he just wanted to be there, he didn’t want to wait anymore.

Amy had such a profoundly detailed plan and it made no sense why it wasn’t working. She had been working her whole life to have a successful career and a family. It’s only what she deserved — if the smartest, most gorgeous and talented woman in Jake’s (aka the entire) universe couldn’t get pregnant then no one else should be able to.

He knows he’s getting ahead of himself, but they just wanted a baby so bad. Every day that went by, they saw another young family and Jake’s heart would ache longingly after having that with Amy. He saw the way Amy looked at those families, too, and he hated himself for month after month that he couldn’t seem to get her pregnant.

It’s almost impossible not to think about his dad in this moment. Maybe Jake had been right, and he wasn’t built to be a father — maybe he was too broken and that broke his sperm. It took quite a bit of therapy and all the assurance from Amy to convince him otherwise, giving him the confidence to know that he would be a great father but with Amy so discouraged, Jake was struggled to keep these thoughts at bay.

There’s a tear stain on his flannel shirt now. Jake would move the heavens if it meant that this would stop hurting her so bad. He plays with the ends of her ponytail in an extra attempt to soothe her pain, whispering words of comfort as best as he could without his own voice cracking with tears.

Along with marriage comes heartache, he remembers this from a book he’d read on marriage years before when he was nervous about being a bad husband. Only Amy can judge his ability on being a good husband, and almost two years later he thinks he’s done a good job. He only cares for her opinion anyway, except for the occasion when he also cares about Holt’s opinion.

Jake doesn’t know what to do when her tears finally simmer to quiet hiccups, and she looks up at him with the most loving smile. While his heart was broken that the love of his life was crying, the swell of affection that follows is powerful and overwhelming. He kisses her face until she’s giggling, and her tears are a thing of the past again.

Of course, it’s not forgotten. Hours later, after cheering themselves up with a random comedy and cuddles on their new couch, they have quite a long discussion of what would happen next for them. Amy had already booked them another appointment with the doctor to be certain that her egg health and his sperm were up to speed, and in terms of trying, it was hard to decide.

There was no doubt they wanted to continue trying; at the end of the day they really wanted to have a baby but there was no way they could keep up the excessive and tiring method of temperatures, scheduled sex way too early in the morning, and constant anxiety of what if taking a toll on their mental health.

The choice came down to a less intense method of trying; no matter the hardship, it was important that they didn’t give up. The Santiago-Peralta household were not quitters. So, it meant having sex for the enjoyment of it, with few scheduled sessions to increase their chances. One of the most important rules for conception in the binders was no stress. Usually for Amy that meant having every single step planned out and following those steps to an exact accord, but for this instance, they decided that wasn’t the mind frame they should stick with.

By the end of the night with a lot of teamwork, they have a draft for a new binder ready. The Peraltiago Way: Baby Making for the Relaxed Individual. In this version, he insisted that while she rattled off the technical parts of it all, he rewrote it in a less overwhelmingly detailed manner so that they could still follow important steps, but it wasn’t so anal that none of it was enjoyable.

Jake also included his own amazingly kinky section to keep it romantic and exciting. He’d taken inspiration from their honeymoon binder, and he knows Amy will be impressed when she sees how much thicker his sex tab was compared to his.

This way it was a wonderful mix of the Amy way and the Jake way.

The next day they both take a sick day to recover from the emotionally exhausting months they had. He takes her to Bouche Manger, recreating their entire first date, all inclusive of their 2-hour drunk walk in the park and walking past his old apartment before ending back at their home.

There’s no talk of babies for the whole day — they were simply together as husband and wife, as a family.

Walking in the door, his heart warms at Amy’s soft gasp at the new binder, new tabs (her favourite of course) and stacks of printed paper to be put together. Jake had asked Rosa to get this prepared for him and being one of the few who knew details of their struggle over the past few months, she quickly obliged.

Amy is quick to put the binder together, it being a second nature to her, and he knows she loves it from her quicker than usual reading speed. Jake only joins her in reading when she’s placing one of the final pages in, a short foreword he wrote in attempt to ease any stress. It’s short and simple, and he hears Amy sniffle, he wraps his arms around her so that he can comfort her how she needs. Jake knew they were in this as a team — it might take them only one month or another year before they conceived but they were in this together.

Ames,

I’m writing this to remind you of my love for you. I don’t know how this second version of the binder will help us to have a baby, but if it causes you any stress, I urge you to read this as much as you need.

You’re a literal goddess. Your brains and beauty could dictate the entirety of New York and every single person would follow you — I only speak for myself but I’m 98% sure of this.

No matter the outcome of our life together, you bring me so much joy. Whether that means we have one kid, or many, or even no kids and we’re the old people telling the idiot children to get off our lawns. You and me, we’re a family so no matter what our future holds, I love you.

As an ethereal genius once told me, “Life is unpredictable, not everything is in our control but as long as you’re with the right people, you can handle anything.”

[duckbeater]

Courtship, pt. 2

Writing about happiness is very difficult and boring. The below are some small attempts I’ve made to write through my happiness. My small, important readership deserves an update, says my brother, whose sensibilities have only rarely steered me catastrophically wrong.

I AM BUYING CHAMPAGNE TO CELEBRATE MY LOVER

Today’s the last day of his job and he’s throwing himself a little party. In September he begins med school and in the next month he’ll put his affairs in order, readying for the big move. I have the sense that tonight begins our diminuendo, despite his staying over last night and spit-fucking me, and I’ll surely stay over tonight, after the many champagne toasts to his prosperous life ahead. 

We’ve started sleeping as two spoons embracing chest to chest, with our faces tucked awkwardly in a neck or an armpit. Of course I wake up gasping, my mouth sucking after a less hot pocket of air, and turn, and enjoy that he pulls me tightly back to him. He’s a heavy sleeper and I’m a light sleeper, and our bedding situation resembles something like a rock in a tumbler with my rolling over and over and over again, arising too early, wildly underslept, shining with sweat, but ecstatic that we’ve touched all night long. I’m attending his celebration in a sleep deficit that I’ve covered with caffeine and a long, soulful run beside the lake. I’ve been thinking about us a lot. 

He wouldn’t call himself my lover, I think, but I’m hoping the expensiveness of the champagne I’m bringing will convince friends in attendance that that’s what we are. I’m hoping my largesse goes noticed and commented on—that it’s interpreted as my being in love with him, and that his peers compel him, by either fretting over my largesse, or pitying me for it, or anyway finding it impressive or amusing or tender or charming—that they tell this young man I’m adoring him and I’m adoring him well. That my adoration seems steadfast and considered. And despite the riskiness of the circumstances (our differences in age, the widening gulf in distance, a sometimes depleting lack of shared cultural references), when we are together I feel comfort and joy. This must be obvious to him without the expensive champagne. I’m always saying it out loud, or anyway variants on the theme of “comfort and joy,” like a seasonal blessing, a profusion of blessings, needing remarked upon. I’m seriously afraid I mother him.

“Let us take in the scene,” I have said before, “let us only observe for the moment my sitting in your lap, your hands on my neck, my constant kisses. What joy!”

He’s done something to my sense of my proportion, and also my prose style. I can’t seem to describe our relationship without slipping into the sardonic, recursive, mildly-institutionalized voice of Robert Walser, a writer I find too cute by half. I’m finding my life too cute by half, I fear. If this is what happiness feels like, I don’t really want much more of it. It’s making me stupid. “People will think that pain has made you stupid,” wrote Walser, a statement that comes back to me when I can’t distinguish between the good times and bad times making me an idiot.

AFTER THE SPIT-FUCKING

We stayed up late talking about what it means to say goodbye to people who don’t know you’ve cared for them. I don’t pretend this conversation had subtext. For the last two years, he’s worked with profoundly disabled people, first as a case worker and then, after the pandemic closed the campus and made that job “nonessential,” as a nursing assistant on the same floor. 

He spent months feeding, changing, bathing and bedding non-ambulatory children and adults. Most cannot speak, a few cannot see, and none can walk, of course. It is a world I’ve rarely thought about—indeed, a world many of us rarely consider, because in its theater of human need are scenes of unremitting hopelessness. It is a languageless suffering and it perdures. I can become very mystified, very shallow-breathed thinking about his care for these souls, however quick he’s been to dissuade me from romanticizing or elevating his ministrations. “One of my verbal residents tells me to fuck myself all the time,” he’s noted. Still, I would point out that birth defects and accidents account for a small percentage of his caseloads’ impairments, and that active neglect and abuse perpetrated intentionally by former guardians (or unwittingly by the American healthcare complex) have hobbled his charges for life. I don’t like hearing stories about choked babies and toddlers left so long in beds their soft bones grow slab-wise, so I’ve asked him, coward that I am, to please skip origins if he’s entering an otherwise benign workaday anecdote.  

His most patient complaint: using his iPhone to FaceTime parents who want to see their son, then listening to one-sided conversations, burbling, giggles, tears, even story-time. His campus closed to all guardians—a devastating precaution. “Don’t send anything xrated today,” he’d text, and I’d know he was hosting a reunion. So I’d keep my clothes on. And he’d answer the phone from an immediately weeping seventy-year-old mother saying, to her forty-year-old son, “Why good evening, Max, good evening. This is your mother. Hi, baby. Hi. I love you. I am your mother. I will always be your mother. I am sorry I cannot touch you, I cannot hold you, I cannot be with you in this time, but you are my Max, and I am your mother. And I love you always. You can hear me and I’m gonna tell you all about my week, okay? And then I’m gonna ask Scotty here how you’ve spent your week, okay?” He said he usually cries on these calls and when I asked why, he said, “Because it seems polite?” And I pressed harder and he said, “Because I get to—I get to connect these people who have missed each other so much, and it’s so sad. They haven’t touched in months. They might not touch this year. My phone sometimes runs out of battery. It’s so weird.”

I’ve asked him whether families are happy to be rid of their incredible dependents and he said that by and large families are miserable to give over members to the institution: that age arbitrates the giving. “A mother and father have a baby at twenty-five. They can care for him well into their fifties—their twenty-five-year-old, their thirty-year-old son. But when these parents enter their sixties? Their seventies? They can’t lift an adult male. They can’t bathe him or change him. Even basic nutrition gets hard. Meal prep is tiring. It’s long. They start to lose track of medications, and they have medications themselves, you know? So the situation gets very difficult and if they want to live, and if they want him to live, they feel like they have to give him up.”

We’re at the point now where intimacy is a given. He doesn’t swallow, but brings me to orgasm, taking me in his mouth and then dribbles it, I guess, my cum, back onto my stomach, apologizing with a flushed red smirk. “I hate that,” he says, “I really hate it.”

“Go ahead, eat it,” I say, joking.

He gives me dark eyes and showily palms the wad into the black pillowcase behind my head.

“Holy Christ!” I yell. “The nerve! The pluck! The audacity!”

There must be a phase in relationships when extracting intimacies—not only of the “terrible things I did in high school”-vein, or the “times I cheated”-vein, or the “unwittingly right wing ideologies I support”-vein—that close couples endeavor. Where you’re always compulsively revelatory, to seem as interesting as you did in early courtship, as erotically forward and emotionally captivating. We’re in that moment and we surprise one another with small tributes as befits that level of affection.

One of the intimacies I proffered is that I’m going through a religious re-awakening, a need for ritual and sacraments. He finds this funny. (I find it embarrassing.) Yet one of his duties has been wheeling charges to his building’s Tuesday Mass, and then helping to administer the Eucharist. I don’t think he in fact touches the host (I don’t think many in his care can safely take of the host; “I’m mostly there in case anyone seizes,” he said), but he did slip a large wafer away for me and now it’s in my apartment, among my candles, possibly growing mold. He asks me when I’m going to eat it and I tell him around Christmas. 

(That was a lie. I’ll eat it when our romance is over, to consecrate the time we had.)

“I eat it,” I say, and he glowers.

I TOLD HIM ABOUT A MYSTERY SURROUNDING MY FAVORITE AUTHOR

Norman Rush. For a decade and better I’ve wondered about the long dedication in Mating, whose last lines read, “...and to the memory of my father, and to my lost child, Liza.” The novel, set in Botswana and borrowing heavily from Rush’s time there as director in the Peace Corps, suggests that perhaps Liza died in Africa or was born still. She goes unmentioned in his Paris Review interview, in subsequent novels, short stories, and reviews. There’s no hint of Liza’s fate. (As I edit this, I recall a phrase in Mortals, the narrator’s idea that “children exposed you to hellmouth, which was the opening of the mouth of hell right in front of you.” Explaining further: “[I]t was the grandmother, the daughter, the granddaughter tumbling through the air, blown out of the airplane by a bomb, the three generations falling and seeing one another fall, down, down, onto the Argolid mountains. With children you created more thin places in the world for hellmouth to break through.” And then, in Subtle Bodies, Rush describes a wayward teen boy, whose angry and aggressive behavior corresponds exactly to Rush’s own troubled teen son. In fact, Subtle Bodies is about the decision to have children at all. Nina follows Ned to a funeral, to fuck him. So, Rush has indeed remarked on children and strife, as he has lived it. Anyhow—) Yet by accident I listened to an old Fresh Air interview where Rush is asked to comment on the aspect of family in his novels, and to clarify that inscription. 

“I have a daughter who is now thirty,” he says, “who was born with diffuse brain atrophy and has been institutionalized for many years. Um. But I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory.”

“What was her condition?” presses his interlocutor.

“She is uh profoundly retarded,” pauses, “and will be so.”

“So you feel she is lost to you?”

“Yes. There is no recognition possible between her and us.”

I reproduced this exchange from notes on my phone. Scotty replied, “I don’t think that’s right, actually. Maybe between her and—who—who was it?”

“Norman Rush and his daughter Liza.”

He said, “Maybe between Liza and her dad—yeah, maybe she was so disabled she couldn’t recognize him. I take care of men like that. But I recognize them.”

We were talking about important books at all (I mean that semi-seriously) because his co-worker had gifted him three works, including a volume of Yeats’ complete poetry.

“Why did Paco give you Yeats?” I asked.

“He thinks I need more poetry,” said Scotty.

(Frankly I have felt and still feel sexual jealousy against Paco, who recently got brilliant red and black knee tattoos of spider webs. Like, Spider-Man spiderwebs, covering both kneecaps. Every few weeks he cooks a large meal for Scotty, and they talk about life until 4 A.M. drunk on bourbon, immobilized by edibles, full and warm and caring, and it makes me mad. It makes me mad, because I can’t really see the point of staying up until the uncomfortable small hours between 2 and 5 unless there is sex involved, but Paco is straight, a father, an excellent chef, a dedicated friend, and so my grousing is a kind of unwarranted possession that baffles me into silence on the matter.)

