#RED. SWORD. BASEBALL. BOYS.

[mo-ok]

🐉 Hiryu Tsurugi Ohtori 🦅

[candiedspit]

Junebug

It was the summertime; baseball games on the radio, little fires. 

I was twenty-seven. I was learning how to box in Mickey’s hot, crowded basement. He spoke of the sport in sermons, and when I came in frilled and drunk off my own blood, we practiced until I could feel the cool distilled ointment he slathered onto my knuckles afterward and until I could make out hear the sweet croonings of his records in clear pictures. Sometimes, we drank homemade strawberry daquiris and watched cartoons instead. But most of the time, I walked into Mickey’s arms in a fit, red in the face and knotted. I was on a hair trigger that summer; went around looking for fights and unable to sit still because back home in Tennessee–where the grass was long and the sun grinned madly–my mother was dying. It was Tamara who told me, my older sister by three years. Listen, she said. Things are bad. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in almost half a decade. And even with the time we had left, I couldn’t will myself to call her, so I learned how to hit things instead. But one evening, Tamara told me our mother was asking for me in her milky opioid sleep. 

Just call her for a while, Tamara said. It’s gonna be quick. It’s gonna be soon. 

I put it off for a week. I imagined her waiting for the call. I told Mickey about it at our next session. We were sitting on his ratty couch. 

Christ, what did she do to you that you won’t call? He asked with a half-chuckle. 

A lot, I said. I can’t remember half of it. 

Tell me one thing, he urged. Just say it out loud. It doesn’t hurt as much if you can give it a name. 

He was well meaning. I tried to recall as his fridge buzzed. 

Once, I began. So many times. I was wrong. I was made wrong down to my molecules. I was all the names in the book. I was always. I was never at the same time. The roof caved in because I made it cave in. A remote control at my head. A bruise on my forearm from where she held me in place. I was so many things, as many things a child could be. All of them disgusting. I was rot. But I could never be in pain. But I could never see things in the right light. And she could. She was the whitest of angels. And all I did was thrust the sword deeper and deeper into her side. These were things she said. All of these things for years, even after I got the fuck out of there. 

Mickey had placed a hand on my back. I could hardly feel it there. I was in the third dimension, a place where realness couldn’t reach. It took forty-five minutes of practice to get me back. I decided, as I eyed the Playboy calendar Mickey had on the wall, that I was going to call her in three days. It had to be done. I couldn’t go on. 

Three days afterward, I dialed her number; I was in the kitchen smoking a cigarette. I placed my hand on my hip and the moon was out in her piss colored glorious. After three rings, I hesitated. But on the fourth, there was a click and then her voice on the other end. 

Hello? Who’s this? 

Mama, it’s Juna. 

Juna, she said. Oh my goodness. I didn’t think you were going to call. Juna, how’s it been this long? All these years. 

I know, I said. But Tamara said you’re not feeling well. I had to call. 

Not feeling well is one way to say it. I’m fucking dying, Juna. And where are you? Watching ballets at midnight? Doing pornos on a Tuesday? Drinking the boys under the table? What have you been so fucking busy with? Jesus. 

I stayed quiet. 

You gonna fucking answer me?

How are you doing? I asked, biting the skin off the edge of my thumb.  

I’m saline and morphine, she said. Television dramas. Endless dreaming. The doctor asks if I’m comfortable. Tamara has been here. Skips work to wash me down. I tell the nurse to fuck herself and she still calls me ma’am. I’m quite alright. Who are you fucking these days? 

Mama, I should have called. 

His dick so big you can’t see anything else? He the only person who’ll give you the time of day? Everyone else has left? And he’s the only one who you can still fool? 

Mama, I said. 

If you think you’re different, you’re wrong, she said with a cough. I have always known who you are. And you’ve only proven me right. You’re a house on fire. You’re a bad dog. You’re the only thing I ever done wrong. You’re dirt, Junebug. Don’t call me again. And don’t bother comin’ to the funeral. Don’t write me no eulogies. I hope you get happy someday. 

She hung up. I stood there, stunned. 

A white hot electric ran through me. I tried to remember Mickey’s advice. Go where you can see the skies. Go where the world is. I went out, still in my wife beater and shorts, and walked beneath the hard and heavy night. But the cool air only made me hot. Mickey’s voice again. Find something to hold. Find something heavy to hold. I looked around. A woman was picking up her mail. The trees made shapes on the ground. But there was a broken mirror on someone’s curb. I plucked out a piece of glass, and as I walked back home, I counted my steps. I go to eighty one by the time I was at my front door. I could feel my heart pounding like a trapped child. It had to happen soon. I went to the bathroom, sat on the floor, and made a mess of my wrist counting backward from eighty-one. The anger began to dissipate like air out of a balloon. I could feel my hands again. I was shrinking back down. I sat there for a long while, breathless and dumb. 

I called Mickey as I cleaned the wound with antiseptic. I told him what happened. I went over in the morning. He held my wrist. 

Idiot, he said. Let’s go. 

We practiced. He asked me to repeat what he was saying, looking for signs of life. That I hadn’t slipped back into the bloodstream of nowhere. We practiced until I could hear him. 

You gotta keep moving. You gotta be awake. That’s the only way out of this. Y’hear me? The only way out is to be awake when the room goes magic, when the light shudders through the windows, when the newspaper goes out, when the kid speaks. 

Be awake. Be awake. Be awake. Tennessee is a dream.

[ladytie]

more of my nat & peter in gotham brainrot bc i can not elp it:

it took natasha romanoff three days to find suitable housing conditions for herself and boy spider. it took three hours for red hood to take note of the newest occupants of crime alley. and yes, while natasha would have preferred an area with less issues going on, it was cheap and no one asked questions. and well she alone can take care of herself and the kid, not to mention the kids own prowess.

she was walking down the street, a baseball hat covering her auburn hair and her hands in her trench coats pockets when she heard grunts and pleads. she wasn’t supposed to be doing the whole hero thing here, not yet at least. not until she had more information on where here was. but of course the kid had other plans, his sense pointing him in the direction of the obvious punching noises.

“pete!” she called after him, taking a slight jog before sprinting when she realized he wasn’t going to stop nor slow down.

when she rounded the corner she saw a man in what seemed to be a bat costume flung into a wall, and peter, the sweetheart he is, helping up a young woman dressed as a cat(?). she had heard of this bat from a few neighbors. he was some crime lord or something around town, because whenever someone had a bruised something they’d always end up cursing the bat for it. before she could go towards peter to help, a young thing, perhaps eleven years old ran to peter. clearly prepared for a fight?

“woah there!” peter said, easily evading the attacks with a sword. peter caught nat’s eyes and she could tell they were thinking the same thing. he must be a child soldier for this bat-thing. her head snapped to the man, she pulled her hat a little lower, trying to conceal some type of anonymity.

“robin,” the man’s voice was far too gruff and gargled to be real. it sounded like he was calling the young child off, but the feral thing wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. she remembers being in the red room, when they’d tell her to stop as a test. when she did, she’d be punished for showing mercy. and when she didn’t, she’d be punished for not obeying her betters.

something inside her burned.

she headed towards the man, there quicker than he had anticipated. clearly the man was trained, and clearly he hadn’t expected her to be. it took her thirteen seconds to learn his fighting style. to use it against him. and it seemed to have taken him fifteen to get used to hers.

one minute she was twirling around him, producing punches with quickness rather than strength, trying to tire him out. and then, she’d be planting her feet firmly on the ground, forcing him to use his strength to try to move her. when he finally landed a blow, a solid right hook to her left cheek she laughed. this was the most fun she had since coming to Gotham.

“misses widow!” she snapped her head to see the young boy had peter cornered, along with another girl dressed in spandex. she blinked a few times before sighing. peter would not hurt the clearly young children, not even if one was around his own age. not even to save his life. maybe hers, but he knew she had herself handled.

playtime was over.

a quick maneuver, one bucky had taught her, using the own man’s weight and weapons against him had him pinned to the wall of the dinghy alley way. “call your child soldiers off” she growled, threatening to break his arm.

“you. first.” he said back, his arm being twisted further and further and yet he made no sound of discomfort. “i don’t think you’re in the position to make demands,” she whispered near his ear, her breath hot against it.

then she heard the specific sound of a gun clicking to the back of her head.

“you sure about that, doll?”

[hardcore-bradshaw]

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys - A John Bradshaw Layfield/OC Story

Chapter 14: Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)

Posting here because Ao3 is momentarily down. Enjoy!

Don't give us none of your aggravation

We had it with your discipline

Saturday night's alright for fighting

Get a little action in

The pub was buzzing. It wasn’t a famous one, yet it was one of those that the crew and talent of the World Wrestling Federation loved to visit every time they were in town. There was some old Irish folk music playing on the speakers, the sound of glasses clinking every now and then. 

Francine was tucked into a booth near the back with Maria and Sarah. Her hair was tied up in a loose short ponytail, yet she had made the effort of fixing up her make up before going out, refreshing it right before leaving the venue post show. A cold red lipstick sat on her lips, sharp eyeliner on her eyelids. Her hand played a little with the m big earrings with swords she was wearing. Leather jacket on her small frame, familiar black nail polish. There was only one thing that could have given her away. She had an APA baseball cap on. She had lied, saying it had been Ron’s gift for helping them out with their segments while she was on Raw with them. Weirdly, her colleagues had believed her. Truth was, she didn’t know if she’d have liked the actual question being asked. 

‘Why are you wearing APA merch?’ And she’d have answered ‘Because I feel like it. And because my boyfriend is one of them.’ 

The statement skull steel ring sat on her middle finger, her hand around a half-empty glass of strong Irish beer in front of her. She hummed along to the Dubliners’ song playing, and listened to her colleagues ranting about that idiotic rookie talent that had almost blown up a match’s finish.

Across the bar, John was leaning against the bar counter with Ron, Taker, Chavo, and Adam. The group had reunited that night, Adam had insisted, since it was a one of a kind chance that Raw and Smackdown had been filmed in cities so near. From across the room, Francine stole a glance of John. Hadn’t seen him since the live event that night. He was in a casual post-show uniform—jeans, boots, black tee, long hair wet from the shower, tucked behind his ears. A WWF Attitude baseball cap backwards on his head. As soon as she heard his booming, infectious laugh at something Ron had said, she had to contain herself and the smile climbing on her lips. If she wasn’t trying to keep their secret, she would’ve sauntered right over and kissed the hell out of him. It brought an ache to her heart, the fact that she could have been there with him - and Adam, and Chavo, her two closest friends in the wrestling business, - listening to their road stories with a stupid smile on her face and John’s big hand on her lower back. 

The two of them were still convinced that they wanted to keep it all to themselves for little while longer. But secrets were like dynamite in this world. All it took was one wrong spark.

Then the spark walked in.

Or rather, stumbled in—with glitter and tiaras and a sash that read “Bride To Be.”

