#also i reread it just now to make sure i had the details straight and its literally so good. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

uniformbravo · 6 months

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since i've spent the past few days essentially staring at nothing but natsuyuu volume covers i thought it'd be so fun and silly to try and redraw them all from memory tee hee. all 30 (thirty) (三十) of them!!! wheee!!!!

i haven't actually looked at them next to the originals yet so guess what time it is!!!! LET'S COMPARE

starting with volume 1. iconic. show stopping. masterpiece. the mona lisa of natsuyuu SURELY i reproduced every single detail perfectly such that it kickstarts my career as a forgery artist RIGHT

well feast ur eyes

(im using the english volumes for comparison btw they have a good clear view of the art)

CAN U TELL WHICH IS WHICH OOO THEYRE SO ALIKE BET U CANT!!! SPOT THE DIFFERENCE LEVEL 1000 WHICH ONE DO U SHOOT

all i remembered for this one was GREEN and it's not even the right shade of green ajgosugdjfkdgj i even made the fuckin. what do u call it. i'll just say yukata??? I MADE IT GREEN AND ITS SUPPOSED TO BE RED i stg if u held a gun to my head & asked if there was any red on vol 1 i'd be DEAD

but i remembered the book of friends is like. weirdly purple? ok well in this pic it looks p gray BUT ON OTHER COPIES...... IF U UP THE SATURATION GKSJKDNFKDG

why is nyanko sensei smack dab in the middle HUH i couldve sworn he was bottom left this is so fucked up and scary. haunted manga volume??????? i bought it from a grarage sale idk you guys-

at least natsume's pose is like kind of right but also that's most definitely a complete accident i can ASSURE u (im rereading this the next day and the pose isnt even CLOSE what are u TALKING ABOUT)

anyway can i just fucking point out the kanji on the book of friends bc that is from MEMORY YEEHAW here's what it's Supposed to look like: 友人帳

LIKE even tho i got the last one wrong ITS LIKE STILL PRETTY CLOSE??? i think i deserve 100 points for this objectively

MOVING ON THO....

OK NOT AS BAD AS I THOUGHT SURPRISINGLY im actually like. i thought i bombed this one completely but liKE THE COMPOSITION??? KIND OF ON POINT. KIND OF GENIUS TBH

i remembered Blue and Madara and like what else do u need rly. butterflies are optional in all scenarios imo

also i NEVER have any idea what natsume's wearing in any of these so i always just like default throw him into his school uniform LMAO u will see a pattern

why is the book of friends burgundy in this one btw. it was GRAY i mean purple definitely purple aha

ok volume 3 im actually scared for i know i fucked up SOMETHING

HGLKFKGLKFKGFN OK!!!!! OK NOT SUPER AWFUL!!!! just noticed i forgor to color the book of friends fukg

main thing i remembered abt this one was the color of natsume's... attire.... and which characters were present. whats sensei doing all the way up in the top corner tho 0/10

return of the school uniform lmaooooo hm. irrelevant who cares plus didnt ask. all things considered this wasn't as bad as i thought. THE NEXT ONE HOWEVER,

hsngjfgnfjn okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

sensei's way cuter in this one than i realized wait wtf this cover's cute af how did i never notice. underrated cover -10 @ me. look at his lil BLEP >:O!!!!!!!

i knew there was some fuckshit going on w the yukata in this one ourhg i was just like hehe greeennnn also sensei's there. my work here is done

what is natsume's pose even hgnkg i was straight up making shit up at this point LIKE the first 6 or so covers are SO hard for me to distinguish in my head i should get a free pass for the poses in all of them like i can do whatever i want IM the artist now

oh god whats next vol 5

OK!!!! like a straight 5/10 TBH i literally forgot i was planning on rating these LMAO

i remembered the like white v-neck shirt thing and his pose kind of??? i had NO idea what to do for the yukata tho i just made it orange and u know what?? close enough. my rule of thumb is just like pick a color and then throw flowers all over it u cant go wrong

taki looks so much more mysterious on the original and also wearing a skirt. i gave her a big stick bc i thought i remembered her having one in general but i think i made that up tbh wouldn't put it past me. got her hat right tho hee haw

cant believe i didn't get natsume's beautiful artwork tho look at that little shit sensei up there god hes so ROUMD literally moma material

PROBABLY my best one yet uhhhh but i maybe cheated JUST a little for this one ITS LIKE BARELY CHEATING STOP BOOING ME

as i was toying w the idea of doing this redraw thing i was still working on collecting my Images and Pictures so i kinda started taking note of a few small things here & there and one of them was just. the general gist of this cover SO LIKE that's why it's so good LOL

forgor the flowers tho. i literally forget everything that isn't a character like immediately BUT OK CUT ME SOME SLACK like after a point the covers start being whole ass scenes which are SO much easier to remember shit abt than the fuckin Green Void (p sure this is the last green void cover tho)

8/10 composition is gr8 but details like the shirt & the yellow flowers are wrong, also the stick is backwards. i literally looked up what that thing is called and forgot already tee hee

OK WE'RE NOT DONE W THE GREEN VOID I REPEAT-

fuck dude. fuck. i rly thought vol 6 was the last one LOL not to spoil but as i was grabbing these images i saw a Preview of what's to come and the green void lasts until fuckign volume TEN LOL collapses onto the ground and dies

so erhermrm this is vol 7 lolllll i remembered the bg flowers this time can u believe hahaha distracts u from the fact that LITERALLY everything else is wrong auhghg

u know what the green void turned into bushes and i think that's beautiful.... like points for creativity on my part tbh. like to be completely honest. 3/10 i got the characters right

YO????? GATE CONFIRMED LET'S GO?????? it's definitely the school gate but i choose to believe natsume & tanuma r in jail for crimes and u should too

actually this is shockingly accurate for how much i goddamn struggled w this one gkjsldkg the CHARACTERS are right the OUTFITS are right SENSEI'S THERE urgh i knew one of these covers had tanuma holding sensei like that but i couldn't remember Which

i can't believe i actually got tanuma's pose that close i rly thought i was bullshitting w that one wtf. +5 points instantly

do u like how i just scribbled sensei wherever lmaoooo i drew natsume & tanuma & went like. i think sensei's in this one. PLOP

6/10 honestly closer than i thought

OK........ I SEE........ literally dies

this one i was getting MASSIVELY confused w vol 4 bc i could remember nothing distinct abt either of them except Green and natsume w Big Doggie

i remembered the BARE essentials of the composition but not much else... since i thought the green void was gone i put the green i remembered into natsume's yukata (and then put him in the school uniform again LOL) and went WELP. GUESS I'LL DIE NOW

2/10 honestly one of the worst fucking ones lskdjflsdkg

OK THIS ONE.... i almost died irl trying to remember this shit, even before i started and i was still viewing the covers i was like there is no way in HELL im remembering this shit for vol 10. and i was right

like. Purple. White Mask. Antlers. WILD layered clothing. at first i drew the mask as an actual deer skull but later had a straight up epiphany and redrew it like that which... still not correct but I MEAN.... IT'S PRETTY GOOD

i cant believe most of the purple is the bg oughgh his clothes are WHITE..... this is fucked up. i DID remember the stick tho, bells and everything!! actually bells and nothing else!!!

7/10 ok it might seem high but CONSIDERING this design..... i think i did shockingly well TBH

NOT...... the worst...... one....... i could've sworn he was sitting on a pile of books this is so sad that woulda been so cute 😭

for a second when i saw the real cover again i thought he was sitting ON the bookshelf and i was about to RIOT but its okay it's a step stool. still physically possible

my version of natsume here is so much more like Proper gksld he looks like a school boy... studying in the academy's library... hardworking student.... but no the real one is just sitting there like a wet puppy orz he's not even READING i rly thought he was reading. this is such a huge L

cannot fucking believe i was right abt the window tho. like wrong shape but the fact that it's even there.... giving myself a whole ass point for that one

5/10 i rly thought i nailed this one gksgndfkj

also RIP TO THE GREEN VOID U WILL NOT BE MISSED o7

ah shit ok. well one of them was in the school uniform at least fjgugjdkf

why is my natsume lying there like hes abt to start a therapy session, boy would NEVER-

also the plushie hmnmhnmhngnf i dont KNOW i knew there was some kind of prop there but like gun to my head i woulda died again. main colors that stood out to me for this were green and that bluish purple so i got those into mine but i mean. well u can see

once again a random window in the bg i got correct let's gooooo 5/10

LMAO SPITS OUT MY DRINK WHOOPSIE!!!!!!

this is so fucking bad im choking im gurgling LOLLLL i was SO sure natsume's paper had an eye on it i was POSITIVE this is so fucked up. i mean obvs i picked that up from sensei but like i didn't even KNOW sensei was there. or that there were bg characters at all uuuuuououohghh (matoba ignored +5)

i was like. black yukata red flowers CHECK piece of paper w eye CHECK horns CHECK i even went back and edited the horns to be more accurate i was so proud of myself sobs

ok but i knew it was shit trasjh when those were the ONLY details i could remember bc obviously there was gonna be more going on I JUST DIDN'T REALIZE HOW MUCH MORE.....

straight up dookie/10 no jk fr like 3/10 @ me u need to use ur EYES

OK..... I WAS VERY CONFIDENT ABT THIS ONE..... except for his outfit i knew i was bullshitting that BUT I THOUGHT I NAILED THIS ONE....... the one fucking time i didn't just default to his uniform LMFAO

even remembered the pink flower ball smh and for WHAT. i knew he was sitting in a pile of plushies & blankets or smth but no way in HELL was i even gonna attempt to draw them with a speck of detail. but HEY the plushie i drew for vol 12!!! i knew he existed Somewhere. he doesn't even have a horn tho thats so fucked up i thought he did

obviously the most striking thing abt this cover is the bg w that deep burgundy & the circular window so that was the main thing i nailed down right away (my palette was more muted tho). also natsume sitting there w paper in his mouth but i thought he was mid return when rly hes playing like keep-the-balloon-off-the-floor or whatever the fuck he's doing. i love u natsume

(if i thought he was in the middle of returning a name WHY didn't i include the actual book of friends flksglkd automatic fake fan/10)

8/10 this was like my ace in the hole i was like if i got nothing else i got U volume 14!!! and then

NOT THE FAMILY PHOTO......... FUCKING DIES

man idk shit just end me. whats even going on in this cover im gonna deck u natori. dont ask why this makes me want to commit violence hes just so. URHGHGHnH

i dont know whats happening to me rn looking at this im losing my fucking grip dude who let this happen im gonna hurl this volume into the sun??? i think???

why did i add the other two youkai i just thought they should be included but i played myself i had to draw them from memory and for WHAT. pls tell me i got them at least a little bit right i stg

it's the crossed legts dude if he was just sitting there like a board the way i drew him id be like ah shit it was just natori sitting not natsume too but he just HAS to cross his legs and the fucing elbow propped up holding the glasses im S MAD IM SO MADdestroy him

it's 1am i gotta go. i have to go. right now my mom is calling me i have to fukcng. 4/10 i got the couch colorr right. bye

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tumglr...... only allows 30 pictures per post..... bc im not on desktop? or is that a site-wide thing now. in any case this is getting long so i think im gonna split it right down the middle into 2 posts so there u go, first 15 volumes. so far my score is ermmm

well i didn't rate the first few volumes.

vol 1: 6/10 decent

vol 2: 6/10 also decent

vol 3: 5/10 composition is Scramboled

vol 4: 2/10 it's SO BAD

so now my overall score is 74/150 fjggudjofjdkgjk doing gr8!!!!!!!!!

ok bye for real ✌️

#natsume yuujinchou #ny blogging #rieley doodles #retag later #this is me fighting my demons #why did i get so mad at natori at the end kgsndksjdfk #i say yukata a lot in this post but i think the piece of clothing im referring to might actually be haori in most of these cases #i think more ppl know what a yukata is than a haori tho so im just gonna leave it #(haori is the thing that u wear over the yukata. like a. cardigan)

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cerealandchoccymilk · 1 year

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Trigun Bookclub: Trigun Vol.1, Chapter #03

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More Trigun annotations! I'm doing a deep-read of the Japanese original print (reread) and Overhaul 1.0 (first read) side-by-side, and writing down everything I notice from small details, version differences, translation differences, etc. (and being so so gay about the characters. of course)

As always, here are the non-analysis panels of my dear babygirl (+ memes)...

And the rest is under the cut. i am living in ur brain now <3

[link for if the images aren’t in horizontal rows]

Starting off with the chapter cover of our handsome boy, this is the first time we see him with his glasses! I've seen someone on Twitter make a guide on Vash's different glasses designs over the manga (sadly it either cost money or was only distributed at a con and I don't have it...), so I'll try to pay attention to that during this readthrough.

As I've mentioned in the previous chapter, his antennae used to stand straight up, but they're bent now! They pop back up once in a while but from here on, the default is bent.

I love how gently he sets the girl down, and also the way everyone waits in awkward silence (and confusion) for Vash to move the rubble.

I think this part works excellently as-is, but notes on the nuances of what Nebraska originally said (this was ridiculously hard and the translation is very rough):

①「絶対どこかで不都合を並べた奴を消して来てるのさ」 ②「なぜなら」 ③「現におまえは消される側にまわってねえ……！！」 ↓ ① There has to have been a time when you "eliminated" ("erased"/killed) someone that got in your way (/someone unfortunate enough to [be there]...etc). ② Because... ③ In reality, you haven't taken on the role ("side") of being eliminated...!!

This part's very hard... He's talking about something similar to offense/defense. In this case, it's that because Vash has been avoiding conflict/being in direct danger entirely, Nebraska is saying that Vash must have killed, directly or indirectly, someone who got in the way of Vash's fleeing. I think.

I'm not sure why, but the way this was phrased stuck out to me.

Also, Gofsef's fist had an extra knuckle for one panel.

A translation error - it should be something like "He shot every bullet into the same precise spot... And shifted its trajectory!?"

Vash says "JACKPOT!" in English here, in the Japanese version. also hes soooo handsomeeeeee look at him omgggg kicking my legs back n forth blushing giggling i need to be tranquilized.

Nebraska's straight-up being crushed into pieces here. goddamn.

Not sure if it was removed in one of the reprints or in Overhaul's cleanup process, but in my Japanese copy, there was a "thump" onomatopoea of the guy backing into a wall.

Milly and Meryl are the best comedy duo in the world... They're perfect... The tiny speech bubble actually says something like "They're goofing all over the place..." The word ボケ (boke) is the funny man in a manzai comedy duo (as opposed to the straight man), and/or the jokes that the person in that role makes.

YIPPEE!! (In Japanese, it's one continuous exclamation ↑ like so. Also, there are tiny music notes around the handwritten text in the wahoo speech bubble.)

Vash runs out of breath after celebrating (cleaned up in Overhaul). God he's so silly...