I didn’t have anything intelligent left to say about Norman Rush. I groped along a narrow thought, however, a thin ledge. “You know—a novelist, especially a novelist as concerned with language and comprehension as Norman Rush, would feel particularly devastated by the condition of his daughter. He would see it as ironic and then as punitive and again as senseless—supporting his comforting regime of a militant atheism.”

Although very sober, I recited the first stanza of The Second Coming, tripping over two lines (but the best lines), saying, “The worst lack all conviction, while the best/Are full of passionate intensity.”

“What?” said Scotty.

“I just—that was Yeats.”

“Who?”

“Go ahead and tell your boy Paco that your hot fuck gave you a teach on William. Butler. Yeats.”

“What?” said Scotty. He grinned at me. He got up and ate a yogurt.

[heartbreaknow]

@starkerintheparker​ and nonny, thank you both for the asks! Sorry it took me so long to answer. I’ve been going kind of ham on this meme, for something to do during the lockdown, which is why it’s taken me forever.

Amnesia

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

I guess I’m here for this trope? But again, building in the narrative tension seems a little tricky. Hanging the entire story on “Oh no, will he ever remember!?” feels a bit one-note and cloying to me (though YMMV of course). I want there to be some additional, complicating factor at play. Maybe something that the non-amnesiac character knows and is concealing from the amnesiac character.

One Way I’d Do It:

What if Peter and Tony were secretly sleeping together for a couple of months before the amnesia incident. The guilt of it was eating Tony alive, but they were both too into each other to stop.

But then Peter gets caught in an explosion while out patrolling one night, and gets a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain. Once the doctors remove it, they report that if it weren’t for Peter’s healing factor he would’ve died.

Instead, he just has amnesia.

The last thing Peter remembers is steering SI’s invisible jet onto the strip near Coney Island, the night of the Homecoming dance. He remembers Mr Stark angrily taking the suit back. He remembers the days that followed, and discovering Toomes was Liz’s dad. He remembers being trapped under the collapsed building, and he remembers lifting it off of himself. But after that he just remembers a few fragments: Coney Island at night, and fire—and for some weird reason, Happy in a bathroom at Midtown Tech? And then nothing. Just a big blank.  

It’s been three and a half years since then.

Peter is awed to learn he has a room at the Tower now. He’s attending Columbia, and he has a dorm which he used through a lot of freshman year. But the spring semester just ended, and apparently pre-amnesia Peter was planning on mostly staying at the Tower over the summer, so he could work on some projects with Mr Stark in the lab.

All of this seems like a dream come true to Peter, who never could’ve imagined he and Mr Stark would become such close…friends? Yeah, they must be friends.

*

Fuck Or Die, Roommates and Aliens Made Them Do It under the cut...

Fuck Or Die

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

I love this trope more for Starker than for any of my past ships. It’s just such a great, angsty, intense way to make them have sex for the first time. I mean, this sounds very awful and sadistic, but the fact that Peter is usually a virgin, and being forced to fuck his virginal mentee makes Tony feel like a monster, really makes the whole thing so much more intense and dynamic IMO. It’s got that built-in narrative tension I’m always yammering about!

Also, the fanon that Peter is very physically sensitive and easily turned on really lends itself well to this trope, because it allows the writer to make the experience feel really good for him, regardless of the undesirable circumstances.

I’m someone who only enjoys Fuck Or Die if the bottom gets off on it. If it’s just a straight-up whumpfest where it feels awful and the bottom is hurt, I have zero interest in that. However, it can sometimes be a bit difficult for me to believe the bottom really is getting off on it, given the shitty circumstances.

But Peter’s tendency to go from 0 to 200 in thirty seconds flat, makes it a lot easier to believe he would get off on Tony fucking him, regardless of the circumstances. Even if Tony can’t really prep him much, you can still be like, “Much stretchy. Very Spider-Man. Wow,” and basically leave it at that.  

One Way I’d Do It:

I don’t have a scenario for how I’d do this one. One thing I keep thinking about, though, is Tony trying to negotiate with their captor, like, “You want a thrill? You want to get off? Let’s go. I’ll be your date. Film it, publicize it, whatever,” and basically just trying to convince their captor to rape him, or have one of his security goons do it, instead of making Tony fuck Peter. Which of course Peter is very, very not cool with—a fact which he promptly and emphatically expresses. And then afterwards, once it’s all over and they’re back to business as usual (or at least Mr Stark clearly wants them to be), it’s something that remains stuck in Peter’s memory—something he can’t stop turning over and over in his mind: Mr Stark attempted to negotiate for his own rape in order to protect Peter. Peter has absolutely no idea how that makes him feel; he couldn’t describe it if he tried.      

*

Shout-out to Far From Okay and Wished It Was You, both by @learned-foot​. My top two favorite examples of this trope.

Roommates

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

Listen, I shipped Johnlock for seven years. Roommate ships are profoundly my jam.

I constantly catch myself treating it as a foregone conclusion that Peter lives at the Tower, along with some of the other Avengers. That is just my automatic headcanon. Like, as soon as he graduates high school, in my mind he just suddenly lives at the Tower. Does it make any sense for Peter to live at the Tower while he’s going to college and his identity is still a secret? Not really! But apparently I don’t care.

I just really love the roommate ship dynamic. Proximity is a huge part of almost all my ships. I feel like the sort of mundane, everyday intimacy of living around another person is such a great element for a ship to have. It makes their relationship feel so grounded and full, even when things are really strained between them. Plus, I love that when shit starts going down between them, they’re still forced to be around each other. Roommates is such a great narrative device, both for tension and for intimacy.    

That said, I am not remotely interested in an AU where Tony and Peter are college roommates or something. I just want them living at the Tower (or the Compound) together.

Aliens Made The Do It

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

My feelings about this trope are very similar to my feelings about the Fuck Or Die trope. I’m very into it as long as the bottom gets off on it, and I’m especially interested in the aftermath. It’s such a strange trope, because if you do explore the aftermath, it’s kind of like you’re starting with dessert and then having your meal. You start with the explicit sexytimes, and then you walk it back and do the angsty, pining, slow-burn part of things, after. I love that. Especially for Tony and Peter, because their attraction to each other is already so fraught.

Shout-out to Practical Results by the “is this thing on?” anon, and Took To Me So Well by @learned-foot​, which are both excellent examples of this trope.

[everythingoesnk]

I love you, John

summary; in the fandom we say brian’s the 5th beatle. well now he’s the 6th bc in this you’re a member of the band. basically you’re in love with john but he’s dating yoko and............. it’s all a disaster

word count; 2 966

warnings; angst at its finest. i’m sorry if u find it trashy but i tried and that’s what counts

********

There was no way you could face this feeling. It damaged your mental health to the point of insufferable anxiety.

Nobody knew about those episodes.

Was it something that you enjoyed, seeing front row how your friendship shattered to useless fragments? Did you look like you didn’t care about how he distanced himself more each time without looking back? Like nothing or no one else mattered? Of course not.

He was alien to the fact he wasn’t the only one suffering.

At least this was the reason you found that made the most sense to his coldness and passively behaviour towards everyone. Or the justification you wanted to believe, refusing to accept that reality was that he didn’t mind everything falling apart.

The tortuous thought that John wanted to see it all reduced to ashes crossed your mind every once in a while.

Paul sighed loudly when he didn’t get any answer from you after calling multiple times. He randomly pounded several piano keys at once, creating a frightening awful sound, then dragged himself to his feet and anxiously left the room.

None of that made you tore your eyes away from John, though.

He was talking to Yoko, who was sitting on the floor beside him, nodding her head as she followed with her gaze what he was pointing at in the music sheet. Occasionally she’d interrupt him to opine. When that happened he would shut up and listen.

John was very polite when asking for thoughts, always open to new ideas and constantly seeking people's opinions on his work.

Ringo’s eyes were glued on you, George noticed, and he knew the drummer was thinking the same exact thing he was. Ringo nodded in his direction and left to find something to eat: you’d been rehearsing for three hours and he hadn't had breakfast in the morning.

"We're all getting used to it"

Outwardly speaking, George's nonchalant-wannabe words had no apparent reaction in you. On the inside, they crushed your soul deeper into misery.

You hummed an ‘approving’ sound to dodge the pressure of having to form a proper sentence.

Concentration back again on tuning the knobs of the guitar, George put his aside on the floor and watched you closely. Then sighed and pressed his lips together.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?”

"The ticking"

Pokerfaced, you stopped your actions to sneak a look at him.

"What ticking?” you asked grimly.

"Yours," he replied, pointing a finger at you. “You’re about to explode”

“We have a comedian in the building, how appropriate” you proclaimed nodding your head at him mockingly.

He grinned and dropped his gaze to the floor before speaking to you again.

“Come with me,” he said, getting up, “I’m craving a smoke”

“I’ll join in a moment. I want to finish writing down a couple of things first”

"Oh yeah?" George wasn’t convinced at all.

He removed a strand of hair from his face. In vain ‘cause it returned shortly to the same place where he’d shoved it away from.

“Yes"

George stared at you, hands on the hips.

Sunk in your seat, you glanced at him too without blinking.

"I’m inspired," you added, one last attempt to make him believe you.

You could try. You could try giving that song you’d been working on a new chance.

"Okay," he nodded, lowering the guard, and kissed your forehead, "you know where to find me"

"Sure, Geo"

You smiled and rapidly shot him a big grin, thumbs held up as well, when he turned around to take a good last look at you before closing the door behind his back.

As soon as he was nowhere around, your smile was found gone.

It was only you, John and Yoko now.

//

It must have been the tenth time that, desperately, you ran your hands through your hair.

Perhaps the problem was you. And you were just exaggerating everything.

But did she have to stick her nose in something that had nothing to do with her?

You didn’t mind her discussing the songs. But never in a million years could you believe she had the ovaries to criticize them. To criticize your work. Paul’s work, George’s and Richie’s work.

Never John’s, though. It must be said to add a little more context to you losing it.

You weren't nosy, but she didn't try to be inconspicuous either.

That bitch’d been talking shit about what she referred to as ‘Ringo’s lame thing’, claiming that Octopus’s Garden was kind of embarrassing and that it didn’t deserve to be on a Beatles record. She didn’t even bother asking about the meaning behind it, the ignorant cretin.

You bit your tongue until you just couldn't anymore.

"God," you exhaled.

Yoko heard your sigh but said nothing about it, bowing her head. She wished John’d do the same, but deep down she knew he’d have something to say.

And of course, he did.

"What's up?" he asked lifting an eyebrow, eyes jumping from you to Yoko and back.

"One gets tired of listening to bullshit" you warranted in a singsong voice, not looking up from the paper and without interrupting your writing.

It took a few seconds for you to get a response.

"Nothing she said was bullshit," John defended, hinting that her opinion was as valid as anyones.

You understood his words differently.

"Rich’s mad excited about it and it’s a great song,” you hurried to argue, this time meeting his stare, “the number of hours and dedication he's putting into it is inhuman. You should know that”

A little –huge— bit of your protective side towards Ringo was showing, but you didn’t care. Octopus’s Garden was beautiful and you’d die defending so if necessary.

"I didn't mean—"

“Are you sure?” you interrupted, turning your body in his direction, leaning in before spitting the poison out, “because lately she seems to speak for you. Whatever Yoko says, there you are giving your approval”

John stood still for at least a minute, momentarily speechless.

Yoko approached him to tell him to forget it and leave before things got uglier.

When you called the conversation off after he hadn’t spoken a word, trying to handle what you just so hostilely reprimanded, you went back to your thing, conscious that you were too unstable and broken to even pick the pencil up again.

Sure you didn’t want him to know you weren’t as strong as you wanted to appear to be, but you had to close your eyes for a moment and exhale after he moved to stand next to you.

He didn’t know the power he had on you. It’d take a snap of his fingers to ruin you for eternity.

“You’ve to fix your shit and get over it,” John grunted, fed up with the constant attacks that Yoko directly and indirectly received. It all got too much to handle.

You laughed in his face.

“Fix my shit? How, John, when the shit’s in the same room?”

John paused again, shocked.

His eyes languidly turned cold and hard.

Could you maybe have gone a step too far? There was no denying. Were you regretful? Not at all. Did your heart, constricted in your breast painfully hindering your catch of air, speed up its pace at the look John was giving you, scared about what he was going to say next? Absolutely.

"What the fuck’s wrong with you? I've had enough of the continuous offences to my wife! Now this?!” he snapped, yelling.

You avoided by all means raising your voice since it’s pretty much known that doing so does not make you any more right. The tone was something you could take control over, unfortunately, it was way more difficult to hide how it trembled.

“If I started to say what I was fed up with we’d never finish the album. And we have to, right, John? The sooner the better,” you challenged in a cold-blooded boost of courage, knowing you were entering a difficult and muddy territory.

The bomb timer George talked about earlier was at its limit.

That John asked Yoko afterwards to leave you two alone was just the appetizer of what was coming.

“(Y/N), you have attitude problems. The way you treat Yoko is horrible and unfair. She just wants to help” he tried to let you know where he was coming from, going back to a more suitable tone to appeal you.

“When we ask her for help, her presence will be welcomed”

“Enough now. Enough, (Y/N)” he shook his head and glanced at you fiercely. You swallowed. "Shit, what the hell’s going on with you and your twisted mind? You’re unbearable"

“Am I unbearable?” you gasped, blood heating your face, and immediately stood up. “You’re insufferable!! Twenty-four hours together like… like… like two fucking creeps!” you screamed, quickly forgetting about the ‘not raising your voice’ thing, gesturing an awful lot to express your irritation.

His expression of disbelief morphed onto one of monumental anger.

"And don't come at me with that ‘attitude problems’ crap. I’m not the only one who wants her out” you lectured in a bitter fit of temper, voice unwillingly shaky.

“If you have a problem with Yoko being around, the door is right there” he answered, pronounced tightness clear in his words.

Your heart sank to the very bottom of the Earth’s core, and the floor beneath your feet started trembling, just like you hallucinated once after dropping acid with Paul: the whole body in an uninterrupted burning perception that you could just blow up and die.

John was unpredictable, but you never expected him to show you the way out. He flushed your feelings down the toilet just like that.

“Damn right the door’s right there. I’m getting the fuck out” you stressed, turning around to leave so he wouldn’t see the sea of tears that started to overflow down your face.

From the very beginning of your friendship, you knew you had a massive soft spot reserved for him in your heart, but as years passed you were assured you were deeply and profoundly in love with every part of him. You adored and cared about John more than you did to yourself, which sounds and is scary, but you couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was the way that it was.

At this point you didn’t even care anymore that he didn’t return the same feelings, you just wanted him in your life one way or the other. His happiness was everything that mattered to you. It’d always remain that way no matter what happened.