Maria elbowed Francine, and nodded at Sarah to take a look at the pub doors opening. It was a small group of women, all dressed in what seemed like a uniform. Five or six girls dressed in hot pink, while one of them, the one with the sash, had a white t-shirt on. Their chatter filled the bar, fusing itself with the noise already in the venue. Francine shook her head, with a grin as she brought the beer glass to her mouth. 

“If I ever get married,” Francine said, “You better not make me go out like that.”

“Oh honey,” Sarah replied with a tiny laugh. “Can’t wait for the day I get to dress you in sequins and parade you around.”

“Thankfully, there’s no chance of that happening any time soon.” Francine shrugged her shoulders. It was true, after all. Marriage wasn’t on her thoughts. Neither in John’s, for all she knew. 

“Do you think they’ll spot the boys over there?” Maria said. “They’re kind of…recognizable.” 

Francine’s eyes quietly flickered to the bar counter where John and the others were. A lightning went through her thoughts. 

“Well, there’s not many women watching wrestling these days you know.” Francine stated. “When I did that, my mom always said I’d end up sad, alone, and with many cats.” 

“As far as we know, Bradshaw’s still single.” Sarah let that out, without caring too much about it. Francine felt her fingers gripping tight against the glass. “But yeah. Maybe they’ll recognize Taker and just, you know. Leave.”

Francine turned, eyes narrowing. In slow motion, she saw the one that looked like the bride’s best friend scan the room—and land directly on John. Of all people. Figures. Why, why would they ignore the guy with shoulders for days, the long black hair and that bad boy attitude?

Jesus take the wheel. Francine felt her blood starting to boil. Alerted. Her gaze trying not to stare too much at the bar, where John was sitting with the guys. The hair on her neck started shivering. 

⸻

John saw them too. He straightened up, suddenly very aware of his own body. He was trying his best to focus on his drink in front of him, his mind going to Francine for a moment. Everything would have been okay. He just needed to play it cool. Not give away anything. He took a long sip of his IPA beer, and tried not to look around.

“Don’t move,” Ron said, sipping from his glass. “They hunt on motion.”

“Why do I feel like prey?” John muttered.

“Because you are,” Taker said without looking. He let out a rare chuckle under his breath. He smiled to himself, taking a peek at the girls every now and then. Adam was already snickering, unable to contain himself. 

The group approached, the bride in front, licking her lips like she was about to cut a birthday cake. Her friends gathered like hyenas behind her.

“Hi there,” the bride’s friend purred. Woman in her 20s, long and curled blonde hair, sparkle on her eyelids and a pink lipstick on her lips.

John gave a polite smile. “Ladies.” His Texas drawl coming in strong. He kept on drinking, as if nothing had happened.

“Quick game?” she asked, twirling a lemon slice between her fingers. “We’re doing salt-tequila-lemon shots. Bride’s choice gets the spot.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Spot?”

“You know,” she winked. “Salt on your neck, shot down, lemon from your mouth.” She leaned in. “You’ve got the shoulders for it.”

John nearly choked on air. “Ma’am, I—”

“C’mon,” another one chimed in. “It’s her bachelorette!”

Chavo stood up slowly, walking towards the back of the bar going to the restrooms, not thinking too much about it but only wanting to see his friend probably getting embarrassed. He kind of rushed himself, not wanting to lose the moment. 

At the same time, Francine stood slowly from her booth in the back, quiet as death.

She reached up and unhooked her earrings. One by one.

Maria groaned. “Fran? What’s…what’s going on?”

She slipped off her skull-shaped ring and walked toward them, deadly calm.

“Where’s she goin’?” Chavo mouthed to Ron in the distance. 

Ron didn’t move. “She’s gonna kill them. All of them.”

Chavo, on his way to the restrooms, actually bumped into her. He looked at her with a puzzled look. 

“Hey, stranger!” He said, still trying to be playful. “I thought you were here with your girls?” Francine sighed hard, earrings and ring in hand. Chavo’s eyes shot at her hands, his own trying to stop her from her shoulders but she freed herself and walked on.

“Fran, where are you—”

She handed him the ring and the earrings. He stood there, watching her go with her jewelry in his hands. His eyes went to the group of his friends at the bar counter, the bachelorette party almost circling them. And John, in particular. 

“What are you doing?” He whispered, hoping to stop her in her tracks.

“Nothin’.”

⸻

Back at the scene, John was frozen. The bride was already shaking salt into her hand.

Francine got closer, her stare a laser, jaw clenched. She was only a few steps away from them. 

Taker spotted her and sat up straighter. He tilted his head back for a moment, an expression saying Why do I have to be the one avoiding catastrophe every time? 

His eyes shot up, leaning over the bar counter so he would intercept Adam’s incredibly astonished look. His brows furrowed as he looked at the scene. 

“Grab her,” he said simply. He mouthed the words. 

Adam looked at him, confused for a little bit. He turned his head to where Taker’s eyes were looking. Much to his surprise, he saw Francine. All game, no nonsense in her stride and her face. She was pulling up her leather jacket’s sleeves up her forearms, the floral tattoo showing. He understood, and immediately reacted.

Francine was two steps away from pulling someone’s hair—or worse—when Adam lunged from the side and locked his arms around her. 

“Adam. Back off.” she hissed through gritted teeth, her hands trying to unlock herself from the grip of the definitely bigger man. 

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he grunted, pulling her back. “But I think I’m gonna have to be the one stopping you.”

Taker looked at them. He almost glared at Francine, getting serious for a moment. 

“Easy, now.” He just said, quietly.

She struggled, furious. Her eyes meeting Mark’s blue eyes and feeling how he was actually trying to prevent hell from breaking loose. “Let me go!” She hissed at Adam. That little scene didn’t go unnoticed to the bachelorette girls. The bride, with the lemon piece in her hand, pulled a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and leant near one of her friends. 

“Wait—who’s that?” the bride asked, blinking in confusion.

And before anyone else could explain, the bride’s friend already getting closer to John’s neck with salt in hand, John stepped back from the table, arms up like he’d just defused a bomb. 

“Whoa! Hey! I—I’ve got a girlfriend.”

The bar went quiet. 

“What?”

“I’m with someone,” John said, awkwardly, finally. “I have a girlfriend.”

A chorus of disappointed groans erupted from the bridal party.

“Aww, seriously?”

“Is she here?”

“Yeah,” Ron said, raising his beer. He pointed at Francine, raising his glass at her. “She’s probably about to come kick your ass. And his ass. Sorry, ladies. You can try the guys playin’ pool over there.”

Francine stopped squirming. Everyone was staring now. Half the crew. The production team. A few guys from catering. The bartender.

Adam loosened his hold. “Wait. You mean… You and him?”

Francine rolled her eyes. “What gave it away? The attempted homicide?” She finally freed herself from Adam’s grip. Her friend was staring down at her. 

Chavo grinned like a kid on Christmas. “You sneaky bastards.”

Adam looked from her to John, mouth open. “You two have been a thing this whole time?! I’ve been asking you for months!”

“Guess you weren’t cleared for classified info,” Francine teased, rubbing her wrist.

Adam crossed his arms, mock offended. “I am hurt. Deeply.”

Ron chuckled. “You’ll live. I had to live with this secret. Trust me when I say Layfield’s not quiet when he stumbles back at 2 am doing the walk of shame after fu-“

Francine signalled Ron to stop. The man had a laugh and jokingly slammed his fist on the bar counter. 

John walked over, sheepish, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Didn’t mean to let it slip like that.”

Taker raised a brow. “Sensed a stupid bar fight coming. Make sure it never happens again.”

He gave Francine a slight sneer, one only someone who knew him would recognize as teasing.

Francine mock saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

Ron leaned back. “Well. That cat’s outta the bag.”

“I smelled her amber scented perfume on him during a dark match.” Taker shrugged, ordering one more beer from the bartender. “I knew something was off.” 

John finally exhaled, and glanced sideways at Francine. He stood down from his stool, nervously scratching the back of his neck, pulling off and putting on his baseball cap. “I panicked, okay?”

“You panicked?” She replied, jokingly pushing him with a hand on his chest. “I felt like the entire spirit of ECW had taken over me. I wanted to go Sandman on their asses.”

Taker let out a laugh at that remark. Low, familiar, amused. John pushed Francine’s APA baseball cap down on her head. 

“Well, way to go being subtle with that hat.” John joked. 

“Hey,” she said. “I was just showing support for my favorite tag team and look fashion while doing it.” She admitted, guilty but relaxed. 

“You’re a menace.” Ron added, turning around from the bar counter. “Maybe I should hire you and fire your…your boyfriend.” He winked at her. And Francine rolled her eyes feeling her cheeks turn red. “You two match each other’s crazy.”

Adam shook his head, laughing. “I’m still mad you didn’t tell me.”

“Sorry, pal.” 

“Hope you’re happy. I’ve seen him out the shower though.” Adam said, to which Ron almost spat out his beer and Taker had let out a low, rumbling laugh. “Naked, I mean.” 

“Adam.” 

“Just saying.” Adam then said, passing behind Francine and leaning closer so only she would hear him. “Hope it fits.” 

Francine turned around, and almost slapped him, her face turning a very embarrassed shade of red. John pushed down his hat on his head, laughing as he brushed a hand on his facial hair.

“I don’t know what he’s said,” John said, still laughing. “But I bet it’s related to my manhood.” Francine shook her head, jokingly pushing him with a finger on his side. Then went to the back booth where her colleagues were still sitting. She figured, she had some explaining to do. 

As Francine had started telling them, the two women made all sorts of faces. Then, at some point Maria just downed the last of her drink and stood up.

“Adam!” Maria called back from her booth. “You owe me 10 bucks. I told you I could smell his stupid cowboy cologne in our room.”