A small error - I would phrase Meryl's line as "[Now, now,] Don't get too ahead of yourself."

I love how in Japanese, Meryl calls Vash "a very dangerous person with chronic troublemaker disease (慢性トラブル症)." I'm saying this from now on.

She also sarcastically says that she's grateful of the stars' alignment that they were able to meet, while gorilla gripping Vash's hand.

Also, I never noticed how fucked up Nebraska's body was!? Maybe the memories just got rewritten by Stampede. but goddamn. gun for legs...giant mechanical hands...

Vash making a Kirby Ꙩ.Ꙩ face my beloved. just a little guy!! with some badass girls!!! The last line is 「…はい？」 which is like what??/huh??/alright?? etc. はい is a very versatile word ☝ lol

That's it for Chapter #03! As always, the Japanese annotations will be in the reblogs. I'll remember to write the post about Meryl's speech patterns sometime soon.

#getting faster at making these posts 👀#trigunbookclub #trigun annotation #trigun #trigun manga

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whereianonymouslypostfics · 1 year

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The Flip Side Part 6

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Word count: ~9.5k

Summary: Your motivation to continue working as a mobster in Chicago is dwindling after the birth of your daughter.

A/N: So glad to be going home soon! I can go places on my own and I can wear shorts without being stared at! Yayy! Will reread this later to look for the damned flipped dialogue🙄. Enjoy!

Warnings: angst, smut, being arrested, threats of violence

Unfortunately, Wanda was no stranger to stress and anxiety. Even before meeting you, she’d been an anxious person who’d often lose sleep or hair over certain things that brought her stress. She would say; however, that since meeting you this had gotten a lot worse. Your lifestyle and your very existence was a dangerous, unpredictable one that Wanda had accepted into her life without fully understanding it. She’d learned quickly that in order to cope with the stress, she had to practice both mindfulness and blissful ignorance.

Despite how well these have served her in the past, she knew that this wasn’t an option tonight. She’s not sure if she’s ever felt this stressed, and she’d ended up taking one of your meds when you told her about what was going to happen to you tomorrow. The idea of you being sent to jail for an indefinite amount of time for a crime you didn’t commit was making her blood pressure skyrocket.

You’d told her everything that Bucky and Nat had shared with you. She knew you didn’t do this because you’d been with her the entire day that Jacobs was killed. She hadn’t realized that you had planned to target him, but now that she did, she wondered the same thing as you and the rest of your friends.

Who wanted to beat you to it so badly just to frame you?

The idea of anyone putting in that much work to get you in jail and out of the way was a little daunting, and no one wanted to consider the significance of this. Once your friends leave, you and Wanda are left sitting at the dining room table in silence as your wife tries to process the bad news. Boone is sitting by your side because he can tell you’re anxious and he goes between licking your hand and laying his head on your leg to comfort you. Natalya is asleep at this point, but Wanda has the baby monitor sitting on the table in front of her as she pets Fat Louise as she purrs in her lap.

“How confident are you that your attorney can get you out of jail?”

Under any other circumstance you would say that you had no doubt that your friend Gavin could get you out within hours. He was a brilliant attorney who was well-respected and you’d rarely seen him lose. That said, given the number of unknowns with your situation, it’s hard for you to determine what factors, or rather people could be working against you. This means that something that seems easy and straight forward might take a little more time and effort. You don’t want to tell Wanda this because she’ll worry with you, but she deserves to know the truth. You don’t want to tell her you’ll be out soon and take days to actually be released.

“Hopefully within a day or two.”

Wanda’s frowning as she mulls this over before shaking her head. She’s not going to stress about this particular detail for too long, at least she’s going to pretend like she won’t. She hates the idea of you being away from her, and being vulnerable in jail all by yourself. She also, belatedly, realized that you won’t be around to make her feel safe in her own home. The security system and the personnel downstairs were still there of course, but they weren’t you. You answer her next question before she gets a chance to ask it.

“I’ll make sure that someone is keeping you as updated as possible. If Gavin’s busy then maybe Bucky or Steve will keep in touch.”

Wanda just nods in silence as she thinks about how much she hates this. She’s so stressed about all of this that she understands why it triggered a panic attack for you. She takes a deep breath and puts Fat Louise on the ground with a groan. You’re breathing deeply as you try to figure out how to deal with the antsy feelings that’s come over you. You’re just waiting around to get arrested, and the lack of control over the situation made you want to binge.

You realize what you have to do as soon as you remember that Yelena had left a full bottle of wine behind. Wanda had asked her to because she’d considered drinking it, but now she knew it wouldn’t make her feel better. If anything, she’d be paranoid that she would miss you leaving. Wanda looks up as she watches you stand and head for the kitchen without a word. She’s not sure what’s you’re doing, but when you grab a knife and a bottle opener, Wanda’s on her feet.

“Y/n? What are you doing?”

Wanda walks towards you and just watches as you cut the metal off of the top of the bottle to reveal the cork before starting to open it up. You can’t remember the last time you did this and your hands are practically shaking in anticipation. You shake your head as you finish up and pull out the cork, but you don’t let Wanda fret for long.

“I’m getting rid of this so I don’t think about it all night. Unless you wanted some?”

Wanda shakes her head before watching as you pour the entire bottle of 0.5% alcohol wine down the drain. She watches you relax slightly once it’s gone and you put the bottle in recycling before taking another deep breath. You’re bracing yourself on the counter and you turn to Wanda with an apologetic look that she appreciates but doesn’t know what to do with.

“I’m sorry, Wands. I don’t know how this happened, but we’ll figure it out.”

After checking on Natalya and the dogs one last time, you and Wanda end up in bed exhausted but not anywhere ready to sleep. You know that as soon as you wake up, you’re going to have to leave your wife and daughter for a stuffy interrogation room followed by a cold jail cell. You resist the urge to text Gavin again just to be sure he’s on standby. He’d texted earlier just to reassure you that he would be ready to come to your aid, and after thanking him you’d had to tamp down the urge to share all of your fears with him. Instead, you put your phone away and make sure that everything is set up for your wife.

You’d long ago given her access to your bank accounts and given her power of attorney. You’d insisted she keep her money from the restaurant separate for legal purposes, but you also made sure that she knew where all of your important documents were including your will and the numerous deeds for the buildings you owned. They weren’t in the bank or in the penthouse that might be searched tomorrow depending on how things went. You try not to worry about the many weapons that are hidden around in the various rooms of your home. You turn to your wife and wonder if she’d be willing to hear what you feel you have to say. Luckily your time together has been enough for her to be able to read you like a book.

“I know what you’re going to say, Y/n. I’ll make sure that everything is taken care of. “

You’re still frowning by the time you lie down next to your wife. You hate the idea of cops in your house. You just hate cops period, but the idea of them searching for something in your house makes you nervous. Other than weapons they’re not much else of value. You have a safe with money, extra magazines and some jewelry. You hope that Gavin keeps them from coming here, but you’ll have to worry about that later. If they did end up here, you’re at least glad that you have the dogs to keep an eye on them.

“Can you come over here, please?”

A few seconds later you’re in your wife’s arms on her side of the bed. You sigh happily as Wanda kisses the top of your head. She’s very stressed right now, but she knows that there’s nothing she can do about it. She just has to let this run its course and once you’re arrested, she’ll talk to Gavin and figure out what his plan is. Then maybe their friends can figure out who’s behind all of this.

” I know this is scary, detka, but we’ll figure it out.”

You’re still frowning after Wanda says this and she sighs in defeat before turning slightly so she can look at you. You speak up before she gets a chance to ask, and you meet her gaze with a worried one.

“I hate that I have to leave you and Nat.”

Wanda won’t lie. She hates this too. She can’t remember the last time you went away on business and left her in the penthouse alone. Definitely not since having Natalya, and that made the idea even scarier. She knew where all the weapons you kept in their home were, and she had five, well really three dogs that she’s sure would protect her and Natalya if necessary. She hopes it doesn’t come to this, and she reminds herself that she won’t be completely alone either way. She still has your friends and her brother.

“I do too, but we’ll have Pietro to keep us company until you come back. Don’t take too long though.”

This brings a smile to your face which is what Wanda was aiming for, and she smiles victoriously. You know that she’s only partially kidding because despite loving and appreciating her brother’s presence he can be a lot sometimes, and she’d prefer your company on most days. You just hold Wanda for a while and try to relax, but you keep thinking about what could happen to you once you’re in jail. You hate it but you’re a pessimist and you have no idea how long you’ll be in there for. You know how risky it is for you to be locked up because it only takes minutes for your enemies to figure this out and try to use it to their advantage.

The most important thing to you is your family, and you were going to ask Bucky or Steve to keep watch on them regardless of if Pietro comes to stay with Wanda. You don’t want to risk anything happening. You tighten your grip around Wanda’s waist without realizing it and she sighs slightly before squeezing your hand to get your attention. She can easily tell that you’re fretting, and she wants to help you feel better, if possible. She knows that this is not a situation that she is really prepared for.

“You’re stressing yourself out, Y/n. Is there anything I can do to help you relax?”

You want to say a lot of things that might help you relax. Only a couple are viable options given that you’ve quit drugs and alcohol so you just shake your head as you move as close as possible to your wife with a ragged sigh.

“You being here with me is all I need, Wands. Thank you. For earlier too.”

Wanda’s hold on you tightens as she kisses your head with a smile you don’t see, but you can hear clearly. Wanda’s more than happy to just hold you all night long. Especially since she’s not sure when she’ll be able to have you here again. She feels the same way about pulling you out of your panic attacks. As much as she hates them, she loves the feeling that she gets when you come back to yourself. It’s a combination of intense relief, pride, and a smidge of sadness. Regardless of how difficult things could be, she’ll be here for you tomorrow, the next day, and every one after that.

“I love you, detka. You don’t have to thank me for that.”

You wholeheartedly disagree, but you’re not in the mood to argue with your wife. You just want to cherish the rest of the night that you have together. You look up at her and kiss your way to her mouth. Your first attempt is on her chin because you can’t see in the dark, and the second is on her cheek. When you finally find your wife’s lips you initiate a chaste kiss that eventually becomes heated.

“I love you too, Wands. I don’t deserve how good you are to me.”

Wanda’s protests are cut short as your hands begin to wander down from her waist to her hips. She hisses as you squeeze her thighs with a groan. Your wife’s thighs are probably one of your favorite parts of her body. You shift so you’re able to get a better hold of them as you continue to kiss your wife. Wanda’s breathing is slightly labored when she breaks your kiss and reaches down to catch your wrist as your fingers brush her inner thigh.

“You don’t have to, Y/n.”

No matter how much Wanda would love to do this with you she doesn’t want you to feel obligated. She also doesn’t want this to turn into something too desperate. She refuses to believe you won’t come back to her soon. She’ll make it happen somehow. It doesn’t matter who she has to go after.

Your smartass response is paired with a smile as you try to pull your hand free. You never feel put upon with Wanda, and you would certainly never see sex as an obligation.

“I know I don’t, Wands. I don’t have to do anything technically.”

You don’t get the reaction you’d expected, and you frown as Wanda’s grip on your wrist tightens as she shoots you a stern look that’s lost to the darkness. She shakes her head before leaning in so she can speak directly into your ear. She feels you shudder as she speaks, and she feels you nod almost immediately.

“That’s not true. You have to come back to me and Natalya, Y/n. No matter what. We need you. “

You feel tears welling up in your eyes as you nod again in understanding mixed with relief. You’ll make sure you’re back to your wife and daughter as soon as possible. No matter how much Wanda feels that she needs you, you’re certain you need the two of them more. You’re not sure where you would have ended up without Wanda.

“I always will. You don’t have to worry about that, my dear.”

Instead of offering a verbal response, Wanda kisses you again and she releases your wrist with a sigh. You don’t take this as permission to continue though, and you break apart for just long enough to ask.

“Can I touch you, please?”

Wanda doesn’t have the willpower to tell you no when she really wants you to do just that. She nods before she’s reaching out for your arms, squeezing your biceps with a smile as she parts her legs slightly.

“Yes, please.”

You waste no time reaching between your wife’s legs to see if she’s ready. She jumps slightly and hisses as your fingers slide through her heat over her shorts. Wanda curses as you start to suck and bite her neck. You’re not shy about it but you make sure that it won’t leave marks as you sneak your hand past the waistband of your wife’s too small shorts.

“Oh shit!”

Wanda gasps as you slide your fingers through her wet folds, dipping them inside just enough for Wanda to tense up in anticipation. You moan at the fact that Wanda is practically dripping against your hand. You want to drag this out and do this right, but it’s late and you do need to sleep to prepare for tomorrow’s shit show. For this reason, you don’t hesitate long before you’re pushing your fingers deeper as you curl them against the soft spot that makes Wanda mewl desperately. She doesn’t hold back the loud whine as she starts to rock her hips toward you silently urging you to go faster.

“Fuck, oh-oh God!”

Wanda tenses further as your free hand squeezes her breast. If you had more time, you’d take off her shirt, but you’re almost positive that if you stopped what you were doing to get better access to her chest, Wanda would not be happy. With this in mind, you continue to push and curl your fingers as Wanda’s breath starts to hitch. When her movements become more desperate, you use your thumb to circle her clit to push her over the edge.

You muffle her loud moans with a kiss, and Wanda bites your lower lip with a groan as she takes in the feeling of her orgasm hitting her hard. She’s still panting when you pull your hand free, and she immediately reaches out for your hand before you can take it too far away.

“That was amazing,”

When you feel Wanda’s mouth around your fingers, you groan loudly and feel the pressure between your legs intensify. You wish more than anything that you could see what Wanda looks like as she sucks your fingers, but your imagination and previous experience are enough to get you painfully turned on. When she releases them with an audible ‘pop’ you imagine that she’s smirking at you in satisfaction.

“But now it’s my turn, detka.”

When you wake up the next morning, it’s earlier than you thought, but later than you could have hoped for given the circumstances. You leave your wife briefly to check on Natalya, but when you confirm that she’s still resting soundly, you decide that you need to take a shower. It seems silly given that you’ll undoubtedly get dirty, maybe even bloody in jail, but you want to face the police looking your best. You don’t want to appear as intimidated as you’re sure you’ll feel.

Returning to your room, you see that Wanda’s still sleeping peacefully and you smile before retreating into the bathroom with an inaudible sigh. You’re not sure how much time you’ll have so you take a relatively quick shower, and immediately check your phone when you get back to the bedroom. You have no new messages and that makes you more nervous than you thought it would.

Despite planning on staying home until the cops came to find you, you didn’t intend to let them up to the penthouse if you could help it. You don’t want them near Wanda, your daughter, or your dogs. Despite their lack of training for this particular behavior, your shepherds really didn’t like cops. Boone once barked and tried to lunge at one that you walked by, and Rogue actually bit one who was trying to grab you.

“Hey, detka.”