John rubbed his eyes and sighed loudly.

“Don’t leave,” he said hopelessly, looking defeated, arms hanging on his sides, “I don’t want you to be mad at me”

“I’M NOT MAD AT YOU, IDIOT!” you exploded, whirling around to face him. “And I hate that! I hate it!”

Tears and tears kept streaming down your face. You knew you were being embarrassingly cringey and you’d punch yourself later for that.

There was no coming back now: the timer detonated and the pieces of your broken heart were all over the place, imaginarily staining the carpet as small volcanoes attached to them kept erupting and painting all red.

An anguish heaving pain in the pit of your stomach and throat was bit by bit killing you.

Nine years. Nine years in love with this man and he didn’t have the slimmest clue about how you felt.

He was about to find out.

John was surprised to meet your bloodshot eyes and quivering lips. He panicked when he saw that tears were also coming out of your nose down to your lips.

“I hate that you could hurt me over and over and that I’d always find ways to forgive you” you cried, and you wished you had a tissue to blow out your nose in it.

John was at a loss of words.

“Because I love you” you wailed, and rolled your eyes afterwards at that because it was so inconvenient and wrong to say it out loud.

In his consciousness, a voice snapped at him to take action and comfort you, but his feet seemed to be rooted to where he was standing. You were so vulnerable and fragile, full body shaking and shoulders tight, air constantly bursting in and out of your mouth, impossible to control your sobs. All because of him.

“I don’t… I don’t…” John struggled, heartbeat racing a million miles per second.

“I know you don’t!” you sputtered, an excruciating feeling that he’d never want to be with you choking you extremely. "Up until now I thought I could live with it, but you keep bringing her here! Why do you have to bring her?” you sobbed, covering your face.

John couldn’t quite tell whether it was your statement and confession what made his heart heavier with misery or the nicotine in the amount of tobacco smoke still hovering in the room, demanding it to work harder.

By the time he felt sorrowness suffocating him, he couldn’t deny it was the first option.

“(Y/N), I’m so sorry…”

As he watched you gulp for air, he couldn’t feel more incompetent and clueless.

You compressed your lips so he wouldn’t get to hear you sobbing; turning your back at him to hide your blotchy face, you heard footsteps approaching you.

John went to put a hand on your shoulder and hold you, but you winced and complained, stepping away from him, as if the contact burned your skin.

Staring at him in the eye, you shook your head.

“Do not touch me”

“(Y/N), we have to sit down and talk this through. I cannot—“

“I don’t want to keep talking about it. I said my part and I know what’s crossing your mind. ‘Poor (Y/N), I feel so bad for her, I hope she gets over it soon’. Nine years, John”

He swallowed.

“I’m sure there’s a way—“

“There isn’t! I love you and you don’t love me! What is there to discuss?”

Glancing across at him, you could perfectly see how he cared and how frightened and terrified he was about the situation. You were one of the most important people in his life, and to think that he thought he knew you, but missed what you were genuinely feeling towards him for almost a decade… He felt horrible.

Yoko was the love of his life, but he also loved you with all his heart.

He was sorry that it wasn’t enough.

“John”

George stepped into the room and walked further in to pull you towards him. He'd been watching for just a few seconds, because as soon as he saw what was going on, he intended to leave, at the end of the day it was none of his business, but he knew you needed him and therefore took the decision to end the scene.

Rubbing your back, he whispered in your hair if you wanted to leave. You just nodded.

“Wait, George. I need to talk to her”

“You heard her. She doesn’t want to”

John got mad at him.

“All I’m asking is a few minutes. Don’t expect me to drop it when she’s like that”

Maybe by ‘that’ he meant that you looked like a train just ran you over. Casually, that’s how you felt. If not worse.

You rested your head on George’s shoulder and murmured something about needing to go now because you couldn’t be in John’s presence no more.

“(Y/N), please” you heard John beg.

George and you walked to the door and he told you to wait outside, touching your cheek with a small smile on his lips, encouraging you to take it as an opportunity to calm down.

You obliged, but heard everything they were saying anyway.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” John cursed. “Why won’t you let me speak to her? This is serious, please”

John tried to get to the door but George barred the way.

“Are you gonna tell her you love her?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

John stared at his bandmate blankly, the expression of confusion on his face speaking for itself.

“Are you gonna tell her you’re leaving Yoko to spend your life with her?” George continued, making a point that he knew John would understand.

You bit your lip at that and wept silently.

John’s eyes were slowly piling up hot tears.

“That’s what I thought” George spoke in an undertone.

After that, George left him and found you sitting on the ground in the corridor. He took a seat next to you.

Spontaneous sobs and shiverings that you couldn’t hold back happened every now and then. You were grateful that George wouldn’t address them.

“I’m pathetic”

“No you’re not”

“Yes I am” you shook your head and sniffed, feeling lamentable. “I didn’t know I’d end up confessing one day. I assumed I’d carry it to the crave”

Two staff members from the cleaning crew walked by, and you stopped talking. When they were gone, George turned to look at you.

“I believe things happen for a reason and that fate is written. You and John not being a thing may be for the best. It’s gonna be hard, but you have to move on”

“Move on…”

He nodded.

You moved to face him and stared strongly into his eyes. That was it.

“Move on” you repeated out loud as a mantra, staring off into nowhere.

George furrowed an eyebrow.

“Yes…?”

You inhaled and exhaled at the same time that you closed and opened your eyes. Moving on would be the first step to a better stage within yourself.

“I’m leaving”

Puzzlement clouded George’s features.

“Leave… where?”

“The band, Geo. I’m quitting the band”

[asweetprologue]

Fandom: The Witcher Pairings: Geralt/Jaskier  Words: 16,147 Chapter: 1/5 Summary: After a job goes wrong, Geralt must rely on Jaskier as he is left blind and deaf. As they attempt to navigate the curse and find out how to lift it, Geralt comes to realize that his feelings for the bard have grown deeper - but how can he know if Jaskier returns those feelings if Geralt can't see or hear him?

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your skin carries echoes of me

Winter in Temeria was a hell of a thing. The entire country was, broadly speaking, a damp and slightly rancid place. From the time of the first thaw until the Velen equinox, it was redeemable by virtue of the sweeping golden fields in the countryside and the lush, vibrant forests in the west. Come winter, however, the forests became gray, fractured matchsticks scratching at the sky, the golden fields rotting away into mud and gravel. Even when it wasn’t cold enough to set your teeth on edge it was wet, slimy and miserable. Humans and monsters alike tended to burrow into their respective hovels until the warm rays of the spring sun graced the region once again.

Which is why Geralt, finding himself deep in the south as autumn began turning the landscape around them a fetching red-gold hue, was in desperate need of some quick and easy work. Wintering in Kaer Morhen would be out of the question. There was no way that he could make it to the pass through the Kestrel Mountains before the winter snows claimed the valley. And besides that, he had a particularly aggressive tag-along that he suspected wouldn’t fare nearly as well as Roach might along the steep mountain trails.

Said tag-along was standing besides Geralt at a notice board in the ramshackle town they’d stopped at for supplies, a pout on his youthful face. He crossed his arms over his chest, the deep navy of his current ensemble stained near black in places from the muck of their travels. “I just think,” he continued, resolutely ignoring the fact that Geralt was ignoring him, “that she cheated us of well-earned income. I mean, ‘a fearsome beast tearing apart the garden and scaring off the sheep.’ Those were her words! ‘Kill the beastie that’s ate my poor Bella.’ That was the job! It’s not our fault the culprit was a wild dog and not a bloody griffin.”

Geralt pulled a flyer down from the board, looking it over before turning it in Jaskier’s direction. “Caravan escort?”

The other man sniffed, eyeing the paper with a distrustful look. “The last one of those ended poorly. If they want entertainment that’s one thing.”

“Hmm. Roadside protection is asking too much?” He stuck the flyer back in its place, looking over the others again. Nothing too promising - someone asking for help with autumn logging, the herbalist looking for fool’s parsley, a dog gone missing. Not exactly witchers’ work, though he supposed he was reasonably skilled enough in alchemy to dig around for roots and plants if it came to that.

“It’s not that it’s not a reasonable request,” Jaskier said. “They just always seem to want it for a very particular reason that they aren’t at all ready to discuss with the hired help. It’s just. Well. It’s one thing to prepare oneself for the inevitability of bandits on the road. Quite another to wake in the middle of the night with an assassin’s blade at your throat in nothing but your drawers.” Geralt shot him an amused look. “A situation that you handled admirably. Still. We wouldn’t be in these circumstances if that hag hadn’t skimped on us.”

“Hmm.” People rarely, if ever, paid what they said they would in Geralt’s experience. Once their fear of the monster was assuaged, their distaste for mutants resurfaced with a vengeance. They seemed to have little remorse about trying to weasel their way out of their agreements, though it happened with less and less frequency the longer Jaskier kept his company.

Geralt glanced back at the bard as he turned away from the unhelpful notice board and back towards Roach. The man had been traveling off and on with him for some time now, though this latest stint had been longer than typical. They crossed paths often enough, but usually Jaskier would only spend a few weeks trekking after the witcher before disappearing back into civilization once again. He would spend his time on the road singing snippets of ballads, humming seemingly thoughtless tunes and plucking the strings of his lute absentmindedly. The witcher would have said that the bard used his time with Geralt to freeload if he didn’t inevitably hear the same snatches of song on the lips of strangers, even in the most remote parts of the land. And he had to admit, his purse had been significantly heavier, the eyes of strangers less accusatory, in the last few years than they had been in decades.

Jaskier continued, unaware as ever of Geralt's internal musings. “She hired a witcher, and that’s what she should have paid for. I don’t think -” Jaskier was suddenly interrupted by a hand reaching out to snatch at the sleeve of his embroidered doublet. He made a small noise of surprise, likely in reaction both to the hand and to Geralt’s sudden move into his space as he faced the newcomer. “Excuse me!” the bard exclaimed, and Geralt was unsure whether it was directed at him or the assailant.

Who, fortunately, turned out to be a pleasant looking middle aged woman, who quickly let go of Jaskier’s tunic when Geralt stepped forward. She backed away, shoulders drawn in fear. “F-forgive me, sirah, but if you please, I have a request for you?”

She phrased the statement as a question, and Geralt attempted to relax his posture invitingly before he realized that her eyes were unfocused and clouded. She was blind. He cleared his throat. “Go on then.”

“Well, sir, um. I heard your companion -” she gestured vaguely in Jaskier’s direction, leaning around Geralt’s shoulder - “mention you work as a witcher? If that’s for true, I would ask for your help. We’ve not much by way of coin, but we’ll find some way to gather a nice pouch for you if you care to help us. We’ve been plagued for too long now, and I’m not sure how much more we can take.” Her hands twisted in her stained apron, which smelled faintly of flour and cloves. A baker, or a baker’s wife.

“What’s the problem?” he asked, cutting to the chase.

“A witch,” she said, her voice pitched slightly lower, as if she feared said witch was listening in. “It began with the chickens. She was takin’ em at night, to use in some foul ritual, and then a pig. And the animals in the wood have all run off, it seems. Samuel, our hunter, hasn’t found more than a few pheasants in weeks, and with the snows comin’ we’ll need meat to dry. A few of our men tried to confront her, and when they came back they were all foul tempered, mean spirited to a one whereas before they were gentle souls. I went to confront the wench myself, and she…” Here the woman grew quiet, drawing herself inwards as she reached up a hand to hesitantly touch below one of her sightless eyes. After a moment she shook herself and stood again, shoulders back in defiance of her plight. “Please, master witcher, help rid us of this scourge and we will find a way to repay you.”

Geralt opened his mouth to speak and found himself cut off by Jaskier, who was already pushing his way forward to gently take the woman’s hand in his own. “My lady, I give you my word that we will do everything in our power to help you with your plight. Consider it done.”

The woman looked near tears. “Oh, bless you both. Bless you.”

Geralt huffed, annoyed at Jaskier accepting his job for him despite the fact that he’d planned to say the same himself, though in significantly less words. “Fine.” Jaskier turned towards him with a bright grin. “Where can we find her?”

* * *

On the plus side, despite the fact that this witch seemed like, well, a bitch, they were typically easier to deal with than monsters. They usually wanted something, or were trying to get something, but they weren’t nearly as difficult to manage as a kikimora or, gods forbid, a sorceress. Most weren’t actually capable of going up against a professional witcher; their magics were more indirect in nature, a glimpse into the future here or slew of bad fortune there. Very few had anything approaching the battle magics wielded by true mages, or even the alchemical knowledge of a witcher. Most could be reasoned with, forced into moving on or, if necessary, put down with a bit of steel. Geralt was sincerely hoping that it wouldn’t come to the later in this case.

Which was why Jaskier had been allowed to tag along, much to Geralt’s chagrin.

The bard, for his part, seemed happy to have been allowed to come. Despite his detailed and often blatantly exaggerated retellings of Geralt’s exploits, Jaskier was rarely allowed to actually come along for the battles themselves. He had, at this point, utterly perfected the art of sneaking after the witcher on hunts, staying far enough away that Geralt’s heightened senses wouldn’t pick up his presence and closing in when Geralt was distracted by his quarry. It had, to the witcher’s extreme annoyance, actually proved useful once or twice. It wasn’t that his life was typically in danger when he was injured in a fight, but. Well. Having someone around to help patch up his wounds and haul him back to an inn was an improvement on lying in the mud throwing back potions until he could stand again.

This time, Jaskier was traipsing along by the witcher’s side, after he had - again, much to Geralt’s annoyance - convinced the witcher that he would actually be an asset on this particular hunt. Geralt anticipated that this job would involve a lot more talking than fighting, and even he could admit where his skill set ended and Jaskier’s began. In spite of his frequent bouts of oversharing and his tendency towards nervous chatter, the bard was profoundly charismatic. Geralt was made keenly aware of this every time he found himself searching for Jaskier in a crowd or buying the man another round at the bar in spite of his own oft-light coin purse. It wasn’t his fault; Jaskier just did that to people.

He hoped it would come in handy this time around. He really didn’t want to have to kill this witch.

“So, what do you think she’ll want?” Jaskier said, his eyes on his boots as he unsubtly moved through the underbrush. He’d recently been convinced to finally purchase a pair suitable for traveling, and had immediately had them dyed an aggressive shade of mauve. “New dress? Pearl earrings? Our first born sons?”

“Witchers can’t have children,” Geralt corrected absentmindedly, holding a branch back so that Jaskier could pass. “And I’m assuming you’ve already fathered many.”

The bard spluttered indignantly at him, and Geralt turned around to hide his smirk. He paused suddenly, holding a hand out towards Jaskier to stop both his squawks of protest and his forward momentum. It said much about Jaskier’s character and his time with Geralt that he halted immediately. “I think we’re here.”

