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#and it hits weird as a guy sometimes like i have dual thoughts on it in some senses but like
uncanny-tranny · 17 days
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I'm going to be real, I've been on testosterone for multiple years and my levels have been very consistently high and whatnot, and yet I haven't gotten to the point where my testosterone "makes" me act in possessive, creepy ways toward women. Not even the women who are drop-dead gorgeous to me!
And that's because it's not about testosterone. It's about the way you choose to interact with women. When you devalue them already, no amount of testosterone is going to influence you further.
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boogisstuff · 2 years
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Matt isn't human
*Cambion
Demons are interdimensional beings
Demons wanted another gateway to achieve more power in human world
Bib. Couple has a threesome with demon. Demon Middle man for semen idk, demonology is weird
Daimon Hellstrom, aka Son of Satan, is that. A hero though, and renound demonologist. Team with defenders and Ghost Rider against demon possession
*Jack and Maddie want but can't have -or have but loose a baby-. One of them ends up making a deal with something unholy. It ends up adding guilt to a wrecked mind. Maggie tries to baptize the thing she brought into t’his world. He screams as the priest begins, as is normal. What wasn't, was the way he shrieked as the water kissed his skin–and ran into his eyes. it leaves him blind. Doctors say he had an allergic reaction to the oils, maybe something from the basin. 
*It's what makes Maddie snap. Jack becomes devoted to making Matt good. Teaches him to be kind, chivalrous, use his head not fists, even sends him to church. His ginger hair grows darker and darker until it matched his mother's. Complete with her curls. His eyes, also blue like hers, but far too bright to be natural, grow into an amber not unlike his own. His baby looks like everything he'd imagined since the most important person in his life promised a second important person. He makes himself believe the water burned the devil from his boy; left only the good parts.
*Still gets hit by the truck. Super senses. Trained by Stick, (who no one else can see?). Jack doesn't die, but is beat so bad he'll never fight again. He struggles to find work; lives off Creed fight, disability, donations, goodwill, and whatever odd jobs Matty can snag. Had Matt taken by Social services a few times. 
*Recovering from Midland circle; Maddie tells him. Tells him who he is to her, how he came to be.
{"What am I!?" He’d asks ghost rider}
He brings misfortune, pain, to everyone around him
*He has a breakdown. When he started hearing prayers he thought it was a mission from God. Now, realizes it's the tools of the devil. He takes back the "I'd rather die was Daredevil then live as Matt Murdock" skips straight to suicide. Inspires him to get back to Matt Murdock. He meets foggy for no alternative reasons. Trying so hard to stay out of DD. Foggy can tell he's not doing well. Matt tells Foggy what's up. Foggy realizes how bad it is, and tells him that the accident that gave him his senses had nothing to do with the devil
*dd joins an occult team with his older cuz. The Son of Satan; Daimon Hellstrom. (a real comic character not an OC. A former priest-hopeful and current occult expert, he’s pretty dedicated to fighting demons. However, seeing as his father, Satan, also impregnated a human woman as a means of gaining power I feel he might beagle to empathize a bit with Matty’s situation)
*Most people, even his teammates don't actually know if Daredevil’s occult or not. Citizens are fairly unsure. But then you get to those who interact with him, and they're even more unsure. 
*Basically, you meet and think he's just a guy in a mask. Then he's weird and you start thinking he is demonic, especially after finding out about Son of Satan. But SoS, when asked, just says he's part of the team because he's resistant to possession and knows Hell's kitchen better than anyone. Plus, moon knight is also part and sometimes defenders and punisher gets involved. (Hawkeye tried once and just got so confused) and DD is majorly unhelpful. Plus, only believes in the devil as a concept of temptation or sin.
*Holy objects affect him different. He's got darksoul but also human soul and is a confirmed Catholic. Bc he's only half (and was made different that SoS) he has a natural resistance, powers or nah. Works as dual souls, where if one is weakened, i.e. bc human Matt is dying, other rises to fill the void. As darksoul takes over holy objects have more effect. Cross gets hotter.
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crackinwise · 3 years
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My pet AU is Kiyotaka and Mondo somehow out in the post-Tragedy Japan, surviving and saving people. Like either they didn't agree to stay locked in Hope's Peak for safety, or they survived the game and left with the others but didn't join Future Foundation. Major points up front, details divided into sections under the cut:
Mondo's objective would be to find his gang, and Taka's goal, besides finding his dad, would be repairing society while punishing those responsible for its destruction. But their direct task is keeping each other safe & helping victims along the way.
Mondo even stresses calling Taka "Ishimaru" instead of "bro" or his given name in front of others, so they might KNOW who's saving them. Taka caught on quick & is very grateful.
Taka would have kind of a breakdown reconciling who he is with what he has to do in a lawless world where every public moral is ignored. He keeps a small ledger of places they loot from, to compensate in the future.
At the start, Taka can only sleep burrowed against Mondo's chest or back, blocking out their damaged surroundings & pretending everything is as it was.
He cries in Mondo's arms one night after he couldn't avoid killing someone to save Mondo's life, and that's the tipping point. He thinks if he was better, stronger like his bro, he'd have noticed sooner & found a better option. Mondo is being so brave; he's Taka's rock and Taka wants to be as steady for him too. Their souls are already connected so obviously he just has to borrow more of Mondo's spirit, right?
That's how Ishida is created.
(In reality, Mondo just compartmentalizes and shoves down unhelpful feelings. You thought he needed therapy BEFORE all this, oh man-)
Ishida:
Taka ends up slipping into the Ishida facade for fight and flight; any time adrenaline kicks in and he feels he needs that boost. Sadly, that's most of their waking time. He guards Mondo and anyone they're saving like a fierce watchdog, and won't hesitate to bite.
He'll only come out of the role when he personally verifies it's safe and if Mondo can confirm it. Survivors are confused by the dual-sided Ishimaru switching right in front of them, but they're so grateful (and so much weird crap has happened) that it never phases them long.
Too many times, Ishida will go all day without a break. This means when their hideout for the night is absolutely safe, that it's okay to let go, Taka just collapses in exhaustion. But Mondo is there to catch him.
Mondo feels conflicted over the Ishida role because Taka is just a beast in it--it's very flattering and a little hot--but it also makes him worry more than before about Taka's health. He comforts Taka with a lot of praise and reassurances, and Taka sleeps lightly but otherwise fine.
Relationship: (slight mature warning)
When they touch, Taka swears he can feel the link between them flare to fuel them. Twin fires ignited. Mondo doesn't know about all that, but when their eyes meet it definitely makes him feel invincible, so, he can believe.
If they weren't already new boyfriends when The Tragedy hit, all this closeness makes sure of that soon after. Being together is their happiness and, for a while, their only link to pre-Tragedy lives. Vows not unlike marriage were exchanged one night. Where one goes, the other will follow. Anywhere. Always.
When they kiss, safe and alone, Mondo will ask what Taka wants; what he can handle that night. Sometimes it's just the kisses before passing out, sometimes it's more intimate touches to please them both after another hellish day.
Sometimes Taka will ask to be made love to, for obvious couple reasons, but also because Mondo inside him makes their tether feel stronger, more complete. Like going over the invisible line in bold marker. Taka believes any marks they can create with their mouths, any traces of themselves they can leave on or in each other, the easier they can find their bond and tap into it. (He had started a nervous habit of pressing in on lovebites to keep Ishida going when tired.)
Mondo tells him he doesn't need to find a poetic excuse for fetishes and Taka lovingly answers with a stomach punch.
Crazy Diamonds:
Mondo's gang members, the ones not dead or overcome with Despair, are slowly found and joined back up.
Any smaller and sturdier motorcycles are kept when found. If Mondo was able to keep his own in this version, it's a bit heavier than would be good for any off-roading--and much too loud for any stealth--but he refuses to part with it.
Every gang member respected Taka/Ishida the second they saw him fight beside their leader. Before Mondo says a word about him. They readily take orders from him in either form. The change in appearance was a surprise, but they're already used to some members wildly changing demeanor in or away from the gang, so it's easily accepted.
With the gang as backup to keep watch during downtime--after Ishida sized each one up and watched them for loyalty--the pair can feel a lot more relaxed. They joke about having a date in a blown-out restaurant they find, and they can finally enjoy a deep sleep.
When the group finds safehouses with more than one room, Mondo & Taka are given their privacy. Taka tries to insist everyone deserves a chance at privacy and they should rotate, but changing a gang's long-established hierarchy is a losing battle. And Mondo's not on his side because when they're alone he can be as sappy or touchy as he likes.
Legends:
Taka and Mondo save a lot of people over their journey and kinda become a legend that gets spread around and gives people Hope.
This area still needs work from me. Probably some research into Japanese myths and supernatural symbolism. A placeholder right now is something corny like "Two Men with burning eyes and thunderous voices will answer your cries for help. But if you're evil, the two will appear to you as One Demon and drag you down to the land of the dead."
There's also probably a need for costume changes since their color scheme is the same black & white of the Despair Remnants and monokumas killing people. Legend or not, it'd be easy for traumatized survivors to not know they're good guys at first.
Darker Moments: (blood, violence and vague attempted sexual assault)
After he killed a man to save Mondo, Taka luckily (he wouldn't use that word) doesn't have to again. Hurt? Yes. Beat unconscious? Yes. Maim? Yes, but some of the vile dregs of humanity are caught doing things that deserve worse--
--That deserve Mondo. Once when they were still traveling alone, a group of Remnants jumped them, managing to separate the two, and one knocked Taka out with a bad blow to the head. Mondo dispatched the others attacking him and got to Taka right as the Remnant was about to do something unforgivable.
Mondo snapped. He still doesn't remember what he did, he just remembers coming to in all the blood and dazedly picking Taka up to take him to a place he knew was safe.
Taka never finds out. He woke up a day later with a bandaged head and Mondo crying and kissing his hands. Mondo just told him he beat some and scared away the others.
Minor Details:
They try to always fight back-to-back and, to observers, seem to read each other's mind for where to move.
Taka/Ishida would use a sword or hand-to-hand. The pickaxe might just be a random pickaxe they find, if he uses it at all. Kinda hard to carry both a sword and a railroad pickaxe on your back, and I can't imagine it balances very well. (The size in official pics would be a 5lb head w/2-3lb handle.)