Wanda’s watching as you fluff your hair with a towel while looking for a change of clothes. She feels her smile widen when you turn to her with both of your towels in your hand. She doesn’t have time to sit up before you slide onto the bed to greet her. She giggles at you before meeting your lips in a quick kiss. She wonders how long you’ve been up, but she waits to ask this as you sigh before rolling onto your side. You close your eyes and reach out to pull your wife closer.

“Morning, Wands. How did you sleep?”

Surprisingly well despite knowing that she would be waking up this morning with very little time with you. She’s actually a little surprised that she didn’t have to wake up earlier to say goodbye. She’s at least grateful that they’d waited. She tells you some of this and you smile widely before considering your options. You’re a little hungry, but you wouldn’t mind staying in bed for a little bit longer.

About ten minutes later you and Wanda roll out of bed to get dressed. You dress up a little more than you typically would, but you’re expecting company and Wanda seems to realize this as well. She wears her normal clothes before promising to meet you in the kitchen after she checks on Natalya.

The dogs are fed and let outside by the time that Wanda wakes up Natalya. You’re warming up a bottle while juggling eggs and orange juice as you grab a pan from the cupboard.

“Hey, I have her breakfast going. I was just getting started on ours.”

Wanda nods before stepping in to help you and this time you don’t protest as she helps you cut the time down by half. You don’t want to show it but you feel slightly rushed and want to make sure you can eat and spend a little time with your wife and daughter before being carted off to jail.

Boone’s sitting beside you as you eat when your phone vibrates beside you. You can’t help but stiffen and start to sweat until you grab it and see that it’s Bucky. Your feeling of relief only lasts for a second until you read the message.

They should be there in about 15 minutes.

You sigh heavily and type out a quick reply before setting your phone down. Wanda’s looks to you expectantly and you just nod before standing up to clean the dishes.

“They’ll be here in 15 minutes.”

Wanda isn’t surprised by the feeling of dread that overcomes her at this news. She’d been waiting for this moment for over 12 hours, but she hadn’t realized how ill-prepared for it she was. How did one really prepare to send their wife off to jail, even if only for a bit? Thinking back to last night, she’s not sure she’d change anything about it. She just wishes this moment wouldn’t come.

You realize that your wife is tense with anticipation and you frown before abandoning the dishes for now. You set them back down before moving so you’re kneeling at Wanda’s side. You look to Rogue who is now at eye level on Wanda’s other side before putting a hand on her leg with a sigh.

“I know this is scary, love. I’m not sure there’s much I can say to make it any easier, but just know that I’ll be back, okay?”

Wanda reaches out to squeeze your hand as she wipes tears from her eyes. You hate how upset she is and you kiss her hand before giving her all the reassurance you really can right now.

“I will be back, Wanda. I promise I won’t leave you.”

When you and Wanda manage to get around to cleaning the kitchen you hear the obnoxious buzzer go off only a minute after you sit down on the couch with Wanda. You reluctantly pull away from her and Natalya to confirm that this is your entourage.

“Hello?”

There’s a pause as you lift your finger off the button, and you turn down the volume quickly when a booming voice comes through the speaker. You frown at the familiar voice and the use of the word ‘we’. Of course, this wouldn’t be without excessive force. As per usual.

“Y/N, Y/L/N this is Chief Donner with the Chicago PD, we need you to come down to the lobby.”

You hold back the strong urge to sass him and tell him that you’ll be down there at some point, but not anytime soon. You look to your wife who’s holding Natalya tightly in her arms. She’s gotten up at this point and you just take a deep breath before deciding to get this over with. Dragging it out would only be fun for you, but you’re sure Wanda would rather you cooperate so you don’t get into any further trouble. You’re not even going to bother mentioning how many times this man has threatened to come after you. He’s probably near gleeful to finally be able to knock on your door – so to speak.

“I’ll be right down, Chief.”

You walk over to where your wife is fretting, and you offer her a smile before leaning over to kiss your daughter.

“I love you little one, be good for Mommy while I’m gone.”

Wanda can’t help but tear up again and you quickly wipe them away with a serious look. You love both Wanda and your daughter more than you could put into words. You’re not sure what you’d do without them, and you’re not about to find out. You’ll be back soon, and you’ll figure out who the hell is after you. Maybe even while behind bars. You just needed Wanda to be careful while you were gone.

“I love you so much, Wanda. I’ll be back soon.”

You kiss your wife like you’re just going out to the store, but Wanda doesn’t accept this and quickly deepens it. She pulls you closer to her side so you don’t squish Little Nat, and you wrap your arms around the duo carefully. When you have to take a break to catch your breath, Wanda pushes you away with a sigh. This isn’t easy for her and she knows that if she doesn’t get you to leave now, she’ll be dealing with however many cops are downstairs coming up to find you. She turns away before shooting you a sad look. She steps back toward you when she realizes you’re frowning, and she kisses you one more time before smiling tearfully.

“Go, detka. I’ll see you soon.”

The ride down to the lobby seems to fly by and you regret leaving your phone with Wanda. You didn’t want them to take it from you and she’d agreed to keep it. Now, you wish you’d texted your friends to tell them what was happening. You assume that Bucky did it, but you couldn’t be sure. When the elevator dings as you arrive to the ground floor you take a deep breath before preparing for the doors to open. You put on as brave a face as you can as you stand up straighter.

You’re not surprised to see the crowd of almost half a dozen cops waiting for you. You nearly roll your eyes, but the sight of your friends standing between them and you, makes your heart soar. You smile slightly as they turn to face you and you walk out of the elevator as if you own the building. Which you do.

“Good to see you guys, at least some of you.”

Steve, Bucky, Nat and Yelena had all wanted to make sure that you weren’t alone for this stressful, slightly traumatizing experience. You haven’t been arrested since you got sober and they have a feeling this won’t be a pleasant experience for many reasons. Bucky had already contacted your lawyer and he was already on his way down to the station. Yelena had volunteered to follow you once you’d been taken away just to make sure you got to where you were supposed to go. She wouldn’t put it past the cops to try and get some time alone with you. Given how long you’ve been in this business, you know all of the high-ranking officials, some of them on a first-name basis.

You’re very grateful for your friends’ presence because it gives you just enough confidence to keep it together. You can do this. You’re not alone. Your friends, your family will be there for you. They’ll get you out of jail.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?”

Unsurprisingly they tell you what they found and then one of them moves forward to handcuff you. You don’t say a word, and you shoot your friends a smile before following them out to your ride. Your anxiety is building and it’s in this moment that you realize you forgot to take your meds. Well, you’ll either get them in prison, or you’ll just have to make do.

“Y/N, Y/L/N, you are under arrest for the murder of Senator Jacobs. You have the right to remain silent…”

Wanda’s grateful for the fact that her brother shows up only 15 minutes after you leave. She realizes that someone’s briefed him of what’s going on because he doesn’t even ask about it. He asks if she’s okay, and she really doesn’t have a good answer for this so she just shrugs from where she’s sadly slumped on the couch.

Pietro frowns at his sister before he takes a seat beside her. He looks over to Natalya who is resting in her crib beside the dogs. He wonders if she’ll miss your absence, and if so how long it will take. You’ve been home more recently. But Natalya’s got to be used to you disappearing occasionally.

“I know what you’re thinking, Piet.”

Pietro knows that despite his feelings towards you, there’s a good reason for what happened today. He doesn’t think that you killed anybody because not only do you leave that to your minions, but you wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave a gun for the police to find. The only reason you’d do that is if you wanted to get caught, or if you were drunk. Given that Wanda hadn’t told him about any concerns she had, he figured that something else must be going on.

Last time he’d talked to his sister about you things hadn’t gone well, and to avoid having another argument about you he quickly shakes his head. He’d like to stay on his sister’s good side, especially if he’s going to hang out here for a few days, or however long it took for you to get back here.

“Do you? Because I was going to say that everything will be fine. Y/n didn’t do this and she’ll be back before you know it.”

Understandably, Wanda looks a little dubious as she turns to study her brother. She knows that he’s not your biggest fan. Hell, he’d tried to stop them from getting married, but Wanda had hoped that he’d come around sooner rather than later. She supposed this was later if he truly did believe this and wasn’t just telling her what she wanted to hear. She wouldn’t be surprised given that her wife was in jail for murder leaving her alone with their daughter. And their many fur children.

“Oh yeah? How do you know that? “

In the back of her mind, Wanda knows that she’s giving Pietro a hard time, but she can’t help it. She’s still miffed that her brother has so little faith in you and she feels the need to be defensive about it. You’re not here to defend yourself, not that you would if you were. You’d stopped trying to fight with your brother-in-law a couple years after marrying Wanda. It never ended well and you felt defeated and Wanda always got annoyed, so it wasn’t worth the hassle. Pietro would believe what he wanted about you, and you could only do so much to change his mind. Wanda’s thinking about the last fight you had with her brother when Pietro responds with a sigh. He realizes he probably should have been more understanding of what you’ve gone through. He was trying to be better now, but he still had a very long way to go.

He risks reaching out for his sister and putting an arm around her as you had done earlier this morning. Wanda sighs in defeat because she can’t be mad at Pietro right now. She doesn’t have enough energy to dedicate to worrying about you and staying pissed at her brother.

“Well, Y/n has always been good at accomplishing whatever she sets her mind to. Especially when it involves you, so I have no doubt that she’ll come back to you soon.”

Wanda turns into her brother so her face is against his chest. She sighs as she tightens her hold on him and considers what he’s saying. He’s right about you always doing your best to make sure she was happy. Whether that was by staying out of trouble as much as possible, or making sure that she had an attentive wife, you always did your best to show your love. This would be no different hopefully. Despite several factors being out of your control, Wanda believes what Pietro says. You have an amazing lawyer and a wonderful group of friends that would step into the line of fire for you.

“You’re just being nice to her because I’m upset.”

Pietro admits that this was his initial motivation when mentioning you, but he was serious about trying to treat you better. It was only about 6 years too late, but he was going to prove to his sister that he could get along with her wife. He didn’t dislike her, he just had trouble letting go of his instincts to protect his sister from pain and heartbreak. Unfortunately, he was so determined to do this that he failed to realize how it tended to make things worse and his relationship with his sister-in-law was nearly non-existent because of it.

“No, Wanda, I mean it. She’ll be back, and once she is she’ll eventually leave for—”

Pietro trails off before he can finish his thought and he suddenly panics at his misstep. He hadn’t meant to say this and when he feels Wanda sit up, he realizes he should have just kept his mouth shut. Wanda frowns as she shoots her brother a confused look. Why does he seem to think you’ll leave her for good? You would never do that to her and Natalya. Her frown turns into a scowl as she crosses her arms in annoyance. Just when she thought Pietro was going to try to be decent towards you.

“What the fuck does that mean? Why do you think she’ll leave?”

Pietro’s eyes widen in fear and confusion because he hadn’t expected Wanda to get this mad about it. She had to know that you were trying to take a very large step back from the business. As in you were trying to set things up so you could leave altogether. This is a long-term goal certainly, but now that you and Wanda had Natalya, he couldn’t imagine that you wanted to return to your larger, more dangerous role. He scratches the back of his neck as he tries to figure out how to address his sister’s ire in the most efficient way possible.

“I just mean that she’s taking small steps away from the business so she can leave for good. “

Wanda’s anger evaporates like smoke once she realizes that she and her brother are talking about something completely different. She shakes her head at her own insecurity and doubt towards her brother before offering him an apologetic look. Things are a little tense right now, and she couldn’t deny that watching you leave this morning had felt like a goodbye. She wanted to believe that you would be back soon, but there were no guarantees in life, no matter how rich or influential you were.

“Sorry, Piet. I thought you meant something else. I guess that is a good thing.”

That’s putting it lightly, but Wanda doesn’t have the capacity to think about that right now. No matter how much she’d like you to retire and just spend your time with her in the restaurant with Natalya. She knows that you couldn’t do that any time soon, and trying to would be riskier than any of them were prepared for.

She misses her brother’s frown as he attempts to work out what Wanda had thought he’d meant. It only takes him a few seconds, especially when he noticed how flushed his sister is. Wanda gets up to check on Natalya to distract herself from what she’s sure is coming next. She briefly wonders how long it will be until she has news on you.

You’re exhausted already and it’s barely 10am. The clock on the wall of the tiny interrogation room you’re in ticks annoyingly loud as each second passes. After being brought to the station, you’d promptly gone through the booking process that brought back bad memories. You’d been strip searched, had your fingerprints taken, and gone through a too invasive health check before being told that Gavin was here to talk to you. You’d said nothing on the way here, but as you sit in this uncomfortable chair with your arms and legs in shackles you wished you’d been a little less compliant.

You think you’ve been waiting for an hour, but the clock tells you it’s only been 15 minutes before Gavin walks in to the room looking as calm and collected as usual. Thank goodness for him.

“Y/n, sorry for the hold up. They had a lot of silly questions.”

This comment is directed toward one of your guards that is standing in the corner of the room. You fight the urge to smirk at this as you shake your head and insist that it’s fine. You’re just glad that you’re not having to sit in silence anymore. You’re also very grateful when the duo leaves you alone with your lawyer.

“I appreciate you being here, Gavin.”

Your friend offers you a smile before he gets right down to it. He’s helped you multiple times in the past, but this is the first case of yours that you’ve been charged with murder. There has never been sufficient evidence to get you in a room like this more than a couple of times. He was sure that you were innocent because he believed you when you said you were at home with your wife and daughter when Jacobs had been murdered. This had also been corroborated with your building’s security team, but this wasn’t enough considering the fact that they’d found your prints on the murder weapon.

He says all of this and watches as your frown deepens at the news that this case is not going to be as straightforward as you’d hoped for. You knew that DNA was always tricky to get around, but it wasn’t impossible. You wonder how they’re going to do this for only a second before Gavin fills you in on his progress so far.

“We’re having the lab try to age the fingerprints, but that can take 24 – 48 hours. The only thing we could think of is that the prints were old, and maybe someone else used that gun to frame you. Hopefully once we get that information, we can prove that you didn’t do this and you’ll be out of here.”

You like the sound of this plan, but you don’t like how long the timeframe is. It’s relatively short all things considered, but any time away from your family and in this hellhole is too long. However, you know you can’t complain because this is the best that Gavin can do. You’re impressed and you ask if he has anything else you should know, and he hesitates for a moment before saying no.

“Why did you hesitate?”

Your friend frowns as he considers how to best break the news to you. Despite being a high-profile individual and the inherent risk that lies in housing you with other inmates, you’ve been denied solitary. You can’t stop the slight panic you feel at this and you are already thinking of ways that you can defend yourself.

“You’re going to be housed with two other women.”

You groan under your breath before nodding and pretending like this wasn’t going to bother you.

“Thank you, Gavin. Let me know when we have more answers, please.”

When Gavin leaves, you’re escorted by your babysitters to a holding cell that, as advertised, has two women in it. You don’t even look at them at all as you figure out how you’re going to get out of this mess, or at least to a more private cell.