The cottage was small, almost cozy, with smoke curling lazily out of the chimney and ivy clutching the west facing wall. It looked more like a place that someone’s elderly relative might retire to than a witch’s hovel.

“Looks like a nice place to settle down,” Jaskier pipped, echoing Geralt’s thoughts uncannily. “Should we knock?”

Geralt held up a finger and Jaskier quieted, allowing the witcher to listen. He closed his eyes, breathing slowly through his nose as he peeled away the layers of noise around them. A witcher’s senses were sharp, but often finding specific information in the cacophony of life was like searching for a needle in a haystack. It took years of training to learn how to turn the blunt instrument of their broad senses into a finely honed scalpel. Geralt fell into that place as he had so many times before, concentrating on the house and everything in it. The thick smell of honeysuckle from the plants growing against the side of the cabin, the sweet scent of cedar and pine, the faint rust of old blood. Rustling leaves, the muffled snap of wood burning. No shuffling footsteps, no soft sighs. No heartbeat, fluttering quickly away in comparison to the slow rush in his own ears.

“She’s not here,” he said a moment later, satisfied that the witch was nowhere in the immediate vicinity. “Stay put. I’ll see if I can find out where she went.”

“Tch,” Jaskier said, for once following directions as he leaned against a nearby tree. “Out looking for babies to gobble up, perhaps?”

“You’re thinking of witchers,” Geralt quipped, already checking for footprints around the stoop. Jaskier barked a laugh behind him.

“I had no idea your diet was so restrictive,” the bard replied, mirth coloring his tone. “It’s an honest mixup, you see, witches and witchers.”

It was novel, still, having someone to jest with while in moments like these. Geralt looked up to find Jaskier watching him with an amused expression, something soft in his gaze that Geralt had seen before. It always lingered with him when Jaskier inevitably moved on. He could say with absolute certainty that no one else had ever looked at him like that - with an utter lack of fear and pure, open affection. Feeling off balance, Geralt tried to focus back on what he was doing, away from Jaskier’s too-blue eyes.

This, too, was part of the reason Jaskier wasn’t invited on hunts.

The man was… distracting. Geralt wasn’t sure exactly why. He was loud, and annoying, and occasionally disarmingly funny. And sometimes, when Geralt brushed a leaf out of his hair and Jaskier turned to him with a grateful smile that was devoid of nervousness and the sunlight through the trees made his skin honeyed gold, he was very… something. Something distracting.

It wasn’t great for Geralt’s concentration.

That’s what he would blame it on, later, when he was cursing himself for not noticing her approach. Jaskier was too busy thinking of something else snappy to say about witchers kidnapping children, and Geralt was too busy not-thinking about the way Jaskier’s eyes shone when he laughed, and the witch walked up already fuming.

She was tall, almost as tall as Geralt, with brown hair woven through with silver cord and viney tattoos winding up her arms. At first they looked to be flower designs, but Geralt’s keen eyes could make out small, detailed runes etched out between the artwork. The witch’s bright blue eyes, cold as chips of Yuletide frost, bore into him intensely. “You are trespassing,” she said sharply, sliding her hand into a woven bag she had draped over one shoulder. “I told you all not to return here.”

Geralt stood slowly, resisting the urge to look towards Jaskier. From where she was standing, it was possible that the witch could not see him, hidden as he was in the shadows of the forest. She had emerged from another path that came around the backside of the house. Based on her equipment, it looked like she’d been hunting for herbs, possibly near the river to the north of the town. “Folks from the village sent us to discuss the… situation,” he said slowly. “W- I don’t want any trouble.”

The witch gave him a disbelieving glare. “Trouble is all I get these days, witcher. Don’t look surprised, I’ve heard the songs. I’m not a complete recluse. I know the White Wolf, as they call you, or the Butcher of Blaviken. I suppose I should be honored that you’ve graced my small corner of the world.” She spat the words at him, sneering. “Tell those simpering peasants that if they want to burn me at the stake they’ll have to come and light the tinder themselves.”

Geralt sighed. This was more antagonism than he’d hoped to start out with. “Haven’t heard anything about stakes. They just want you to stop stealing chickens.”

“The blood was for protection rites, to protect my home from the whoresons that have given me no rest since I arrived. They came a fortnight back with accusations on their tongues and cleavers in their hands, and I turned their fury back towards those they love.” She smirked. “I thought it was poetic.”

“People are always spiteful,” Geralt said, annoyed. “You can’t pay them back in kind.” He wasn’t unsympathetic, of course. Throughout his life he had more often than not been spat on and cursed at whenever he showed his face around humans. They knew that he was other, sensed how dangerous he could be if he decided to turn his skills on the ones who fed him. In his experience, this did not make them more cautious in his presence. People reacted to fear with violence in most cases. But the only appropriate response was to turn the other cheek. He could cleave through an angry mob without a second thought, destroy an entire village if it struck his fancy, but it was not what he had been made for. He had refused to let himself be molded into a monster for decades. The least this woman could do was try the same.

The witch broke him from his frustrated thoughts with a snort. “Easy for you to say. Always moving, never in one place for long. People call you a hero. ‘Friend of humanity.’” She scoffed. “They call me a devil. I could help them, and instead they cast stones my way. No,” she said, eyeing him coldly. “I will not bow to them.”

“I can’t let you continue to do them harm.” He felt tired. This wasn’t how he’d wanted this to go. Against his will, he found himself looking in Jaskier’s direction, and found the bard looking back at him with wide eyes. He seemed conflicted, his hands wringing the strap of his lute case nervously as he looked between Geralt and the source of the witch’s voice. Debating whether to try and step in, solve things diplomatically, Geralt realized. He shook his head slightly, and Jaskier nodded, though his brow furrowed in distress. When Geralt looked back to the witch she was watching him with an expression of disgust.

“You’re just like them,” she said, her voice angry and filled with grief. “No one understands. No one sees .” She drew herself up, pulling her hand from her bag. In it she clutched a handful of items - herbs, some kind of stone, and what looked like a human ear. “Very well. If you can hear no foul lies and see no bright pyres, you’ll do less harm to me and mine.” She raised her hand.

Several things happened in rapid succession. Geralt drew his silver sword, and ring of metal on metal echoing through the clearing as the witch tossed the objects into the air. He rushed towards her, raising his hand to begin etching the sign of quen . From his left there was a burst of noise, and he had time to think, ah, Jaskier just as the bard tackled the witch to the ground. She landed with a cry and quickly elbowed him in the jaw, a surprising move from someone so slight. Jaskier tumbled off of her from the force of it, and she turned back towards Geralt. Her eyes were full of fury as she opened her mouth and shouted a word.

Geralt’s sword swung down towards her neck, and the world went dark.

Part Two

[deaf-bakugou]

Present Mic Headcanons (LONG)

So it is Present Mic's Bday so yeah. I figured let's chat about some headcanons for my Favorite Deaf since childhood character. (In my opinion.) These could also be considered a little bit sad. Okay. Some are definitely sad. But tragic backstory. That is how it goes.

So maybe he was born Deaf (because his body was already protecting him from his quirk)

Maybe he wasn't

Regardless it wouldnt have mattered because the moment he was born he screamed just like every other baby in existence does.

The doctors, attending nurses, parents, all Deafened almost immediately or had severe damage to their ears.

I like to believe that Hizashi is actually part of a set of twins. A little girl was born first and his big sister is also Deafened by the blast.

His birth parents immediately give him up.

He is placed in a sound proof room and it takes a lot to convince nurses to go in and tend to the screaming baby who is cold and alone.

Social services is called in and they know they need to do an emergency placement immediately.

They succeed finding a profoundly Deaf couple who already can't hear anything to adopt this little boy. Hearing tests show that the baby is already pretty Deaf. The doctors apologize to the new parents who are not impressed with that at all and go off on the doctor saying being Deaf isnt something to apologize for. It is a wonderful and different worldview.

Hizashi gets to grow up with two loving Deaf parents who immerse him in the world of Sign language and Deaf culture. He bangs on the dinner table for attention. Shouts and jumps and waves his hands. Struggles with the concept of personal space. Deaf people may not hear, but they are not quiet.

However social services stays involved. A quirk like that is dangerous so they want it to be monitored closely. The parents don't really want to force Hizashi to goto speech therapy or force him to wear hearing aids but social services requires it potentially even taking them to court to mandate it for the child's care. So there he is at a very young age receiving his first hearing aids.

The parents are not thrilled but support Hizashi anyway. They want him to have the best possible life he can and they know that forcing him into the hearing world is not the way to go. Hizashi is startled by the new noises and responds to them as you often see in the Deaf child gets hearing aids videos. Oh yes so sweet or something. (Those videos are super harmful for Deaf community. Not related and a discussion for another time.)

Hizashi and his parents return home where he promptly flushes them down the toilet because he hates them. (Super common for young Deaf kids.)

Thus comes several years of him destroying or losing various sets of hearing aids. He doesnt know how expensive they are and his parents are not paying for them because it is the government requiring he have them for quirk control.

One day when he is maybe 6 or 7 he hears music for the first time properly. It is a new and better set of hearing aids, they are walking through some festival and bam, there it is, someone playing a guitar or something. He pretty quickly falls in love with it.

He doesnt expect his parents to support him, but they do. They are just as enthusiastic for him to become involved with music as he is. As long as it is what he wants and not something that is being forced on him. They can feel the bass vibrations and enjoy music. He ends up with several instruments, they can't afford the lessons but he learns online but never shows anyone.

He is a genius child. He learns how to arrange light shows to go with his music.

When he enters school he is put into the Deaf Ed program with the rest of the Deaf kids. Still immersed in Sign language. Since he learned Sign first, japanese as a second language comes decently easy to him and he learns to read quickly. He starts to actually listen during his court mandated Speech therapy though he doesn't talk.

He has a quirk accident as a child. Of course he does. All children do. But his accident shatters windows at the school. He doesn't mean to but he struggles with volume control though. Doesnt understand it is something he really needs to work on or monitor.

Of course they start requiring that he go to quirk training outside of school. A specialist is required for these things they say.

His parents are reluctant but have to do as told in order to be allowed to keep him.

He hates the quirk training. He is learning to listen to and understand spoken word now though he never speaks. He can also lip read a decent amount because of all of the therapy which focus's on oral. Even though that isnt the correct path. Hearing people often think that it is. But he understands. Understands they are calling his quirk evil, dangerous, perfect for a villian. But he trains, he tries. From then on he only uses his voice during his mandated quirk training sessions.

He doesn't speak, he doesn't hum. He is doing his best to stay on behavior. It stays like this for years. Of course he occasionally has accidents. One time out with his Dwaf friends he laughs too loud, some bystanders ear starts to bleed. The bystander calls the police.

This is the first time that Hizashi gets arrested. He is just a child but he and the police do not understand each other they think he is resisting arrest, hisashi doesnt understand why they are there. It goes on his juvenile record as unauthorized quirk use in public. He doesn't laugh again. Not for a long time.

He has a few more incidents like that and he is not thrilled but learns to be perfectly quiet. No noise at all.

But he is still a happy child. A bright child. He knows he can control his quirk and just live his life the way he wants to and he will. He is a natural talent with music though he never sings.

His family isn't rich, but they have the basic additions. His parents have a hearing dog, they have flashing doorbells and vibrating alarms. Flashing fire alarms. All of the standard equipment that is considered typical to living a Deaf life.

But they do not have a Deaf intruder Alarm.

One night a villian decides they are easy targets. Hizashi isn't home. He is at a friends house. His parents die that night.

This changes many things in Hizashi's life.

He goes back into the system. No one wants him when they learn about his unique difficulties. His record and his quirk. The fact that he is Deaf. But none of that matters he has made a decision. He will become a hero. And he will find the person who murdered his parents and make sure they never hurt anyone else.

A few months later social services finds a foster family willing to host Hizashi. The house father is not a kind man. When Hizashi arrives he gives Hizashi a list of rules to follow. No quirk use, no speaking. Among others. Hizashi moves from his old school and loses his friends. His foster father puts him into hearing mainstreamed classes.

Things are much more difficult for him now. But he will survive. He starts studying to get into UA. He works harder at his mandated training. It would give him an edge over the others.

He cries out in his sleep one night. Nightmares from traumatic experiences.

His foster father has a special muzzle made. When he enters the home he wears it until he leaves instructed to eat breakfast on the way to school and dinner in the backyard away from the other house kids.

He grows to hate people like this. A darkness festering in his soul. A delicate balance between two paths he could fall down.

He studies technology too. Experiments with creating things when he can. His is paranoid. He doesnt want to be caught off gaurd like his parents so he wants to create a flashing alert for his door and windows. He is sure some are already out there but he no longer has access to these things.

At 14 he starts to speak. Not at home, not at school. But at his required speech therapy. To the surprise of all he speaks perfectly. No accent, no lagging, perfect volume control, and perfect speech. He is just as surprised as everyone else. A quirk specialist decides it is a part of his quirk. His quirk being Voice, it seems to override some of the effects of being Deaf.

Hizashi is pleased because he knows this gives him an easier path to the world of hero's. Having to overcome the barrier of speech issues would have been difficult. He doesn't speak often.

Depression settles in. But he has a goal. He moves forward. He applies for UA for the scholarship program. On the day of the test he wipes the floor with his opponents. No one knows how to handle his quirk. He makes it in easily.

He decides then and there that he will change everything. He will be happy and bright and like he was as a child. For his parents. And he is. He finds himself melding more into the hearing world. He has to.

He creates his own combat hearing aids, out of a set of headphones and some old hearing aid parts. Not perfect but progress. He does such a good job he is allowed into the support work shop and soon has a much better set. He keeps the first pair forever though.

When he meets Shouta, the other child doesnt care about his hearing aids. Or about much at all. Hizashi learns that Shouta knew a Deaf girl at his school back in middle school. Shouta knows basic signs but never bothered to really talk to her either.

Hizashi is still thrilled. By the time they graduate Shouta is reluctantly good at it.

Hizashi never looks back to his foster family once he moves out. He goes on to do wonderful things in the hero community. He uses his radio show as a platform for children in the foster system and children with disabilities. He never wants anyone to feel the way he did.

He eventually tells Shouta about his parents. Shouta just let's him talk. Hizashi needs it. But Hizashi is happy now, there is still a darkness in his soul, something that pulls tight if he gets to angry. A flash of the villian he could be. But being with Shouta tends to keep it at bay.

It isnt until years after they graduate, in their early twenties after college, that Shouta looks at Hizashi, who has grown his hair out. Hizashi is laughing with Nemuri and tosses his longer hair over his shoulder. Shouta realizes that this man looks almost identical to the girl he went to middle school with.