Mondo seems like he would use anything lying in debris to fight. Poles, pipes, chains. Aaaand maybe the knives he mentions in School Mode.
For any costume changes, Mondo would keep his jacket at least. A beacon for the Diamonds. Maybe a purple tank top, and different pants better for knife holsters. Unless the holster should wrap around his waist or hip instead?
Any changes to Taka's outfit would keep his armband. It's a reminder of his Talent and his goal to make Japan even better than before. Also wanna keep his boots or change to more rugged ones.
End Goal:
Obviously they'd end up in Towa, after the events of Ultra Despair Girls. They're reunited with Takaaki and Takemichi. Maybe they help set things right there a bit, or Makoto would get word to them about his plans vs Future Foundation's. Look at me, do I look like someone that knows how to end things?
There is no way you read all that. (I love you if you did.) But feel free to use all or any bits of it in your own works. Almost positive I'll never get to compose all this into a coherent fic format. I might update in short scenario posts under a 'Tragedy-survivor au' tag if I think of anything.
If you have a question or want something expanded upon, ask away.
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mimiplaysgames · 3 years
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save it for the morning after (3/3)
Pairing: Terra/Aqua Rating: E (Explicit) for Smut Word Count: 7,850
Summary: Aqua learns the value of being vulnerable.Terra learns to trust his body to another. Everyone gets a happy ending. ;)
Read on AO3
A/N: AAAAHHHH Happy Terraqua Day!!!! I can’t believe I finally finished this one, it always felt like it would never happen. I’m actually quite nervous - I don’t take the same kind of path of other smut and being so deviant honestly freaks me out so much. I really do pull this story into extreme directions for smut, that I wonder if I can call it smut at all. But let’s see. Hope you like. <3
~*~*~*~*~
“Aqua.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
“Go ahead.”
“....”
“Are you okay?”
“The... um, your scars...”
“They’re not yours.”
“Aqua—”
“They aren’t.”
“Please.”
“...They’re not yours.”
~*~*~*~*~
Well, damn.
Ven hones in on Terra—a ballsy move considering it’s a super-bad idea to get this close to a large opponent—but Ven skids, spinning on his knees and tripping Terra like a pet running through its owner’s legs. Ven serves an uppercut with his short Keyblade. It almost jabs Terra on the ribs if not for his lurch backward, and he lands squarely on his ass against the desk behind him. 
A pot of ink rattles and tips, spilling all over his pants and spreading up the spine of his shirt. 
Ven snorts. “You look like you shit yourself.”
Terra wipes his backside, picking up excess ink in layers. It’s slick, skating through his fingers with the weight of iron and dripping onto the floor. More of it runs between his legs, finding a way in between cracks and folds of skin, moistening up his boxers. Damn it. He slathers his hand through Ven’s hair with so much force (Hey!) that Ven waddles to stay in balance. 
“And you look like you’ve been picking through trash.”
Ink clumps chunks of blond hair together, drooling down Ven’s ears and staining his collar. It makes him look oily for lack of a better term, like someone who hasn’t taken a shower in weeks. When he touches his scalp out of reflex he flinches, wiping his coated fingers on his own shirt… before realizing what he’s doing. He groans. 
“It suits you,” Terra says. 
“I dunno.” Ven wipes the rest of it on Terra’s shirt. “Looks better on you.” Might as well. The shirt is honestly ruined. 
One corner of the offending desk is covered in globs of shiny black. Terra corrects the ink bottle and surveys the damage. The tile floor will be easy to clean, but the wood is inhaling the color. 
“Aqua’s going to kill us,” Ven mutters. “She spent a lot of time in this room.”
Weeks of time choosing which books to display on the shelves. Days researching the right chalkboard to purchase. Journeys spent gathering minerals for students to practice with: ash from a far away volcano, water from the forest river nearby, unearthed dirt from the garden, and feathers from nests settled at the peak of the tallest mountain. Aqua has a vision of this room playing the dual role of serving lectures and encouraging hands-on experimentation in a safe environment. She wants it to be respectable and impressive before the semester starts. They’re not allowed to traverse the room with shoes on, and Terra and Ven were respectable about that before one of them (Ven) started to get cocky about his fighting abilities. 
Yeah, they fucked up. “Think of it this way. We proved it’s not practical for physical training,” Terra says. 
“You’re the one who’s going to tell her that.” Ven scoffs, splaying a wet towel on the floor.
Terra pulls his suspenders over his head and lets them hang from his waistband. Pinching his stained muscle shirt off and bundling it up, he uses it as a rag to absorb the puddle on the table. What’s sinking into his socks is now warm. He ignores it.
“Do you think I could pull this off?” Ven asks as a by-the-way, twiddling a shy hand at the back of his greasy head.
“Black hair?”
“No, you’re right. It’s creepy.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Pfft, you also ‘didn’t’”—Ven bookends the word with finger quotations—“spar fairly.”
Terra considers throwing his damp shirt at Ven’s face. “I’m not at my prime yet.”
“That’s not it.” Ven flips the towel and swipes the remaining streaks with the cleaner side. “You’re holding back. You promised you wouldn’t do that anymore.”
“I’m not holding back.” He is. Just the image of raising his Keyblade against either of his friends is enough to make him nauseous, but he swallows it to be a good sport. 
Giving it his all is something else entirely, a deeper, invasive illness. 
“I know you can hit harder than that.” Ven dunks the towel in a pail of water, clouding it. 
“I just have a lot in my mind and it’s hard to... relax, I guess.”
There’s a moment of pregnant quiet before Ven says pointedly, “I thought Aqua was helping you out with that.”
A moist squish slaps Ven on the nose.
“Now you’re being sensitive,” Ven says, pulling Terra’s shirt off his shoulder.
“You missed a spot,” says Terra, using his thumb to smear the stain across Ven’s cheek. For shits and giggles he continues upward, rubbing raccoon circles on Ven’s eyelids. “You really pull this off.”
“Do you annoy her this much?”
“She enjoys it.”
“Ugggh.” Ven throws Terra’s hands off of him, his chin tucked in so much that two layers of neck skin fold over. “Gross.”
Terra pauses. Gross wasn’t what he expected out of Ven’s mouth. 
In fact, Terra hasn’t been sure of how Ven took the news the first time. 
Oh, Ven had said when they told him Aqua was moving into Terra’s room. Okay. Cool. He shrugged as if he could have heard more exciting news, and left to take a short walk in the woods with Chirithy. The three of them never spoke about it again. Ven wouldn’t mention a word when he saw them dragging her dresser and vanity table, and seldom joined them if he heard them laughing together with the door closed. 
Things are changing in minute strokes, in seconds that cluster for as long as Terra can recognize them, until they dissipate and become something not quite foreign but never quite familiar anymore, as though where he comes from is far from home and who he thinks he knows are almost-strangers.
“Have we ever made you uncomfortable?” Terra asks. 
“What, no!” Ven waves his hand, feigning shock, staring at his shoes and everywhere else but Terra. “I mean, Aqua’s been Aqua since we got back, and you’re just weird sometimes, but—”
“Then why do you...” Terra sighs, choosing his words. “Avoid us when we’re together?”
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
An almost-lie. “I hope you don’t think we don’t want you around.”
“Noooo. Neither of you make me feel that way.”
“But you do.”
Ven lifts his shoulders higher than his ears and drops them with the same weight as throwing books on the floor. “It’s just… nothing’s the same.”
Nothing is, what with the quiet mornings since the Master is no longer here to prepare breakfast before the sun rises, or huff at anyone when they disturb his meditation. Now they’re preparing the castle for the largest student body of Keyblade wielders it’s seen in years, something Terra thought would be a good distraction for everyone. 
But Ven’s right. Home doesn’t feel like home when the floors are re-tiled, and specific rooms are repainted, and the Master’s favorite lounge chair sits empty in the same spot in the library by the fireplace. Maybe for Ven, home is the turn right to knock on Terra’s door and the turn left to knock on Aqua’s. 
“It’s weird.” Ven grimaces. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m used to talking to you about things you promised to keep from Aqua—”
“I still wouldn’t tell her anything!”
“—and I’m used to it being the three of us.”
Terra pauses. “We’re still the three of us. We’re still best friends.”
“That’s not how it works, and you know it,” Ven says, smiling warmly. “You are one half of two. You share a language I can’t butt into.” 
Terra kneels onto one knee, brushing oily hair out of Ven’s face. Aqua would have liked this look on him: less spiky. “Ven, you’re always going to be a part of our lives.”
“Stop worrying. What you have is not a bad thing. I think it’s kind of awesome. I wish you’d give it your all in a fight. I wanna see what you and her are capable of together, because it’d be huge.”
“I’m only trying to say that we don’t want you to feel like a third wheel. You’re more than welcome to knock on our door anytime—”
“Ah. No. No thanks.” He shoos Terra away. 
“Why?”
“I don’t wanna see anything.” Ven squints.
Terra snorts. “You’re not going to see—”
“I don’t wanna hear about it either.”
“But—”
“Nope.” Ven covers his ears with his palms. “Nothing. No inside jokes. No pet names. Yuck. Keep that to yourself.”
Terra presses his lips together to zip up the snickering. “Okay, I won’t say anything.”
“Good. I don’t want any images in my head.” He wipes his hands like he’s done a good job explaining himself. “I should’ve expected it anyhow.”
“Really?” 
“Yeah,” Ven says slowly. “I mean, the Master kinda knew.”
“He said something to you?” Terra asks with a shaky voice. He’s flipping through memories, when he and Aqua were very careful and very private, when they didn't touch each other in case there were witnesses near. He was so certain he’d suffer punishment if Eraqus ever found out. Lists of long essays about the dangers of being reckless with emotions every time Aqua made him laugh too much. Grueling physical regiments to knock discipline into his body every time he made bad decisions based on a tug between his legs. 
“I didn’t understand it at the time,” Ven says, leaning back on his hands and tapping his heels on the floor. “We were all hanging out, and you and Aqua left, and then he got sad.
“When I asked him what was wrong, he told me you guys created a very bright Light together. A Light bonded is a Light stronger, he said.” Ven mimics the Master’s lilts in speech, using his finger to emphasize points. “But be aware, Ven. Such a blinding Light casts an equally blinding, deep Shadow. What a dangerous force that is.”