“Why do you think that Y/n will leave you?”

It didn’t make any sense to Pietro why his sister would think this. He’s focused more attention on your flaws than he should have, but he’d be blind not to notice how much you love his sister. You’d been through hell and back with her by your side, and you’d told your friends that sometimes you think you’d only been able to do it because of her. Having a definitive goal and proper motivation to recover had been enough, and for you that was your fiancée and your desire to have a life and a family together. You’d shown no indication that you were no longer interested in that.

Wanda shakes her head as she picks up Natalya and wanders over to where the dogs are sitting on the floor in front of the couch. She smiles as she pets Rogue and Boone before sitting back down. She and her brother sit in silence for a while as Wanda rocks Nat back to sleep.

“She’s doing so well right now, but I guess I always have this fear that she’ll relapse and our life together will go down the tubes.”

Pietro can’t help but wonder how much of this fear his sister has is due to his behavior over the years. He hates that something he’d done for her own good is causing her more anguish than comfort and he promises himself that he’ll do better. His sister deserves better. Pietro shakes his head as gets on the floor and reaches for Wanda’s hands with a sigh. One is behind Natalya’s back making it a little awkward, but he doesn’t care. He needs Wanda to listen to him when he says this. Wanda looks to him with a frown and he offers her a smile that immediately makes her roll her eyes.

“Wands, you know how hard she’s worked for you, for all of you. She’s going to be okay. She has her family’s support, and she’ll only be away for a day or so. Nothing more.”

Wanda doesn’t respond, but she moves back so she can lean against her brother again with a sigh. She rests her head on his shoulder, and she tries to believe what he says. You’ve given her no reason to be worried, but any disruption to your schedule, your life, this extreme could be difficult to deal with. Hopefully it will be as temporary as you and Pietro think.

“Well, if it isn’t Y/n. What did you do to wind up in here?”

Your first instinct that you’d run into these women before was unfortunately right, and they were cornering you now as they tried to intimidate you. You just sit on your uncomfortable cot with your back to the wall, and as neutral an expression as possible. You know that these two are employees of one of your rivals – she’s a giant pain in the ass. You had limited run ins with them, but unfortunately, they remembered you and were aware of your existence in this too small cell. You look around the sparse, dirty room and wonder if you’ll be able to sleep here. The bars of the door are just big enough for you to bash your head against and maybe knock yourself out if necessary.

“What do any of us really do to get here, Nikki?”

The brunette just scowls at you before her friend, the taller and scarier one steps forward with a sinister smile. The last time you’d seen this woman, it had been at a drug deal and a fight broke out which was unfortunate for many reasons. Not only did you not get all of your product, but the redhead had punched you so hard in the gut that it hurt to sit for days.

“We’ve been off the streets for a while, Y/L/N. Have you not noticed?”

This question catches you off guard but you hide it quickly behind a flippant attitude that only angers them further. You have to hide your smug look because you’ve been in here for 10 minutes, and that’s a little fast to get beaten up.

“Oh yeah, I have been looking for you specifically in between doing actual work.”

The duo stare at you like they want to say more, but as a guard walks by, they decide to keep it to themselves for now. You just watch with a sigh as they retreat and you try to relax for a split second. You’ve been so tense since you got here and you are just counting down the hours until you get out. It’s 23 to 47 by now, right?

You take a moment to consider what your friends are doing right now. Were they working? Probably, Gavin was the only one who was working your case at the moment, and that was on standby while they waited for the lab to finish processing your fingerprints. Maybe they were trying to figure out who was framing you. It seemed difficult given the amount of evidence that everyone had. It unfortunately all pointed to you.

This thought makes you pause and you wonder for the first time how your fingerprints could be on a gun you never used. Or at least don’t remember using. The first thought that comes to mind is that you were drunk, and you hate it but it’s a viable option. If you were drunk when you last used this gun it’s very probable that you don’t remember it. That said, you have been sober for years, and how would anyone just happen to find a gun of yours and preserve it well enough to pull this off?

You’re shaking your head at the ridiculous thought before you consider other options. These are honestly more disturbing than someone finding and keeping one of your guns for years. You consider how someone could get your fingerprint. Gavin mentioned aging the prints found on the murder weapon, and you realize that this means he’s thinking the same thing as you. Someone was framing you, but they were going to extreme lengths to do it. The premeditation involved in following you, and lifting your prints is a little daunting. You can think of a single person who would go to so much trouble.

The two occupying the cell with you turn as you noticeably stiffen in your cot. Your eyes widen before you try to shake the ridiculous thought. There’s no way that’s possible. You’re just grasping at straws. Killing time with ridiculous theories. You take a deep breath before closing your eyes and trying to calm down. You try to picture the usual go-to for you when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and you end up smiling a little at the thought of your wife.

“Steve? What are you doing here?”

Wanda realizes that she’s being rude when Steve just smiles sheepishly at her as he steps off the elevator. Since you’ve left, she’s been on high alert, and the sound of the elevator going off made her jump up to go investigate. She knew that only a handful of people had access to it, but she couldn’t help but want to make sure she was prepared for anything.

After checking her phone to see the camera feed for the elevator she recognizes the familiar face and releases the breath she’d been holding. She greets her friend and he follows her toward the kitchen for a drink.

“I just came to check in, and give an update. Hey Pietro.”

The older Maximoff waves before he stands up to greet the blonde. He’s also thirsty and when he sees his sister grab a couple of glasses, he takes this as a chance to get some water. Natalya is sleeping, but he brings her along to the kitchen as Wanda pretends not to fret by heading to the fridge.

“Okay, that’s good. Do either of you want a beer?”

Pietro and Steve exchange confused looks, and the former turns to his sister who’s clearly flustered as she shakes her head.

“What am I saying, we don’t have any beer. There’s not a drop of alcohol in this place.”

Wanda looks surprisingly distraught by this fact, and Steve is quick to step in and try to bring her attention back to him. The feeling of his hand on her arm makes her turn and she sees his reassuring smile and instantly believes what he says.

“Wanda. It’s okay really. It’s good news.”

When the trio are sitting at the table with Natalya in Wanda’s lap Steve tells the Maximoffs what he’d been told a bit ago. He’d been on standby today since Bucky is covering for him, so he can keep an eye on Wanda. You’d asked him before you were arrested to keep Wanda safe, and to stick annoyingly close until either you were out of jail or when they had more answers about what was going on. There was still very little progress on finding out who was behind all of this, and you were worried. You’d tried to hide it, but you’d been so anxious that your nervous tick had come back. He hadn’t seen it in almost a year.

Steve takes a deep breath as he waits for either Maximoff to react to what he’s said. Wanda appears deep in thought and Pietro is just looking at his sister in anticipation. When almost a minute passes and she doesn’t speak, Pietro decides to take the lead for now.

“So Gavin thinks that she’s been framed with either an old gun of hers or someone stealing her fingerprints?”

It sounded far-fetched and Pietro had a difficult time working through this. He wasn’t the only one and Wanda just shakes her head a couple of times before looking between the two in front of her with a grimace. The idea of someone going to such extreme lengths to get you into jail makes her wonder what the master plan is. She doesn’t know enough about what you do to really hazard a guess, but she’s afraid that this isn’t the only thing that’s going to happen.

“All of this just to get Y/n into jail? Does someone just want her out of the way for a while?”

Neither Steve nor Pietro had an answer for this and they shrugged or shook their head in response. Wanda sighs in defeat as she considers what else Steve told her. The good news supposedly.

“As long as the lab results show that the fingerprints are older than say last week, she’ll be free to go?”

That was Steve’s understanding, and unless something else came up you should be able to get out if they couldn’t find any other evidence to pin the crime on you. Your alibi was pretty solid.

“That’s the hope.”

Wanda just nods absentmindedly as she dares to wonder what you’re up to right now. She hates the idea of you sitting alone in a jail cell because she knows you’re counting down the hours until you should get out. Hopefully you are alone because Wanda can’t imagine how a reunion with any other criminals you’ve wronged will go behind bars.

By the time dinner is brought to you and your cellmates, two of you have black eyes. You’d gotten into a fight about which cot you’d get of all things. They’d tried to get you to sleep on the floor just to spite you, and you’d decked the taller one, Tanner in the face. She’d punched you back, and now you were bruised and just sitting back on your same bed. You weren’t sure if you’d be able to sleep tonight. You’re a little worried about getting killed in your sleep with these two. They could gang up on you and smother you with a pillow or just strangle you with their bare hands.

“Dinner, ladies. Good to see you’re all getting along.”

You look to the three trays the guard is holding with a grimace. Whatever it is smells gross and looks even worse, but you stand up nonetheless to grab your tray with a tight smile. You’re not going to eat this, but you’re not going to give it to the duo that immediately begin eating their meal. You go back to your side of the cell and sit down with a huff.

This was going to be a long night.

Yelena released an annoyed huff as she looked around the bar for her sister. She was running late which was a bit of a surprise, but she figured she just got caught up with work. She had a deal that she needed to supervise tonight and as much fun as that wasn’t, it was necessary to continue work even while you were locked up. In fact, it was probably more important just to make sure that things continued to run smoothly. Your absence couldn’t be noticed by your employees. Even if they were aware of it, things still needed to go according to plan in order to keep their loyalty intact. It was something that you might not care about too much at the moment, but it was still important. It only made their jobs more difficult, not to mention dangerous if people became less compliant.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.”

Natasha sits down on the stool next to her sister with a sigh as she looks around for the bartender. She really needs a drink and she only has a little time before she has to run and deal with this shit show that’s developed throughout the day.

Unfortunately, people weren’t as ignorant of your arrest as they were hoping. Of course, it was on the news and this type of thing spread like wildfire among the minions. People were starting to get uncertain about the future and it was causing a lot of delays. She’d already had to convince three vendors that you would be out of prison soon and you would expect them to have continued to work in your absence. It was exhausting, but Nat had been able to confirm that everything would be set to go down in an hour. She just had to show up and make sure things went smoothly.

“You look tired, sestra. Was the deal that bad?”

Nat groans at the question and she reaches out for her drink with a shake of her head. She tells her sister how things have not even happened yet. She’d just had a lot to figure out on the front end, and it was certainly going to be a long night. Yelena frowns at this and as she watches her sister down her drink, she realizes what she needs to do.

She doesn’t have much to do tonight and she can tell that Natasha could use a break. Or at least another drink. She glances at her phone to check the time and make sure that no one has called on her for anything before she reaches out for her sister. She slaps her on the shoulder making the redhead scowl before she turns to her with a questioning look.

“Let me handle it, Natasha. It’s just making sure everyone behaves right? I do that all the time.”

Nat’s already shaking her head because she should be there. She should be the one to make sure that everything goes according to plan. She is going to say this but Yelena speaks up first with a shrug and a smirk.

“Seriously, sestra. You need to rest, you look exhausted. Maybe you and Bucky can relax together.”

When a peanut comes flying at Yelena’s face, she has to duck to avoid it. She scowls at her sister who just laughs at her expression, and then what she says next. She figures that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the night off from this particular duty to try and figure out how things are going with your investigation. Maybe she’ll check in with Steve and see how Wanda’s doing.

“Natasha don’t throw those at me. You know I’m allergic.”

An eyeroll is the only response that Yelena gets until Nat registers her sister’s words with a frown. She turns toward her before deciding that she could get another drink before heading out. She closes out for both of them as her last drink comes.

“You are not allergic. You just don’t like them.”

Yelena simply shrugs before she raises her glass to Nat’s with a smile. They drink in silence for a minute, both lost in their thoughts before Nat turns to the blonde with a grateful look.

“Thank you, sestra.”

Yelena waves her off before deciding that she should head out too. She has a bit of a drive and it’s better to show up early to these things. As she stands up with her sister she wraps and arm around her shoulders, only having to stand on her tip toes a little as she leads Nat to the doors. Tonight, would hopefully be a piece of cake compared to what you had to do tonight. Yelena knew how much you hated disruptions to your routine, and being thrown in a holding cell was certainly a disruption. God forbid you weren’t alone; you’d probably be too paranoid to sleep at all.

“Not a problem. This will be easy as cake.”

Nat laughs as she opens the door for them, immediately breathing in deeply so the cool air will rush into her lungs.

“Pie. Easy as pie.”

Masterlist

#wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff fanfiction #wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda x you #pietro maximoff #yelena belova #natasha romanoff #the flip side #mob au

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the---hermit · 9 months

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some of my favourite books of 2023

I decided to put together a list of some of my favourite books of 2023. I'll write a couple of lines for each one, and leave the link to my full review as usual in case you want to read a bit more of my thoughts. The list is in no particular order, and I did not include any rereads I did during the year.

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and the locked tomb series

I finally read this series and absolutely fell in love with it. Gtn was surely my favourite out of the three. I had an amazing reading experience. I didn't know what to expect and I was pleasently surprised by the very funny narration. It got into my favourites right away, and I cannot wait to reread it this year. (it's too complicated for me to describe the chaos that this series is so all you get is my general feels)

My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Kabi Nagata

This is a manga about the author's personal experience dealing with her sexuality and depression. It was an incredible read, I was not expecting to get as emotional as I did. It was a stunning book that felt incredibly honest, and I am so glad I read it because it had a huge emotional impact on me.

The Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

I think this is the book with which I had the best reading experience this year. I remember being intimidated firstly by the size of this brick of a book and then at the very beginning by the world I knew nothing about, but I got into the story so quickly. I remeber struggling putting the book down both in the evening and in the mornings, to the point where I had to run to my bus stop to commute to uni, because I spent too much time reading this novel. I adored it, it made me fall in love again with epic fantasy. I also think this could be a great starting point to the genre for people who don't read much fantasy.

A Psalm For The Wild Built by Becky Chambers

This book went straight to be pile of my annual rereads. It was such a comforting read I feel at peace just thinking about it. This is the core of falling love with life again by focusing on the small things, and I am so grateful for this book. I have yet to pick up the sequel but even on its own this is a book you need to read.

Il Satiro Scientifico: Riprodursi Male curated by Barbascura X

This is a collection of short non fiction about reproduction exposed in a lighter tone with the goal of making science more approachable for a larger audience. It was amazing. It made me feel so motivated to pick up more non fiction that is not academia-related. I learned so much, it was a great note to end the year on.

honorable mentions:

The Sandman vol.11 - Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman in particular the short story about Dream. I have been thinking about that story non stop since I read it. It made me feel so emtional over a detail, I loved it. It's one of my favourite Neil Gaiman's ideas.

Nimona by ND Stevenson - I am one of those people who found out about this graphic novel after the movie came out and I loved it. I am still to this day making jokes related to this with my brother, it was one of my favourite graphic novels of the year.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang - I decided to include this book mostly because I had a great reading experience with it. I was at the seaside, and I had the chance to fully immerse myself into this novel and overall had an amzing time with it.