Shouta tracks her down out of curiosity. After some finagling he learns that this girl is indeed Hizashi's twin. He eventually tells Hizashi. Hizashi reunites with his twin sister and develops a bond that will never break with her. It will take many more years before he finds the will to speak with his borth parents. He doesnt know if he will be angry or not. It doesnt matter either. Because the Deaf couple that adopted him, and loved him, had been his parents and no one could replace them.

He lives happily with what he has built for himself. Bouncing between the Deaf and hearing communities. He builds hearing aids and other aids for underprivileged Deaf families and children. He creates his own line of alarms connected to video feeds. His house is always armed to the max. But it isnt so bad once he marries Shouta, able to trust him to hear intruders as well. Though the man sleeps like the dead so he never stops using the alarm system anyway.

Eventually he meets another boy with a voice quirk, shunned for his abilities and with a darkness brewing in his soul.

So of course he keeps that boy. He had been adopted after all, so adopting isnt a difficult decision.

[dreamchangelive]

Endearing

                                                      Chapter I

It could not be more difficult than this. He once thought that waking up in an unknown world was the most terrifying and hardest thing he had lived. Now he knew with the certainty that only death gives him again, that living in a world without him, it would never regain its meaning. The world has returned and his world has vanished. He needed to move on. He needed to do what he exceedingly knew best, to be strong and help the world. When the morning comes, he will be there for all of them, once more.

                                                             Don't do anything stupid until I come back.

                           How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you.

Bruce had set everything so he could return the stones. They discussed it earlier that morning and even with not all of them in agreement, clearly this was the best thing to do. He was going to return the infinity stones, and he will go alone. Maybe because he was not there or maybe because it had to be done fast, planning how and which of the stones should be first returned was not much take into account. He only knew he had to place each of them in its right place as soon as possible.The journey had begun.

                                                    — — — — —

The Pym particles were in front of him. The other Steve was leaving the corridor where he will meet him. And there was that thought that invaded his brain as liquor, well, at least as he could remember before the serum. He was in Hank Pym lab again looking at the particles, and thinking what taking more of them could mean, what he could do, the possibilities… He had enough of them for all this journey, but if he could take a few more, maybe he could go to a moment where... No! Steve scolded himself. He remembered discussing during the brainstorming in the compound that they should not mess with time, and even he told him. So, he could not be selfish, and about all, irresponsible with an entire world to whom he claimed was going to protect.

However, no one had to know, he said to himself fighting against his own instinct. If he did this, he could just go and see him for a last time, and would be very careful. Also, he already returned the stones. The mission was accomplished, then maybe this could be an opportunity, just one more time. It would not be an encounter, of course; it could be from a distance. A proper goodbye, the closure he needed this time. Steve was trying to convince himself in the absurdity of the situation. 

Then, he took them. For the first time in his life, he would do this for him, not the world. Since he woke up from the ice and even before, he had only dedicated his life to others and has never thought of himself for once. This was insane there was no doubt, but he needed to see him, just one last time.

                                                    — — — — —

Steve arrived in the area near the house. It was very easy to get there because he remembered in detail the road that lead to his house. The idea was to be away from the house, but stay close enough in the neighborhood. He could recognize the surveillance cameras on the streets, so he would have to try to pass as unnoticed as he could. How he would do that seemed impossible now, but the thought that came into his mind about returning, last hardly a second. 

In this position he was not near any of those cameras, he said to himself. Still, the real questions took place in his head now. How could he know that he was there? What if he went on a trip? And the most important one, How would he see him? At least he had thought about the day, he assured himself. It had to be that day, that day when they say goodbye to each other with a disguised melancholy that he now recognized.

         ...and you're gonna miss me. There's gonna be a lot of manful tears...

He did, so much, and he tried his best to feel so little, but he did. Nevertheless, that was not the point. The truth was that for being a strategist, war battle planner captain, this was starting to become the worst of his ideas. Because really, What would he do here? Just wait around? He knew he was being carried away by the impulses, his emotions, that for so many years were guarded and tamed, now seemed to be the owners of his actions. Definitely, a good part of his neurons were lost with the lighting of Thor hammer for sure. 

After a few minutes of waiting, the remorse for what he was doing could do more than him. He needed to get out of there, at least plan this better.

He went away.

                                                      — — — — —

«Friday, how are you dear? Tell me something that can enlighten this day, I really need good news to start working.» Tony was entering his lab with a cup of coffee in his hands. He was wondering about that idea around his head. Without a doubt, he needed to improve those bracelets, he thought. Although they worked out fine at that moment when Loki sent him flying out the tower, there should be a way to have those microchips always with him (even if that implied what he was actually thinking, and what would Pepper will do to him if she ever found out). 

«Sir, I am afraid I do not have the best of news today.» Friday interrupted his line of thoughts.

 «Please do not tell me there is some of my grandchildren still messing around? Vision told us he destroyed Ultron last robot» Tony asked. 

«No Sir, there is no notification of incidents involving any of the robots, but there is an archive of yesterday records of cameras around the neighborhood that you should see»

«Well let me say that is a relief...um...OK bring it up» said Tony without paying too much attention the screen, and focusing on the bracelets on his desk. On the record playing, it could be seen from a long distance a figure walking from side to side.

«Who am I looking at Friday? I could feel offended if you think my kind of fun for starting the day would be seeing the neighbors walking around the park» Tony said joking with the A.I.

«I am afraid it is not any of your neighbors Sir. It seems to be Steve Rogers, Sir»

«What did you say?» Tony said approaching the screen to see in more detail.

«I said...»

«No, I heard you the first time; amplify the image» Tony asked.

After seeing the video a few times, Tony should not say that he was perplexed by what he was looking at, but despite everything they had been through, seeing an odd «Steve Rogers» walking around his neighborhood made him feel extremely uncomfortable. What was he looking at? Who or what was this person, who looks like Rogers, but also seems...older? How could that be possible? Friday confirmed him Rogers was on the compound all day yesterday, and even right now he was doing some kind of training with the team, so that could not be him. Loki maybe? He vaguely remembered seeing Loki imitating Captain that time in the tower, but why come to this place? And why only to be walking around? Honestly, this was not the news he wanted for starting the day.

                                                                                                  — — — — — 

This was not a better plan. He would stay in the park nearby again, and then he would just wait until he sees him, at least for a second, and then he would be gone. God, what was he saying! He considered himself an optimistic, persevering, maybe even a stubborn person when trying to achieve what he wanted, but this was the craziest thing he had ever done, and now he did not know how to stop. Way to go Steve, way to go, he told himself. Talking about not messing with the future.

He was in a location where he could see the house. Always with a prudent distance it would be safe, he insisted in reassuring himself. It was early in the morning, and he saw Happy coming out the house, and that give him some hope Maybe he was still there, he wanted to believe. Suddenly, there it was that mechanic sound he was so used to hearing…

«I don't recall sending an invitation to Asgard for you to visit my neighborhood.»

Steve closed his eyes for a moment. Hearing his voice, alive, one more time was enough, was all he could have asked. Then the thought that also interrupted his mind about him dying right there, at the hands of the man he profoundly loved, was not such a terrible idea either.  He did what he thought was best, very, very slowly started to turn around with his hands up. When he turned completely, he could see the iron suit in front of him.

«Come on Rock of Ages, are you going to tell me why you are here?»

Steve knew he had to control his extremely fast beating heart, and the way he was trying to breath did not help in showing a peaceful and serene state. He also knew he would know. He must have scanned him already, so he tried to recover and replied with what he thought was a firm but also polite tone.

«I am not who you think» replied Steve trying to sound calm.

Sure it was obvious he would believe Steve was Loki. It was the most reasonable assessment, Steve thought. However, the crossroad was what to say and do now? He needed to think fast.

«That part can be proved» And Tony sent a blast over Steve.

Steve moved so fast that one could say he already knew he was going to be hit. He tried to hide behind a bench knowing the preposterous of doing that.

«You know, your reflexes are strangely as good as the old man's, I can give you that»

«Please, I can explain» said Steve trying to put his arms up again.

«I am really curious to hear an explanation, but my real dilemma is that I am not 100% sure if you have to be alive to tell it»

Steve could tell he was not talking seriously, but he needed to say something believable, and reasonable, that could convince him without at least not receiving a few more blasts. 

«Please...» And that was the last word he could say before being hit. Steve did not see where it came from this time. He only felt how his chest burned and hurt from the impact. He felt out of breath and thought for a moment that he was dreaming, because that mechanic sound was near him now, and from the distance the voice could be heard, his voice, could be heard without the suit. He wanted to call him; he wanted to say his name…

                          ...you mess with time, it tends to mess back...

                                                                                              — — — — — 

Although it sounded wrong, alright, he was just saying it to himself without anyone around, congratulates himself for having built that cell in his lab, now did not seem so paranoid or strange, since a "Steve Rogers / Loki" lays unconscious in it. He knew that the strength of that new weapon in his suit was quite powerful, but the true Captain could have handled it, perhaps he would have fallen, but lose consciousness? That is the piece of a puzzle that had no form for now.

«Friday, while the sleeping beauty is still in dreamland let's run some few test I am sending you right now»

«Yes Sir, do you want me to keep him sedated?»

«That it's intriguing, isn't it? He seems to be resting, like he needed that, but yes, keep him there until you have everything» Tony replied.

«Of course, Sir, do you want me to inform someone in the compound?»

«Mm, no. Let's keep this between us for now. I need to go with Pepper but call me as soon as he wakes up».

«I will inform you Sir».

«Thanks dear» And Tony locked the door.

                                                   — — — — —

Steve was starting to wake up. He felt dazed, but oddly enough his body seemed to have rested. He was lying in a bed he could not recognize and saw those white walls that he also didn't remember seeing before. Suddenly, he realized that he did not remember anything of what had happened or where he was. He felt bewildered, but at the same time the images came back to hit him with a new flow of emotions… the park, the iron suit, the blast... he was trying to say that he lo...

«Why are you here?» His voice once more put Steve´s heart on a desperate running. He tried to get up but still felt dizzy and only managed to sit down. The fatigue of days without rest was ravaging him right now. He could not look up from the floor, he vaguely was dealing with waking up, he could not see him yet. 

«Why are you here?» he repeated again.

Steve couldn't speak, he felt like his words get lost in his head when he heard the sound of his voice.

«OK, you must feel confused now, but in a few minutes, you will have to answer some of my questions. There are water and something to eat too.»

Steve looked around avoiding seeing him, and take into notice that he was in a cell. There was a counter with food and water, some furniture, but indeed, he seemed to be confined. He got up as best as he could and went to the counter to pour himself a glass of water. He tried not to spill it while his hands were shaking. He then realized he was thirsty and hungry, if he thought about it, he could not remember the last meal he had. His words echoed in his head again to bring him back to reality, why are you here? A question with an answer he wasn't knowing at that moment either. 

«I am not Loki» was all he could say while putting the glass over the counter.

«I know.»

                                                      — — — — —

[forvalor-blog]

                                          ❛❛ So, yeah…  I failed the course. ❜❜

       The look his parents share is one of bewildered shock.  It only drives home the fact that he failed them, as unintentional as it may be.  Unable to meet their gaze, the young man drops his eyes to the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow him whole.

       He hasn’t really stopped crying since his meltdown on stage during his final piece.  There have been moments where the tears have stopped  (  namely when he’s sleeping, which he does a lot of nowadays  ), but the vacancy in his chest has never since been filled.  In comparison to the crippling loneliness he’s now plagued with, his failing grade does little to upset him.  He doesn’t care that much that he couldn’t graduate;  he cares that he couldn’t take his graduation piece to his best friend’s doorstep.

       His mother’s hands on his face bring him out of his thoughts, warm and gentle, and he feels his throat threatening to close.  Had he not felt so devoid of emotion, so deliriously drained of tears, he may very well have started crying again.  Instead, he stares at her blankly, tiredly, soul aching so profoundly that he feels fit to die in her arms.

       ❛❛ You didn’t fail, honey, ❜❜   she chimes softly, thumbs swiping gently over the heavy bags beneath his eyes--  as if she’s trying to lessen the cumbersome luggage with her tender touch. Murr feels his mouth open but no sound comes out.  He’s left frustratingly quiet, like a pipe that desperately needs unclogging.  It’s only when she pulls him into a hug that he feels something heavy settle atop his lungs, as if a thick layer of tarmac has suddenly blocked the road to his heart.  Despite it all, he feels his eyes growing warm all over again.  How many times am I going to burden the people around me with this frivolous misery?  It isn’t as if it matters.   ❛❛ You just didn’t do it this time.  And that’s okay. ❜❜

                                                                                                             ❛❛ I’m sorry, mama…  ❜❜

       When his father embraces the pair of them, big arms wrapped around them like an oversized scarf, Murr is unable to keep himself together any longer.  Again, he breaks.

                                                                     *  *  *

       He’s been sleeping a lot lately, the months rolling by in flippant little flashes of lucidity before he promptly drops off again.  It seems to be about the only thing he can do without screwing anything up, so he takes refuge in the pointless activity.  At the very least, while he’s dead to the world, he isn’t bothering anybody;  isn’t wasting people’s time with his vapid uselessness;  isn’t embarrassing himself in front of people who put their faith in him.  Dear Raku, that scene haunts his dreams sometimes.  He kills it with cough medicine.  In large doses, the syrupy concoction is enough to lull him into undisturbed sleep for long blissful hours at a time, a blurry feeling filling his body as he dozes off.  He’s unsure if his mother knows about it for he always makes sure to hide the bottles.  If she has noticed, she certainly hasn’t said a word about it.  He doesn’t even have a reason for why he chose cough medicine over other medicines than the fact that it tastes better than most  What had started as an occasional dose-up in order to cope with the scratchy feeling in his throat  (  most likely a byproduct of so much crying  )  has turned into somewhat of a dependence.

       ❛❛ Li’l Murph…? ❜❜

       Dead Autumn eyes slowly open to gaze upon the concerned face of his mother.  Only she calls him that.  His father is ‘’Big Murph’’.  Despite the fact that he’s a little bit woozy, he feels his heart twist in his chest at the sight of her.  Even just by laying in bed, he’s somehow proving himself to be a total embarrassment.  He’s filled with so much self-loathing he feels fit to burst;  as if that inky blackness is going to start leaking from the pads of his fingers and into the bed.  It feels very much like that’s all his ‘’work’’ ever was:  an unfortunate stain on otherwise worthwhile parchment. 