[chrislaplante]

BRONTE'S COMFORT LIST

comfort food(s): pizza, tortas “ahoga perros”, corn “at-home-street-style”, nachos, chicken nuggets, beef taquitos, lentils, etc.

comfort drink(s): honestly? water. lol horchata and coca cola.

comfort movie(s): the exorcist, the terminator, the exorcism of emily rose, split, drive, foxfire, brainscan, constantine, candyman, the rocky films, the ip man films, the star wars (eps 1-6 & rogue one) films, school of rock, donnie darko, 8 mile, the crow, gus van sant’s last days, jeepers creepers, awake, secret window, pet sematary (1&2), rosemary’s baby, my soul to take, child’s play, psycho, the texas chainsaw massacre (remake), jaws, scream, the craft, the lost boys, edward scissorhands, beetlejuice, the matrix, american werewolf in london, the cabinet of dr caligari, zodiac, red dragon, rambo/first blood, insidious (1,2&5), the Halloween franchise, the Friday the 13th franchise, the a nightmare on elm street franchise (with remake), the evil dead (& remake), gremlins, ghostbusters (1&2), silent night deadly night, the amityville horror, my friend dahmer, murder by numbers, sinister, twister, twisted nerve, natural born killers, behind the mask, the sixth sense, Alice in wonderland, peter pan, dumbo, bambi, the land before time, the sword in the stone, the aristocats, the beauty and the beast, etc.

comfort show(s): bob’s burgers, dexter, sons of anarchy, 21 jump street, renegade, stephen king’s rose red, salem’s lot, american horror story (first two seasons), tales from the crypt, daria, catfish, the twilight zone, criminal minds, the x files, the green hornet, etc.

comfort clothing: ripped jeans, baggy (oversized) tees, baggy (oversized) hoodies, cargo pants and shorts, plaid button-ups, sweatpants (joggers), overall pants, long socks, sneakers, combat boots, trench coats, “grandpa” or “80s dad” sweaters, bunny slippers, sandals with socks, the occasional dress or romper, etc.

comfort song(s): what’s up (4 non blondes), stan (eminem), vampires will never hurt you (mcr), darkside (bring me the horizon), disgusting semla (morbid), one (metallica), the hunger (distillers), burn (the cure), oye mi amor (mana), afuera (caifanes), jeremy (pearl jam), numb (linkin park), nightcall (kavinsky), etc.

comfort book(s): red dragon, the wasp factory, frankenstein, damien echols’ autobiography, darkly dreaming dexter, joyland (sk), into the wild, the jedi quest book series, the i am not a serial killer book series, the crow (comic), the exorcist, salem’s lot, drive, constantine (film novelization), hellblazer (comics), per yngve ohlin (clem petit-huguenin), lots of old dh darth vader comic runs, etc.

comfort game(s): battleship, guess who, perfection, operation, ouija, “baseball” (card game), checkers, chinese checkers, puzzles, dark lore, the golden ticket, duck hunt, hog.warts legacy, etc.

stolen from: @walkeddeath. framing: @k4rlsson, @freakarus, @strigoix / @miercolaes, @morb1dg1rl, @wastrels, @liraspins, @likeorpheus, @stringmastery, @hangtenn, @nuks, @andtheylive, @absentpublic, @00sgoth, @punkzombie, @popularmxnster, @mrdelroy, @allevils, @getslashed, @bloodykneestm, @helvehte, @helltoraise, @facepeeled, @cheekypriest, @v011d, @roznrot, @poisonedfire, @butscrewmefirst, @notimminent, @sweets1n, @daensuse, @horrorface, + you.

[hero-ward-blog]

Top 5 videogames characters to you too! I'm interested

This was a surprisingly tough one! I’ll be going by the same rules as your post, so no VNs, no Arknights, etc.

Ichiban Kasuga (Yakuza: Like a Dragon)

The Hero of Yokohama. The Dragon of Rock Bottom. Ichiban’s a charismatic ex-yakuza with a heart of gold, an overactive imagination, and the spirit of a true hero.

Abandoned as a baby in a coin locker, Ichiban was found and adopted by the manager of a soapland, and raised by him and the various people who live in the red light district. After the death of his adoptive father, Ichiban joined the yakuza under Masumi Arakawa out of gratitude for Arakawa saving his life.

While some people might see the people who raised him as the “dregs of society,” Ichiban doesn’t. He has nothing but respect for all of them, defending sex workers and the less fortunate alike with both his words and his fists. While Ichiban might be a hotblooded dumbass, he’s also much sharper than he looks, frequently using his street smarts and keen eye for people to his advantage. Even if he’s in unfamiliar territory like, say, Hawaii, he’ll get by just fine through sheer sincerity and his ability to believe in people.

He’s also funny as hell! He’s a dorky chunnibyou manchild and a hardcore fan of the Dragon Quest series. He has a pet crawfish named Nancy. He’s the only RGG Studios protag that cars don’t stop for. His main weapon is a baseball bat that he found stuck in the ground like Excalibur. His Dragon Quest obsession is why his games are turn-based.

2. Haseo (.hack//G.U.)

Watching Haseo grow up from being an abrasive edgelord out for revenge to a kinder, more mature person over the course of Rebirth, Reminiscence, and Redemption was wonderful to see. In particular, his relationship with Atoli started out rough but ended up being very sweet.

3. Melia Antiqua (Xenoblade Chronicles)

Melly’s an all around fantastic character with a cool, technical playstyle who almost never left my party, even if I had to control her directly most of the time since the AI doesn’t know how to play her right. I love noble characters that have a strong sense of duty and righteousness who remain humble despite their lofty station.

4. Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

Lloyd’s a simple country boy who fights for what’s right and inspires others through his determination and idealism. Also, despite being book dumb, he’s more than capable of being clever when he needs to be, as seen in Symphonia’s (in)famous “Coffee Mindfuck” scene, which I won’t link because of possible spoilers.

5. Nero (Devil May Cry)

Maybe it’s because I started the series with Devil May Cry 4, but I’ve always preferred Nero over Dante. Maybe it’s because the concept of a new protagonist resonated with me as a new player, maybe it’s because Red Queen (motorcycle sword), Blue Rose (double-barreled revolver), and the Devil Bringer are sick as fuck? Who knows?

As a avid enjoyer of the “Delinquent With A Heart of Gold” trope, I also love Nero’s characterization in 4.

Fake ass IDGAFer, I saw you rushing to make it to your girlfriend’s recital at the church you hate!

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Estelle Bright (Trails Series) While I haven’t played much of the Trails series, Trails in the Sky’s Estelle was an absolute delight. A goofy tomboy with a sneaker collection, a protagonist with a different weapon than the usual sword, and some of the funniest lines in the game.

What’s not to like? I mean, aside from the series devolving into harem trash… (I’ve got so much I want to complain about regarding the Trails series, holy shit you don’t even knowwww)

Gallica (Metaphor: ReFantazio) Gallica’s charming enough that even though she does some of the things that people find annoying about mascot characters, it just makes her more likable. It also helps that she’s never makes things more difficult for the party, either. She’s really cute too.

Raiden (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance) I’ve only played Revengeance, but I think I have a general outline of what happened in MGS2 at least. I just think it’s interesting that for all Raiden’s bloodthirst, for all that he was “born to kill,” he still only kills for the sake of protecting the weak, the ones who can’t fight for themselves.

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

ive been watching a lot of Pitch Meetings and playing a lot of Earthbound so um

---

SCREENWRITER GUY: So all the kids are gonna fight with silly weapons instead of normal RPG stuff, like Ness is gonna use a baseball bat and Paula is gonna use a frying pan- PRODUCER GUY: Oh, cute. SG: And Jeff has a gun- PG: Sorry, did you say a gun? SG: A gun, yeah, he has like a little toy air gun. PG: Oh, okay, it's a toy- SG: For a little bit, and then he gets a death ray and a bazooka. PG: The thirteen year old boy gets a bazooka? SG: Yeah, plus Poo has a sword. PG: Okay so like, we're supposed to release this game in America too my guy, we're not gonna be able to have kids wielding guns and swords, you know what America is like about that stuff. SG: I figure we just shove a bunch of other stuff in there for NoA to worry about, so they'll get distracted censoring the rest of the game and let the kids with lethal weapons through. PG: Oh, like what kind of stuff? SG: Drugs! PG: Oh my god. SG: Yeah, just a whole bunch of drug references, like there's a whole level that's a hallucinogenic dream sequence in the back room of a bar, and then another part where Ness eats a "magic tart" and gets a hallucination of a kingdom floating in some pink clouds, then there's two different points where he can have a cup of a nice hot beverage that's definitely spiked with something. PG: Is there any stuff that's not about drugs? SG: Oh yeah, at one point Porky's dad says he's gonna straight up beat his kids, so they're gonna cut that out, and they're gonna have to take the red cross off of all the hospitals- PG: Oh, well that all seems pretty reasonable. SG: Yeah plus they're gonna have to change the sprites to not reference the Klu Klux Klan. PG: Oh my god.

---

SG: So they're gonna have to visit all these different towns to find the spots, they're gonna go to Onett, Twoson, Threed, Fourside- PG: Ohh, I see what you're doing here- SG: Winters, Summers- PG: Oh, I mean it seemed like you were building up a naming convention there and then you just switched to a different one. SG: Tenda Village, Saturn Valley, Dalaam, Scaraba- PG: Ope, I think those last two might be racist. SG: Yeah but it's the 90s, so it doesn't matter if we're a little racist, I mean it's not like this game is still gonna be popular in thirty years when it's not acceptable to be casually racist anymore. PG: That's a good point. Plus you'd have to be a real killjoy to point out the flaws in a thirty-year-old nostalgia property.

---

SG: So then the zombies take them prisoner and keep them in a little room under the graveyard. PG: Wait the zombies take them prisoner? SG: That's right, sir. PG: Well why would zombies do that, why would they not just kill them? SG: Well do you want the game to end here? PG: Of course not, that'd be really unsatisfying. SG: Then I'm gonna need you to get aaaaaaaall the way off my back about the zombie logic, okay? PG: Oh, okay, lemme get off of that thing!

---

SG: So it turns out Ness is like this chosen one guy from a prophecy made by something called the Apple of Enlightenment. PG: Oh the Apple of Enlightment, huh, tell me more about that. SG: No. PG: Oh, dangit.

---

PG: Oh wow, well I imagine it's gonna be difficult for a bunch of thirteen year olds to destroy the ultimate evil power. SG: Actually, it's gonna be super easy. Barely an inconvenience. PG: Oh really? SG: Yeah they're all going to discover the power of prayer. PG: Of prayer? SG: Yeah, Paula loses all hope so she starts praying, she gets down on her knees and starts to pray, because she really just needs faith right now. PG: What is going on? Is she Christian? SG: Maybe! And then because she's psychic, her prayer reaches a bunch of people from earlier in the game, and they all start to pray for the kids to succeed. PG: Oh well that's sweet, hey wait aren't they a bunch of years in the past right now? SG: Well I guess her psychic powers reach through time, sir. PG: Oh, okay. SG: Yeah so everybody's families start to pray for them, Ness's mom hears the prayers and Paula's dad and all the other kids from Jeff's boarding school- PG: Ohh, what about Dr. Andonuts? Does he hear the prayer and start to pray for Jeff? SG: No sir he doesn't, remember he's literally the worst dad. PG: Oh right, somehow I forgot. SG: Yeah so they get everybody's families, they get the Runaway Five, they get that random knife-wielding gang leader that Ness met back in Onett. PG: Aw, what a nice moment. Hey what was that last one?

[fandom-queen-13]

okay so explaint to me what tf2 is. because i've been seeing it all over your blog and I am confused/mildly concerned

- a concerned citizen

I honestly haven't played it so I'm not the best person to ask about this. But I'll give it a try!

(spoilers below the cut because it's going to be kind of long)

TF2 is a first person team-based shooter game taking place in the 50s-60s where you can play as one of nine classes. I'm in it for the lore, so that's what I'll be mostly taking about.