It’s a good imitation. The ache in Terra’s chest twists into his guts and warms him at the same time, like a loving hug that squeezes too hard.
“Honestly it made me think you and Aqua were doing something you weren’t supposed to.”
“Maybe we were.” Terra’s throat constricts, his voice gravelly and his shame nostalgic. “We thought the same sometimes.”
“Which isn’t fair. Why can normal people experience that but it’s such a big deal if Keybearers do it?”
Because when you elevate the person you admire to a standard you can’t match, it makes you do stupid things. Aqua had followed him world after world, expecting it would eventually lead to a fight. Too many Keyblades in a friendship does no one good. 
To-may-to, to-mah-to. They did end up fighting, it just wasn’t his own Keyblade that inevitably hurt her. What a dangerous force that is.
“So the Master did not approve?” Terra asks.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Ven rubs his cheek in thought, forgetting all about the ink. “He said your combined Light looked beautiful and warm. And that you’d have many nights where it would be enough when it gets hard... Honestly, he only wished that you keep your head on your shoulders.”
Wishes asked for are wishes granted, the Master used to say, so long as you work for them. The years Terra had wished for this exact approval had only left him with space to forge false hope. Nothing major, nothing long-winded. Just a simple, impossible wish as they placed the flower wreath on his memorial and bid their goodbyes. 
Finally, that wish is fulfilled. As Ven grants it to him, it’s hard to believe or accept, sitting on the floor of what used to be a ballroom, covered in drying ink. 
“Thanks, Ven.” Tears cascade down his cheeks, pretending to be inconspicuous. He wipes them with his clean forearm but he can’t keep up. There’s one for every moment in the last twelve years when he wanted to apologize to the Master, leaving his eyes burning. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop soon.”
“S’okay.” Ven tucks his ankles under, giving Terra time to process. Ven knows when a topic is too sensitive. But he can also tell when enough time has passed for the raw cuts to seal, when everyone’s ready to laugh. It’s his special gift. Only after Terra slows down does Ven lean forward. “Did you know you make this ugly face when you cry? You’re a train wreck.”
Terra yanks Ven’s head under his arm (Oomph, grunts Ven), locking his elbow around the neck.
Ven beats on Terra’s biceps. “Let go of me.”
Terra summons his pauldron, elbow pad, and gauntlet—for good measure. He licks salt from his lips and smirks, clutching Ven more, sinking him into the pecs. 
Ven coughs. “You smell horrible.”
“Nasty-horrible or heroic-horrible?”
“Do you make Aqua sniff your armpit? Let go of me.”
A poor mistake. Ven tumbles back when he’s let go, but he grabs Terra’s shirt before his head hits the floor. He punches it into Terra’s stomach so quickly that Terra isn’t allowed time to react or block, leaving a sprawled, black bruise over his abs. 
“Put a shirt on,” Ven says when Terra can’t rub it off. “Freak.”
~*~*~*~
Their bedroom door is ajar. Terra hears the shuffling of feet. He quiets his arrival, crumpling his messed-up shirt in a fist, and leans on the door frame to watch her. Aqua pulls a book out of a stack deftly with one hand, the other carrying a cheese pastry. She swallows a final bite, licking her fingers (something she’d never do in front of anybody else but him), and meditates on the chew before sitting at her desk. 
He likes her best like this: half-dressed, without her usual corset and sashes, down to nothing else except her shirt and shorts, simple and free. 
Her longest scar creeps out of her backless shirt. A snake, a reminder of the damage Keyblades are capable of: they never heal and barely fade. This is why wielders shouldn’t raise them against people. 
Gluing her attention to an open book, Aqua reaches over for more cheese pastry, but her hand meets a plate of crumbs. When she realizes, she snaps up, alert as if she��s been robbed, glancing over her shoulder for signs of movement. This is also something she would not appreciate anyone else seeing, how she’s afraid of being alone, how she’s paranoid that she’s actually not.
Terra steps in and taps her shoulder before she could ask him what happened to the pastry. “That looked delicious.” 
She blinks, slowly absorbing his words; she doesn’t feel well today, nothing to be ashamed of. Terra says nothing else. This way, he doesn’t bring more attention to the fact. He won’t touch her so she doesn’t feel coddled (despite how much he wants to). He won’t crack a dumb joke when there’s better moments for them. This way, she keeps her dignity. 
When Aqua sees the smears and handprints on him, her eyes finally find reality. “What happened to you?” She stands up and swipes the stain on his chest. It’s dry but not enough, leaving a mark of gray on her fingers. 
“An accident.” Terra clears his throat, trying to seem unbothered. Just another day in the castle. Everyone gets covered in ink, what’s the big deal?
If she hears the hesitation in his voice (and she should, she knows him too well), she doesn’t care, marching to their bathroom. The sink turns on. 
“What kind of an accident?” she calls. The water flow is disturbed. She’s washing her own hands first. 
“Eh, we spilled some ink,” Terra says, praying to the stars she won’t interrogate further. He tosses his ruined shirt into a wastebasket and opens the first dresser drawer for another. Gone are the days when Terra used to stuff his clothes into a heap; Aqua likes to fold every single article, his on one side and hers on the other. 
“What does that mean?”
“It’s fixable, I promise.” At least he hopes there’s some magic spell in some book somewhere that could lift ink out of cracks of wood.
He goes down one drawer for pants and it’s the same story. 
Down to the middle for socks and underwear, each tightly rolled. Tucked into the back of this one are two newly purchased books, their hardcovers wrapped in plain paper so that anyone peeking in couldn’t read the titles. Edited with illustrations of anatomy, they are lectures of techniques on what to try with your partner. Where to place your hands, how to play with your fingers and tongues, how to listen, when to take it slow and when to take it fast...
“Here,” Aqua says from behind him. She has a wet rag. It’s warm as she gently rubs it into his skin, across the spread of his chest. Her other hand is splayed on his hip. 
Just the thought of those books now, of slipping her out of that shirt, the stains on his stomach be damned—
“Am I going to get mad at you?”
Be damned. Terra smirks in a way to invite her to join along with him. “At both of us. But... You never stay too angry for too long so… Why worry about it?”
She pauses. “What are you rambling about?”
“Nothing.” He glances away. “It happened in the new classroom.”
She digs the rag into the groove above the diaphragm as if contemplating his vivisection. A stream of water drips over his belly button, into the hem of his pants, down the dips of his pelvis, between his inner thighs. Let her get mad. Be damned. 
“How bad is it?” Her voice is hard.
He caresses the small of her back, which is right now tense and stretched as she makes herself seem taller, like she’s about to take him on. “You’re smart. You’ll figure something out.” She opens her mouth to say something and he kisses the bottom lip. “I’ll do the dishes for three months. That’s enough atonement, right?”
Aqua clenches her teeth into a false smile, nails now leaving divots on his skin. “And the cooking.”
“Sounds fair.”
“And the gardening.”
“Now you’re pushing it.”
She continues to clean him, this time rubbing harder. It leaves his skin lightly raw. “You’re not in any position to bargain.”
“Do you expect me to beg?” 
“Then beg.”
Terra would be lying if he says he doesn’t find this side of her hot. She’s a splash of freshwater that would bring him back from the brink. The woman standing in front of him chooses to clean him despite the shower being paces away. She’s the same girl who would plant an extra candle on his birthday cakes, for the year to come. To her, maybe it meant little or nothing. Stars, she’s beautiful, and he doesn’t say it enough. 
“You’re doing better,” she says, leveling her voice, nodding to herself as if checking her information. That’s Aqua. Putting aside her annoyance for the sake of making sure he’s taken care of. “You’re not flinching as much.”
Maybe. Her touch is absolutely making the hairs on his neck stand. It is absolutely driving his dick insane. “You know, Ven’s okay with us.”
She stops. “He said something?”
“Kind of. He doesn’t want to know or see or hear anything.”
Her eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”
“He never said he actually heard anything.” He kisses her temple and lets it linger there, taking the opportunity to inhale her smell. Even when she sweats and spars for hours, there’s still a sweetness. Terra laughs into her hair. “He doesn’t want to know nicknames, either.”
Aqua flashes him a look.
“Now we have to,” says Terra. “We don’t have a choice.”
“What should we use?” Aqua moves to his abs, fighting an amused smile that’s twisting its way to her lips. 
“Terr-able.”
“That one is awful. I think Terr-bear fits you better.”
“So you admit I’m big, strong, and scary?”
“I admit you’re adorable sometimes.”
Terra purses his lips. “What about you?”
She shrugs. “Maybe Aquamarine.”
“How about Aquafina?”
“That’s worse.”
“Babe?”
“Absolutely not.”
“We could call him Ven-tilation.”
“Stop.”
He follows his instinct to lower his head so when she laughs with him, their lips meet. They kiss everyday, but the first taste of the hour is always the one to discharge his breath, like he’s been underwater and she’s giving him the chance to surface. 
“You’re going to get me dirty,” she says, giggling into his mouth.
He moves to her neck. “A little mess doesn’t hurt anybody.”
It’s when he brushes his fingers across her back, skating over the scar, coiled like rose thorns, that he hitches. Across from them is her vanity mirror. The scar is still red despite its age of twelve years. He’s so stupid. 
“This again?” she whispers. She’s not upset but disappointed, though in him or in herself, he can’t tell. Moments like these are weird, when he can’t read what she’s thinking. Working on the straps on his left arm, she pulls off his gauntlet, finger by finger. 
“I wish you would tell me,” he whispers back, as if having the conversation at a normal volume would shake them up. 
She turns his bracer to make its removal easier. “I already did.”
“I wish you would be honest with me.” He leans his chin on her head, feeling her fingers slide down his arm. 
“I am.” She flicks a knob and slips off the couter from his elbow. “You want me to tell you it was you who did this to me,” she continues, unbuckling the pauldron on his shoulder. “But it wasn’t.”
“I know better.”
“I know better.”
“It was done with my hands.”
To that she says nothing, rubbing the rag down his exposed left bicep. Ink had run under the armor. Darkness seeps in even with protection. 
She sighs. “Promise me you won’t obsess over it.”
He really shouldn’t but… he nods.
Aqua hesitates anyway. Taking him by the wrist, she presses his right hand on the rib under her left breast. “This one was his.” She warns with her eyes. “Not yours.”