       ❛❛ How’re you doing…? ❜❜   She knows it’s a frivolous question, but she can’t help but ask.  As she perches on the edge of the bed, a gentle hand sweeps over his forehead, brushing unkempt curls aside.  Her little guy has always had such thick hair.  She’s learned over time that there’s no point in trying to tame it.   ❛❛ It’s…  been a while since you got out of bed.  Yer father ‘n’ I’re really worried about you.  Are you…  sick? ❜❜

       Sick in the heart, mama.  Sick in the brain.   ❛❛ … no.  I’m just tired. ❜❜

       ❛❛ Tired? ❜❜

       ❛❛ Yeah.  Really tired. ❜❜

       He watches numbly as his mother moves to lay beside him.  His bed is small, singular, and even though he doesn’t really desire company he feels himself shuffling backwards in order to give her more room, his back snugly against the wall.  She’s a small woman, so it isn’t as if he’s struggling to breathe.  When he entered his tens, he’d dwarfed her almost immediately.  It had become a running joke, constantly measuring himself up with her and asking,  ’’how much longer are you gonna be bigger than me?’’

       ❛❛ Maybe it would help to get out of bed? ❜❜   The small smile that curls onto her face is safe.  While he may have told someone else saying something similar to him to fuck off, never his mother.  Never her.  She’s only ever tried to do the things that make him happy.   ❛❛ I know that you think you’re a failure, Alé, but yer not.  You’re not.  Okay?  You’re.  Not.  ❜❜

       ❛❛ Mama-- ❜❜        ❛❛ Please stop-- ❜❜   

       His lips press tightly together as he watches her eyes fill with tears.  It’s now that he realises just how much he’s worrying her.  It hits him with the startling weight of a truck, hard and fast, and all at once it’s difficult to keep his eyes on her.  It’s even worse when she brings her hands to his face, pulling him closer and closer until she can press a gentle kiss to his forehead.  Tender fingers reach up, card through his hair even in spite of its nightmarish tangles, his head drawn to her chest.

       ❛❛ … you’re my son.  I know you better than anybody.  Yer smart, ‘n’ funny, ‘n’ talented, ‘n’ yer ideas are out of this world.  The crowd loves you.  That hasn’t changed just because you failed once.  It’ll never change.  So long as you keep making things, it’ll never change.  So please, keep making things. ❜❜

       Though it by no means fixes the battered state of his heart, it soothes the ache just a little, and ‘just a little’ makes it bearable.  Though he doesn’t suddenly believe in himself, he tells convinces him to tell her that she’s right, that he’s being too hard on himself   (  no you’re not no you’re not no you’re not  )  and at some point drags himself from the warm cocoon of his sheets with her help.  He showers for the first time in forever, tends to himself properly, and then goes downstairs to eat.  His mother is allowed to feed him a whole meal after months of him starving himself and living on scraps.  It hadn’t all been intentional.  He’d simply had no desire to eat at all.  When his father enters the house after tending the fields all day, he all but double-takes when he sees his son somewhere other than buried in his bed.

       ❛❛ By Gods…  it’s him. ❜❜        ❛❛ Ha-Ha, dad.  Maybe the real stage presence in this family is you.  Total knockout.  ❜❜

       The small ‘smack’ delivered to the back of his head is filled with nothing but affection.  For just one night, they feel like they have their son back.

                                                                            * * *

                                     For a while, he thought he was going to be okay.  

     For a while, waking up every morning at the crack of dawn and helping his father with fruit-picking and orchard-watering had been enough to motivate him.  For a while, peeling their harvest in the cellar with his mother and stuffing it into kegs had been enough to distract him.  For a while, Murr really thought that the quiet family life could salvage his wounded pride, his shattered self-image, his exhausted brain--  but it couldn’t.  None of it can.

       His parents have started to notice the bad habits creeping back in.  They’re mysteriously out of cough syrup when hay season comes and irritates their throats.  His notebook remains as empty as it did the day after he bought it.  As soon as he’s done with work, he goes straight to bed, most of the time not even stopping to eat before collapsing out of sheer exhaustion.  His mother tries to make sure he has some sort of breakfast before he goes out to work;  most of the time he picks at it, clearly disinterested.  His father tries to talk to him about re-applying for school.  On the surface, he meets them both with a vague sense of cooperation;  a deceitful amicability, almost, before retiring to bed and letting his deep sense of apathy take over.

       The longer he thinks about it, the more disconnected from himself that he feels.  He’s no longer a student, or a best friend, or an on-and-off-maybe-crush.  At this point, he barely even feels like a son.  He’s just a lost man in a void sea, floating wherever the grief takes him, the little paper boat that’s been crudely folded for him out of playwright notes and fantastical plots beginning to grow soggy and sink.  At the end of the day, when all is said and done, he can do nothing to stop the overwhelming emptiness from taking over.

       And Kuro…  God, he hates him.  The more he thinks about the other, the more twisted up he becomes.  He’s always had an explosive temper, since he was a young child, but the outbursts have been getting so much worse lately.  He knocked a plate out of his mother’s hand a few days ago when she tried to feed him.  He threw an empty pail at his father when he’d tried to insist that he should give school another go.  Though he’d apologised both times, blaming his current moodiness, he hadn’t felt any guilt--  just more anger, sick and hateful, and somewhere along the way it had turned into an anguish so raw that it was difficult to remain upright.

       This is your fault.  You can’t do anything right.  If you had tried to reach him more, he wouldn’t have turned his back on you.  He did you a service, not attending your piss-poor performance.  It would probably have been a huge embarrassment to the both of you.  God, you suck…  you know that Kuro isn’t the only one, right?  It isn’t just Kuro that thinks you’re worthless, even if it’s his opinion that hurts you the most.  Your mom thinks you’re moody and mean.  Your dad thinks you flopped on purpose so you could have an easy life as the spoiled rich kid in the Murphy household.  They both think you failed them, and you did.  Your peers at school haven’t tried to reach out to you since you left.  Not one of them.  You know why? Because they’re all embarrassed by you too.  They hate you, Murr.  Everyone hates you.  Kuro hates you.  Kuro has hated you for a long time.  Kuro never liked you.  Kuro despised you all along and you fell for it.  You fell for it, Murphy.  You fell for him.  How does that feel?

       It feels overwhelmingly painful.  It’s why he dulls the ache with copious amounts of medication.  In a way, whenever that concoction slides down his throat he feels a sense of relief.  Not because he’s immediately high or he feels a sudden disconnect from the strain, but because it feels as if this feeling can really be cured;  as if he’s able to reach inside of himself and apply medicine to the places that hurt the most.  

       When he stumbles out of his house early one morning in the midst of a storm, it’s with the pitiful gait of a man so intoxicated he can barely make progress.  Nevertheless, his dose propels him down the hill, all but tumbling down the steep incline and into the field below.  The floaty feeling that spreads through his body as he lays face-up in the sunshine field  (  as he and Kuro had so eloquently dubbed it after observing that the weeds had looked much like tiny suns  )  is pleasant.  It doesn’t last, but while it does he’s happy, glazed eyes staring up into the endless sky, rain spattering heavily against his face.  Normally, he hates getting his hair wet, but in this state he’s unaware--  doesn’t possess the motor function to be irritated by it.

       At some point, he clambers to his feet again, slipping and sliding his way up the second hill as if caught on ice, entangled in the throes of a drug-induced dizziness, and somehow, he manages to wedge his foot into the footholes of the Big Tree and begin climbing.  Only Raku knows how he manages, arms shaking with the effort it takes to even lift himself from the base of the trunk.

       Me and Kuro used to do this all the time.  Now that I’m grown, it’s easier to climb.  Maybe if I climb I can reach that state of happiness again.  If I keep going, higher and higher, maybe I can leave my life behind and live in my memory, the place where nothing hurts and everything is right and I was happy and I had a life ahead of me--

       Somewhere along the way, the high begins to die down, a dead weight in his chest as he starts his mindless ascent.  What replaces it is a sorrow so dreary that he starts crying, tears mixing with the rain.  Air that crackles with static becomes hot and heavy to his aching lungs, the sadness that spreads itself across them like butter so thick that his breaths rattle like chains.  His climbing is frantic, as if he’s really trying to reach somewhere beyond the stretches of his imagination;  as if he truly believes that a different world is waiting for him beyond the barrier of leaves.

       It doesn’t take him long to reach the surface.  In fact, so surprised by his fast mount of the giant monument is he that he very nearly falls while searching for a further footfall, only to realise there isn’t one.  With his elevated height, it’s now easy for his face to push itself through the thick foliage  - something he couldn’t do as a child  -  features exposed to the sky.  To his turbulent sense of grief, there is no light, ethereal plane above.  The storm is the same, the night thick with cloud and and dreary headaches.  He feels his expression falling until he’s left with the same apathetic arrangement as usual.

       What was I thinking?  Of course there’s nothing above this threshold.  Of course there’s no memory palace, no safe havens, no pleasant things--  just rot, and rain, and dark.  Just vapid emptiness.  Just nothing.  Dear Gods…  my life means nothing.  I mean nothing.  There’s nothing for me here.  What I thought was mine was snatched from my hands.

       Sobbing at the top of the tree feels right somehow.  Hunched there in the leaves, tight and balled, as invisible now as he’s felt for the past few months, it brings him some amount of solace to wring himself dry of feeling.  He cries until his throat begins to hurt;  until his hoodie has been soaked through;  until his boots become slick and slippery.  Everything just hurts so much.  And there’s nothing I can do to escape it.  There’s nothing I can do to--

       His thoughts are interrupted by his shoe slipping badly as he begins to squirm his way down.  He slides along branches, some snapping with the force, and falls a short way down until his arms are able to wrap around a thick branch that is capable of hosting his weight.  Even in the heavy rain, he can hear the bark groaning, as if it too is expressing a deep discontentment with him.  Check that, Murphy - not even trees like you.

       With his face momentarily buried into his shoulder, trying to clear his vision of tears and water, he gets a glance at the ground.  He really didn’t fall that far;  he’s left suspended a great ways off the ground still, his legs dangling like nooses.  Somewhere inside of him is a fight pulling through, legs swinging in an attempt to lock around the tree and continue his descent.  His boots continue to slip, unable to find purchase.

       God-fucking-damnit.  I can’t get up.

       Why’re you fighting so hard though?

       The thought brings with it an alarming amount of clarity.  When he really settles down to tackle it, why is he struggling so vehemently to remain aloft?  His family is disappointed in him; his best friend has suddenly decided he hates his guts;  his college career went down the drain; he’s stuck working on a farm that reminds him of all the dear things he once had but no longer does.  Is this all there is?  Haunted memories and half-people?  A safe, average existence that risks absolutely nothing?  Betrayal from those you trusted with your soul?  Was this really all he had to look forward to after leaving his fluffy childhood behind?

       Oh, you’re crying again.  Big surprise.        Shut up.  Stop whining.  This is your fault.        ❛❛ I know…  I know…  so pleeease... ❜❜

       You don’t seem like you want to get back up.

       Does he?  Even though he knows that this voice has a tendency to say the worst things, is it wrong?  He feels the strength leaving his arms slowly, though he wriggles desperately in an attempt to remain hanging there.  If I can just wait until dawn, my dad’ll find me--

       You KNOW you have the strength to pull yourself up.  You just don’t want to.

       ❛❛ ... ❜❜

       It’s this thought that is the final nail in the coffin.  Really, these thoughts are right.  Why is he trying so much?  All he ever does is fail.  No matter how much effort he puts into things, he always comes up short.  Everything that he touches dies in some way.  He’s incredibly unstable and makes his mother cry.  He can’t do anything right…  but he could let go right.  He could do that.  Even a complete idiot like him could do that, couldn’t he?

       Sure you could, kid.  You know you could.  Think of it as a service.  Besides, you’re so high up, it’d be relatively painless.  Relatively. 

       It isn’t painless.  It hurts as if hell has opened up inside of him, a torn scream escaping his raw throat before he falls still and quiet in a heap on the ground.  Unable to move, blood pooling around his head, he feels his vision swim and give out.

       Hey…!  HEY!!       … yer cryin’...       Screw off…  I thought ya died.

       His eyes open halfway, as if he expects to see his dearest friend scrabbling his way down the tree, just like he had all those years ago.  There’s nobody there.  Of course there isn’t.  Why would there be?  Nobody’s coming to get me.  Even when I came to get them, they’re not going to come and get me.

       A slideshow of mismatched memories play through his head at the speed of sound, a sensory overload that ultimately leaves his ears ringing and his eyes stinging.  Kuro…  I miss you…  I could never hate you…  I need you here…  don’t you see that you’re the reason for all of this pain…?  All I want is for you to come back…  please come back.  I’ll try harder!  I’ll reach further!  I just need you to come back please come back please please PLEASE COME AND GET ME I FUCKED UP REALLY BAD--

                              ��                                                                                           He doesn’t.

[uk-news-talking-politics]

A government of Chris Graylings

By Ian Dunt

It's like a merry-go-round of ministerial defects. It's genuinely difficult to finishing reading the details of one government screw-up before they've done the next one.

During the Blair era, government figures were forced to resign if a row lasted a set number of days on the front pages. That now seems laughably old-fashioned. If you go into the kitchen to make a sandwich, there is a good chance that two Blair-era resignation-level offences will have been committed by the time you come back. Everything is much faster nowadays: Music, cars, political incompetence.

This week, Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley - who admitted when she took the job that she "didn’t understand things like when elections are fought people who are nationalists don't vote for unionist parties" - said that killings by soldiers during the Troubles were "not crimes".

On a basic moral level, it was obscene. Soldiers are not exempt from criminal behaviour by virtue of wearing a uniform. To claim otherwise is to give them carte blanche to behave in any way they like, no matter how murderous. To think they should be exempt is bad enough. But for a minister to actually say it sends a clear message to soldiers that powerful figures will work to protect them regardless of what they do.

On a political level, it was unforgivable. It inflamed tensions in Northern Ireland, in a week which already saw suspected terrorist activity from dissident Republican groups. It suggested the secretary of state was incapable of coming to impartial judgements on the delicate issues her department is supposed to preside over.

That's even more damning than it would otherwise be, given the Northern Irish Assembly is not functioning during a period in which a Unionist party is propping up the Westminster government. That type of scenario requires a very careful set of hands. Instead, we have a moron.

It also seemed to pre-empt the announcement next week by the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service into whether any members of the security services would be prosecuted for the events of Bloody Sunday. If there are no prosecutions. her comments will help create a sense of establishment cover-up outrage.

But even if you could dismiss all of that, it was profoundly unhelpful on a general strategic level. Britain is currently embroiled in Brexit negotiations which, you may or may not have noticed, are not going very well. The key issue relates to Ireland. The Republic has a veto on almost every aspect of this process. And this was what the Northern Irish secretary had to contribute. If she had sat down and tried to formulate the least useful combination of words for our current predicament she could not have been any more effective.