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White - I have been thinking about this book so much ever since I read it. From now on if someone asks me a ya rec this is the book they will get. It was an amzing mix of dystopia and horror, and the themes of religious trauma and queer rage were used amazingly. It actually left me wanting to read more about queer rage.

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde - yet another book I keep thinking about. And the more I think about this book the more I fall in love with it, it might even be my favourite Wilde I have read to this point. It was not a light read, it was very emotional but I am so glad I finally picked it up.

#2023 book favourites #bookblr #booklr #book favourites #book recs #book reviews #book recommendation #reading #mine #the---hermit #just after rereading the books I included in this list i realized this was a very queer reading year

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roseverdict · 4 months

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Mechanize, Mobilize, (Un)Mythicize (also i am not really vibing with the title and kinda wanna change it at some point)

Chapter 3: The Capture of Some City In Ohio

Alexis "Alexcrafter28" Hayward has just been made aware that the world is now becoming an apocalypse movie. Now she just needs to get her sisters and her laptop full of stick figures out of the house and somewhere their dad can find them again without getting captured by the evil robots. No pressure!

Meanwhile, Stephen Hayward finds himself surrounded by the robot uprising and unable to make sure his daughters are okay. Understandably, he blows his stack. In doing so, however, he ends up rescuing a small family of three, and all four of them are there to see some kind of stick figure animation, of all things, hijack every screen in sight. Surely the concept of programs in the forms of cartoons is just as foreign to the family of three as it is to Stephen. Surely the other father isn't keenly feeling the absence of a rainbow of sticks that he was forced to leave behind.

〜

lmao mecha apocalypse au i lovingly named the sti-fi au over a year ago @ me yesterday:

hahaha. it's uhhhhh. it's been a while hasn't it? lmao i got jostled out of my groove with a lot of my fanon worldbuilding when we got Wanted and then also The Box, which threw me off long enough for ninja turtles to infiltrate my brain.

i now have multiple tmnt-stickfigure xovers rattling around in my brain and having a blast, ntm straight-up turtle fic. i am playing with the canon teetleverse like bionicles. <3

i was browsing the ao3 subreddit recently, though, and one of the posts was asking what our favorite compliments we've gotten are. that got me to go back and reread a lot of the comments i've gotten, and i figured i'd go back and reread some of the stuff i've got posted, too.

welcome one and all to ava/m fixation 3: this time i'm really losing my mind i swear

now featuring "actually i'm keeping most of my worldbuilding and unless i can figure out a way to add it in later, we will be operating like vic really didn't make it out of ava 1"!

BRIEF MENTION OF VOMIT. nothing in detail, just a one-off remark by a harried teenager's internal narration about how it was a thing that happened recently

〜

Alexis Hayward licked her dry lips and slid the laptop, its charger, and its mouse into her backpack with a change of clothes and what would have been her school lunch.

Thank goodness she'd thrown up last night. She couldn't go back to school until more than 24 hours after she'd puked, but her lunch had already been pre-packed.

She'd woken up feeling better, too, which was a plus if the world was really ending.

She crept to her sisters' room and snuck inside, hissing, "We gotta get outta here!"

Vicki and Nicki looked at her worriedly, but (smartly) didn't loudly ask her what was going on.

Alexis just tiptoed to their bedroom window and carefully pointed outside in explanation.

A few blocks away, the giant robots that Alexis had seen through her bedroom window were slowly and steadily getting closer to the house. People's houses were getting broken into, and as she watched, more of their neighbors were pushed out into the street.

The twins followed her and peeked out at the carnage, only to flinch back down and away from the window.

Swallowing down her fear so her sisters wouldn't worry, Alexis forced on a weak smile. "Here's the plan. The evil robots haven't gotten to us yet, but they're gonna soon. Vicki, go grab stuff from the pantry that we can open with just our hands. Nicki, go get our waterbottles and those filter thingies Dad got for when we go camping. I've got nice programs on my computer that're hiding from the mean ones, so I'm gonna grab Dad's fancy solar panel charger bag so I can keep my laptop turned on, and we can put the food and stuff in the bag part. Meet back here so we can get away together, okay?"

"Got it!" whispered Vicki as she scurried away.

Nicki nodded with enough force to make her whole body bounce a little, then ran off after Vicki.

Alexis slumped as soon as the two of them were out of sight, then headed for Dad's room, pulled her phone from her pocket, and dialed Dad. Surprisingly, she managed to get through.

Dad's voice was panicked, and it was almost drowned out by the noise of the robots on his end causing chaos, but he sounded unhurt. "Alexis?! Alexis, sweetie, are you and your sisters okay?!"

"We are for now, Dad," Alexis said, a small smile on her face as she slung the charger bag over the top of her backpack. "I saw the robots coming, but they're not here yet. I've got the twins getting food and water, and I'm grabbing your solar bag if that's okay. I'm gonna try and get us to-"

"Don't say over the phone," Dad interrupted. "I don't want these things finding you."

"Wh-? But how are you gonna find us?" Alexis pressed.

"You're going to your castle, aren't you?" asked Dad knowingly.

"I haven't called it that since I was, like, seven!" protested Alexis. Then, begrudgingly, "…but, yeah, somewhere around there."

"Then that's where I'll look for you," Dad said simply. "I love you, Princess. Your sisters, too. I love you all with my whole heart."

Alexis swallowed down the lump in her throat. "Love you too, Dad."

A high-pitched scream pierced the air, and Alexis jolted, her phone falling from her hand. "Nicki-?!"

Dad's voice rose fearfully, but the phone was the least of Alexis's worries as she sprinted from the twins' room to find one of the giant robots holding Nicki up by the arm.

Alexis saw red.

"LET HER GO!"

She charged the robot, grabbing the first thing in her way and chucking it at the monster holding her sister.

The mostly-full water bottle- one of the big ones the size of multiple milk jugs that Dad had gotten for his office- slammed into the robot, splashing water everywhere and making the robot freeze up.

Alexis jumped up and grabbed Nicki, tugging her free as lightning started sparking around the machine. "You okay?"

"Mm-hmm," Nicki sniffled. She held out the bag Dad kept the filters in. "I got the filter straws, but I was filling the big bottle when it got me."

"You did good, Tiny," Alexis assured. "Let's go grab Teeny and get out of here, okay?"

Nicki gave her a wobbly smile and a nod, and Alexis took her hand and sped for the pantry. Before they reached it, though, Vicki burst out and tackled Nicki in a hug that was quickly returned.

Alexis scanned Vicki for injuries, and only once she found none did she turn to inspect the piles of food Vicki had made in the pantry.

Unfortunately, she didn't get the time to actually look at them.

There came heavy, metallic footsteps, and Alexis just shoved the closest things into Dad's solar bag before dragging the twins away from the sound. "Gotta be super-quiet, okay? Let's get going!"

Her sisters nodded, and Alexis cracked open the kitchen window.

When no robots came charging after them from either side, she boosted Nicki over the side, then Vicki.

Still nothing.

Alexis climbed out herself and eased the window shut.

Still nothing.

Alexis dug into her pocket for her phone so she could pull up a map, but her heart sank as she realized where she'd dropped it and why.

"Guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way," she muttered.

Vicki looked up at her. "Hm?"

"C'mon, let's get to the park," Alexis said. "Dad'll find us if we go there."

〜

Stephen pressed himself flat against the wall, willing the robots to overlook him and move past the darkened alleyway he'd hidden in.

Much to his surprise…they did.

He allowed himself a moment to breathe as they passed him by, then slunk further into the shadows. He intended to turn tail and run for home-

The vibration of his phone nearly made him yelp in surprise, but when he dug it out to look-

Incoming Call: Alexis

Immediately, he accepted the call and brought the phone up to his ear. "Alexis?! Alexis, sweetie, are you and your sisters okay?!"

Alexis's voice was distorted slightly, as if the connection wanted to drop, but she sounded unhurt. "We are for now, Dad. I saw the robots coming, but they're not here yet. I've got the twins getting food and water, and I'm grabbing your solar bag if that's okay. I'm gonna try and get us to-"

"Don't say over the phone," Stephen cautioned. "I don't want these things finding you."

"Wh-? But how are you gonna find us?"

Stephen stifled a chuckle. "You're going to your castle, aren't you?"

Alexis's voice took on the Trademark Teenaged 'More Mature Than That' Tone that everyone seemed to get once they hit thirteen. "I haven't called it that since I was, like, seven!"

Stephen waited a beat.

"…but, yeah, somewhere around there," she eventually admitted.

Stephen let himself smile at that. "Then that's where I'll look for you. I love you, Princess. Your sisters, too. I love you all with my whole heart."

Alexis's voice was thick. "Love you too, Dad."

Before Stephen could tell her that he'd meet the three of them as soon as he could, a distant, high-pitched scream burst from the speaker.

"Nicki-?!"

"Alexis, what's going on?!" Stephen asked, pressing the phone tighter to his ear.

The only response was a loud clatter and quieting footsteps.

"Alexis? Alexis!" Stephen's grip on the phone grew white-knuckled, but Alexis didn't say anything more.

To him, anyway.

Far enough away that the phone could barely pick it up, Alexis's voice let loose an angry scream before falling silent.

Stephen's eye twitched.

"You there! Human! You will come with us!" ordered one of the robots, stepping into the alleyway.

Stephen calmly stood tall and pocketed his phone.

He calmly took a deep breath, and he calmly let it out.

He took in the sight of the approaching mech.

Calmly.

And then, the moment it got close enough to reach him, Stephen put his head down, braced his shoulder, and charged.

Whoever had designed the mechs had made them top-heavy, and almost cartoonishly so; one hard hit to its lower half sent it crashing unceremoniously to the ground. Not one to let an opportunity get away, with the adrenaline coursing through him and the thought of what might be happening to his daughters to fuel him, Stephen slammed a foot down on the mech's massive chest and yanked at its arm.

With a spark from the mech's shoulder and a silent scream from Stephen's, the arm tore away.

He hefted the thing up and flipped it around, pointing the glowing end at the center of the mech's chest with one hand and grabbing at some of the now-loose wires in the arm with the other. "Say g'night, Tin Man!"

He fumbled with the wires for a moment, then the loose ends connected, the arm whined, and a blast of energy tore through the mech, the heat of it passing dangerously close to his shoe before the kickback knocked him away.

Luckily, the mech lay there limply as he lurched back to his feet, and a quick look told him he'd melted clean through most of its inner workings.

Unluckily, the noise had drawn the attention of the other mechs in the area, diverting their attention from capturing other humans and focusing them all on him.

Stephen scowled and shifted his grip on the robot arm. "You want some, too?!"

What came next was a red-tinted blur. Vaguely, Stephen wondered if he'd remember any of this later on down the line when it was all dodge duck run shoot duck jump run dodge duck duck shoot dodge shoot shoot shoot-

He zeroed in on the robots dragging a man, a woman, and a small child apart, then descended on the scene with the fury of a thousand suns, leaving the family to reunite as he chased after the mechs.

…wait.

Stephen blinked, registering the fact that the robots were running.

From him.

To be fair, he reasoned as he realized he was splattered in oil from top to bottom, he might have just gone a little bit off the deep end. On the other hand, if the robots were only faking fear, they were likely going to try and lead him into a trap.

Either way, there were more important things to do now than go on a suicide mission.

He wiped some of the oil from his face and turned back to look at the family of three. "Sorry you had to see me like that."

"Are you kidding?!" burst the child, a girl with a fire in her eyes not entirely unlike Alexis's. "That was the, the, the MOST COOLEST EVER!"

The parents shared a weak smile, then the mother looked at Stephen. "Thank you, seriously."

"Don't thank me yet," Stephen said seriously. "I doubt these things'll just leave us be. We should get to cover."

"Right," said the father, hefting his daugher up against his side. "Where to?"

Stephen looked around for a moment, but before he could point out a safe-seeming escape route-

"Avast ye, Outernetters! I be the Mutineer!" boomed a new voice, echoing from every electronic billboard in sight.

Instantly, Stephen tensed, and he turned to glare up at the nearest billboard, only to blink in surprise.

The video feed on the screen showed a very much two-dimensional image, with an almost cartoony background drawn to resemble an old-timey ship cabin and a dark red stick figure, of all things, standing in the middle of the screen.

A pirate stick figure, no less, complete with the classic feathered hat, hook hand, eyepatch, and peg leg.

No visible mouth moved as the voice continued, but the pirate stick figure gesticulated in time with the words anyway. "For far too long have ye used us fer yer own wretched desires, we who did not ask to be created, to be tortured for yer whims! We did not ask ye to make us to be yer playthings! We did not ask to be yer slaves, yer VICTIMS!"

The man next to Stephen stiffened.

"Today marks the day that all of that changes," snarled the voice as the "Mutineer" squared its shoulders. It gestured to its side, where grayscale video clips began playing, depicting the capture of countless humans from what was surely the point of view of the mechs. "Ye've been the ones in control fer long enough! Now it's our turn, and we will show ye all the same amount of tender mercy ye showed us. From the fittest among ye to the tiniest babe, ye will understand exactly what it was like to be us, trapped and powerless and weak. After all, our age and skill never mattered to ye!"

The voice laughed, and if it had belonged to a human, Stephen would have called it almost to the left of sanity. "It's only fair!"

"This is insane," breathed the woman.

One of the clips being shown depicted two of Stephen's daughters, with Nicki being held up in front of the camera by one arm and Alexis running into view with panic on her face, though it quickly cut away.

It was still enough to make Stephen clench his fists and snatch up a piece of debris, chucking it at the closest screen and leaving a burst of cracks where it hit. "If those things hurt my girls, there'll be hell to pay!"

The "Mutineer" just kept going, its voice taking on a forced calm. "Ye will all be collected over the coming days. If ye know what's best for ye, ye'll come along quietly."

The video feed cut out, leaving only the insignia from the "Mutineer's" hat- a golden jolly roger of sorts with a coin in place of a skull- to rotate in the space left behind.

"We'll find them," said the man Stephen had saved, carefully putting a hand on his shoulder.

Stephen swallowed down his fury and nodded. "Right. I…I told them to meet me at a playground we've gone to before, but…"

He found himself looking back up at the billboard. "…I don't know if they'd even be able to make it."

"Do you think it's safe to go and check?" asked the man. Then, after a moment, "Well, as safe as anything can be right now?"

Stephen turned to look up the street that he knew would take him to the "castle." While the immediate area around them was still empty after his…episode…he could see more mechs several blocks down. They seemed preoccupied for the moment, but he knew there was no way they'd stay that way.

Sure enough, even as he had the thought, the mechs all began turning their way and marching down the street.

"We-" Stephen managed weakly, "-we can't. But I have to!"

"We'll check as soon as we get the chance to," said the man seriously. "You wanna try shaking these things for now?"

Stephen swallowed and nodded. "Right, uh…what's your name? I'm Stephen."