Terra can’t feel anything through her shirt. He slips it under, running the pads of his fingers across the bumps and ridges. This one was his, this one with the gnarly tear right through the middle of the scar tissue, a ravine rupturing open. This one would have been done by that nameless silver Keyblade, with its sharp, ornate frills and that giant hook at the tip of it. It would have caught her skin as it tried to disconnect her body from her heart. And Terra? He’s had so much to lose and nothing to give back.
Terra holds his Aqua close as he continues to read the scar, how deep the hook sunk in, how she must have dodged back and broke that connection. 
“Did it hurt?” he asks. 
She sighs like she finds something amusing. Or trying to. She shudders, closing what little is left of the gaps between their bodies. “The Realm of Darkness numbs everything. I don’t think I felt it much.”
The view from their window looks over blossoming fields under mist, what’s left of snow capping just the mountaintops, everything else green. She’s lucky. So is he, ridiculously enough. 
“I should have done more to stop it,” he says.
“You can’t continue to say things like that.” She swallows and stares at the wall. “What about the person I’ve become? I wouldn’t be here, standing in this room, now. It changed me. The Realm of Darkness did things to me that I’ll never be able to claim back. I will never be able to remedy it. I never wanted it, but I don’t know if I deserved it.”
“You didn’t.”
“I couldn’t make mistakes, in case I got hurt. I couldn’t be vulnerable. I had to be brave.”
“You already are.” 
“And now I’m like stone.”
Terra presses his forehead to hers. “No, you’re not like stone at all.”
Aqua buries her face into his shoulder, anchoring herself to his waist. It’s so unlike her, to be unable to look him directly in the eyes. Whatever she has to say scares her. “You’re here, and I’m here. I give you my scars and you give me yours and… I don’t know if I would trade that for something else. For something that looks better on the outside. Every moment we shared since you woke up, how could I want to erase them? I need you, Terra. I have to chip away somehow. I’m braver now, to hold you like this.”
She says it like she has her chest cavity open, heart beating to open air. 
She’s brave for not crying. 
She’s brave for telling him what she can’t say right now. I’m braver now, to hold you like this. (I love you.)
He lifts her chin to kiss her. (I loved you first.) 
She drops the rag to hold his face. 
Before, their kisses were desperate, thirsty and famished, hoping to be found. Now, they’re deliberate, wandering but not lost. She tastes like sugar and flesh, her tongue inside with his, slow and careful. Their needs have more definition this time: please, and more, and yes, again. 
Terra indulges in the impulse to press her onto him. She should feel how greedy he is, her chest arched against his. She’s soft and he’s in love. 
“Where is Ven?” she says, breathless. 
“Probably showering,” he mumbles.
She waves her hand and the door slams shut. 
“I said probably,” Terra murmurs, but his mind turns off when she kisses him again. Who cares what Ven hears?
Aqua treads slower. She tempts Terra’s tongue to seek her out, puckering her lips around it and giving it a small tug. 
“Touch me, please,” he begs.
The sound of his pants unbuttoning makes his heart hammer, his entire groin anticipating for what’s next. When, when, when. Terra closes his eyes. Her hand glides down, palm first, his breath snagging when she wraps her fingers around his erection. His pants are at his ankles, Aqua is on her knees, and she presses a kiss right under the tip, where it’s most sensitive, before licking the entire length. Terra buckles. He catches the dresser behind him to keep standing. 
“Shhh,” she breathes onto him. It shoots a spark from his stomach to his scalp. 
Terra braces his teeth with his finger to shut himself up. He watches her work. She takes him in bite-size pieces, snail-tracking with her tongue before her lips close in on him. Fuck. She sucks while she pulls. Fuck. To see her like this, Master Aqua with poise, with grace, with affection and care—with him in her mouth. The hand wrapped around him squeezes tighter, and the other comes up to meet him at the testicles. 
He stifles another moan, staring at the ripples of the drywall, listening to the feathered tap of spring rain on the window and the noise she’s making. His erection twitches against the roof of her mouth, and he has to restrain himself from thrusting into her. Maybe he can let go and let be, finally throw himself off the cliff, ride the thrill all the way. Give it his all.
But he can’t. The moment gooseflesh spreads across his inner thighs, the moment he feels full, is the start. The floor will rip out from under him, the lights will go off, he will fall, he will lose all his fingers, he won’t remember anything, he’ll be the monster who makes her cry.
“I can’t,” he hisses, pushing her off. “I can’t.” He lurches over his knees, his insides twisting at the sudden cutoff, aching as it throbs and shrivels. He was so close. They were just laughing a few minutes ago. Stupid body, stupid mind. “Damn it,” he groans, pounding the dresser.
“Hey, you’re okay,” she says softly, holding him by the elbow. “You’re safe at home.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” He digs his eyes into his palm, his body faraway like it’s a glass vial with his soul dumped inside. “Help me.”
Without letting him go, Aqua braces him with something cold—the rag, now on his lower back. It slaps him back to the bedroom, his beige carpet, the mist outside clearing out to a view of a forest that separates the castle from the mountains. 
She greets him with a smile. “You really did something to yourself,” she says, cleaning him like it’s a lazy weekend day and there’s a list of chores. 
Terra straightens up, shivers riding all the way up to his shoulders. “It’s so frustrating.”
“Don’t worry, Terra,” she says, softer and lower. “There’s no need to rush. I’ll wait.”
“But I’m tired of feeling caged up and stuck. I just want some semblance of control.” 
Aqua kisses him on the shoulder to shoo away the haunting for a few seconds. “I’m here, anytime you need me. Would you like me to run you a bath?”
“No.” The rag is likely caked with ink, but its iciness is unlike the chill of clammy sweat a few seconds old. Every frigid touch is a reminder that he’s alive. “This is nice.”
Aqua runs the rag up his spine. “You know what I think? If we’re going to call each other pet names in front of Ven, we should have guests over.”
Terra snorts. “That’s evil.”
“He won’t be able to bark at us in front of other people.”
“I think I’m a bad influence on you.”
“I think you’re right.”
Terra sighs at her touch, cold at his neck, at his hairline. Like a light at the front porch in the dead of night, like hot tea on a sick day, she is what it feels like to come home.
She tells him, “Lean your head back a little,” and he obliges, letting her reach behind his ears. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips swollen, her hair frizzy, eyes blue and focused as she takes care of him. 
“I can still kiss you, right?” 
“You don’t have to ask.”
Tilting his chin down, he does. He braids his fingers into hers; from the rag they’re like icicles, and he brings them to his heart. 
They’re barely millimeters apart, but he’s still in that cage. If only he could be touched the way he needs. If only the lock trapping him inside the cage is brittle and easy to crumble. What if he tries to test it? What if he finds there is nothing at all? Stupid mind. What if there are several, each of them needing unique keys when he has none, no hope of ever knowing what real freedom is? Stupid body. 
Should he pretend? Should he try over and over, to slam his head against the bars each time? Should he submit, should he accept he will never have what he wants? 
Life has made him uneager to trust. But her lips have a deliciousness unmatched by anything he’s ever tasted, and he’s still a silly, stupid man.
“Let me try again,” he says, breathing deeply. “I want to make you feel good.”
She’s surprised. “Only if you’re comfortable.”
“It will make me feel better.”
“...Okay,” she says so modestly. Terra never figured out how to knock it into her head that he wants to give her everything, that he is so, so guilty.
He invites her into an embrace, growing desperate the more he detaches his mind. Her body, the curve from her waist to her hips. The brush of her body against his reminds him that while he is naked, she is not. He picks her up by the thighs. Lost in the momentum of deep kisses, he carries her to bed, straddling her on his lap.
She hums. “The… the sheets.”
Dry, messy layers of ink still track down his legs. He groans into her mouth. She’s grinding him, and while he really likes that, it makes it incredibly difficult to take her clothes off, one hand rising the hem of her shirt and the other deep under her shorts, cupping her ass. 
“Whatever, we can wash them later,” she says, lifting her arms up. 
Her bare breasts—stars, this is what it feels like to come home. 
“Kiss me,” she says, and he replies, nibbling down her neck, coming down to her breasts, where his lips and his tongue and his murmurs take in her nipples as they perk. Aqua stays quiet, leaning onto his shoulders. 
There’s something about her amazing body, the silk of skin draped over defined muscle, treasure and tenderness in his hands, that he’s needy for. Every time he tries to define what that means, his mind ceases to function. 
Xehanort tried to take it all away from him. If he lived, Terra would crush every tooth bloody. Damn him.
How dare Xehanort do this to him, lock him in this cage, keep him away from her? Damn him.
Why is he thinking about Xehanort?
“Are you okay?”
Terra is frozen, the nub of a nipple suctioned in his mouth. Oh, for fuck’s sake.
He lets her breast go with a pop. “I’m redirecting.” Leading her to the mattress, Terra lowers himself into her arms, but he’s halted by a light kiss and a hold of his face.
“Do you need me to check in on you?” she asks.
“No.” He smiles, kissing her with all the hope that she psychically understands his body is about to burst open, if only from the lack of space for the appreciation he keeps nurturing for her. “Thank you, but I’m okay.”
She nods, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. “You take your time.”
Oh, he will. No more interruptions. Focus on the smell of her skin, on the collarbone at the base of her neck. Right here, it makes her bite her lip. On the hollow between her breasts, the sound of her breath getting heavy. On the slight movement of her legs as she instinctively responds, spreading them, hooking around his. The buoyancy of her breasts in his mouth. The way she arches to push them against his face. 
Under that left breast is the scar, tightly knitted.
The purpose for living is for memories, not reminders. Do not linger. Do not think about the cage. Terra lightly kisses it and continues downward. 
Terra’s fingers glide down, a caress at the hips, a squeeze of her ass, running a mile of goosebumps as he bunches her shorts and panties and pulls them off. Her skin is streaked with fingerprints of gray, at most of the places he’s been. Aqua shivers as his lips brush the sides of her waist, as he traces his tongue and inhales the dips of her pelvis, as he loops his arms under her thighs, as he kisses her between the legs. She gasps. He licks from bottom to top, sucking on the clitoris once, then starts over.
Footsteps walk by outside their bedroom door.