The Lore:

Two warring brothers, Redmond and Bluterarch Mann, fight over the same piece of land in Teufort, New Mexico. They lived many long years to fight over it, kept alive by a magical element called Austrailium. They hired mercenaries to fight for them, seperated into two teams: Reliable Excavation Division (RED) and Builders League United (BLU). Respawned over and over again with a special machine, they do many tasks for points and money: Capturing the Intelligence, Pushing the Payload, sometimes fighting robots or wizards!

The nine classes:

Offense

Scout (Jeremy Willis) is the speedy boi. He uses a baseball bat, he's from Boston, and he is the youngest of eight brothers, so to get to the streetfights the fastest he learned to run really fast. He's brash, cocky and talks a lot, and also drinks BONK, a highly caffeinated soda that may or may not be radioactive. He never knew his father (except he does; you'll see later), but he adores Tom Jones to the point of using all his money to buy Tom Jones memorabilia. Last we saw of him (over 7 years after the war ended) he has a mullet and four kids!

Soldier (Jane Doe) supposedly fought in WW2, but he really just wandered into the war and started killing Nazis when he wasn't drafted. He's not the brightest nail in the pincushion, made worse by the fact that he drinks lead-filled water. He loves America, and hates everything un-American. Fortunately, he thinks that everyone on the team is American, despite 5 (6? we don't know about Pyro) of them being from other continents. He eventually falls in love and has kids with Zhanna, who is Russian and the sibling of one of the other teammates. Oh, and he was once housemates with a wizard names Merasmus, who HAAAATES soldier for turning it into a raccoon sanctuary.

Pyro. We don't know much about Pyro, not even gender. But we do know that he makes a good CEO, as seen in one of the comics. However, what she loves the most is FIYAH! They wear a gas mask that has something called "Pyrovision" in it, but I think it just sees destruction and carnage as unicorns and rainbows on his own.

Defense

Demoman (Tavish Finnigan DeGroot) is, as he calls himself, "A black Scottish cyclops." He lost his eye as a kid to a book in Merasmus's castle (because Merasmus is as old as dust, and Demo worked for him when he was younger). He was abandoned as a baby, grew up, killed his adoptive parents, then got re-adopted by his biological parents because he apparently proved himself as a demoman by then. To cope with all this, he drinks a lot. Surprisingly, this works out for him as a demoman because the double vision replaces his missing eye. Unfortunately, because he drinks so much, he literally can not live without alcohol, and if given normal food and water goes into severe withdrawl. But it's okay! His body can distill his bone marrow into alcohol! On a separate note, he has a sword that is determined to cut off heads.

Heavy (Mikhail) is commonly seen as dumb because he's big, beefy, doesn't speak English well, and shows adoration to his gun. But this is far from the truth! He has a Phd in Russian literature, a good strategist, and loves his family as well as his gun (and a special someone). He grew up in the cold mountain gulag where his father was killed, escaped to America, and sends almost all the money he earns to his family (the rest goes to his gun). He's the face of TF2, as all the merch usually has his figure, but he hasn't got an in-game update in a long time.

Engineer (Dell Conagher) is here because of generational wealth. His father worked for Mann Co, and so did his grandfather, who actually designed the Respawn machine. He builds sentries, teleporters, and dispensers to aid his team. People say that he's the most sane out of the nine members, but I don't think you can call a Texan who cut off his perfectly good hand to bring a replacement his grandfather designed to life "sane."

Support

Medic (Herbert Ludwig) IS. NOT. A. NAZI. He's just a little silly German guy! As you can guess, he's the team doctor (and Heavy's special someone). He has doves, including the blood-and-guts-loving Archimedes, that he treats better than his other teammates. He's got a medi-gun that can heal this team, and if it gets charged enough he can Übercharge them to make them invulnerable for a few seconds. This makes him the main target of the team, so he has to rely on the rest of his team to keep him safe.

Sniper (Mick Mundy/Mun-Dee) may or may not be an alien. Or at the very least, he's the last of a dying species. When he was a baby, his birthplace of New Zealand started sinking, and he crawled into a capsule that shot up and landed in Austrailia, where he was adopted by a couple. He considers himself a professional assassin (his adoptive dad wants him to be a crazed gunman) who is "polite, efficient, and has a plan to kill everyone he meets," so he only has this job for the money. I wouldn't say he's "polite," though, as he has Jarate (two words: PISS JARS).

Spy is a spy. And Scout's father. We know just a little more about him than Pyro, but not much. He hooks up with Scout's ma a lot, and he often makes jokes about him being "off to visit your mother." He can turn invisible, disguise as the other team, and sap the Enguneer's buildings like it's nothing. We're not sure if he's even French like his accent suggests.

Other characters

Flo Pauling: Basically a coordinator to the mercs. Scout has a one-sided crush on her, but they talk it out in the last comic. She's highly dedicated

The Administrator: the lady who brought the teams all together. She's making the teams fight to torture this one guy for revenge, although even she forgot why she wants it, and when she's out of Austrailium in the end comic she smiles in victory as they both dissolve into dust.

Saxton Hale: the current owner of Mann Co. Or he was, until Grey Mann (the forgotten brother) challenged him to it. But Grey didn't send himself, no: he sent his young daughter, Olivia. Hale couldn't bring himself to beat up a little girl, so Gray took over. After years, Hale got the company back and set Olivia free. Then he left the company to fight jaguars to this day.

I would write more about TF2, the characters, and my favorite fanworks, but this post is getting long.

[adventuretimetournament]

Dream Sword

First appearance: Breezy

Description: Her hair is tucked inside a long, flowing, furry purple cape. Underneath the cape, she is wearing a floor-length pink dress.

Teen Boy Heartthrob

First appearance: Don't Look

Description: Her hair is tucked inside a green and white backwards baseball cap, and a small section hangs out the hole in front. She has on a white T-shirt with red edges on the sleeves and collar. She is wearing jean shorts and pink sandals.

[winterpinetrees]

Don't Get Brainwashed (The Gap Years 2x6)

September 21st

Boulder, CO

Navigation Guide

Previous

This is the chapter where Brian realizes that hooking up with an elven princess who specializes in mind control has gotten him mind controlled, and where he gets out of it. Warnings for their relationship being dubiously consensual at best and for Brian blaming himself. Zerada is kicked from the party, though she seems all too casual about it. 

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

He dreams he is a knight in shining armor. The handle of his sword is wrapped in the same tape as his baseball bat, but this is not a lucid dream. Brian believes it when he sprints across the muddy field in silver boots and squints up into the blinding sky. His unconscious mind knows there is a princess he must save. He locks blades with another elf. Sparks fly and his arms shudder. Wrestling is intimate, surfing and biking are solitary, but he’s always loved baseball best. Rushing in from the dugout when the hitter wins the game to carry him on their shoulders. The bus back from a tournament, the moon an orange eye above them. Brian throws another boy to the ground and wakes up in bed. Funny. Zerada is still asleep next to him, but Brian can’t imagine her as a damsel in a tower. Marin, maybe, and he’s already seen Jezero in prison, but Zerada wouldn’t need a daring rescue. She probably wouldn’t want it, anyway. 

It’s dark in the room. His mind conjures up the milky way above Project Excalibur during their first attack, when the galaxy shone overhead but its light didn’t reach the ground. There are no stars here, only a street light bleeding under the curtains and a faint crack under the door. It’s just past five in the morning. He steps out of bed and places one hand against the wall to steady himself. He’s always been worried when Clay said he blacked out after standing up too fast, but this is different. The little color he can see is wrong. Zera’s hair should have highlights of red, but it’s become washed out. His own skin is pallid as well. Brian rubs his eyes and walks to the bathroom expecting the strange feeling to pass. It’s probably like the green in his vision when he comes back inside after practice and his eyes have to adjust. He fumbles for the lightswitch on the bathroom wall. It flickers to life, and the light is warm. The linoleum is more golden than tan, as is the sink. He glances at the mirror and sees featureless amber in place of his eyes. 

Brian turns to leave and his body does not respond. Fake stone bites into his palms. His heart is racing like he’s halfway down a mountain trail and the front wheel of his bike just caught on a rock. Gravity is a universal law in both worlds. There’s nothing he can do to keep from falling. Brian doesn’t quite look at his reflection, but he doesn’t leave the bathroom either. He stands on the cold tile and stares. He’s standing here for a reason, what was it? He washes his hands. He thinks of Zerada backlit by starlight, her eyes flashing with a spell. It's too early. He should go back to sleep. His eyes glow orange and shallow.

Clay sneers in his memory. I haven’t seen an ounce of restraint from you since Montana, at least. 

Brian has always liked his eyes. They’re sky blue like his mother’s. His father and brothers have more of a cold steely gray. Apparently that’s better for politics. Blue is striking in it’s own way, at least when someone isn’t joking that he looks like a husky. He holds up a hand and sees light like a sunset reflected on it. It’s beautiful, enthralling even, but not his. 

Don’t get brainwashed.

He can’t quite bring himself to scream. He should go back to sleep. He walks with one hand against the wall. His eyes haven’t adjusted back to the darkness. How could they while creating their own light. 

“Zera?” The nobility can sleep anywhere, but they’re light sleepers too. She tends to wake up just after midnight, or whenever a motorcycle roars past their window. She sits up slowly and glances at the glow under the curtains. Then she turns to face him and stares into the orange eyes she made. 

Zera stretches her arms like a cat or a fox, and Brian can see the team logo of the shirt he gave her.

“Well. I’ve gotten complacent”. Her eyes flash and he reels backwards like a door has slammed shut in his face. The highlights in her hair return to their proper hue. 

This is Zerada Adust, noblewoman of Genus Adust. He remembers her bragging about having friends in every criminal underworld, about slitting a man’s throat in an alley in Macau for daring to follow her. That first night in Vegas, he’d turned to his best friends and said he was going to make an awful decision. Well, at least they won’t be surprised. He did not flinch far. Brian steps forward and turns on the lamp beside the bed. She looks calm, maybe a little disappointed, but her ears are upright like she’s waiting for something. Now he really puts distance between them. The frame of a painting digs into his shoulders and he’s too paralysed to turn. 

Zerada tilts her head to one side. That's his shirt “You can go. I won’t stop you”.

“Why? What is this?”. His phone is on the nightstand, next to the lamp. He should have grabbed it! 

She slowly closes her eyes, not that she can’t hear his frantic breathing. “Subtle charms are unnoticeable, but once the…” she gives him a respectful nod. “subject realizes something is wrong, the eyes begin to glow. You must have had a particularly self-aware dream. Or just had second thoughts. Well, more than second thoughts by this point”. 

They met on the night of the solstice, and now it's the equinox. They’ve been a thing since a few days after. How many times have Clay and Sierra mocked him for this? He takes a step forward, watching for any tell that a strike is coming, then lunges, unplugs his phone, and retreats. It’s not a wrestling move set. This isn’t anything he knows. Zerada turns smoothly to follow his leap. She has perfect economy of movement, like someone who’s been training for years and years. 