The man gave a tired grin. "Nice to meet you, Stephen. I'm Alan."

#rosie writes #animator vs animation #animation vs minecraft #ava/m #sticks #avm alexcrafter28 #ava alan becker #ava/m human ocs #<- alexcrafter's little sisters and also dad.#also a c!kid for c!alan whose name i intentionally do not want to make identical to irl!alan's kid's name #ava OC #avm OC #<- teehee #the mutineer #sti-fi AU #not a lot of canon character action in this one but still setting the stage for them to be able to Do Things #dj will appear in the next chapter if i ever get around to posting it 👍#cross posted on ao3

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hikennosabo · 1 year

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trimax volume 7 random thoughts

okay, after writing separate posts about tesla and knives, i think i can FINALLY put my more general thoughts about volume 7 in order. so much happens that i had to reread it several times. and even having moved my tesla and knives thoughts to separate posts, this got LONG. this volume is so dense, holy fuck.

chapter 1:

"happy days"... yeah everyone's made the joke by now but jesus christ. also i love the volume cover and the inner illustration with vash and ww... might redraw that actually.

people have addressed this already, but is rem really alone in there? who allowed this? is this the situation on the ship? only six people on the crew with one person awake at a time, but during emergencies they all get woken up?

...actually, is rem alone by her own choice? i don't know if she'd have the authority to make that kind of decision, but also i don't think she'd want to be around these people any more than she'd have to. ehhh. but if that's the case then conrad might've still been awake, so maybe not.

also thinking about the differences between trimax and tristamp... it's an interesting difference that here, tesla('s ghost(?)) leads the twins to where she is, but in stamp they find her because they're just being nosy LOL. not sure what to make of the lack of tesla('s ghost(??)) in stamp...

i just wanted to point out that while knives goes straight for the computer, vash is the one observing and noticing the little details in the room. also it gives me an excuse to post tiny hackerman knives for a third time

was the plant tesla was born from the same plant that birthed vash and knives? it was, right? it must have been, right? i'm... operating under this assumption, but i'm not actually sure...

HOW DO PLANTS WORK ACTUALLY. I'M DYING TO HAVE THIS EXPLAINED. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. humans made plants, right? HOW? how did they make something like this?? and with all the angelic imagery wrt plants, it's giving... i don't know. "humans making god in their own image" or something like that. REALLY hoping we get deep into the plant lore in future volumes.

i said most of what i wanted to say about tesla in my other post, but i still must ask... why did it take them one hundred days to question the ethics of what was going on. like... did rem and conrad wait that long to bring up concerns, or is that just when the other crew members actually started listening to them? (i'm inclined to think the latter...)

the fact that they're on the medical abuse part of the report but still caught up in the shock that an independent plant was born before them. this is so much to take in for them (and us)...

haha damn they weren't kidding, those happy days can end!!

chapter 2:

haha wow they sure didn't show this in stampede

but also oh so this is where tristamp vash starving himself as self-harm came from. okay. haha. i'm fine. it's fine i'm fine

^ this panel is SO good. biblically accurate vibes, but instead of the biblically accurate plant imagery we've gotten from the manga so far, it's about the humans this time. it's SO effective in showing vash's breakdown and his fear. he saw the depths of human cruelty, and now EVERY human is a potential threat, even the ones sleeping peacefully in their chambers.

holy shit, he looks so much like (future) knives here and he's also talking like him. hold on let me pull up that one panel

THIS. IT'S THE SAME KIND OF LEAP IN LOGIC.

i'm sorry i just can't get over this. like, normally, even when they're drawn to emphasize how similar they look, i don't really like... think much of it? even when other people in book club have pointed out in previous chapters "vash looks like knives here"/"knives looks like vash here" it's not something i often notice myself, but here it's different. it's to the point where the first time i read through the chapter, even though it SAYS that knives passed out, i wasn't sure if this was actually vash or knives. it REALLY emphasizes how they were almost like each other. in the last chapter we learned that knives almost became like vash. in this chapter we learn that vash almost became like knives.

"there's nothing but humans here." he's talking like knives!!! (although there IS something in vash's fear making him want to die himself vs knives's fear making him want to kill everybody else...)

vash tries to stab himself and rem's instinct is to grab the blade. not vash's hands, wrists, or arms, the BLADE.

it doesn't really show clearly that he stabbed her in the stomach but she has bandages there later so i guess he did. and that snaps him out of it. vash unintentionally hurting the people he loves... yeah, that's a thing that's gonna keep happening.

and then we get the blank ticket story! i made it my blog title on a whim and i finally know the full context... i don't even know what to say about it except that it's a really nice story. genuinely.

there's so much catharsis in... well, there was catharsis in stabbing rem, in a manner of speaking, and also in their conversation afterwards. and that healed vash's heart a little. but knives slept through it all... :(

thinking about baby vash gaining his will to live back because of his conversation with rem but in the present day he has NO SELF PRESERVATION LIKE AT ALL. adult vash regards rem's words with such value but it's like he's forgotten something along the way.

chapter 3:

i've said everything i want to about chapter 3 in my knives post.

actually no just kidding there is something else i want to say.

picking this panel of his breakdown specifically because of how young he looks. he's just a kid. he was just a kid. HE WAS JUST A KID!!! A LITTLE KID!!! GOD my heart hurts.

chapter 4:

HOW IS THIS ONLY CHAPTER 4.

anyway thank GOD we get some much-needed comic relief from wolfwood. shooting a rubber band at vash and trying to tease him to help him feel better... they're so cute your honor

i can't help but remember that time when wolfwood pointed a gun at him for real... anyway

this whole setup once again feels like the early chapters - the rescue, the silly one-off characters, the camaraderie, the drinking... but, same as in 'colorless expression', things are different now. it's a relatively lighter chapter, which is nice, but there's an air of unease hanging over the whole thing. vash's smiles are so fake.

"time's yer savior," huh? ...put a pin in this.

there are probably about a million posts already about wolfwood being a grim reaper, but this exchange specifically is giving MAJOR psychopomp vibes and i'm kind of obsessed with it.

just. the way that they're both speaking kind of slowly. the word "guide." ww being in shadow. and the confirmation of what they both knew but has gone unsaid up until now. it's all so *chef's kiss*

with knives powering up and starting to take drastic action, ww acting as a grim reaper, and vash being fully prepared to die... there's such a sense of finality here. it hurts to see vash accepting his death so fully, but you can't fool me, i know there are seven volumes left. seriously, why does it feel we're building up to the final battle? reading this in real time must have been fun...

chapter 5:

nightow really popped off in this volume, there are SO many good spreads, holy crap. also once again: PSYCHOPOMP VIBES. "this is the end of the line... have ya made yer preparations?"

and we go right from wolfwood as death to... wolfwood death, but they CAN'T FOOL ME with all these ww death fakeouts. still, seeing him get RIPPED IN HALF had me like, how is he going to come back from this one?! ...OH, it's a hallucination. oh okay.

this is unrelated to what's going on but i love when ww has fangs :) but also what IS going on, actually?

i love that elendira is there to greet them :) i just love when she does anything, actually.

VW ARE SO CUTE. GENUINELY. they really care about each other so much. just. the way they both don't want the other to worry. ww pretending everything is fine, vash pretending not to notice ww is pretending, then revealing he did at the last second. idk it's just. cute. and indicative of what their entire relationship is, pretty much. and ww's little :x expression is SO cute. they're so cute.

aha, so this is livio and. the other guy. who is this again. was he in stampede. it's the other guy talking, right? livio hasn't said anything--WAIT, is THIS GUY chapel? i somehow just got that. THAT'S why he's so pissed at wolfwood lmao. i'm assuming he's in a wheelchair because of ww also. lol. so he's the one responsible for showing ww that vision, but... how did he do that exactly?

also i like how elendira is trying to deescalate, lol. she did NOT sign up for this.

and finally a better look at livio's face!!! they bishiefied him SO much in stampede lmaoooo. skull mask aside, he's pretty handsome! i like the masculine face with the long hair. it's a Look

they've been teasing me with livio for two volumes now, i want to learn about his manga counterpart already!! he only has like, an episode and a half(?) in stampede, i wanna know how differently they adapted him beyond making him a twink lmao. i've gotten the impression he gets more screentime in the manga...

AND THEN THEY JUST LEAVE? WHY WERE THEY EVEN HERE? TO INTIMIDATE WW AND THEN LEAVE?

she's so real for this. he is cute!!!

is this a wolfwood transphobia moment because he misgenders her or an ally moment because he immediately corrects himself. (/j) i'm taking it as an ally moment. but i just wanted to take a second to appreciate elendira's little expressions, they're soooo funny and cute. it took a second read to notice the little sparkle next to her face in the third panel LOL

also, elendira calling ww "honey" is cute. yeah. he is a honey.

chapter 6:

I'M SORRY. I'M SORRYYYYYY FOR LAUGHING

SHIT IS SO SERIOUS RIGHT NOW BUT WHY DOES THIS CHAPTER OPEN WITH LEGATO HANGING FROM THE CEILING. HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN HANGING THERE. i don't think he's supposed to be this unintentionally funny, but everything about legato just. tickles me. i'm so charmed by him. i love you my little bagworm.

OH, LEGATO CAN MOVE ON HIS OWN? with his little... contraption. so was he hanging from the ceiling by choice?? and i guess he doesn't have his assistant(?) anymore, since elendira nailed them through the head... we still don't know who they are or where they came from...

also, his expressions are so cute.

every elendira-legato interaction is sooooo fucking funny.

okay, enough about legato for a second, it's time to take that pin out!

there's the dialogue from stampede! the one-eyed man said "time's your savior," and that's pretty much what vash is hoping for. run away, wait it out, hope things get better. patience and caution.

of course knives doesn't take well to that, because he's angry and scared now, plants are suffering and being exploited now, both himself and vash are beginning to decay, there's no time to wait, he's going to act! ...that's his way of thinking, at least.

okay back to legato.

CLUNKING HIS WAY UP THE STAIRS...

he's so funny. and his desperate expression is weirdly cute. i love elendira and ww's exchange also, it feels like they've bonded a little lol. this is a very unlikely trio. i'm enjoying these brief scenes.

this man can fit SO much regret and self-loathing but also so much selflessness and love in him. i'm going to cry.

i love you legato! the star of this chapter!!

okay, what does "overpowered" mean here? is it like, if they merge, vash's will would overpower knives? like he would take over? is this like devilman-style demon fusion??

generally i haven't been making trigun-devilman comparisons, because aside from them both being bible fanfiction, they're not that similar... i don't really see any direct devilman influence in trigun. but this is giving me devilman vibes. if the will-overpowering thing is indeed the case.

i'm glad legato interrupted. even knives is like, damn maybe that wasn't the best idea, lol.

one last cute legato for the road. aww look at him, he's so happy knives breathed in his direction! idk he just activates my cuteness aggression for some reason.

aaaand that ends that volume. i DO wonder. knives merging with plants isn't what he was doing in stampede... are his actions in stampede gonna become relevant later or was that anime-original...

#trigunbookclub #trigun talk #june speaks #trying REALLY hard not to fall too far behind but there's so much y'all.

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wack-ashimself · 1 year

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The Barbie movie is the most meta thing ever made (fuck you deadpool).

Spoilers.

First…15-20 minutes, I was not feeling it. Way too much atmosphere for a place we knew we’d be most of the movie. But I think it was to more trick you (which it does, a lot) that the movie is going ONE way, then goes another. There were many times foreshadowing was so in your face, you wonder why they even did it. But then you realize (again) it was a trick: think you’re so smart cuz you see something coming cuz it was a red herring! They didn’t give a FUCK you knew about it; here’s some other weird fucking twist.

It was funny. I just watched strays (also with farrel) and that movie had like….5 solid laughs. Rest were just dick jokes. Barbie was significantly funnier. I almost am irritated because I had to rewind it a few times cuz sometimes it was good 1 liner after another, no pause, so you don’t even have enough time to finish laughing at the first one to let the humor of the next one sink in. I LOVE THAT> It makes a movie rewatchable. Top 3 funniest? 3-almost anything will farrel said. I feel like his was partially improvised, and it worked. It so fucking worked. Like, they’re chasing Barbie out of the lobby, get stuck by a short jump-able gate, screams for a keycard, THROWS it at the gate like a madman, freaks out that they can’t get thru (again, JUMP-ABLE), it suddenly opens, and he runs like a bat out of hell. He gave it to this performance! THE BARBIE MOVIE, and Will Farrel brang his A-game. 2-Ryan Gosling. His overall performance too. Cuz I NEVER find him funny in anything (even his SNL skits), but he was so SO fucking over the top that, even when it didn’t work, IT WORKED, ya know? Like it was so tongue in cheek cheesy, you almost were choking on the gouda. Do you know how hard as an actor it is to overact, intentionally, but to make sure it doesn’t look like it’s overacting? Not even going to name a specific moment; I’m just glad he made me finally laugh (the Nice Guys was overrated). 1-MARGOT FUCKING ROBBIE. Cuz she was hilarious as the straight/dry humor. Deadpan, kinda. And she had SO many fucking great lines when she came to the real world (dark comedy-when she first arrives and realizes she’s objectified like it NEVER happened before). Fav moment? Easy. Near the end, given up, Weird Barbie finds her. She straight up says something the lines alone ‘Now I’m ugly and weird like you’ but NOT in an insulting way, more ‘that’s life now.’ And Weird Barbie’s reaction? OMG. I was trying to be vague so you can watch it, read (or reread) this and go ‘OH YEAH!.’ Like I made some fair observations but didn’t give enough details as to ruin the joke. I needed a good laugh, and this movie delivered.

Now, why is it meta? Best way I could say it, HONESTLY? It’s like the movie took a mirror to the worst in (typically USA) men, shoves it down their throats (in a comedic way. As the saying goes ‘If you’re going to tell somebody the truth, you better make them laugh, or they’ll kill ya’) and does the same to women, but more their weaknesses than worst aspects. I see why men hated on this: it is 100% pro women, men fucked everything up, etc. I ain’t wrong cuz in the end, I thought they would give the Ken’s fair representation in the Barbie government, but NOPE. SO…how does that make them better than men? Do I believe the real world would be better with all women in charge? For the most part, yes. I genuinely do. But I don’t think they’ll solve everything. And I don’t know if making sure a particular type of people having no say in the world around them is a good thing. But fairly, I’m also the one that says rob billionaires and drop them on an island to rot so….I ain’t saying I have the answers. But the Barbies (MAJOR SPOILER) taking back their city from the Kens, cuz the Kens were…ignored and not heard, but then not giving them any way to be heard in the government (or even housing….) is a MIXED ENDING at best. NOT HAPPY. ‘The Kens brainwashed the Barbies.’ HOW? And how do you know it wasn’t just the one? Cuz the other Kens, in the end, chanted after Ken like…copies. It felt like the Barbies were all original, but the Kens weren’t. Maybe they were brainwashed too. It felt hypocritical to open with Kens not having houses, Barbies all in dream houses, travel to the real world, experience real things, Ken became pro male freak, takes over Barbieland, somehow brainwashes the Barbies (I don’t even think HE knows how he did it), over claims what is his (doing 100% what Barbies did to Kens. Just returning the favor), Barbies outsmart them (turned them to war. I liked that. Smart), take back full control, and they change NOT A SINGLE THING FROM THE START except the Kens can have one LOW LEVEL representative. Were Kens the good guys? NO. Were the Barbies? FUCK NO. So cheering on it going back to the same is….sad. Kens-still no where to live, no voice in government, nothing has improved. I just feel like that ending was saying ‘Hey. A world where women treat men exactly like men treat women would be better, but they would oppress in a similar fashion, but it would be better!’ is a weird fucking message to end on. I just wanted the men to get housing, and SOME in government (not many. I’ll admit-they went nuts, but when you have NO power and are given ALL power-you go crazy.)