Aqua jerks up. “Terra,” she whispers, warning him.
“Hm?” Stars, what now? “Here.” He grabs the comforter and throws it over her head. She chuckles as she wraps both of them in hiding. “Relax,” he whispers back. “He’s not going to hear anything.” Not that Ven opts to stay; his footsteps are already fading away.
He goes back to work, and hears her sigh—it’s loud enough to make him look up but too hushed to escape the sheets. Bottom to top. Again. Again. She cloaks the sound of her moans with the comforter plastered on her face. 
It’s her taste. It’s the softness and suppleness of the skin between her legs. The way she fastens her knees over his shoulders, how wet she is. Her reaction. When he tongues the inside of her slit, she jerks, chewing her lip hard enough to make it white. Master Aqua, with poise and grace, for her there’s only love and the way his tongue curls up. 
Her fist crumples the sheet—it holds her own breast, caresses her stomach down to rake through his hair and hold him there. 
“Don’t stop,” she breathes.
Stars, that did it. He’s hard again. He drapes his arms over her pelvis, using his fingers to open her up so he has more access to her clit. She bucks, and he holds her down. 
Her entire body trembles: the first sign that she’s running off her own edge. 
Terra strokes her, the outside lips, the tease inside, the puckering motions. She’s a sweet, musky taste he can’t compare to anything else.
Aqua throws herself back on the pillow. Her thighs crush his head, and she clamps her hand on her mouth like a topper. Her mewl shudders and stops, it heaves, it mumbles. The wave rises then crashes, and she finishes with a long sigh, a release, a settlement, a tempered peace.
It feels so good to listen to her. Terra rests his head on her hip and brings a hand to his erection. A little bit of freedom paid with a little bit of control. 
“I’m ready,” he says. “I need you.”
She hums in contentment, fixing the comforter so they’re completely covered and opening her arms to him. “Come here.”
Terra crawls over her, bracketing her body like he’s a fort, tethering her fingers to his and cradling her head in a protective halo with his arms. Aqua has to spread her legs wide to take on his thick waist, and she breaks her kisses with whimpers when he enters—she’s always more sensitive after he goes down on her. 
She’s warm and tight, oh stars. Massaging him as he moves inside her. Their bodies compress into each other, hers curled up to mold against the way he rocks his hips, as though the subtle air between would have split them up too far, as though he can melt into her when he pushes, their hearts only separated by muscle and bone. He plants a messy kiss on her cheek, exhaling and inhaling in rhythms opposite of hers, her breath loud against his ear, tickling his neck.
Here it comes again, the oncoming of the precipice where he has to step off. 
Fuck.
He can’t do it.
At the sprint towards the edge of the cliff, he skids and scrambles to hang by the rockface. Terra grunts, all his muscles seizing up as he holds his breath.
Aqua strokes his hair. “Do you want to stop?”
Of course not. “Give me a minute.”
“Remember, you’re safe.”
Terra nearly chokes. “I’m scared of losing control.”
“You won’t. You’re in control.”
In control. The intent to wring his fingers through the bars, a sleight of hand to balance the padlock like it’s on strings, turning it over and pulling it out of the latch. But Terra is no escape artist. 
Terra licks his lips. He’s not in danger. He should trust she’ll catch him when he falls. In her arms, there’s no safer place to be. He has to remember this. Shut that mind up.
“I want to continue.” 
She rubs his back. It’s soothing. “Tell me what you need.”
Terra smirks. “To get back in the mood.” He takes one deep kiss. “Entice me.”
Her insides squeeze him and he trembles. “How is that?” she asks.
“Do it again.”
She wraps her ankles over his back and squeezes. He hums into her shoulder. 
“Again.”
This time, she takes back her kiss.
“Don’t let me go,” he says, and she hugs him tightly. 
He starts slow. Terra leans on his elbows, bunching the comforter in his fist so it stays in place. She looks at him with half-lidded eyes, a healthy red blush, her mouth gently open, cast in the filtered glow of a secret, sweaty cocoon. This body he’s thrusting into, the lips he’s kissing, may the stars bless her. 
“Aqua.”
“You feel so good.”
She stole the words right out of his mouth, squeezing his hips again. 
“Oh,” he moans. It provokes him to thrust harder, deeper, feel her, feel her breasts bouncing under him, feel her moans coming from her throat, the desperation in the way she squirms with her hands. She massages his slick back, her nails digging in.
There. 
Let him throw himself off. Give it his all.
“Don’t let me go,” he repeats.
“I won’t.”
He throws himself off. It’s not the wind thrashing him all the way down. Instead it’s fire, a combustion of flames in his muscles as his entire body submits to its force, leaving his knees weak. A flash of white that blurs everything he sees, a hurricane that knocks his mind into a stupor, a delicious burn that slicks over his body, trickling embers on top of sweat, hot and cool, good and better, good and fucking good. Terra shoves his face into her shoulder to muffle the sounds of groans escaping him, shuddering as the climax picks up again, a body alight in an ignition that throws him out of any awareness. 
His eyes prick when he finally remembers where he is. Aqua is safeguarding him with a strong hold, keeping him in place with her. He sighs. The cinders that continue to radiate heat leave him with a hearth to wrap himself into, a happiness that he never thought he would ever feel again.
Aqua sniffs. She wipes tears onto his shoulder.
“We really should stop crying at these things,” he says.
She snorts, refusing to let her grip on him slack. “You did amazing. How are you feeling?”
“I’m…” he mumbles. Stars, wow. His arms can’t pick him up anymore but it’s a gratifying cloud to ride. He shifts his legs, alleviating the weight of his body. “A little weak.” 
She runs a hand on the back of his head, coaxing him to rest on her chest. “When did you know?” she asks, brushing hair off his damp forehead. “That you wanted to kiss me? You must have spent some time thinking about it before it happened.”
Terra smiles into her chest. Somehow, they’ve never talked about it. “Long after I knew I was going to marry you.”
He feels her laugh. “Is that so? I’m going to marry you?”
“You will.” He looks up at her grinning face. “I can see the future.”
She scoffs. “You can see my eyes rolling at you.”
“I knew before you did.”
“Prove it.”
“I was seven.”
“You’re older than me, that doesn’t count.”
“You asked me to have a tea party with you, but the one thing that bothered you most”—he brings up his hand, pinky out—“was that I wasn’t drinking my tea right.” He mimics the high pitch of a little girl’s voice. “Pinky out. Pinky out, Terra, don’t be a slob.”
She gapes. “I don’t remember any of that.”
With renewed will, he props himself up, leaning close so their noses touch. “I knew then. That early on.”
“Since when is this a competition?”
“Still the first to know.”
Aqua interrupts what she’s about to say, like she’s about to step into cold water. She’s having an epiphany. Vulnerable again, like she’s allowing him to cut her right down the middle. 
“I love you.”
She says it like the touch of a high note on a piano, a beautiful accident. 
He leans closer, lips to lips, whispering, “I still got there first.” 
She laughs into him. “I suppose, but I was the first to say it.”
“Then I’ll be the second,” Terra says. Like coming home, a shelter to withstand the downpour, that births life to the roots, that thunders, that opens for a clear day, he brushes her hair out of her eyes. “I love you.”
“Too,” she corrects. “You love me, too.” 
A knock on their door jolts them, like a hard punch to the stomach.
“Okay, Terra,” Ven says from the other side. “I thought about it and I’m trying out this knocking thing.”
Wrong timing. Wrong timing.
“I’m going to kill him,” Terra hisses, and against Aqua’s hushed chuckles, he throws the comforter off their bodies and announces, “Ven, we’re naked.”
The silence that comes after is as loud as the crash of a chandelier. Terra can feel Ven recoil, a tea pot at the verge of whistling. “I didn’t need to know that!” Terra is about to reply but Ven groans dramatically. “I AM NEVER GOING TO KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR AGAIN.”
Ven stomps away, and if the door was actually open, he’d slam it. 
Terra sits on his knees, pinching his nose. It’s hot in this room. He feels clogged again, back at the edge of the cliff. He wants to strangle Ven for dragging the moment away from him. “Great, I pissed him off.”
“Poor Ven.” When she sits up, Terra pulls her to him, sitting her on one of his thighs. “I can’t predict if he’ll ever get over that,” she says, balancing herself by hooking her arms around his neck. 
Terra presses his lips to her ear, whispering, “But I did predict that you wouldn’t stay mad at me for long.”
She slaps his bicep. “I haven’t seen what you’ve done yet. Don’t be so proud of yourself.”
“But I am.”
“You’re still a slob.”
Slobby as he is, Aqua hugs him dearly. Hold her, you never know when the dream will end. You never know when the cage takes you back.
“I don’t know if,” Terra says, “it will be difficult for me next time.”
“Then it may be difficult,” Aqua says, kissing his forehead. “But it will be okay.”
Hold her. Not passively. Not half-minded. Hold her tightly. Hold her in the quiet, undisturbed, uninterrupted.
A drop of hot liquid spills from between her legs and drips down his thigh, almost burning. When Terra looks down to see that it’s white, Aqua jumps.
“Oh,” she squeaks.
“Oh. That would be me.”
She squeals, hiding her blush. “I’m going to wash up.” 
“Such a slob.”
Aqua giggles, looking him in the eye when she rubs his chest. “Come with me?”
“Go ahead.” He kisses her. “I’ll catch up.”
If anyone told him twelve years ago that hope feels like a long day full of small conversations, the anticipation of cleaning a messy room, Terra would have considered that cynical. A sarcastic joke, the loss of the will to dream. 
Twelve years later, it’s the sound of the shower running that teaches him to look forward to the next day, when he wakes up next to her, when he prepares dinner with her, when he kisses her in the middle of the night and play all over again. Peace is a long-distance acquaintance, a pen pal that urges you to look at your day like a spectacle.
Terra leans back to twist the latch of the window open, letting the spring haze billow in. Much better, the room is cooler now. The sky is bluer somehow, the mountains as grand as a painting.
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hey! i love ur blog and i couldn’t resist requesting something. so i was thinking that if the reader was from medieval times where they have magic, wizards, knights, mages, and stuff like that. so 1 A was hit by a quirk that brought them to that dimension. and the reader is like god level with the amount of power they have even though their the same age as class 1 A. and they help the class survive or sum like that after like knights attach them cause sum of them look weird. can u use they/them.