Wait. 

“How long have you…” The words feel too light in his mouth. Brainwashed is a word from movies, not real life. He swipes to Clay’s contact in his phone. 

“I cast something to protect your mind when you were acting as bait before we attacked Excalibur, but that hardly counts.  I cast it again when you infiltrated the prison. It was almost completely undetectable. Some of my best work, if you can appreciate it. Then you were unstable when we lost Sierra”. She pauses before continuing, and her eyes are wide like she’s surprised by her own words. “I gave you a push to stay”. 

“With you”.

“You’ve always been the one most invested in this”. She lifts a hand to her chest and gestures around the motel room. Invested in her? In this quest? In saving the world? “If you turned away, Sierra and Clay would follow. You’re very loyal to each other”. 

She dodges the question she knows he means. “We got you your brother back, and everyone else. Does it matter if we leave?” 

“I’m just-”

“We’re only human. You don’t need us. God, maybe you do need us, but you don’t need us here freely”. 

“I only know the human world for its charms, Brian. You live here. It’s nice to have a second opinion”.

Brian stays frozen in place against the wall. Eventually, Zerada stands as well. 

“I’ll go first, if you’re just going to stand there like a cornered thing. I’ll talk to Mari and be out of your hair by daybreak”.

All this time they’ve been fighting for allies, and Zerada is unafraid to leave. Why shouldn’t she be? Since the moment they first saw her killing time in Las Vegas, Zerada’s done nothing but charm, kill, and save their asses. Brian’s heart seizes with dread. Even with the Mercurali chasing so many runaways, they are still going to be in danger. Is Marin enough to shield them all, and keep the car and guns charged, and keep the illusions up? What if he gets hurt again? Though, Marin isn’t the only Sondaica heir anymore…

Brian is a third son. He’s fought for attention before. “Wait. We- we can just pretend this never happened. You are so much better at this rebellion thing than Marin. He can’t do this alone”. 

“Brian, please, have some honor. We’ve been working in parallel since July. I wouldn’t abandon him just because you got clever. He has you three, anyway”. She gestures to the door like a queen dismissing an advisor. Brian blinks for a moment, grabs his shower shoes and the Giants sweatshirt hanging by the door, and stumbles out. 

They all have their ringtones on in case of emergencies, and Brian wonders if this counts. He’s fine now, and Zerada’s leaving. This is not one of the thousand terrible realities he’s imagined since the first time he realized mind-control was in play, not really at least. He’s fine. Besides, she said he hadn’t really been charmed until after the prison break, which means his initial decision to hook up while trying to save the world was just teenage stupidity. If she wasn’t lying. If anything could have possibly been considered safe or informed when his life had switched genres two weeks before. He stands in front of Clay’s door, trying to project confidence despite his crocs, and makes a phone call. It rings for ten seconds before he picks up. 

“I’m in the hallway outside”.

“Nice job waking me up”. The phone clicks off and he waits by the door. 

Brian imagines Clay looking at him through the peephole. He must be checking for signs of magic, and probably holding that damn rifle in case he’s been charmed. The thought stutters to a halt. He has been. 

Clay swings the door open. “What’s going on? Does Zerada snore?” He looks irritated, but something must flicker across Brian’s face when he says the name. “Finally regretting your choices?”

“What the hell, man”.  

“That was a stress reflex. I am so sorry”. Clay pulls him into the room and deadbolts the door. The rifle rests against a drawer within arm’s reach.  “Is she asleep? Are you hurt? You should sit”. 

“No. She’s talking with Marin, I think. The Adusts are leaving again”. 

Clay mutters and shakes Sierra awake.  She bolts up, clearly expecting an attack. Instead, she sees Brian shell shocked at the desk and Clay already across the room digging around the minifridge. There’s a pen with a logo by the lamp. Brian grabs it like it will disappear if he blinks, and spins it in his hands. “I woke up a few minutes ago- and- and my eyes were glowing, so I guess I’d been charmed? She saw that and just gave up. Kicked me out and said she was leaving too like that would fix things? It seemed like she’d been planning it for a while”. 

They are silent for what feels like whole minutes. Then, Sierra starts to dig for information. “How long has she been doing this?”

“Since you were captured, apparently? She was worried that I’d abandon the team without you but I mean I have no clue if she’s lying”. 

“She thought you’d leave? Mr ‘Let’s go on an adventure?’” She drops her voice to a whisper, barely more than mouthing the words. “We’d have betrayed them twice without you”. 

“She said she gave me a push to stay”. 

Clay leans against the wall with a clenched jaw. “To stay in her bed, maybe. I guess mind control explains your recent behavior”. 

“I made my decisions, okay? I can’t stand back and let the world end, and if we were going to die then I thought I might as well make the most of it. I don’t- I don’t think I was charmed at the start. She’s not into that, and hell, you know me. She wouldn’t need to. I’m always chasing things that are bad for me”. He closes his eyes. “You warned me so many times”. 

She shrugs. “As a joke, really. This is still awful”. 

Clay winces before he speaks. “We never really did. There’s a difference between disapproval and an actual intervention. We made fun of you, but who doesn’t. Besides, I spent two years in some sort of off-and-on thing with a boy I only saw while committing misdemeanors. I’m not exactly a role model".

Brian actually laughs at that, but it’s grim and strained. “Thanks for the compliment, Dirt. Like I’d have listened if you did”.

“Still, there’s no chance that you would’ve put her over us”.

“You can’t know that, Sierra”.

“I know you. You’re gonna rush a frat day one, but you are also the most hopeless romantic I've ever met. Wait, no, not romance. I mean that you’ve got a big heart and you need a team. Whatever charms, magical or otherwise, she had, you were never just going to give up or leave us behind”.

Clay meets his eyes. “You had a crush. You thought of her as a nineteen year old that was too hot to handle, not a conquering royal, and that was a mistake. The end. Drink your gatorade”.

He takes a shaky breath. “You picked a good color. The yellow ones are medicinal, you know”.

“Good to hear you back up to your casual nonsense”.

Brian doesn’t say anything else. Casual nonsense is what got him into this situation, and into his father’s university but not where he would have wanted to go, and into the trending tab. Better to never get back up. They only have a few more months anyway. 

Sierra texts a message to their emissary, and he’s glad to not see what it says. Once they’ve all changed into proper clothes, she whispers something again into Clay’s ear. His eyes flicker back to Brian and he barely keeps back a laugh. If Brian was really Zerada’s pet, then his fur would bristle. They’re never going to let him live this down. 

To Marin’s credit, he’s quite the negotiator. They stand in the pre-dawn cold (and it is already colder here, inland, in late September than it usually gets in deep winter back home) three humans facing two stunning elves in the parking lot with Marin half a step in between. It’s probably a survival skill for a spare prince. The nobility have strong personalities. He snaps his fingers to cloak the sound of their argument and even physically stands between the humans and Zerada once tensions inevitably begin to rise. But there’s not much to do. Zerada’s right. She and her sibling have been working in tandem with them for months. Ever since Jezero made their numbers too big to fit in the Audacity, which happens to be since Sierra was captured, and when Brian was definitely, without any doubt, even though it may have started before, under mind control.

This talk is a formality, like his father signing a figurehead order about something everyone’s already been doing since the nineties. He keeps his mouth shut. His anger burns hot, too hot for politics, but Clay is cold. By the time the sky begins to lighten in the east, his hand on his shoulder is the only thing holding Brian back from throwing a punch or collapsing in tears. An agreement is reached. It’s not meaningfully different than the interweaving way they had been traveling before, but he keeps glancing at Zerada as if she’s someone he can lean on instead of the problem. Then, Marin’s ears fold back. He doesn’t emote with them as much as the Adusts, but that means he’s serious. Well, that or fear. “I’d like to talk with my betrothed now. Privately”. 

For the first time he’s seen, Clay, Sierra, and Jezero all share the same skeptical expression. They look to each other, and at him, and then Zerada shrugs. She says something in Lazarin, and with a final glance back at Brian, Marin responds in turn. 

“Goddamnit!” Sierra throws her hands in the air. Her hair is loose and barely brushed. Of the three of them, Brian is the only one without that clear evidence for when something is out of shape. He always wears his hair like he’s just rolled out of bed.

“Let them”. Clay replies. His face cracks with pain or loss, but then he’s back to his stable baseline. “Remember what we’re trying to do”. 

Be essential and don’t get brainwashed. Clay's final prayer before Sierra handed them guns and they all went charging off under the glacier. Then Zerada had touched a hand to his forehead and wished him victory with glowing amber eyes. 

It’s been a long time since he’s lost that quickly. 

……………

Sierra is actually wrong. Brian isn’t going to join a fraternity, because Princeton is too pretentious for those. They have “Eating Clubs” instead, which are like if frats merged with a country clubs, bought mansions, and built dining halls in them. He’ll be on the baseball team though.

Brian thinks of Zerada on their ride out to Project Excalibur at the start of the chapter because he was brainwashed then too. Check back to chapter 16 and you‘ll see that the magical spell keeping humans away from the base has no affect on him.

@lokiwaffles @reggie246 @wishndreamer

[yuttikkele]

All Homestuck References, Similarities, and Contrasts in the Dream SMP

I have compiled a list of all the Homestuck references that I’ve found in the DSMP. These DEFINITELY weren’t intentional, as the only CC that I’ve seen talk about Homestuck with any understanding was Jack Manifold, and he only just knew about it. I believe there are probably more that I’ve overlooked, so if you find any more, please tell me!

Homestuck and the DSMP are both multimedia creations that had lots of viewer influence and became something much bigger than originally planned.

Homestuck is known for how extremely long and crazy it was. The same can be said for the DSMP since a lot of nonsensical shenanigans occur, AND there is SO much footage and perspectives and non-lore of the DSMP that I HOPE there isn’t a person who has watched ALL of it (like Tubbo’s daily 10 hour streams…).

Dave and TommyInnit similarities: brother problems, red baseball shirt, disc motif, blonde, combined with a bird in another universe, related to a crow in some way (philza and davesprite), creepy puppet (Lil Cal and Uncle Nasty), Eburnean Tommy AU is BASICALLY just Dave (white hair, blank expression, dead Tommys everywhere)

Terezi has Dave make tons of money doing “business” stuff. Tommy had a “business” brand going on at multiple points mostly because of Schlatt influence (Business Bay, Business Boys, InnitInc, Camarvan, The Big Innit Hotel).