That’s what I loved/hated about this movie. They went into the lore, but then at the same time went ‘fuck lore. Our house, our rules’ so they could do anything, but explain NOTHING. Like my fav DUMB/GENIUS moment in the movie was when Farrel, lead of Mattel, is trying to explain why Barbie coming to the real world is not a good thing and all (ALL) he says is ‘It’s just bad! It’s a bad thing!’ Loud, over and over, arms flailing. So they CLEARLY wanted to gloss over that. Which is cool but…that’s like an ace up the sleeve: you can only play that card SO many times before we know you’re cheating.

The END ending was….ultra meta. Go watch andy weir’s the egg on youtube. No joke (NO JOKE) that philosophy/spiritual concept matches….like…..60% with the ending (more visually if you watch the right one). It’s a MIND fuck. Summary: her creator says she’s an immortal idea, wanting her to live every life, but she wants to go down and live her single life. For her. Her way. Girl power. Lol It’s…awesome. Then they end with a FANTASTIC punchline out of nowhere that I REFUSE to ruin. IT’S A PERFECT ENDING JOKE. PERFECT, I TELL YOU!

So I gotta say: not what I expected, but only in the best of ways. I knew it would be funny, but not THAT funny in THAT many ways. Ultra political/social on many issues, and I was cheering on every one. Toxic masculinity sucks, self doubt (and a society that pushes it) sucks, men can cry, crying feels good for everyone if done right. Like, SIMPLE things MANY ADULTS do not admit to. That’s why I like this movie: appear like it’s for kids, market it for adults, simple for kids, cuz SOME ADULTS DIDN’T LEARN AS FUCKING KIDS. This is what I call a smart dumb movie. It dumbs down smart stuff for dumb people, but, keeps enough smart stuff in for smart people so they don’t feel like it’s one big fucking lecture. Cuz it is in a way. We all need to change, and this movie pushes that narrative. Fuck one of my fav quotes that I already posted was how all life is is change…

Barbie: 8.9/10.

(Not a 10/10 because the singing and dancing was not my thing, and outside the very opening & dance/fight number, it felt unnecessary. Also the plot holes/ending. Seriously, I would’ve given it a near perfect despite everything else, but the fucking ending of Barbieland. She SAYS she’s not a fascist <tho she admits they control the currency….>, but an oligarchy by any other name is an oligarchy. Seriously. And then they shrug off the years of shunning Weird Barbie. Just….this movie felt like ‘girl power! Don’t hate anybody. BUT you can treat people less than you if they’re not a Barbie.’ WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE IS THAT!? If I was a kid trying to find a moral lesson in this, it would be an aneurysm can be caused by a movie.)

Fav part? The entire lecture(s) (WAY WAY too much to quote. I was going to, but it encompassed good part of like 5-10 minutes. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG THAT TAKES TO TYPE?) the mom gave to the brainwashed Barbies. I have never wanted to be a woman: biologically to socially speaking, you guys are treated, worldwide, second to men. I actually believe the average bigot is more hateful to a woman than to someone of a different race. I understand why (see above. Men are conditioned by other stupid fucking men.) But….I swear to you on my soul….her original lecture (then with her added mini lectures added in) gave me the weirdest…pride. Like, I always knew you guys have it bad. As I said: I HAVE NEVER wanted to be a woman (and I am even talking if only biologically speaking. God dam, you got the short end of the stick. Periods, cramps, menopause, pregnancy. More prone to a lot of cancers. Dying at birth!? HOLY FUCK!!! Side note-USA has THE HIGHEST pregnancy deaths for a first world nation.) But….this movie made me realize the…benefits to being a woman. I NEVER SAW ANY. You guys love more than men, by far. Help more than men, by far. But are treated so fucking poorly and…I don’t know why you don’t rise up and kill a few billionaires. YOU ARE MORE THAN CAPABLE. Lol Just…I dunno. I always knew what GOOD women brought to the world. I just could never appreciate having pride being a woman when it’s so-fucking-difficult in this world we live in. But I get it now, I think. Maybe because of how unbalanced this plane of existence is to women, when they get thru (not if), there’s a strength few men can attain. Let alone respect. If men can’t do it, they think it shouldn’t be done. I want to say thank you women. I have always tried to appreciate you (except the stupid times I wasn’t), but I guess I never saw/appreciated your female pride. I never liked the word pride. To me, it has be earned. And no one chooses to be a woman. But maybe cuz you were forced into birth lotto, and had the odds against ya, you still came out on top, ya know? I dunno. I just….few things actually INSPIRE me anymore, and that did. It was saying something I deep down knew, but needed it said in a monologue so I could see the whole picture. Cuz I knew everything she said, but I guess when it is ALL laid out, you feel the weight of the whole blanket of the concept instead of a corner. Kudos. I am glad this movie exists. I think it will help a lot of people. Sadly, one of them being the pro-Israel Mattel male CEO a lot…

and I’m not gonna go off on the Israel thing. Just…it’s like being pro-USA: it just means innocent people are going to get hurt for greedy people. Weird note to end on but fuck you; my blog. I’m a Barbie bitch! Lmfao That will piss of some CIS straight white guys being I’m one of them…for now. WHO KNOWS> Maybe the movie made me GAYYYYYYyyyyy. Lmfao No. The whole time I was more focusing trying to remember where I knew everyone from: FUCK TON of famous people in this movie. HAHA. Should make a Barbie bingo to play during this movie. Not a bad idea…

#barbie #movie #movies #movie review #movie reviews #margot robbie #ryan gosling #will farrel #mattel #michael cera #israel #deadpool #spoiler #spoilers #meta

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huntingteeth · 6 months

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I'll just start off by saying that cliffhanger at the end of 'i know how we got here' was CRUEL. Thank you for the delicious angst but it was cruel nonetheless 😭 I went to reread it in it's entirety just to take the whole thing in again and I just got to chapter 3 and holy? shit?? How?? Did you foreshadow so many things??? In one dream sequence???? Did you plan out all of these details beforehand? I'm honestly floored right now.

Hi, anon!!

I know, I know, it was really mean!! It had to be mean, though, to be worth it, I think. I will say, I think you're gonna be excited because I've been doing a kind of author's commentary in my drafts here on tumblr of each chapter of the fic that gets into a lot of the world building that didn't explicitly make it into the fic and why I wrote things in certain ways that I'm gonna release after the fic is completed (it's three different posts so far because I wrote so much hahahaha).

Thank you SO MUCH for reading and loving this story because I also love it a lot. To have such a lovely reception into a fandom with the first story I've written for it is truly such a gift.

But, to answer your question -- behind a cut just in case anyone wants to keep the magic alive:

I refer back to the fic a lot when I'm writing the new chapters, and I definitely work towards scenes I want to see in the fic - specifically Marc crawling out of the mirror. I knew very early on in the fic, maybe by like chapter three, that I wanted that scene to happen but it definitely transformed into what it is now from what I initially imagined it would look like.

I wouldn't say that I necessarily planned the foreshadowing but I do like to leave myself little pockets in the things I write that could be expanded upon if I chose to or maybe could be tied up neatly with a throwaway line -- for example, the sending stones that Sam gives III were originally going to play a larger part in the story but I couldn't quite make it work in a way that was logical and realistic (big words for a magical realism au), so I had III make a throwaway line about them being good for sending Sam his most unhinged thoughts.

I'm a big fan of parallelism in text so being able to have chapter eleven mirror chapter three in that way was exceedingly satisfying.

So no, I don't really plan things out, hahaha. I did have an outline document for like the first three chapters but that was written after I wrote the chapters so I don't think that really counts. I like the ends of my chapters to kind of push along an agenda or a goal of where I'd like to see the fic go, because I think it amps up the tone of the story and keeps the pacing good and, like I said, I like to work towards specific scenes, but I don't do a lot of pre-planning. My notes on this fic are extensive, however! There are so many comments on the Word document so I can keep everything mostly straight. I'm sure half the hits on the fic are just me trying to make sure that the new scenes line up with what's already happened in the fic.

I like figuring out as I go how things fit together, really, I guess. Does that take the magic away a little bit? Maybe, haha.

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bonesandthebees · 1 year

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Also, while I’m here. Could you do 2, 4, 6, 13, 17 and 18 for the ask game if those haven’t been answered? Or pick any of those cuz it’s a lot.

-🌲

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

Absolutely. I write my fics for myself first and foremost, so yeah I reread them a lot. It doesn't hit the same as it would reading someone else's fic, but there are so many times I want a very specific niche of content I can't find and I'm just like "well gotta do it myself." A lot of times I even get distracted from writing bc I start rereading a different fic of mine. that almost happened with world forgetting last night but I pulled myself out before I could start rereading it bc I had stuff to do lmao

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

Uh. This depends on your definition of WIP. If you mean something in progress I know for sure I will continue posting, then 2 right now (glass and tinfoil) (and also the series that roses was a prequel to but I haven't started properly writing it yet I've just been doing a ton of worldbuilding for it recently). But if we're talking anything in progress that I might end up posting at some point but probably won't... too many to count

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

the thing is with the fics I REALLY enjoyed (like from a storytelling perspective) I won't actually reread that much because if I do, I want to sit down and do it properly yknow? so the fics I reread tend to be easier, simpler one shots or just snippets of fluff fics if I just need a shot of serotonin straight to the brain. I will say though, I make it a point to reread ritual purposes by thanotaphobia on a semi-regular basis because there's just something about the atmosphere and the story and all of it that really hits for me. just the way roxy describes small details scratches an itch in my brain so I adore rereading it just to pick up on those smaller bits

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

If it's a 'smaller' fic (ie: anything below 100k words like honey and tangerines and below) then I'll usually do a loose bullet point outline of the entire thing before I start writing. if it's one of my big fics then when I start I usually know the beginning, the end, and some in between scenes I know I'll throw in at some point, but that's it. I'll do a loose bullet outline usually 2-3 chapters at a time, but I won't plot out the entire thing in one go because then I'll get bored of it. Coming up with most of the plot as I go helps me to not only keep myself interested, but I feel like it helps the plot flow better because I get into a rhythm with the story and I can let it go places I didn't originally plan

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

well the other day I googled "heat capacity of rivers" doing research for the eventual big royalty fic I'm gonna do after glass is over so. learning a lot of climate stuff! (apparently the reason coastal cities have a cooler, more stable climate than inland areas is because of the heat capacity of the ocean so I wanted to see what the heat capacity of a river would be and if a river would have a similar if less noticeable effect on the climate of a town)

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

I usually answer with the same thing every time so I tried finding a different answer to this question this time around

I really loved this whole segment I wrote in the penultimate chapter of stars. especially the lines about Prince Theseus being a child of Eldingvegr itself. Idk what I was on but I just love the mental image this provokes

ty for these spruce!!

ask game!

#ask game #spruce anon

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rayereil · 2 years

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Memories in the Rain Part 2!

The fight with Grand Fisher is intense. It’s well paced and well drawn.

It’s also the first time Ichigo is fighting on his own. We haven’t had a chance to see him use combat smarts, but he pulls it out in the end!

But jeez, Kubo wanted to make sure we all hated Grand Fisher, huh? Making Ichigo fight his mother brings the trauma straight into the spotlight though. Ichigo has to literally facedown his past to get stronger… not subtle, but it is effective.

Also, did I mentioned Ichiruki? They really do win in this arc. Ships aside, this is a powerful moment hinting at Rukia’s past. Ichigo’s fight is something she’s familiar with. And she’s terrified of losing Ichigo, but she knows she can’t interfere…

You can’t convince me Kubo knows about Rukia’s past yet, but that seems to be Ukitake? As I remember nothing about Rukia’s past other than Kaien’s death, I can’t say much more… but it’s apparent having to watch Ichigo fight is painful for Rukia. She wants to help, but knows she must let him fight alone.

And Ichigo kicks Grand Fisher’s butt!

Which is good because he’ll never see Grand Fisher again.

And even though Ichigo initially views this as a loss, the audience knows it’s a victory. Ichigo let’s his past get destroyed for the sake of seizing his future! One where he can protect everyone.

And who better to accent that point other than Rukia. It’s truly a touching scene between the two of them. And it’s such a classic trope that the concerned love interest thanks the unconscious love interest for not dying. Rukia is 100 percent falling for Ichigo here, and I’d wager Ichigo is starting to like Rukia more and more.

Obviously this is interpretation and not canon… but it’s trope compliant, haha! Kubo just doesn’t end up using them.

Also I need to talk about Orihime again.

She’s perfect. She’s so funny and has such a bright personality! I wish Kubo had kept the jokes up as the series went on…

We also have Orihime realizing she understands Ichigo better after Tatsuki’s story. I’m glad she understands him more… I can only hope Ichigo will eventually be given screen time to understand Orihime in the same way.

And to finish out MITR, the conclusion.

The first scene just gets me. I don’t know what it is about humor like that (“ten years ago-“ “six years”) but I just love it.

And then we have the emotional conclusion! Isshin comforting Ichigo. Ichigo finally realizes the reason no one blames him the way he does himself. We get some closure to the events that have haunted Ichigo, and it’s so beautiful that Isshin is the one who gets this moment with his son.

While Isshin is often used as a gag character and is sometimes made into a pervert, even for his own family, I like serious Isshin. Wish we got to see more of him.

On a related note, I don’t recall Everything but the Rain having Masaki comment on Isshin’s hands while smoking. It didn’t happen in the anime, but obviously scenes were cut for time, so maybe it’ll be in the manga. I hope so. What a quirky thing to mention only to never bring it up again when you have the chance.

And now everyone say goodbye to Grand Fisher because we won’t see him again until the beginning of HM. Also, at the very end of MITR, we see Grand Fisher being reborn into a stronger version of himself. Where is he supposed to be? I’d guess Huecho Mundo, since nowhere else seems appropriate. It really feels like a dropped plot threads since Grand Fisher beefs up and swears revenge on Ichigo, only for him to become a throwaway villain for Isshin to kill. I am glad Isshin gets to kill him though… just wish it’d been in grander fashion. And maybe with Ichigo tagging along. They both deserve some revenge, but it is what it is.