It's just the main three boys if that's alright :( I can do hcs with the entire class if that's more of what u had in mind! Just leave another ask,,, sorry about that 😅 
Warnings : swear words 
Words : 1.2k 
You were bored. 
Perhaps that was the understatement of the century, but an otherwordly being like you had ceased to find interest in the small confines that was your world. The never ending weeks of wasting your life on your temple throne, perched upon a royal gold seat and listening to prayer’s wishes were certainly tiring you out. The ordinary wished for happiness, for their crops to yield well or for them to find true love, the king would wish for power, luxuries. And through your judgement, you would grant some of these wishes, crafting an empire like soft clay in your hands, a game to a child. Yet even with your godly powers, you could not seem to satisfy your boredom. 
Today you watched idly as a mage stepped into the light of the temple's wishing grounds. You sat high above the clouds, listening to their talk of discovering a new spell, hidden from the mere mortal's eyes. Sure many of mankind had laid eyes on you before, however sometimes you preferred to keep away from the prying eyes. After all, you were far far superior than them - one of their creators, in a sense. Your messenger would speak to your creations when you chose to observe from afar, teaching them of your presence with fables and songs. It had only been seventeen years since you were first introduced into the world, born from ashes through their beliefs, and yet you were already one of the most respected gods.
~~~ 
The villain's quirk was truely terrifying. One would only be a fool to engage in battle with someone who's quirk they did not understand. The first year class of UA learnt this the hard way when the warp gate villain's quirk had transported them to an entirely different location. Different time period perhaps. Todoroki had picked up on this as he gazed over what was once the medival Japan. 
"Um guys." Midoriya called out. 
"Where are we?" 
"Do we look like we fucking know Deku?" the blonde shouted, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he marched around the alley, coming to an abrupt halt when his eyes met a busy marketplace. 
The streets were lined with broken stone, small tent like structure of straw and wood littered the area as people bustled in and out of them, each carrying a basket. The air was a brown hue from the sand that had been kicked up, the shouts of stall owners filling the air as exchanges of good and money illustrated the market place. 
"This isn't modern Japan." Todoroki stated, looking out at the same scene. He stepped out into the street, sticking to the shadows and the other two followed, survaying their surroundings in case of an villains. His ears perked up as he realised the people spoke in a different language altogether. "This might not even be Japan." 
"U-uh what?" Midoriya stuttered, close to tears as he frantically looked around. "What do we do? Where are the others? How do we get back? Is all might okay?" 
"For god's sake, shut up." Bakugou scowled. His dismissal was perhaps due to an inkling of fear that had burrowed it's way into his heart. He had utterly no idea where they were and no one could help him. Alas, his pride would never allow him to voice out his concerns and so he followed in silence, a dull glare permenantly etched onto his face. 
~~~ 
"Shit." 
"Yeah we are in some pretty deep shit." 
"Why the fuck are they treating us like the villains here?" Bakugou shouted, running down the cobbled street as men on horse back clothed in sheets of metal chased after them, swords and spears in hands. 
"Over here." Todoroki called out, pulling the two behind a row of neatly trimmed bushes and running further into the garden. 
"Hurry up and find them!" they heard one of the men shout in the background. 
"Ah!" Midoriya screamed, tripping over and landing directly into a small pond. He desperately scrambled to his feet, eyes glancing over the fish that he may have crushed in his fall. 
A small laugh rang out from the distance, the boys all swiftly turning their heads towards an approaching figure emerging from behind the trees. "That was rather humorous if I am permitted to say so." you chuckled, running a hand through your locks and your eyes darted over the three strangers. "And you are...?" 
“There they are!" the voice bellowed, the sounds of hooves drawing closer as the boys turns to run. 
"Gentlemen!" you proclaimed, your voice ringing sharp through the air, ceasing all movement. The horses had stopped right in their tracks and even the teen's feet were frozen to the ground. 
"Y-your highness!" one of them stuttered, jumping off his horse to bow down on one leg, the other guards following suit. 
"May I ask if you know these men?" You tapped your chin slightly, cocking your head to the side as you studied them. 
"They are my guests." 
"H-huh?" 
"I see your highness, please forgive us for chasing them however they were spotted-" 
You waved your hand to stop the guard from speaking. "No worries." you beamed. "Please excuse their unsightly behaviour." 
"Unsightly? You bitch-"
"Bakugou please stop." Todoroki sighed. "They're helping us."
"I am a fucking god and I just got sworn at." you muttered softly, turning your head to the side as you brought up your hand to your mouth, faking a sob. Your pity party was cut short when you heard your messenger, Hermes calling for you.
"Y/N!" they flew over, sighing as they landed on the grass. "You cannot just leave your duties like that." they scolded you, recieving a pout in return.
"But it's so boring there." you whined, scrunching your face up at the thought of another day wasted. "I'm growing old Hermes and I don't want to be cooped up in that damn seat for hours on end."
"Old my ass." the blonde snorted, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms, sending you a glare. "You look the same age as us."
"How are we able to understand you?" Todoroki suddenly asked, registering that the language you spoke was not Japanese, and yet he was here having a conversation with you.
"Hmm I wonder. Maybe I’ll tell you later." you replied, feigning curiosity before turning back to the guards.
"These gentlemen will be staying with me."
"Y/N you can't-" 
“Your highness-" Hermes and the head guard began.
"Silence." you demanded, the air once again growing cold and still. "How dare you speak back to me."
You watched as the colour drained from their faces, the guard's lip trembling with fear before breaking out into laughter. "Just kidding!" you said, sticking you tongue out before turning on your heels. "What possible harm could dear ol' me do?" 
“A remarkable amount." Hermes sighed. "Your highness do you remember that one time you flooded the halls of the gods-"
"Hermes shh!" you gasped, running over and throwing a hand over his mouth. "Not in front of the guests."
"Those guests are leaving."
"B-but." you pleaded, sticking your lip out in a pout. "Look how good looking they are."
"Y/N."
"No." you huffed, skipping over to the dual haired boy and throwing your arm around his. "Well would you like to come with me?"
"Why would we go with a brat?" A sudden object flew past, you reaching out your arm to form a barricade of air, the spear stopping just centimeters from the blonde's neck.
"What the fuck? Why are you trying to kill me you dipshit."
"You know what." you sighed.
"I'm leaving him behind. You can have him Hermes." 
"Your highness, I do not want him."
"Tough." you snickered, dragging the other two back to your temple.
~~~
"Todoroki Shouto." you echoed, looking at the boy seated opposite you upon one of your grand pearl quilted couches. "That's cute."
"Thank you your highness." he replied with a small smile.
"Oh my god." you waved, your face tinted a slight red. "There's no need for such formalities! Just think of me as an average civilain."
"But-" "Shh." you hushed before turning to the blonde. "Midoriya?"
"Y-yes?" he jumped, a small squeak to his voice. "There's no need to be on edge." you reassured.
"You're perfectly safe here. Well apart from that thing." You nodded your head towards the boy chained up to one of the grand marbel pillars, a muzzle clasped against his face, his angry shouts filling the hall now that attention was back on him. Honestly, it was hilarious that Hermes had resorted to this.
Midoriya picked up another grape, before adding, "Yeah, that's Kacchan, he's like that most of the time."
"Well, it's about time I get back to work." you sighed as you heard the clocks chyme the fifth hour of the evening, stretching your arms above your head.
"May we observe?" Todoroki perked up, turning his attention away from the fuming Bakugou.
"I mean sure, I don't know why you'd want to though since it's really boring."
"I'm sure it's amazing!" Midoriya rebutted, a large smile on his face now.
You clutched your chest at his adorablness. Maybe they could stay for a while.
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smuckersblr · 3 years
Text
Clueless Part 1
Peter tapped his freshly manicured french nails on the marbled countertop. Italian music was softly playing on the stereo near the fridge, the TV in the living room across from where he stood was playing the muted news. Another attack in Manhattan taken care of by the red robot that everyone is calling IronMan.
Peter huffed and looked over the dieted food for his dad he had just packed for his lunch, and waited for the coffee to be done pouring. “Daddy! Hurry up you’re gonna be late for your meeting!” Peter’s dad, Tony Stark, was a world-renowned businessman/engineer.
And Peter was his ‘infamous child prodigy’, is what Dr.Strange, his dad’s close friend, likes to call him. Peter was the popular kid at school, the one who knew how to dress amazingly enough to be on the cover of ELLE with his famous everyday outfits, the kid that had all A’s and was on the honor roll each year and won many science conventions first place awards; and yet he was still known to be the most liked and admired at school.
Peter bit his glossed lips while examining his manicure, thinking about the dinner tonight that he had to go to with his dad, something about ‘linking up with old friends. Tony came into the room through the arch and was fixing his tie while looking at his watch.
“Pete don’t tell me you made that crap diet food for me today, I’m gonna have a long day of meetings and a burger already sounds amazing for lunch.” Peter scrunched up his freckled nose in distaste at the grease patty his father called heaven.
Peter poured his dad's coffee in a stainless steel coffee cup. “Daddy you know Dr. Strange said that it’s the best way to help if you want to live past fifty.” Tony rolled his eyes and took the packed food and coffee cup anyways. “So now you're going to listen to whatever that man tells you?” Peter pecked his dad’s cheek, rubbing away the gloss smudge with his thumb with a fond smile.
“I’m gonna listen to any man with a Bachelor's degree daddy.” His dad smiled fondly and hugged his son. “That’s my boy.” And before Tony left through the archway to the foyer he turned around and looked Peter up and down.
“You and the girls plan something for after school? Because you know we’re going out tonight kid.” Peter looked down over his clothes for the day. A Versace dual print button-up that reached down midthigh with white shorts. And a white Gucci belt to cinch his waist to show his figure and his white leather Prada pumps with his Speedy Bandouliere 25 to tie everything together.
“We’re matching today and it was Nat’s turn to pick the designer, and I know dad all you’ve been talking about is this dinner.” Tony hummed and sipped his coffee, rolling his eyes at his son’s attitude but, never-the-less hugged Peter and both walked out to the front of their round-about cobbled driveway and both went into their respectable vehicles.