Not that those Brexit talks were going particularly well anyway. Geoffrey Cox - the boom-voiced attorney general tasked with securing changes to the backstop and then also simultaneously assessing their legal status - was in Brussels this week in a desperate bid to secure something before next week's vote. He insisted that the backstop breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

Diplomats looked on in astonishment. After all, the backstop was a British idea. It was the UK which had demanded an open border in Ireland as a red line, and then sought, for nearly a year, to expand it to the whole of the UK. And now it had turned around and claimed that its own policy was to breach human rights. It was so desperate and tawdry and self-interested that it did nothing to convince the Europeans to help him and quite a bit to discourage them from ever wanting to do so in future.

By the time he returned to the UK, Cox was Brian-Blesseding his way through a Commons statement when he cannily decided to start elaborating on why "'Cox's Codpiece' was in full working order". Much mirth and lots of chuckling news reports ensued. But he knew what he was doing. It was a dead codpiece strategy. Because away from the mock-hilarity was the stark failure of his negotiating tactic. All was in tatters. He had reportedly cancelled his trip to Brussels for the end of the week. Even plans for the prime minister to go on Sunday seem to have been shelved. The whole sorry spectacle of renegotiation is ending without anything to show for it.

And there was more. The ministerial failings simply would not stop. Work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd was forced to apologise for calling Labour’s Diane Abbott "coloured". Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said worries about Islamophobia should be addressed to the Foreign Office. Liam Fox spent £1.9 million on an 'Exporting is Great' online campaign, which included £107,000 for a podcast no-one listened to.

Back in the day, any one of these events would have ended a ministerial career. But now, no-one one ever has to resign, because there is no authority in Downing Street. May cannot really prise anyone out of their job because they would just become another malcontent on the backbenches, on either the Brexit or Remain side.

But in reality the poison runs deeper than that. These errors do not lead to resignations because honour has stopped playing a functional role in the way Britain does politics. Even a terrible prime minister like David Cameron resigned, just a few years ago, when the referendum campaign he was in charge of failed. But May struggles on regardless, as if it were a sign of strength rather than political sociopathy.

She lost a majority in an election she chose to call. No resignation. Her government was found in contempt of parliament. No resignation. She was handed the most overwhelming defeat in British political history over a deal she used the full bandwidth of government to secure. No resignation.

The shame is gone. And that permeates all the way down the system, from the ceaseless lies told by MPs to the limitless cash ministers waste on pet projects. Organisations take on the character of those at the top. We have Theresa May, so shamelessness, ignorance and inadequacy have now tricked down to every part of the governing structure.

This is basically an entire administration made out of Chris Graylings. It's like that bit in Being John Malkovich where Malkovich himself goes down the tunnel and everyone is him and all they can say is his name. Except that it's Grayling, and he's in every government department, at every level, ignoring advice, making disastrous errors of judgement, acting with a grotesque combination of naivety and malice, and never facing any consequences for it, no matter how many ruined policy portfolios or wasted taxpayer banknotes or broken lives he leaves scattered in his wake.

That's where we are. That's what this week was like. And honestly? It was one of the better ones.

[sulevinblade]

OC Interview Meme

Tagged by: @mocha-writes (hopefully it tags you properly this time? But still, THANK YOU!!)

I’ll tag: @gremlinquisitor ofc, and anyone else who wants to do it! I don’t know who all among you may have already done it for your OCs but I love reading these!!

Since I did Ghilanel here, this one will be with Varevas. I’m... sorry, about him.

1. What is your name?

“You’ve lost my confidence with the very first question.”

2. What is your real name?

“Varevas, First of Clan Lavellan and Lord Inquisitor. I should make you use the entire thing for the duration as penance for not doing the least amount of background research.”

3. Do you know why you were called that?

“The end of it is just titles, of course, and I’m called those because I earned them, more or less. My given name is a variation of one given to at least one child in every generation of our clan in order to ensure someone carries our freedom forward. But no pressure.”

4. Are you single or taken?

“I am taken, frequently and to great mutual satisfaction.”

5. Have any abilities or powers?

“I love hearing them called powers because the implication is I went to bed one night unable to conjure a great fist of stone out of the loose Fade energy pouring from the rifts and then woke up able to do so. Maybe that’s how it looks to people who don’t possess magic of their own. I have many abilities, learned and honed through time and training. I have one power and that is closing rifts. I had nothing to do with that.”

6. Stop being a Mary Sue.

“I have no idea who that is.”

7. What’s your eye color?

“Green, light green.”

8. How about your hair color?

“Dark red. I’m thinking of growing it out.”

9. Have you any family members?

“My mother was killed by human bandits but my father is still alive, and I have one younger brother and a cousin with whom I’m quite close.”

10. Oh? What about pets?

“No, but recently we were in the Emerald Graves and I found a handful of caterpillars all climbing on some sort of communal nest or cocoon site. I didn’t really think anything of it and no one there knew what kind they were or if they were dangerous, but they did seem to respond to the sound of our voices. It was as though it startled them, but it looked like they were dancing, so I spent a few minutes teaching them different rhythms. I don’t think they cared for it but I never said I was good with animals. Bull thought it was hilarious.”

11. That’s cool I guess, now tell me about something you don’t like.

“I don’t like having my ancedotes dismissed. If we’re looking on a larger scale, I really don’t like that there’s an ancient magister threatening to destroy the world and start over and some people’s greatest concern is still how the ears of the person leading the fight to stop that are shaped.”

12. Do you have any hobbies/activities you like doing?

“I enjoy reading. My clan didn’t have many books and what we did have were focused on our history and written by other elves, which is very effective if you don’t ever plan on interacting with anyone other than elves ever. I can understand why many in my clan would have preferred that but I’ll take Skyhold’s library any day.”

13. Ever hurt anyone before?

“Oh yes, it’s a running joke. If you asked Dorian what my hobbies are, he’d tell you it’s indiscriminate murder, but I think I’m very discriminating.”

14. Ever… killed anyone before?

“I got ahead of myself with the last one. Well, asked and answered, but again, it’s not indiscriminate.” He looks unusually serious for a moment. “I learned my history and I know what indiscriminate murder looks like. What Corypheus intends is indiscriminate. What I am doing, as a representative of the Inquisition, is as thoughtful as it can afford to be. I don’t expect the families of people on the other side to thank me but I am doing what I feel has to be done.”

15. What kind of animal are you?

“A bear. Please ignore all follow up commentary from Dorian should there be any.”

16. Name your worst habits.

“I enjoy reading but I’m very bad at finishing books. There’s a stack of them beside my bed, all with bookmarks in them just waiting for my attention span to resolve itself. I don’t spend as much time here [in Skyhold] as I probably ought to but I’m not comfortable here. I interrupt Dorian’s research on a daily basis, though I can’t say that’s really all that bad since he still gets an impressive amount done.”

17. Do you look up to anyone at all?

“It’s disappointing to me that our differing opinions on the sovereignty of mages keeps Vivienne from giving me so much as the time of day because she’s achieved a kind of power and status that defies all expectations I have ever held for myself as a mage, and I was going to be Keeper of my clan. She’s competent, powerful, self-possessed, and a dazzling conversationalist. Many of those same things can be said of Solas but he also hasn’t kept himself apart in the same way so what admiration I may have for him is tempered by familiarity. We’re friendly, though I do still look up to him and now that he knows we share an interest in manipulating the energy coming from the rifts I think we’ll become even closer. Vivienne, however, is a class apart.”

18. Gay, straight, or bisexual?

“Gay. What a strange way to follow up your previous question.”

19. Do you go to school?

“And yet another unexpected turn! I began a mentorship under my clan’s Keeper as soon as I came into my magic. She ensured I studied other subjects as well but the main focus was history and lore; that’s a Keeper’s function, after all, it’s... it’s literally the name. Keeper.”

20. Do you ever want to marry and have kids one day?

“I haven’t really thought about it. I want to spend the rest of my life with Dorian but marriage is complicated for a lot of reasons, and frankly I can’t imagine anyone who takes the threat our world faces right now seriously daydreaming about raising a child. I want to make sure we have a world where raising families is still a possibility at the end of this but for myself, I don’t know.”

21. Do you have any fanboys/fangirls?

"I pay for my drinks at the Herald’s Rest just like anyone else. I really don’t care for being recognized even though I realize it’s inevitable. Except with you, though, you didn’t even know my name.”

22. What are you most afraid of?

“Fucking it all up. Absolutely just ruining everything. I like to keep my fears general so I’m always just a little terrified, it’s very motivational.”

23. What do you usually wear?

“I prefer light clothing that allows me to move easily. I need to ground myself in order to cast but I need to have my arms and body free.”

24. Do you love someone?

“I do. I never imagined that being an outcome of all this but I’m also lucky enough that he loves me back.”

25. When was the last time you wet yourself?

“Have you ever been gripped by the wrist and hoisted like a wet rag doll by a twelve-foot-tall creature made of red lyrium and avarice who wanted nothing more than to snap your hand off and kill you, knowing all your back-up had fled because you sent them away and the only outcome of this encounter was your death? You’d pee a little too, trust me.”

26. Well, it’s not over yet!

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he made me piss myself again, but this time I’ll be ready.”

27. What class are you? (High class, middle class, low class)

“Being the First of the clan meant I enjoyed certain privileges but our clan was not a wealthy one. My life here in Skyhold is an improvement in a lot of ways over life with the clan in that regard, and I suppose I am a lord now.”

28. How many friends do you have?

“More than six but less than ten. Draw your own conclusions.”

29. What are your thoughts on pie?

“Surprisingly difficult to make but worth it.”

30. Favourite drink?

“The water in Skyhold is the cleanest, freshest tasting water I’ve ever had, and it’s often bitterly cold too, so cold your teeth ache when you drink it. The castle is too cold to really enjoy that but I do enjoy it. Dorian thinks I’m mad but it’s the only cold thing I like.”

31. What’s your favourite place?

“My quarters, with all the doors closed and curtains hauled over them, a fire on and my lover close at hand. It’s the only way I can thaw out.”

32. Are you interested in someone?

“Keep. Up.”

33. What’s your bra cup size and/or how big is your willy?

“I've received no complaints.”

34. Would you rather swim in the lake or the ocean?

“Dorian tells me in Tevinter they have great indoor baths for swimming in. Given the option, one of those.”

35. What’s your type?

"Fire and Rift.” He pauses and sighs. “I don’t know that I could ever be with someone who wasn’t a mage. It made life in the clan very isolating because even as the First you were still seen mostly as competition for younger mages who wanted to keep their place in the clan. Having a ‘type’ never occurred to me. It still hadn’t when I ended up here. I don’t know that I have one. I love Dorian. I don’t need a type.” 

36. Any fetishes?

His eyes flash and narrow and Varevas leans forward in his chair. “Whenever possible, I try to convince Dorian to keep his clothes on when I go down on him. I get off on the smell of the leather and the jingle of all those ridiculous buckles and clasps keeping him bound up while I try to make him explode.” He maintains eye contact the entire time he speaks and there’s not a hint of color on his cheeks. “Dorian is an incredibly private man who would be profoundly hurt if I revealed anything factual in a situation like this, so do with that statement what you will.”

37. Seme or uke? Top or Bottom? Dominant or Submissive?

“We’re done discussing this.”

38. Camping or indoors?

“Indoors. Who doesn’t like being warm and dry?”

39. Are you wanting the interview to end?

“If that’s what it takes to end these questions about my private affairs then yes.”

40. Now it’s over!

“Brilliant. You can show yourself out.”

[theroastedpoosqueery-blog]

On johann and tenma dynamic or something

((@jyuanka so yea i wanted to bounce back on what you were saying but its so long i figured i should make a new post lmao ))

There are so many interesting characters in monster (eva being maybe the first one), but the dynamic between tenma and johann is really whats does the deal for me. Their relationship is what builds the plot, like two poles of a battery that supports the entire story ! and they only met four times !! i love that its so unclear why both of them are so intent on having the other in their line of sight, like their obsession with each other is never really explained and we can only have so many speculations. Since its monster, it cant be something like ‘good tenma absolutely want to destroy johann for world peace”/ “evil johann absolutely want to destroy tenma because hes…evil”.

(you said  you wanted to yell about monster so uh im taking advantage of it lol)

For tenma, we first think that all of this it is to prove his innocence. But the narrative voice shows us several times that this is not the case (grimmer who tells him that he should not go so far just to get his name cleared -> close-up on tenma’s face that darkens and tenma who doesnt answer = tenma does not do that to prove his innocence, theres something else). And frankly who would go that far just for that? Tenma realizes very quickly that destroying johan is,,,more than complicated and that he could lost his life at any point. He could go to a remote part of another continent and rebuild a career as a doctor there, under a new identity, if he wanted to (maybe johann wouldnt let him, but the obsession johann has for tenma is something that the latter understood at the end so he wouldnt know that at the beginning of the series). Nor is it because he has a savior syndrome and he absolutely wants to protect people (orrr well a little lol), because tenma doesnt seem to be interested in politics or in social justice at the beginning of the series. What i mean is that, like everyone, he knows that the world is unfair and that folks are dying because of horrible situations and horrible people (idk like because of the mafia, because of capitalists, because of fascists, because of human trafficking, etc). Like, everyone knows that, and some of us react and actually do things like direct actions, lobbies, associations, politics, or even just talk about it. But Tenma really doesnt seem to be that moved or concerned, hes more the type to be like “whatever. Dont see ? hasnt happened”. Yet when he realizes that its johan who does these things, suddenly it becomes his personal business. Like people always say tenma is the “absolute good” and i really, really disagree.

He has spent his life obeying orders from despotic leaders without ever questioning himself once. He was going to marry a girl who told him that all lives are not equal, ffs! yea she says this when tenma began to think that maybe, maybe, theres something wrong with all this so this sentence shocked him. But you cant tell me that the highly horrible personality of eva is something he wasnt aware of before ! and he was alright with that, because then by marrying her he would secure a brilliant career. He saves a rich person instead of a poor turkish husband, and he have to see his crying widow who tries to punch him to realize that maybe what he did wasnt really okay. And he was past his thirties, so its not a question of “the poor baby didnt knew there was inequality in the world and what he was doing was not nice ! “. He knew, and he chose again and again, for most of his life, to please a corrupt man to promote his career and have a good and safe life. So for me tenma is so, so problematic ! Because Tenma is the sort of man who sees what is wrong, but who chooses not to do anything against it. isnt this kind of people the worst ?? and thats why i love him ! and thats why his radical evolution caused by johann (when he saves the boy, then when he chooses to kill him), is so intriguing.