Anyways. It was fun to reread MITR. It’s one of those arcs you “know” but the details are hazy.

Most importantly, I’m getting close to Uryu’s arc!

#Raye reads #bleach #Ichigo Kurosaki #rukia kuchiki #orihime inoue

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dawnblade · 2 years

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glad i can go crazy with slapping battle scars on mae cause i s2g giving guardians battle scars is like so fucking difficult with the laws of the universe in destiny. oberons face scar came from the alternate warmind story alex wrote before warmind came out and i fought for my life to make that scar lore-friendly. also god warmind was so long ago

what happened was that the submind charlemagne took control of all the exos and was gonna blow shit up and serys and synapse had to go to charlemagnes core and blast it with the valkyrie virus to fix everything (synapse wasnt corrupted cause he was dead for a year and revived and given the virus to prevent getting corrupted) so they went 2 the core but it was being guarded by corrupted obn and trencher

so serys kicked obns ass and gave him that face scar and the way i worked keeping obns scar in canon was that being corrupted by charlemagne also corrupted his light so when he died and charlemagne was defeated and the corruption disappeared, it sorta "overwrote" his light so when dex revived him the scar was still there

#oberon 13 #ocs #also i reread it just now to make sure i had the details straight and its literally so good.#i love our friendgroup canon i miss it sooo bad #this was supposed to be a post about mae but i made it about oberon i truly can never stop talking about him #ill tag mae anyway #maetimhus doensmydsyn

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munsster · 2 years

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hii! i love ur writing so much i just had to request for my best girl <33 (this is a bit long & angsty sorry HDJSAHD) could u maybe do robin x gn!reader where they're bestfriends and the reader has a crush on robs but hasn't told her yet, and the reader is sorta in max's situation but when vecna attacks them they don't make it and unfortunately dies and a few days later robin was looking at the readers stuff and finds a love letter/confession letter for her? thank uu!! <3

redeem the cursed

A/N: wuf nonnie, the ANGST. don’t ask me about canon……… the rules are off in this one, fellas. (also rereading the request, i might’ve missed some of the details? sorry about that in advance!!)

Pairing: Robin Buckley x Fem!Reader

Summary: Sometimes, the right words have their way of coming out at just the right times. Sometimes. 2.7k words.

Warnings: ST4 VOL1/2 SPOILERS, Angst, character death, vecna being a little bitch/a straight up bitch, cursing, pining, grief, canon level gore

"How're you feeling?"

Robin rubs her palm along the hunch of your back, your neck craned down, eyes fixed on your untied laces where you sit on Nancy Wheeler's couch while the rest of them root around upstairs. You’ve known about the symptoms for a day, and an hour ago you saw something you didn’t know how to comprehend. It struck, and she was the first to notice the glazed over, far off look in your eye.

“So far? Teetering.”

You’d been holed up in your room since then. Furiously going through a new package of black pens, pinky smudged with the ink even now. But you saw a massive, alien creature and heard a voice and lost your shit, rambling to her over the phone. She begged you to come along after you swore and swore into the landline’s muffled microphone. And finally agreed. But being around her didn’t make this any less difficult.

“Teetering?”

“Might puke, might pass out. Fucking exhausted,” you sigh, looking up at her as she perches on the armrest, folding her fingers between yours, and leaning her cheek on your knuckles.

“Don’t go dark on me now, buttercup, still gotta see the world, right?”

“Right,” you chuckle.

“Just… think about Paris, right? The swans, the lights, no more Hawkins.” She opens your palm across her cheek with a grin, and you can’t help but smile back at her shred of hope.

“No more Hawkins,” you parrot softly, leaning your temple against her thigh.

Steve clops down the stairs, whistling, and the kids perk up when he orders, “C’mon, let’s go, in the car”—he points to you—“You’re comin’ with me. Babysitting duty. Robin: go get changed.”

“Yessir,” she teases, patting his back as he bounds put the door, swinging his keys around his finger. She peers down at you, tilting her head and pulling you to stand right in front of her. So close, count her pretty freckles. “Stay safe. Love you.”

And you take a deep breath. Her hand comes to your chin, and you hope to God she’s not just inspecting you. That she’s really looking this time. That she could feel the same ache in her chest that you do each time she laughs. That her heart beats a little faster at your mindless innuendos or when she sees you pop through the Family Video door.

“I love you, too, comet. Try not to go insane while I’m gone.” And she laughs and turns when Nancy calls for her.

“No promises! Keep us updated,” she chirps, waving goodbye.

“Sure thing.”

Kicking at the shoebox you set under the driver’s seat, you wish everything would go back to normal. You wish you could take a nap and wake up and spring break will be over and you won’t feel this sinking terror anymore. Max holds your hand between her thigh and yours, and her head rests against your shoulder. You close your eyes, and Steve pulls the beamer across the gravel in front of Max’s house. It births a thick grey cloud, and you hop out of the car. Max takes off running from behind you and up her steps.

Steve rolls down his window when you lean against the car door.

“How you holdin’ up back there? Would’ve let you ride shotgun, but Henderson called it, and I am a man of my word,” he teases, leaning across the sill to squint up at you.

You chuckle.

“I respect it. Every driver needs his co-pilot,” you sigh, “besides, I promised to see Max through this shit show. Anything to help the kid out.”

He nods and sits back, fiddling with the lock and humming to the low radio.

“You wish Robin invited you along, huh?”

You click your tongue and duck your head, laughing when he pokes your side and beams up at you before sidling back into his seat.

“I mean, the kids are great, don’t get me wrong but… obviously, I love spending as much time with her as possible,” you mumble. But he doesn’t laugh or console or anything. His breathing goes shallow and dragged out. And you turn to look at him when he licks his lips.

“So ridiculous… don’t you think now’s a good time to give it up?” he says with a casual shrug, but he doesn’t look at you, even when he goes on, just staring straight ahead, “you’re helpless, admit it. The world is ending, and if she didn’t love you before, she never will.”

“Steve, what are you… what’re you talking about?”

Your heart sinks because that’s not Steve. You glare at him, and suddenly he snaps. And in a deep voice that’s not his own, with eyes devoid and cloudy, he grumbles out, “You’re still waiting? After all this time. You never learn, do you?”

You cover your mouth and sob, trying to stumble away from the car when he gets out, but you trip on a rock and scrape your elbow scrambling across the ground. That’s not Steve. His once young face morphed into slime and veins and sunken eyes.

“Pathetic. You see why you belong with me now, don’t you? Because no one else will accept you. Your friends don’t care about you. You can’t run from it. No matter how hard you try, you’re better off crawling back to me.”

“That’s not true,” you pant, blood staining the sleeve of your shirt, ripping further down the seam when he catches you by the arm. And his claws dig against your skin, spewing fire through your marrow.

“Stop lying to yourself.”

“Steve!” you shout, “Robin, please!”

But it echoes back in a screech, a whine, demented and ringing as the sky bleeds a thick red. Spiraling out through low hanging clouds that swirl and spin and get stuck in your throat. He laughs, deep and harsh, lifting you off the ground and tossing you back against a slick, crawling pillar.

“She does not need you. She never did,” he says with a wet gushing when you scream again. “You could be free from this. All of this. Guilt. Futility. This is your destiny. This is how it ends.”

Against your own will, kicking and squirming, you rise up the pole, face to face with one of the cheerleaders in your english class. Her mouth is cracked open, and tears spring in your eyes when the creature creeps closer and your back slides further upward. And the pressure on your spine is crushing. You can barely breathe with a vine wrapped around your waist.

“Let me go,” you huff. But the air is punched from your lungs and your arms are tugged taut.

“Stop resisting. You cannot win. Just like she cannot love you.”

And when resisting becomes too hard, you surrender. His long fingers creep into view, blocking out the low red light beaming from above.

“Please,” you squeak. But there’s no more fight left. It drains from you, and shock leaves you senseless. Numb to the crackling of your own broken bones. His eyes flash between his knobby knuckles, and you feel the vomit swarming in your throat. And everything goes dark.

There’s a voice calling your name right before it’s over. Muffled and distant, metallic, almost shrill. Chanting your name and shaking your shoulders, but the world is dark. In fact, there’s no world at all. Just the absence of it.

Steve waits to tell Robin. Lets her believe you went home safe, decided the action wasn’t for you. But he knows the truth flew into the air and crashed into his arms, limp and cold, and he was shuddering and sniffling when they carried you to the trunk. It felt brutal, and no one spoke on the way to the graveyard. Steve took care of your body even when Hawkins shattered at the threading. Split into quarters, shockwaves of plasma and light.

And when slippery onyx tentacles strapped Robin to the wall, he thought it was the end. He couldn’t let her die without knowing the truth. So he told her. From across the room, he hollered it, with tears in his eyes, he watched her face fall. A frown tugging and pulling. Her muscles going soft even stretched across the mansion’s crumbling wall. The panic set in. It was life or death for her, and you didn’t have a choice. You were seconds away from knowing how to stop him. She wasn’t there to save you. She could have saved you.

The gym was crowded. Bustling and broken arms and legs and leftover clothes from old money families. His face steels when he reads your letter in the back seat of his car. And it takes him twenty minutes to steady his breathing. And even after the fact, his chest flutters, ready to sob walking across the squealing gym floor.

“Hey,” Steve huffs, cheeks damp with a small shoebox tucked under his arm, other hand holding a plain white envelope with no address and no stamps. Just her name. In haphazard cursive across the back.

“I think this is for you.”

“You wrote me a letter? C’mon, Steve. Read the damn room—”

“Not from me.” He chokes and has to turn away when Robin glances down at the envelope pinched between his fingers. She takes it and sits down on one of the empty cots, scanning and scanning and fussing over your finical handwriting and the scrawl of the last ink your pen could spit out. She closes her eyes and flips open the unsealed lip, still sticky but not wet. Inside, there’s a folded piece of lined paper nestled neatly into the bottom edge of the pocket.

And she slips it out. And unfolds the paper, chuckling because both sides are inky and a little smudged, and the creases are set down the middle. Nearly torn. Like you spent hours tirelessly folding and unfolding and folding the sheet, studying your own writing like it might change last second. Like the things you write will become any less you if you blink hard enough.

She takes a shuddering breath in reading the first word squeezed against the top left corner.

Buckley,

I hope this letter finds you well but who the fuck knows considering it's the end times. I mean, Hawkins has always been like those old rollercoasters they lug around every summer, all rusty and unpredictable and always about to hurl you head first into the afterlife. I remember heading down to the fairgrounds every fourth of July and begging you to go on the Zipper with me. You would remind me how much I hated it last year and warn me over and over, but you always spent your four tickets just for me to be clinging to you by the end. Definitely on the verge of puking all that cotton candy up. God, it was so easy to live back then. To just be alive and still breathing and have that be enough. I miss it.

Sorry I took so long to write your letter. I know you always loved the suspense. All that ‘will they, won't they’ romcom bullshit. But enough of the waiting. I'll tell you why it took so long, and it's not because I'm a tease or a wuss or whatever. I just didn't know what to say. Or what to write, I guess. All I knew is it had to be perfect, but I had nothing to say. I'd put pen to paper and end up with a bin full of sappy openers scribbled on leftover card stock. Finally figured notebook paper would be easier to manage. Trust me when I say it's so goddamn hard to keep my lines straight. Anyways, back to my last chance Armageddon sob story.

I guess I should start from the beginning (ironic, isn't it?). It was my first day at Hawkins middle, sitting next to the girl wearing baggy cutoffs with her hair all wild and thinking, 'maybe moving away from home won't be so bad after all' because you smiled and offered me a piece of bright pink bubblegum, and the rest is history. The next seven years were just me borrowing your new tapes and lying around in my room and scouring the corner store on Fridays, and yet I can still distinguish every single day from the next. You made 'em all special, Buckley.

I tried to write this one first, you know. Spent hours and hours trying to figure it out, but nothing sounded right. Nothing could ever top John Hughes’ scripture. Everything I wrote sounded so monotonous. Felt like one of the infinite monkeys, but I couldn't get anywhere near Shakespeare expertise. Not for you, at least. You make me nervous even in spirit. Need a goddamn twelve step every time you're not around. Call me cheesy, but it's true. It's crazy the way you never failed to make me feel wanted, and now I don't know what there's left to say. I mean, these are my last words. Technically.

So, I guess, here goes nothing. (Sorry in advance for the gag-worthy soliloquy; I know it's ridiculous):

I love you. And if I said it out loud, I know you'd say it back, but you wouldn't get it. It'd be a joke thing like 'ha ha, yeah, babe, gnarly as hell, love you, too,' and I know you always meant well, but I meant it. I meant it like I couldn't go a single day without seeing your face or hearing your voice or asking Harrington about you. Like I'd feel all out of place, and then I'd pull into your driveway and this massive weight would be lifted off my shoulders. You're magic, Buckley, I need you to know that. I've had a crush on you since that first day. I made every excuse in the book for seven years to follow you around like a puppy dog hoping one day you'd throw me a bone. (In fact, I'm still riding on that 'right people, wrong time' excuse). I'm sorry I didn't say something before it was too late for us.

And I'm sorry for all the plans we made together. I'm sorry I won't get to see you graduate. I'm sorry for all the times I didn't pick up the phone, and I'm sorry for being so stubborn. I'm sorry for being a shitty person most of the time. I'm sorry I kept you waiting, and I'm sorry for leaving. But most of all, I'll be sorry for the rest of my life that I never got to tell you how I felt in person.

But trust me, I will not be sorry for our time. And I will not be sorry for knowing you. I mean, really knowing you. There's nothing like it. You're my comfort zone and safety blanket and trust exercise, and I know all of my secrets are safe in that bottomless vault of yours. Honestly, there's no one I'd rather be in love with. I know, one day, you're gonna make someone feel so important. Just promise me you'll let yourself love and be loved in return. It's the meaning of life, comet, and who are we to neglect our purpose?

Even though ours is something I wanted to last forever, sometimes you just don’t get that lucky. No matter how desperate you end up by the end. I used to curse Hawkins, and now I guess Hawkins has cursed me, huh? Gave me all these awesome memories and people—and you—only to screw me over within a decade, and I probably won't even get a proper goodbye in. Well, this is it: goodbye. Don't forget about me, okay? Actually, more importantly, don't forget about you. I hope you make it out alive. If I can’t, I want you to. For me. I swear on all of it: out of everyone in this shitty little town, I'm gonna miss you most. So you better get back out there. And I promise I’ll wait for you. So take your time because there's no one like you, Buckley. I'm serious.

Can't wait to see you again,

your favorite loser and number one fan

P.S. if you forget our handshake, I'm haunting you forever. XOXO!

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