Caliborn and TommyInnit similarities: Tommy talks exactly like Caliborn, they both cause most problems that occur, they both hate lovey-dovey stuff that is barely even lovey-dovey, they both have a complicated relationship with women that is seen as misogynistic (Caliborn is actually misogynistic while Tommy has Said Some Things), they both have a relation to That Green Thing (Doc Scratch and Dream), Annoying At FirstTM, both have an affinity for a puppet doll they both recognize as extremely creepy (Lil Cal and Uncle Nasty), Tommy has made his own “Homosuck” via writing a terrible fanfiction of himself, Tubbo, and Molly and (presumably) drawing pictures for it.

TommyInnit is basically the Davekat lovechild, and it really LOOKS like it if you imagine the demon Tommy design. BUT he is what I’d say is a fair mix of Dave, Karkat, and John. -Dave: motifs and situation -Karkat: brashness, loudness, and mannerisms -John: Protagonist-ness, humor, morals, and role in the story. Tommy also takes Caliborn’s personality, pretty much making him the chaotic neutral Caliborn.

In TommyInnit’s quote book, he mentions throwing a frog into a volcano, something that happens in Homestuck. On top of that, during this section, there is some very religious subtext akin to the frog in Homestuck.

Bro’s death is a lot like Wilbur’s (TommyInnit’s “bro’s”) death. Bro is stabbed through the chest with his own sword by Jack Noir (someone with crow motifs). Wilbur is stabbed (usually fanonly portrayed as being stabbed through the chest) by his own sword by Philza (someone with crow motifs).

Ranboo is basically a cherub. The mechanics of his character perfectly align with the mechanics of a prepubescent or malfunctioned cherub. They go to sleep, the other side wakes up and takes over the body. One side only wants good and for everyone to get along, while the other side has done despicable things. There’s also red/green and black/white motifs (though, the black/green motifs are assumed to be the “good” side for Ranboo rather than white/green). Ranboo’s cake can also be seen as his juju. The only thing is that cherubs do not have enderman traits like Ranboo does.

Badboyhalo is basically Kankri. Badboyhalo looks strikingly similar to the Sufferer. Neither swear. They both are tied to religion (BBH—the egg, Kankri—himself). But, I don’t think Kankri has an obsession with his best friend, and BBH’s typing “quirk” is more like Aradia’s.

Dream looks similar to Doc Scratch. Both are antagonists. Doc Scratch is basically a “mask” for Caliborn. Doc Scratch pretends to be nice and accommodating to Damara like Dream was to Tommy even though they were both clearly holding them prisoner. Doc Scratch and cc!Dream both uh, shouldn’t be around children.

Jack Manifold resembles Sollux because of the red and blue motifs, short hairstyle, and Jack’s old IGN being Thunder1408 (thunder sorta like lightning sorta like Sollux’s telekinesis/lightning attributes). Jack Manifold was also sent to hell which led to a complicated death count, sorta like Sollux being half dead.

Dirk writing Homestuck and Wilbur writing the DSMP.

I like to say that Minecraft was the IRL Sburb-that-wasn’t-Sburb because it first became public in 2009 not long after 4/13 and was released again in November 2011 not unlike some other sandbox game centered around crafting.

In Minecraft, a person creates a world to begin, but in Sburb, they create the world to end.

Both stories have a “lives” system, an afterlife system, a revival system, and “ghosts”. The characters can interact with each other in the afterlife in both.

Both stories have a “paradox space” system. The DSMP universe acknowledges that there are other “worlds,” “servers,” and “universes” that don’t include the DSMP. There is also time travel as seen with Karl that also shows us there was a history to the DSMP world. Homestuck, obviously, has its paradox space of different universes and all their instances.

Both stories have a “canon.” Homestuck’s canon is The Alpha Timeline, and anything that doesn’t fit in that mold gets destroyed. The DSMP also has a canon, but it’s seen more as a fourth wall breaking joke. If something that’s not supposed to happen happens, they will just retcon it. We don’t know if the DSMP has a multiverse where things happen differently, and if it does, we don’t know if it gets to stay or if it gets destroyed. Even with these differences, both stories use the word canon in silly situations.

It is worth noting that there are “alternate universes” of the DSMP where the characters do not seem to have a recollection of the DSMP or things prior and are more of a separate entity than the DSMP timeline. For reference, a DSMP character’s timeline usually spans the whole of the CC’s career. But, these alternate universes are not called “the DSMP,” and don’t really count.

Karl doesn’t seem to affect the canon with his time travel. He is a spectator that can interact with the story when he time travels, and nothing he does will change the future or past. There isn’t anything like this in Homestuck, but there is the compliment, with John who can time travel and fully reroute the story.

Both stories have a “scratch” where the world is reset, and the characters reappear with no memory of the world before.

Techno’s false name was “Dave.”

Both have a character whose hair generally covers their eyes in most designs, has dyslexic symptoms, is obsessed with bees, and their aspect is doom (Tubbo and Mituna).

Both fandoms have babied the character described above before they finally snapped out of it.

The Ultimate Weapon Sburb symbol juju reminds me of 4/4 SBI.

Both fandoms strive on AUs, headcanons, and versatility of character design.

Both fandoms have an instinctive reaction when they hear “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

The fandoms of both are famously known for being extremely annoying.

Both Andrew Hussie and Wilbur Soot have used AO3 to make, basically, a fanfiction of their own work. Both of these “fanfictions” are dubiously canon.

Wilbur was born in 1996, the same year John and Jane were born, which makes Wilbur just slightly younger than the two.

Tommy makes an appearance on the QSMP using other people's accounts, and when he makes these appearances, he basically appears as c!Tommy (he references DSMP events in the context that he was there). In QSMP fanon (which is basically canon unless proven otherwise), Tommy is the god of chaos. The Tommy from the DSMP appears in the QSMP as a god. So, Tommy died, became a god, and he went to another universe. Quite possibly, he died, went godtier, then found a way to escape to another universe before the DSMP restarted or "scratched." Which probably means the QSMP is the new universe that was created when winning the game.

[mo-ok]

its been so long since i've seen kyuranger i forgot what gigant houou looked like and i

can we be fucking serious for five minutes here

[lavelled]

Nothing seems to be going quite right for the kitchen table couple that don’t live together. Your separated wife visited a Teen Girls charity. With respect, way to distance yourself from a lifetime of pedophilia. Markle is exactly what the upper crust Windsor ancestry deserves. The perfect mixture of vain, cheap sociability and callous reserve. Did she mention all the teen girls who killed themselves during your 8-year togetherness? It is a conspicuous fact to communicate in an otherwise fiery and staged utterance.

Now I know why the Mission: Impossible movies take three years to churn out — Tom’s been keeping my vampire internet hours. (allows for privacy amongst suburbia.) Late hours, and those cliffside, aviation, and motorcycle stunts. I wish I knew all those years ago. He’s not only been beside me this whole time, but he never wanted the little sarcastic softball player in dental braces to be tied up in paperwork to your sexually motivated, much older, ruinous Papa. But how you spin a story.

Across endless cyber platforms, balancing royal cliques with blooded cum-drenched clicks. When you could have bowed out a long time ago. Do what’s best for that little girl. You didn’t.

I watched you dance at a wedding promenade, charity functions, royal events, humanitarian appearances, tech speeches, super bowls, concerts, award ceremonies, art galleries and you and your paid wife accepting newborn onesies from the Yankees and Red Sox while you talked to me online as sporty Celica, watching my life, partitioned, go absolutely nowhere as bigger names threw themselves on swords because of the paper trail and children hurt themselves for what interlocking King Charles and his fresh junior did to me decades ago. You’ve had nonstop limitless computerized reign because nobody wants to deal with you: no caretaker, no minder, no step-mum, no extended family network, no publicist, and no psychotherapist.

Imagine a world without Prince Harry’s steady technological pulsing of chords.

In its purest sense, do love stories usually begin with the suitor borrowing the leading lady’s sisters to invoke luridness such as, “on my hands and knees, a slut”? No, I don’t think that’s a desirable hallmark mainstay. Your computer-generated poetry is unhesitatingly underage wordplay or punning or outright rape composition. I don’t like it. Since I mentioned Hallmark in correlation to a certain actress I don’t care for, I wanted the producers and actors to know that I thought "A Biltmore Christmas" was an award caliber movie of nostalgic sweetness that arrived in my life precisely when I needed it.

Harry, you hacked Nathan’s account, the flash drive you knew contained our text conversations and you deleted Celica, because you may want the contract to end, but not in this way. Not at your own hands. Not this publicly. You weren’t my in-the-middle-of-the-night baseball friend. You were the maker of chains and chainlink fences, twisting and tightening with your off-center online manipulation. You can elaborate on your hard-won theories on what is owed or deserved and your characteristic childhood grief which I have yet to witness; none of which gives you a life pass on cruelty. You hurt me to hurt Tom.

This is above my cyberly powers and station in life, but I would love some kind of ceasefire agreement and the hostages taken to be freed. A truce would help me. Can I not feel like complete shit for young girls and children everywhere all the time? The world got turned upside down by the lowliest person on the street pretending to be nobility and I’m trying to set it upright, restore it with words.

Never far from humanity’s side of extreme falsity and deception is the House of Windsor and that includes Twitter-boy—though, I must make a correction: apparently, my athlete friend, Celica, has always had blood splatter on her profile image. I should have noticed her skin effect. I wasn’t expecting a shy geisha ballgame samurai princess to exhibit biofluid and that’s on me.

One more thing: nobody tells me who to love or who to sleep with.

I’ll be using the pronouns He and Him because it’s Prince Harry. The silent pact about these convos shall hereto be obeyed.

K

you’ll notice most of our conversations took place in their wedded year of 2018—this is a paid mouthpiece for Harry's revenge:

Retracing steps, I realized we conversed on YouTube years ago—he as The Sarinator, which I later learned could be Sarah or Harrys and me as me—his three statements:

my double replies:

I assume he’s bullhorn yelling for a little buried girl; another account where we conversed:

he has several accounts in this moniker; a tapestry of mysteryman:

Duke and Duchess of Sussex:

This is Celica. We used to play At Midnight Points together. Incidentally, where is Chris Hardwick? Can he host something I’d watch? Like a guest host stint on Jeopardy when Ken takes his vacation in the summer, something:

this is a guitar:

2018 Wedded New Year:

Prince Harry gifted me a Mookie Betts GIF:

I was excited for my team to win the ALCS:

Back when I thought champagne meant champagne and wine was wine, silly me:

the great gatsby from Harry:

a hoodie and my talented Japanese-born players:

girl ownership while a honeycombed groom:

a young Tom and a pen-pal:

proves he was chatty and followed me on twitter for years, up there in the corner:

the treacherous slope of baseball, hockey, and contracts:

dialogue about Mister Shohei Ohtani; I’m not a stalker:

who is obsessed with 17-year-olds, asking for a Scottish friend:

something crass that has followed me since I was 10:

Yes.

leave me alone:

this is not my email account; Prince Harry is showing me a phony Boston email in his tech psychopathy expertise:

this is my email account; Harry sent it knowing I’d eventually sort out the major development contract story and wanted to send through a weak fuck-you to Tom for just this moment:

the goofy fallacy of thinking this Royal House of Windsor Family is well-adjusted; the worst, remarried, elderly, liar:

Prince Harry’s psychomental nail marks above the little girl’s head:

it's more dramatic if I don't continue writing . . .