----------
Once Peter rolled up to Natasha’s giant house with the same green patch of luscious grass and beautifully cut bushes around the property with giant gates at the entrance, Peter honked twice, and while waiting he checked himself out in his bedazzled hand mirror.
His curls for the day were in wet-styled auburn curls and his eyes were glossed with a wet shine and blush blended perfectly into his tan skin from his dad’s last business trip in Mexico. Peter smiled at the enchanting memory of mimosas being handed to him on the beach with the sound of waves crashing in the background and oiled pure white skin under the blazing sun and the sound of beautiful Latino music playing at the beach’s bar behind him.
Peter remembered the dream-like Hispanic men lounging around him in swimming shorts and glorious brown skin and bright white smiles. His dad finally enjoyed his time without work or stress at the bar, smiling and laughing with beautiful Latina women.
Peter snapped out of his loving memory when Natasha jumped in the front seat of his white topless jeep.
“Hey Pete, hurry so we can get to Shuri’s house, I don’t want to hear her complain about being late to class.” She rolled her eyes lovingly and looked at herself through the front seat mirror and pushed up her curls.
He snorted at Nat's teasing and pulled away from the curb. “You know that outfit will catch Steve’s eye right?” She looked me up and down with a devilish smirk on her red painted lips, Peter always did admire how she pulled off red so damn well.
Peter looked over at her once they hit a red light. “Every outfit I wear catches that man’s eye, Nat.” Then another burst of laughter came out from both of them.
Once Peter pulled up to Shuri’s house, he already knew she was gonna give them hell for the time.
Peter absentmindedly looked at the time on the jeep, only ten minutes ‘till the bell rings, they’ve got plenty of time. Shuri came in the car with a flourish of the door slamming shut and a huff that came from her lips. While Peter was pulling away from the curb he looked in the rearview mirror and smiled at Shuri.
“What’s got you in a fit S?” Shuri flung a strand of her box braid behind her shoulder in annoyance and sulked in the back with her Prada handbag clutched in her lap. “T’Challa was actin’ lame this mornin’, only because I asked him why he was acting out last night with his friends,” And once Shuri started talking about her brother, both Natasha and Peter tuned in, even when they arrived in the school’s parking lot, the deets on T was always juicy.
“Get this guys I overheard T talkin’ about you Pete and how he’s surprised your daddy hasn’t sent you to a catholic school already because he and his friends think you're easy, then somehow that turned into a convo on how he would totally--and I quote--"Tap that ass".” She said this conversationally while all three of them were walking towards the school with their heels clicking and bags in hand.
Peter gawked and Nat let out a snort. “Okay, but doesn’t he know that Pete is a total virgin?” Nat brought up while Peter was minutely speechless for the first time in forever and then he snapped back to life. “What a skeeze.'' Both girls nodded in resolution and then they split for class once they got into the school’s hallway.
———
At lunch Peter walked to his and the girls' table in the middle of the outside cafeteria with a lime popsicle in one dainty hand, sucking the tip of the icy treat while soaking in the glances he got from his peers. Peter sat with a flourish and waved at the girls in greeting.
“Pete whatcha doing tonight I wanna see if you could go shopping with us.” Wanda leaned forward with her chewing gum on one finger while she chewed on her apple slices.
Peter pouted, “Sorry Wand, I got this dinner thing with my dad and his friends tonight.” Wanda gave a humph and hunched her shoulders. “You know I find it weird how Pete’s dad is an actual DILF and his friends are just as fine.” Shuri brought up, which got the girls around the table nodding in agreement. Peter rolled his eyes and flipped Shuri off when she broke out laughing.
Lunch had just begun but usually, Steve would be right next to Peter with his macchiato in hand. “Looking for your boy toy?” Shuri swirled a baby carrot in the dollop of the ranch she only treated herself to once a month.
Peter grimaced and shook his head indifferently, sucking the treat back into his mouth with an eye roll from his friend's laughter. Peter knew that Steve had it for him and was at his beck and call even if he acted like he was just doing it to be nice.
Peter rarely felt guilty for using his crush to his advantage but he also explicitly told Steve that he wasn’t looking to date anyone. Besides his father would go ballistic on him, he distinctly told him he wasn’t allowed to date anyone, and I quote, ‘until you find a guy who has his own business that I can buy and make sure that I have control over him’.
Peter was drawn out of his thoughts when he realized there was a shadow cast over him. Peter turned and titled his head up, there standing was his saving grace in the hands of his best friend. “One almond milk macchiato with no foam and two shots of espresso for my very beautiful best friend, Peter Stark.”
Sam by Steve’s side made a face and looked at Steve hurt, “I thought I was your beautiful best friend.” Steve ignored him though and smiled beamingly at Peter’s plucked arched eyebrow. “You gonna give me it or are you also my handler.” Nat by his side snorted and shook her head. “Not until you look at my outfit Stark.” Peter rolled his eyes with an apathetic air to him.
Peter didn’t like playing Steve’s silly games, but he still wanted his coffee and he wanted it now. So he let his eyes roam up and down Steve’s body. A Classic Damier Pique polo and nice fitted dusty blue slacks. He wore a smirk on those lips every female seemed to love and his blonde hair was slicked back with a pair of black Gucci sunglasses on his head.
Peter furrowed his brows and glared at Natasha who was pointedly not catching his eyes. “Did Nat tell you we were matching with Louis today?”
“Just took a wild guess, cuz I know she knows what I like on you.” Peter rolled his eyes and feigned a vexed look. “You know I told you I can't have you flirting with me Stevie, I'm not allowed to date.” Steve shrugged his shoulders and handed over Peter’s drink.
“You know you can't keep me away from you, doll.” Sam scoffed next to him and shook his head, walking away from the situation and heading towards the benches where their friends stood.
“You better follow your only source of affection before he decides to not hold your hand anymore when your feelings get hurt.” Peter waved his hand in a dismissive way and turned back to the table.
Steve shook his head, even though Peter wasn’t paying any more attention to him. Sometimes Steve wishes he could just smack the sense into Peter that he would do anything to be with him. Maybe instead of a smack, it’d be a kiss.
----------
At Eleven Madison Park, Peter dined with his father, Rhodey, and Dr. Banner. The bright smiles and charisma felt like second nature to Peter, he was taught great mannerisms by his Nonna and Nonno when he used to stay at their condo in Malibu while his dad was out on business trips.
“Listen, all I'm saying Tony, is that Pete has the credentials to be a part of my branch.” Bruce held his hands up in surrender. Peter sipped the glass of champagne idly, pretending that he wasn’t the face of this conversation.
“Oh trust me, I know my genius son has the credentials to be a part of any big business. But I rather him not work for anyone,” Tony cut a piece of steak with vigor and popped it in his mouth.
“Besides he’s too much like me, he wouldn’t listen to you Bruce, he likes challenges.” Bruce laughed and shook his head, looking over at Peter with a smile.
“The kids gotta start somewhere Tones.” Rhodey pointed out with a raised brow, his eyes going over to Peter where he was cutting a sliver from his seasoned lamb. “Jeez, Rhodes you say it like my son can’t start out big.” Tony lifted his wine glass to his lips with a stubborn glint to his eyes, he always did get protective of his son.
“I never said that-” Rhodey was cut off by a phone's ringtone chiming. Tony grunted and pulled out his stark phone with an annoyed air to him. Rhodey looked over to Peter and gave a pleading look, “I never said that Pete.” Peter laughed under his breath and lifted his champagne flute towards Rhodey in a tribute to his faith in the man. “I know Rhodey.”
Rhodey smiled and saluted his glass back, sipping his white wine and looking over at Bruce trying to not grimace at his meal. “Whoever thought to themselves that, “oh yes lamb's tongue sounds like a great meal to serve” should be in prison.” that got Peter smiling wider and knocked the toe of his heel to Bruce’s shin lightly, playfully.
The rest of the dinner was spent with laughs and more teasing, but soon rolled into business talk like it usually trickled into with every event they go to. But before his dad started going on one of his rants on his current projects, Dr. Banner quickly set his wine glass down from lifting to his mouth and hurriedly said: “Maybe we shouldn’t get into details while Peter is still here?”. The words make Peter stop mid-bite and look up from his plate to see the shifty eyes of one Dr. Banner and Tony Stark. Rhodey seemed just as confused and paused in his own autopilot of taking a sip from his tumbler. But before Peter could try and butt in and demand a reason, the waiter came by and asked if they would like any dessert, to which Peter got distracted by his father shoving a menu of the small assortment of desserts the restaurant served. Tony knew his son had a thing for sweets and got lost in his own world easily once he focused on something else. One point to daddy Stark and zero to the poor spawn of the billionaire.
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Text
If its meant to be
Tom x reader ; Josh x reader (in the end)
Summary: Okay so i've written this so many times but i am going to mix joshua bassett in this. So Josh plays Harley in Spider Man far from home as your love interest who is Tony's daughter, Amelia. Tom feels weird that you didn't tell him about Josh and you get in a fight and take a break, but you both found someone else and saw you weren't meant to be.
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a/n: i wrote this in like 30 minutes so it might be trash. Haha feedback is always appreciated! Love you all!
“So we do have a couple announcements for some characters.” Jon said as you were all in suspense but you and Tom knew what was going on, your characters were getting love interests, and this made you nervous. I mean you haven't been with anyone else besides Tom so having Amelia get a love interest scared you. You didn't want this to affect yours and Tom’s secret relationship.
“Peter and Amelia are getting love interests, Peter with MJ and Amelia with Harley.” Jon said as you looked at him with a questioning look.
“What do you mean by Harley? There is no one playing Harley.” you said with a giggle as Jon coughed adding to the confusion.
“Well that's the other announcement we are adding on to our cast, with….” he said doing a drumroll and Josh walked out with jazz hands as you were in shock seeing your long time bestfriend.
“No way Josh!?” you said as you two were greeting each other with a hug. You hadn't seen him since ever, he had introduced himself to everyone as everyone was happy to see the new addition to the cast. Everyone besides Tom though, he was protective of you because you two hadn't really officially told people you are dating and well you hadn't talked about Josh to Tom.
After this meeting you, Tom, Z,  Josh and Jon needed to be in another meeting to talk about the love interests.