So yea tenma dont want to destroy johann just so people will be safe or for world peace or wtv  BS -because he spent most of his life not caring about that, or caring but not to the point of getting personally involved. I think little johann is what triggers tenma to do something for the first time of his life. He goes from the guy who sees what is wrong but who doesnt feel like he can react so he just goes with the flow and become as horrible as everyone else, making him worse because he knows thats wrong -> to the guy who chooses, to the guy with an agency who decides to react. Little johan makes tenma becoming a person, its his trigger to personhood. And thats why, after his first encounter with johann, tenma become so different. Imo, the real monster is tenma in the beginning of the series - and johann makes him someone who uses his agency, he renders him human !

So 9 years later, when tenma finds out that the trigger of his humanity is actually the very negation of what is human, it goes ‘bam’ in his brain. We can understand why ! During this 9 years, he had the time to inhabit his new role of “a person with an agency” - he seems so calm, so confident and happy. Hes not the guy who knew that everything was wrong but just followed orders and closed his eyes anymore, he has a personhood and uses his newfound humanity to make the world a better place. He has a sense of purpose and realizes what it is that life is worth living (okay im projecting here lmao). Above all, he thinks that the choice he made (to become a person) is ultimately absolutely good. But then he meet johan for a second time, and actually realizes -wait, so me becoming a person can causes bad things ? was i wrong ? should i have stayed how i was before ?

And then we enter what is the core of Monster : we just follow someone who struggles to define what is being human. Before, like i said, tenma wasnt using his personhood. After johann triggers him to become a person, he basically lives a morally ideal life -save people, be a good person, no headaches of ‘what should i do’. The people who could have forced him to make actual difficult choices (his corrupt chief ) were conveniently dead. Then he met adult-johan, and bam ! so many contradictions. suddenly the answer is not that clear anymore. Then he realizes than with personhood comes the obligation to make dubious moral choices. Because for each choice we make, there are negatives consequences and positives ones, and we have to judge when the positives outcomes prevails on the negatives ones without ever being sure. And i think tenma chasing johan is him refusing this existing situation, is him trying to run away from the negatives consequences of becoming a person. Its him on a quest to know if getting access to personhood is absolutely good, a quest to know if his reason of living is legitimate. He cant think that there are not absolutely good choice, that sometimes the good choice can be to kill someone - or to save them, depending on the situation. There isnt absolute anymore : no real monsters, no real good person. We’re just human who struggles to do what we can. Once you have an agency, you have to take decisions. So for tenma, who basically have never taken decisions to construct himself as a person, his johann-hunting is basically that : hes chasing after his own definition of humanity. Whether he would have choose to kill johan or not, at the end, the manga completed the mission : theres no good choice, only choice you think are the best at one point. If he had chosen to kill johan, he would have chosen to kill someone ; if he had chosen to not kill him, he would have chosen to let someone else die. Whats better ? I am not sure. Personally, i think that if i could kill certain people i would do it, while knowing that this people are humans like me, just raised in different circumstances, because my ideas and my buddies’ lives are worth more than the life of the ones who threatens us : thats my answer of humanity. We alas dont get to see tenma’s answer… but anw. Thats my personal interpretation of what johann makes tenma do lol.

For Johann, the reason for his obsession with tenma is even less clear for me. Why johann wants tenma to understand him, to see him, so badly ? What makes tenma so special ? Johan seems to have a daddy complex, because tenma not the first middle-age man to have the dubious pleasure to be the object of johan desire to show “his” world to someone else. General wolf and schuwald both had to loose everything that was dear to them until they only have johann who then betray them deeply. But these two dont seem to catch the “scenery of the doomsday” so dear to johann ; and yet johann appears to be convinced that tenma can (and so that tenma is the one who should kill him). Why is that ? Why tenma is so different than wolfe and schuwald ?

I have numerous ideas but not one that convinced me too much. The first one would be how their first encounter resonates with them both and had the same effect of ‘triggering their humanity’. I already explained why i think johann is tenma’s personhood trigger. I also think tenma is johann’ trigger to humanity. Its kind of simple : tenma is the first one to show him that human could be good. Tenma saves him and risk his career without ulterior motives (or at least material motives, because like i said there were many philosophical and psychological stakes for tenma). For johann, who never knew that humans could be like that because his childhood environment was kind of,,not good, and who is still young enough to be impressionable, it could be enough to be interested in what tenma has to offer if he were to play with him. That plus the fact that he has deep parental issues and tenma is, like he said, a “second father” to him, so maybe he acts like a child would with his dad (in his twisted way), or rather with his god -tenma who creates him, tenma who destroys him. But i think its too emotional for johann.

Other idea : johann, being this prodigy, understand exactly what is tenma situation while saving him and his philosophical questions -lets keep in mind that tenma talks to johan often whil the boy is in a coma. He understands that tenma chooses ultimately *personhood* over everything that could make his life easy. And tenma’s answer is exactly the opposite of johann's way of seeing life, since johann chooses again and again to negate humanity. So he wants to destroy tenma’s philosophy, destroy tenma sense of what is being human : he creates the perfect life for tenma, wait for tenma to be really at ease with his situation, then slowly destroy everything until tenma would be forced to recognize the superiority of johann’ response. I really think johann is prepared to die just to win his mind game with tenma lmao, he’s that much of a sore loser.

Other theory, who dont necessarily conflicts with the others ones, its that johann didnt plan to make tenma this important in his life. He at first intended to do to tenma the same thing he had done to schuwald and wolfe, with maybe more sentiments knowing tenma was his second father and everything. But what changed his plan was tenma reactions. I dont think johann thought that tenma will go all lone ranger in the arizona forest to train to become a killer spy lmao, and when he saw that, he was like ‘oh funny’ (lets keep in mind that during the first half of the series, while he still thinks he was the one in the red rose mansion, johann is basically just playing a nihilistic game and dont put that much valor into anything). Maybe he became attached to him (whatever sort of attachment you headcanon), which was kind of a novelty to him since he didnt have any feelings toward anyone until then -his sister was himself and he was his sister, i dont think johann ever understand that nina was her own person until the end so feelings toward his sister doesnt count- and he was unsettled enough to want to keep tenma at hand. Like each time i see the schuwald arc im lmfao, when johan is all like little devilish smiles and sidelong glances each time he knows (how? no idea, he must have super powers at this point really) tenma is watching him like how much of an act it is ?? theres no reason for johann to do this ‘hihi cant catch me hellooo ;D ;D’ except being a drama queen. Which he is. so yea i cant help but wonder why he is acting this funny towards tenma lol

Or maybe johann never succeeded in negating his own humanity and ultimately couldnt bear to truly erase his own existence at the end, so he wanted someone to remember him to have a chance to live at least once -because johann understood that what makes us be is to make other people witness your existence. Tenma was the ideal candidate he stumbled upon -his sister being out of play since she was himself so not a true external witness and everyone else being too,, afraid of him or too under his charm to do anything.

AAAh so many ideas !! what is sure is that tenma is johann most important person and conversely. And since they met so infrequently the fandom has a highway to imagine other interactions. please people imagine other johan/tenma interactions. please im dying i dont understand these russian fics at all

So anyway sorry for this loooong ass post that nobody is going to read !! i just,,,,,,,,,,love monster,,,,,,,,,so much

[gloieee]

(Belated and unfinished thoughts on) Mistakes

I don’t do regrets. It’s what I’ve said about myself for as long as I can remember. I torture myself over decisions, interrogate myself, hold on until its unbearable, “because” I don’t do regrets. Thinking about it like this makes me chuckle, because it’s abundantly clear that there’s something wrong with that statement. This is a digression though. What’s clear is that I’ve always made decisions carefully, often erring on overthinking and internal agony. I guess the true reason I haven’t regretted my decisions is because I hold onto decisions until it’s clear that I have no choice but to finally choose. At that point, I’ve beat the dilemma to the core. I can’t regret because I know I exhausted myself, and that I drove myself to a point of no return. Regardless of whether it’s the right decision or not, I know that whatever I chose was inevitable.

I’ve made a lot of decisions these past few years. I suppose all decisions are somewhat related to your circumstances, but I feel as though I’ve made some active decisions over the past few years. I guess it feels more like “active” decisions because many were decisions that not many supported. I’ve always gone against the current, but not in any kind of romantic, rebellious, edgy way—I find no delight in defining myself as ~alternative~ or a free soul or some bougie highbrow connoisseur of life. I literally hate that shit, perhaps because I feel indignant. I feel like more of a farce than some open-minded intellectual artist type. Ultimately, I want the plainest, most generic things in the world—revel in security, love the suburbs, love benefits-eligible positions and dream of being a homeowner—but yet, I seem to choose the hardest route to that goal. It looks like I’m purposefully trying to find the most difficult path, like some ego-driven power tripping junkie, which makes me let out an empty chuckle and feel despair at the same time.  

Anyway back to decisions. I guess it comes with the territory of “adulthood,” which must stay in quotations, because I most definitely don’t feel like an adult. I certainly don’t have the self-sustainability that I associated with adulthood, that I hope to have at this point in my life. Under this definition though, I do wonder whether I’ll ever really be an adult in the sense that my parents appeared to me as a young child. I doubt adulthood comes automatically with becoming a parent. At least not for our generation. Yes, many of my even my active decisions, have (perhaps) inadvertently led to suffering on my end, lots of pain, turmoil that most would label “unnecessary.” Yet, despite all that, I have never quite regretted my decisions. Partly because I was convinced it had to be so; partly because I did really value those experiences. I valued learning from suffering. I wasn’t as idealistic or passionately aesthetic enough (or, lacked in painful experiences enough) to ever see the beauty of suffering, as the deepest realization of the human experience. But I suppose I was open enough to see the value of experiences, of difficulties. “The world/ gives you/ so much pain/ and here you are/ making gold out of it –there is nothing purer than that.” I guess this was what I felt. This is certainly in the the past tense. It’s a pessimistic reading of my present state, because it implies that I am currently in a place where I can’t even appreciate some of the rather deep experiences of life, to embrace the ups and downs that have been thrust upon me. The alternative reading is a pessimistic, or even tragic reading of my past, in that maybe I felt that way back then because I had no choice. I was in such despair and pain that it was all meaningless, if I didn’t convince myself that I was “learning” from it, it would’ve broken me. And God knows there’s nothing that gets my ego and survival instincts going like the thought that something could “break me.” That’s definitely why I’ve made some of the most foolhardy decisions of my life, which have been many. Someone softens, and says that sounds too hard, and I balk, and go ham cause I can’t break my streak. I think I’m pretty humble, or at least, I’ve never been a humble bragger, but I have a weird protectiveness about being “strong.” But again, a part of me feels like it’s definitely a defense mechanism. 

I fell in love with Andre 3000 this winter/ spring—in Boston, is there really a difference at this point? On the surface level, his lyricism, the way he literally plays with language, has made me see how rap, in its truest form, is the most exulting and perfect form of poetry. It’s perhaps been the only form of aestheticism and beauty that I’ve been able to appreciate as of late. And of course, his obsession/ fascination/ fear/ disillusionment with love is something I’ve always resonated with. The unshakeable tone of resignation, the empty but deep sense of pain in Andre’s recent solo bits pulls at my heartstrings.  The profoundly real sentiment of emptiness comes across regardless of the content (T.I- Sorry).

I'm a grown-ass kid, you know ain't never cared about no damn money Why do we try so hard to be stars, just to dodge comments

And this that shit that'll make you call your baby mama When you gone on half a pill, don't know why but that I did Then you take a flight back to the crib, y'all make love like college kids And you say all the shit you gon' do better, we can try this shit again 'Round the time the dope wear off, you feel stupid, she feel lost That's that dope, I mean, I mean dopamine you think Cupid done worn off

Maybe should have stayed but it ain't yo fault Too much pressure, I fell off, I'm sorry Was young and had to choose between you And what the rest of the world might offer me, shit what would you do Well I'd probably do it differently if second the chance Only if some cool ass older man would've let me know in advance

This, this quarry, that is dug so deep in a father's chest When he feel that he's broken up his nest And he figured shit he was just doing the best that he could Which end up being the worst that he could

Regrets. You really see it here. True regrets are admitting you “would’ve done it differently,” but knowing you can’t go back and fix it. Even the hypothetical second chance is qualified: “Only if some cool ass older man would've let me know in advance.” But there was no cool ass older man back then, there’s just Andre now (props for his humble brag here, which he also does so well in “Walk it Out”—a glimmer of hope for Andre despite the sadness of his recent songs). It can’t be fixed at this point. It’s not about the people or the individual parts involved that could change the situation. Him getting back with Erykah Badu (who he’s most likely referring to) and raising Seven together at this point wouldn’t make it right.  The “second chance” can’t ever come. You can hear the “quarry,” dug so deep and hollow in Andre’s chest.  

Well, sitting here sad as hell Listening to Adele, I feel you baby Someone like you, more like someone unlike you Or something that's familiar maybe

The emptiness. You know you’re sad when you’re a man at a strip club but being “saddened” by the injustices of the pecking order of strippers (“All of them ain't all equipped/ And this saddens me, I see the pecking order/ Quote-unquote "bad bitches" work the whole floor/ Those that get laughed at sit off in the corner/ Like a lab rat nobody want her). “Someone like you, more like someone unlike you/ Or something that's familiar maybe” is such a biting analysis of how people feel post-break up. More often than not, we may want “someone like you” in the sense that we want someone we could share the intensity, the emotion with, but it’s “someone unlike you” that we actively seek—someone who won’t cheat, won’t treat you like shit, who will  accept you for who you are, won’t make you feel small, who’s stable, who’s fun, who might last—but yet, we often end up finding someone “familiar.” It’s a disenchantment. A sly peak behind the curtains to uncover the truth (Drake- The Real Her). Familiarity is covert—it’s not active, it’s not conscious, it’s a sense, a shadow, a feeling you can’t put your finger on. We don’t want to think we’re dating someone because they’re familiar, we want it to be fate, unique, the one.

Since you been gone I been having withdrawals You were such a habit to call I ain't myself at all had to tell myself naw She's better with some fella with a regular “job”/jaw I didn't wanna get her involved

Even when Andre misses someone, it’s almost as if he’s purposefully comparing her to a drug, to convince himself that it’s just a craving and a literal “habit” (Frank Ocean- Pink Matter). He gives up on her before he even gives it a shot—saying “naw, she's better with some fella with a regular “job”/jaw” (also love love love the play on words here with job and jaw (his protruding, unconventional jaw line), the ingenious rhyming with naw fella and jaw—it gets me every time). This entire song is divine. Soft pink matter, Cotton Candy, majin buu, so genius.

What do you think my brain is made for Is it just a container for the mind? Sensei went quiet then violent And we sparred until we both grew tired Nothing mattered Cotton candy, Majin Buu, oh, oh Dim the lights and fall into you, you, you My God, giving me pleasure Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure Pleasure over matter

I’ve rarely heard someone sing so intensely, which is contrasted with Andre’s off-handed ambivalence.  

5.22.2018