[scarletskydemo]

Name: Malachai Aris

Aliases: Mal, Chai (Ch-eye or K-eye he doesn’t care), Demo

Age: 38

Gender: Male

Species: Human/Werewolf

Nationality: Scottish

Height: 6’2

Weight: 191

Build: Upper-body muscled mesomorph

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Blue

Skin tone: Dark

Class: Demolitions Expert (Demoman)

Team: RED

Sexuality: Bisexual

Personality: Despite most demomen being half-coherent drunkards, Mal genuinely prefers not to drink a whole lot. With a passion for chemistry, he likes to be in the right mind when messing with chemicals. After all, he’d rather not lose another eye. The man is also quite laid back, going with the flow and just looking for a good time. Man was put on this Earth to enjoy himself, right? So why not make the most out of every moment. He tends to be quite the upbeat guy, and it’s quite infectious. Mal isn’t afraid to invite someone for a dance, an after-work drink, a moment of reprieve and de-stressing, it doesn’t matter to him. As long as the morale of his team is up, he’s happy. He’s also incredibly caring and sensitive. It is easy for him to sympathize with the struggles of others and try to offer comfort or a solution. Life is too short to be stuck down in the mud, especially when there are so many good things out there. 

It’s quite difficult to genuinely make the man mad, considering his easy-going nature. However, when he does get fired up, he isn’t sugar-coating a thing. He will confront you and tell you exactly how he feels and why. If that doesn’t seem to get it through someone’s thick skull, he knows how to settle things with fists. Mal doesn’t really prefer to do things that way, but he’s not going to be a push-over simply because he doesn’t like hitting people. In general, he’s more likely to get frustrated than mad. He tends to take his frustrations out by hitting the gym or working on new explosives. Listening to something go BOOM is quite cathartic for him. During battle, he genuinely has fun. Each new battle brings about new challenges, new things to try, new methods he can learn. Testing his grit against that of another man is also quite fun, especially since they allowed him to have a sword. 

When struggling with something mentally, he tends to put on a brave face for others and take it down when he’s in private. Even though he’s quite cheerful, he never feels like his problems are anyone else’s problem. It’ll pass without the need to ruin someone else’s mood. Mal is quite neglectful of his own aches and pains, believing it’s better to make someone else’s day better than mope about his own issues. Once he feels comfortable letting someone get that close, he’s quite the emotional person. He can take things quite seriously if the matter calls for it, and knows how to handle things with a sense of maturity. Growing up as the oldest boy, that was a skill he had to pick up early on. However, it left a void for people who were willing to sit him down like he was with his brothers. 

Mal is an incredibly passionate lover and friend. His significant other means the world to him, and he wants them to experience the world like he does. His love language revolves around making time for them, having dates, going out and doing fun things, having a good drink, and building a strong bond. It’s very important to him that the special people in his life feel supported and happy. Whatever they need from him to cheer them up, he’ll do it without a second thought. 

Of course, ending up in this line of work, he can’t be completely normal. He is the KING of hair-brained schemes and wild ideas. And if it CAN involve explosives? It WILL involve explosives. Mal has a bit of a crazy streak when it comes to those delightful pills, going so far as to play baseball with them sometimes, whether or not it’s a good idea. And if someone just so happens to be in the line of fire and gets blown to bits? Well, that was really their fault in the end, wasn’t it?

Backstory: Malachai grew up in the lovely highlands of Scotland with his mother and 5 other siblings. It was an enjoyable life, tending to sheep and cattle. They all had their own roles, and with Mal being the eldest, he often had the role of overseeing. Now, they had time to play and get into all kinds of hijinx, terrorizing the local village with their pranks and tricks. Of course, their mother would tan their hides every time she received news of it, but it was all fun and games. One day, he was sent down to the local apothecary to get some sulfur. Some of his family members had come down with scabies, and that’s what his mom used to treat it.

While he was there, he ended up befriending the apprentice of the shop. The boy told Mal that sulfur could be used for FAR more things than simply scabies. It was a friendship that went off with a BANG, the boys often nabbing small bits of powders and liquids to make all kinds of things. Now, this didn’t really please the owner of the store, demanding that Mal had to pay for his part in the wastefulness of his materials. Instead of letting this information get back to his mother, Mal agreed to work part-time in the shop to pay off what he owed. What started out as a simple debt-repay ended up being a new skill he picked up rather quickly. Mixing different items to create not only medicines, but weapons and appliances? It quickly became Malachai’s favorite past-time. It also made the business quite a bit of money, adding anything new to his shelves that the boy created. Nothing deadly, of course. 

Malachai proceeded to carry this love for chemistry into adulthood, attending the local college and graduating with a masters in organic chemistry. His mother thought he would go into a job like medicine or finding solutions to world problems. No, he just made problems. When his love of explosions was quickly discovered by a lab he was working in, he was swiftly fired and put into a mental facility. Of course, he didn’t stay very long. They had a hard time keeping him when he didn’t appear outwardly insane in any of their tests. Oh, how wrong they were. As time went on, he began to make good money in making home-made explosives and selling them. So good, in fact, that a certain company heard of his skills and offered him a position as their demolitions expert. Finally! The dream job he had always wanted. 

Languages: English, Scots, French

Skills: Chemistry, Charm, Baking, Carpentry, Empathy, Sense of Smell, Equanimity, Knowledge of Explosives, Leadership, Multitasking, Out-of-the-Box Thinking, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Melee Combat, Dancing, High Liquor Tolerance, Patience

Likes: Coffee, Experimenting, Hanging Out With Friends, Animals, Social Drinking, Getting Up Early, Having Fun, Explosions and Explosives, Hugs and Physical Affection, Challenges, Rainy Weather, Playing Pranks, Crazy and Unique Ideas

Dislikes: Strict People, His Friends Being Upset, Following Rules, People Who Can’t Relax, Experiments Failing, Losing

Extras: Lots of Tattoos and Designs, Often Wears Two Gold Hoops

[yugenides]

snippets 。

Bits and pieces of my writing; both writing snippets (shorts) and RP intros: Ara (original modern mythology: reincarnation)

He walks to the center of the room, and kneels before the floorboards where the space hadn’t existed before, his fingers slipping into the cracks between the planks of wood and his nails catching to pry it open. Something’s waiting for him here, but he’s long forgotten it; a cache of childhood memorabilia, a trove of treasures left behind. Ara remembers his magician’s cape, his wooden sword colored crayon red, the soft patchy smooth texture of his baseball glove from the evenings of playing catch with his dad. ‘I’m human now,’ he thinks, but it’s a funny thought. He’s been human all this time.

Corv (modern fantasy, supernatural)

“You haven’t even realized it yet, have you?” the older boy sighed, shaking his head in exasperation. “C’mon, I expected better than that from my ex. Weren’t you supposed to be sharper than this, oh Cunning Raven, Cuervo Astuto?” Corv plastered on a sweet smile that reflected a lack of sincerity. “I always love how you make an insult sound like a compliment, and a compliment, an insult.” A pause. “Lee, why are you hassling me in my dream?”

Roa (eldritch horror, modern fantasy, supernatural)

Roa’s face was a formless thing; an absence of features that deterred the eyes, the mind, the senses of recognition. It was a face that was like the face of a dream. It existed, it was, but the details were difficult to remember; too incomprehensible to recall. Still, as he smiled at the other’s words, it left an impression of something warm and gentle; the flicker of stars in the void of night; the shift from a nightmare to something less malevolent, if still equally strange and unknown.

Yes, Roa could still see the apprehension there, and he longed to alleviate it in whatever way he could. Knowledge, that was one way, wasn’t it? One can overcome fear with understanding.

Read the rest of it [ here ] .

[metalhoops]

Remember this post? 

They were in the belly of the beast. 

The Creel House stood resolute, tinged the colour of a freshly heal wound, reopened. The same sickly red stain of The Upside Down sky, brown boards blue-hued from strange smokes and cinder. Part of Eddie felt like he’d seen the house before, in some half-remembered nightmare. Deep in the back of his brain, where all strange primal fears were housed, there was a spot saved for the decaying manner. 

By all rights, Eddie shouldn’t have been in the house. If they’d followed the original plan, he’d have been on the roof of the trailer. It’d been Wheeler, of all people who’d changed things. She was a smart girl, too damn smart for her own good in Eddie’s opinion. She’d pointed out all the ways their plan could go wrong and as much as Eddie wanted to redeem the Munson name, he didn’t want to walk into a death trap if he could help it. 

Nancy was right. That didn’t change the creeping sense of dread he felt whenever he looked her way. It was like one of Vecna’s vines had made a home in his stomach and was creeping up towards his mouth each time the girl did something impressive. Eddie had the sneaking suspicion something was swaying his feelings towards her. Something with light brown hair, who had entered the Creel house brandishing a baseball bat like a medieval sword. 

Jesus H. Christ. Seeing Steve Harrington wield the tetanus trap of a baseball bat, full of splintering wood and rusted nails wasn’t a sight he’d ever pictured living to see. 

Drifting in from the wasteland beyond the open door, Eddie could hear his amps playing ‘Master of Puppets’ on the boom box they’d borrowed from the Harringtons’. The poor little player had never gotten the taste for good music. Eddie had to admit it was a good idea. 

He, Steve and Dustin set up the trap. Once the bats began to swarm the trailer the two older boys boosted Dustin up and out of the portal, much to the kid’s protest. They then snuck around the back of the trailer, while the girls waited in the woods ahead. Nancy had her sawn-off trained on the swarm. Robin had her Molotovs. Range weapons, waiting in the wings. He and Steve were the best at evasion. If this were a campaign, he’d say they made a pretty balanced party, all things considered. 

The interior of the house was worse than Eddie expected. It was filled with rotted vines and ash, making the air smell of must and mildew. Eddie’s brain kept telling him to turn tail and run, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. 

He shifted his shield from one hand to the next as they moved deeper into the house, channelling his nervous energy away from his feet. One misstep and their distraction would be for nothing. Their plan was a house of cards. One gust of wind and the whole damn thing would blow over. If Eddie screwed up Red, along with everyone else in the Creel house, would be dead before the world had time to end. 

Steve took the lead up the stairs like Eddie knew he would. He had a hero complex Eddie couldn’t unpick. Once everything was over, he had questions about what the party had seen the last three times they’d decided to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. There was something about Steve Harrington he couldn’t put his finger on. Sure, trauma could change a person, Eddie was learning that lesson the hard way, but the man charging up the stairs towards their inevitable death in too-tight pants and an army jacket had some explaining to do. 

He wasn’t sure who’d done it in the end. Whose foot made first contact with the blackened tendrils, the dominos fell too fast to pinpoint an epicentre. Nancy's body jerked one way, while Steve was sent skyward. His back hit the walls of the house with a sickly wet thud, a mass of undulating vines threatening to swallow him whole. Robin was on the floor at the foot of the steps, hacking away at the vines with an axe. Eddie was pushed against the bannister, all the air fleeing his lungs. This was how he would die. 

The sound of distant wings grew ever louder as Eddie’s vision began to blacken around the edges. 

In Eddie’s fading vision, he watched as a sliver of light glinted off something overhead. The axe fell like a guillotine, too close to Eddie’s head for comfort. He was free. He took greedy gulps of air, his eyes making contact with Buckley’s. She looked as shocked as he did, like a nocturnal animal caught in floodlights.

They didn’t have time. Robin was off, desperately hacking skywards at the vines still ensnaring Steve. He’d managed to wedge the bat between the vine and his throat. Rusted nails dug deeper into the black mass as it attempted to constrict, but it also buried the nails deeper into Steve’s flesh. 

Eddie ran to help Nancy, her lips blue as her fingers blindly grasped for the shotgun that’d landed just out of reach. Nancy was smart, but like all people, the fear of death made her dumb. A bullet to the jugular wasn’t going to fix this. 

Eddie tried to slide his fingers between the vine and her throat, to relieve some of the pressure. His fingers kept slipping, sticky with sap or blood. He didn’t know. He wished he had a knife as he tried to untangle the vines from ensnaring her body. There was nothing more he could do. He had to sit and wait as he felt the fight begin to fade from her convulsing body. He listened distantly to Robin’s slew of curses as she hacked at drywall. For each vine cut from Steve’s body, there was another waiting to ensnare him. 

Life-or-death situations had a strange way of bringing one's true feelings to the surface. Eddie crouched beside Nancy, his hand clawing at the vine encircling her throat, watching as her panic-ridden eyes flickered across his face. He noticed her hand twitching up trying to pry the vine from its hold on her throat and Eddie’s arm. She was so weak he hadn’t noticed her attempt. He ran a thumb absentmindedly back and forth across her knuckles, trying to soothe her. 

“Hey, no. Hey. You’re fine, Wheeler. You’re okay. Slow breaths, alright? You’ve got this,” he muttered hating how uncertain he sounded, how strained his voice was. 

He didn’t hate Nancy. He’d hate himself if he let Steve’s chance of a storybook ending die in his arms but Christ that was a lot of pressure. 

He crouched there until his fingers turned white and an axe descended upon the vines, cutting them both free. Wheeler gasped, taking deep shaky breaths as she squeezed Eddie’s hand, locking eyes with Buckley over his shoulder. She schooled her features when Steve came into view. His throat wept blood but he was upright, which was more than Eddie could’ve hoped for. 

The vines began to retreat for a reason they couldn’t discern. The group rushed to the second-floor landing, as the swarm of bats descended upon the house, rushing in through the open door. Eddie watched as something shifted in Steve’s stance. He twisted the baseball bat in his hands, familiarising himself with the weapon before taking a few practice swings. 

“Keep going. I’ll hold ‘em off,” Steve spoke. 

Eddie knew it wasn’t a good plan. He knew what happened to the people who stayed behind. Steve had warned him about playing the hero. Eddie wasn’t going to let him have all the fun. 

He held his shield aloft in front of himself, trying to see how much of his body he could brace behind it. If this were a campaign, Eddie knew fighting something that nasty on your own would be akin to a death sentence. 

“I’m staying. Even the odds,” Eddie spoke, as though two boys fresh off the heels of adolescence taking on a swarm of hundreds of unearthly horrors was in any way shape or form, even.  They just had to hold them off until Vecna was dead. The hellscape couldn’t survive without him. Cut off the head and the rest would follow. 

If they had more time, maybe things would’ve gone differently. Maybe they would’ve come up with a better plan, but there was no time. Robin looked poised for an argument or a thought-out speech but Nancy cocked the shotgun and dragged her forward. She knew the silent promise that came with goodbyes. 

The boys were faced with a black mass of writhing wings. They found a rhythm with ease. Steve swung his bat in a perfect arch, sending any unfortunate hell spawn in its wake flying into Eddie’s waiting shield, empaled on the jagged nails. 

Eddie was surprised at how easy it was to find something akin to peace at that moment. He and Steve knew how to move around each other, and how to anticipate each other. They watched the other’s back and oftentimes found themselves back-to-back. Steve’s broad shoulders were grounding where they pressed into Eddie’s. It was the world's strangest game of baseball. With Steve at his side, the horror of the moment seemed to fall away. 

They worked better together than Eddie could’ve imagined and lasted longer than he’d thought. Yet, they couldn’t hold out much longer. The room smelled of rotted iron and Eddie’s sides throbbed. He was too hopped up on adrenaline for the seriousness of the situation to take hold, but one look at Steve in his periphery let him know they were both in bad shape. 

The boy was covered in blood. The wound in his side was torn open once more. Someone could trace their movement by the bloody footprints littering the floor. 

They were dying. 

Eddie tried not to let the enormity of the situation swallow him whole. 

“Hey? How’s it going in there? You killin’ the son of a bitch or just admiring the view?” Eddie screamed above the beating of wings. When a response didn’t come, Steve and Eddie exchanged worried looks. 

“Rob?” Steve yelled, casting a glance through the doorway. 

The moment of distraction left him wide open for a bat to swoop, wrapping its twisted tail around Steve’s arm and tugging him upwards. Eddie acted fast, grabbing Steve’s ankle, and pulling him back to the relative safety of the rotting boards, bloated and warping from the mingling blood and black, bat ooze. 

“I can’t find the lighter,” Robin’s voice called at last. It must have fallen from her pocket when the vines attacked. Shit. 

Eddie plunged his hands into the depths of his jacket pocket and thanked the god he didn’t believe in for his habit of chain smoking in times of crisis. He’d brought another lighter. 

“Watch my six Stevie, I’ve got one,” Eddie called, rushing into the room leaving no space to argue. 

Nancy had slung the rifle over her shoulder and had taken Robin’s axe, making short work of the few bats that’d managed to sneak past his and Steve’s defences. 

Eddie ran to Robin’s side, noticing how the girl’s eyes swelled at seeing him. He was definitely in bad shape then. Her hands trembled as she held out the bottle. Time and time again, Eddie tried to light the cloth. It wasn’t working.

Nothing was working. Panic finally took hold of Eddie. They were going to die. He wished he could say he made peace with that knowledge, but he couldn’t. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Eddie mumbled as the lighter continued to dull and spark. 

“What’s going on? I’m coming in,” Steve yelled as he appeared in the doorway barring the opening as best he could, trying to hold the flimsy wood as it buckled beneath the bats' weights. 

Steve’s eyes shifted over the scene, assessing the situation within seconds. 

He charged forward, taking the bottle from Robin’s hands, and letting the rag fall to the floor. 

“Nancy, get ready to shoot,” Steve called as he stalked closer to Vecna’s dangling body. A look passed between the two. The glance told Nancy everything she needed to know.

“Eds, lighter,” Steve called over his shoulder extending his hand. Eddie blinked, tossing it to Steve. 

Eddie would remember what happened next for the rest of his life. Whether that life lasted for minutes or decades, it didn’t matter. There was no such thing as a perfect moment, but what followed was as close as they could come. 

Steve took a deep swig of vodka, filling his cheeks with the bitter liquid and held Eddie’s lighter aloft, the small flame illuminating Steve’s features, a final spark of warmth amongst the blue-grey walls and ash of the house. His hands dripped blood, what was left of his skin was pale from the loss of it. 

Steve spat the alcohol in a perfect arc, through the flame, breathing fire over Vecna’s body, catching the dark wizard alight. Steve was a fallen king turned dragon. A higher kind of nobility. Breathtaking, unearthly, and dangerous. 

As Nancy littered Vecna’s body with bullets, Eddie kept his eyes trained on Steve, his heart in his throat. Eddie wasn’t one for sudden affections. His heart was an alley cat, wary and distrustful by nature. Yet, despite everything, Eddie fell in love with Steve at that moment. His heart soared straight past ‘crush’ and on through to adoration. Maybe it was the blood loss but with Vecna’s dead body on the floor at their feet, he knew at that moment, his life would be inextricably connected to Steve’s. 

The boy shot him a smile over his shoulder, his lip bloody, vodka smattering his chin. The room smelled of kindling. 

The girls rushed to Steve, taking turns embracing him. The sound of bats at the door had finally stopped. It was over. They’d won. 

Eddie watched on helplessly as Steve rested his forehead against Robin’s, holding the girl close, his face contorting in pain. Robin muttered a string of incoherent words just loud enough for Steve to hear before pulling back. 

Nancy was next. Their hug was less feverish, more familiar. Nancy’s chin rested on Steve’s shoulder and Steve’s hands gripped the back of her shirt as they had a hundred times before. They looked good together. It made Eddie ache. He looked away. 

When he looked back, to his surprise Robin had scooped Nancy into a too-tight hug, blathering about how petrified she’d been and how amazing Nancy was. Much to his surprise, Steve was looking at him, his arms open in offering. 

The others were close. They had gone through hell together. Eddie was the outsider. It felt strange being offered a place amongst them, but he didn’t know when he’d get another opportunity, so he strode forward letting Steve’s arms encircle his body. 

It wasn’t the kind of hug he’d expected. It wasn’t feverish, like Robin’s or as solid and steadfast as Nancy’s. Steve clung to him, his hands gripped at Eddie’s forearms, as though trying to map out the uncharted territory before pulling him closer. His hands snaked around Eddie’s body, finally finding a home, clutching at the shirt fabric around his shoulder blades.

Eddie didn’t know what to do with his hands, finding them slipping beneath Steve’s jacket, just above his waist. His head found its way to Steve’s shoulder and Steve’s did the same. He could feel the boy’s heart pounding. He smelled of sweat, blood, and alcohol. 

“You’re a total badass, Steve Harrington.” Eddie gasped. His breath was hot against Steve’s ear. The boy chuckled, causing a shiver to run up his spine.

“I don’t know, Munson. That’s high praise comin’ from a hero,” Steve spoke.

“I’m not-,” Eddie began, but Steve wasn’t having it. 

“Take a compliment dude. You went to Mordor,” Steve spoke in the tone of a man who still didn’t know exactly what ‘Mordor’ was. 

Hawkins’ golden boy, trying to ‘speak nerd’ to him wasn’t quelling any of Eddie’s feelings. 

“Yeah well, next time we go somewhere let’s make it nice. Check out The Rockies, The Grand Canyon, maybe California.” 

Later Eddie would blame the blood loss for being so bold. 

Steve pulled back, just far enough to look at Eddie’s face. To his surprise, Steve shot him a goofy grin. 

“I like the sound of that.”