“So I know this is new to all of you, but I would like for you guys to spend time together, you know to get the chemistry going for the characters, this is required and I know beef has been on about Tom and Z, but I want you to be comfortable when we start filming and I know you are all good friends.'' Jon said as you all nodded. You and Tom knew this was needed especially when a new castmate and love interests were introduced.You had gone back to your room as you heard a knock and saw Tom standing outside as you opened the door.
“Hey, is everything okay?” you asked as he coughed which you knew was a bad thing so you let him in wondering what was upsetting him this time, you had hoped the talk you had the night before would be reassuring enough.
“I-uh, wanted to know if this is going to affect us?” he said with his worried eyes as you half smiled.
“Tom it shouldn't, me and Josh have been friends for years and i'm sorry for not mentioning him, and I trust you with Z, so you should be able to trust me.” you said as he stood silent which altered your mood knowing what this meant.
“But you don’t.” you added as you continued to pack up your stuff to get to your shared room with Josh, Jon wanted you guys to be roommates with your love interest, which wasn't bad, you knew nothing would go on with Josh and vice versa.
“It's not that I don't,” he said as you cut him off quite angrily.
“Then what? Look Tom, I'm not going to cheat on you, he's my best friend, and yeah he's a guy, but you and Z are so close too.” you said as he sighed knowing that you were right, but he just felt uncomfortable. You trusted him, you and Z were very close too, so there was no weird feeling.
“I know, but we haven't really officially announced our relationship and I want to.” he said, placing his hands on yours as you frowned.
“No Tom, the only reason you want to is because Josh is my love interest, I'm not doing it because you're jealous.” you said as he scoffed.
“Please you’re  jealous of Z all the time.” he said as you were left in shock. You were insecure, but it was one time and he had reassured you and you believed him and you trusted him
“You can’t bring up that one time I was insecure, I was reassured, and I grew to trust you.” you said leaving the room. Not wanting to continue this conversation that you know was going to get heated. You knew leaving was bad, you didn't want to let this love interest get in the way of your relationship.
The very first day of filming came around and you were hanging out with Josh as Tom was hanging out with Z, but adding a little drama into the conversation. Z was always there to help with this type of stuff and Z didn't mind, but she sometimes was on your side, so advice was given to him so he can grow up so you two could have a good and healthy relationship.
“Look Z it's not that I don't trust her, it's just she never brought him up and now she has to be roommates with him?” he said as Z kinda scoffed.
“Tom you're giving me a reason to defend her.” she said as he frowned.
“What why?” he asked as she laughed at the male.
“Because of how you're reacting right now. Look at me and you we are friends too, it's not bad for her to have a friend as well. Look when me and Jacob were dating he had gal friends and he knew I was friends with you and many other guys and he didn't mind at first but its because that's work. Our job comes with stuff like this but trust is also built.” she said as he looked at her confused..
“Then why are you two not together anymore.” he pointed out as Z held her chest with sarcastic agony.
“First off ouch, and second because he didn't understand what my work meant to me. And you are acting like him so i'd suggest you trust her before she decides to leave you which I wouldn't be mad at her for.” he said as he rolled his eyes as you were all called in for a scene.
“Okay, and ACTION!” jon said as everyone went along with their roles. In the airplane Peter had walked up to you.
“Hey- what's Harley doing here?” Peter asked as you looked up at him from your seat.
“I guess Pepper thought I needed a buddy, I don't want to ruin your plan with MJ, so it works right?” Amelia said as Peter nodded.
“Yeah right..” he said as Harley sat next to you with a dual headphone adapter.
“You will not believe what I found in my pocket, we can watch movies together now,” he said as you smiled and Peter sat back in his seat with Ned.
“AND CUT! Okay that was good, let's take a lunch break everyone.” Jon said as you all walked off the set.
You and Josh ate lunch together as you posted instagram posts on your instagram story.
“So me and y/n are here eating and you will not believe what she is eating.” Josh said as he pointed the camera at your food.
“Don't expose me.” you said as he giggled.
“No I will, she is eating berry soup, what even is that?” he asked as you giggled trying to explain.
“It's literally in the title.” you laughed as you pointed out his food.
“Okay but like still-” he said as you cut him off with a laugh.
“Josh you're literally eating a bagel with blue cheese cream cheese, who even likes blue cheese?” you said as he flipped the camera at himself.
“Uh- okay you got me there.” he said as the story ended.
Tom huffed seeing you smile with someone else, but he tried reminding himself you two were just friends. Z had seen him replay that story so many times she took his phone.
“Z, give it back.” he said with a laugh which caught your attention as your smile faded and you looked back at Josh. During the filming  you had a blast, yet you and Tom were not talking. Not even texting. After filming was wrapped, you had said goodbye to Josh but you two were going to meet again during the press. Once you were back at your hotel you were cleaning everything up, again the similar knock was hit on the door as you sighed going to go get it.
“Look I don't want to leave fighting, I just- I do trust you, I just don't like how close you are with Josh.” he said as you raised your eyebrows.
“Tom are you hearing yourself, it's the same things you said last time.” you said as he sighed.
“What are you talking about?” he said as you started to get tears in your eyes knowing what was coming out of your mouth was going to hurt.
“You know what, this isn't going to work out.” you said as he looked at you sternly.
“Are you serious? So that's it we fight and you just want to end things.” he said as you scoffed.
“Tom we have been fighting for days, i just think we need a break, you know to let you know what you want.” you said as you left with tears in your eyes and leaving Tom crying and having the feeling he just lost something great that will be someone else's.
Weeks later you and Z were talking after Tom had told her you had broken up with him. She wasn't mad at you, she knew this was coming and well she was there to support more for you but for Tom also.
“Look boo, you were in the right here, I told Tom to grow up and well he didn't.” she said as you laughed.
“Well I mean it's just a break, until things settle down.” you said as she nodded.
“Yeah I know, just don't get hung up over just one dude, meet new people.” she said very enthusiastically.
“I can't really do that.” you said as she grinned.
“Yeah right what about Josh?” she said as you shook your head.
“And look like I broke up with Tom to be with Josh.” you said as she looked at you very seriously.
“Girl, like you said its a break plus your relationship wasn’t public, and Tom met someone didn't you see.” she said as you nodded. “Look all i am saying is give him a chance, see where it goes.” she said as you nodded.
“Okay fine.” you said as you hung up hoping to see her soon for press.
Months passed and you were packing for press with the cast. You and Josh had started talking and let's say things were getting somewhere, he had admitted he liked you for awhile, but wasn’t sure if you were single, and you had explained everything to him about Tom, but you admitted you liked him too, which created a little relationship between you both. Josh then called you and you smiled seeing his name. You answered as you placed your phone on a stand.
“Hey you!” you said as he smiled looking at you packing.
“Hey babe, are you ready for the press?” he asked as you smiled.
“Of course i am, are you?” you asked as he grinned.
“Yeah I am, I get to see you again berry soup.” he said as you laughed at the nickname.
“Oh okay blue cheese I am happy I am going to see you too.” you said as he smirked with the nickname you gave him.
“Oh haha, well we're going to hang right?” he said as you nodded.
“Yes of course why wouldn't we hang out?” you asked as he sighed.
“Well I thought you would only hang out with me since it's required by Jon.” he said as you shook your head.
“No bubs, I want to hang out with you.” you said as he nodded.
“Okay good, so i'll see you soon?” he asked with a shy smile as you nodded.
“Yes blue cheese i'll see you in...like 7 hours..” you said as he giggled.
“Alright berry soup.” he said as you both hung up with excitement that you two were going to be able to see one another again.
As you arrive at the hotel seeing that Josh was looking for you and you surprised him with a hug as he was happy to see you too giving you a tight hug. You two missed on another so much you had dreamed of this. “Hello blue cheese.” you said as he smiled with a grin.
“Hello berry soup I missed you.” he said as you gigiled and he gave you a peck on your temple as you sighed happily to see him.
“I missed you too...bubs.” you said as your foreheads touched. You then were meeting up with everyone else. Z had walked up to you with a hug and hugging Josh as well.
“You don't mind if I steal her do you?” she asked as he shook his head.
“She is my source of warmth, but I’m sure I’ll be warm..” he said as you playfully punched him as he held your hand and let go when you walked away.
“So you took my advice.” she said as you smiled.
“Yes I did Z.” you said as she grinned.
“To be honest i knew you liked him when you were filming your scenes with him.” she said as you baffled. I mean you did, but what type of person would you be if you told people that while you were with Tom, if you were true to yourself you liked Josh since you met him and well maybe this was your chance.
“Well then, we will see.” you said going back to Josh.
As you all got to your first interview you and Josh sat next to one another playing with the mic, Tom had noticed how close you were, but he knew those feelings for you were gone, he met Nadia, and well, he was quite happy, and you were happy for him truly.
“Hey guys, welcome, today we are here with Spider- Man far from home cast!” the interviewer said as you all smiled. The interview consisted of any hopeful spoilers, but lucky none were out. Personal questions came near the end and you were surprised one of them was or you.
“So y/n, you're character Amelia got close to Harley, do you think you and Josh are close.” she asked as you smiled looking at him and back to the interviewer.
“I would say we are, I mean we were in a couple projects together in the past and we have been in touch since then, and when Jon had made the announcement of a new castmate, i was shocked but happy to be reunited with an old friend.” you said as you looked at josh with a smile.
“Do you all feel like a new castmate was a good thing?” she asked as you were scared for what people had to say, you were over the moon Josh was a part of a project you had been a part of for years, so you hoped people were happy too.
“It was such a good thing, you know I love everyone, but the more people we add the more love we have as a family.” Z said as everyone nodded.
“Yeah it honestly adds so much more chemistry between us.'' Jacob said.
“Yeah i agree with that since Jon loves big families, its honestly the best family ever.'' Tom said as everyone agreed. You were glad he was being a professional at this, but you were too since the beginning and you were glad it was a mutual feeling.  After this interview ended, you all had like 2 hours to chill after working on interviews. Your next one was a talk show. You went back to your room as Josh had texted you asking if you wanted to go out for lunch. You agreed as you got out of your hotel meeting Tom eye to eye which surprised you.
“Uh did you need something?” you asked as Tom shook his head staying silent.
“Can I come in?” he asked with an awkward smile.
“Uh yeah sure.” you said moving out of the way as he entered.
“So you and josh are you..?” he said as you smiled.
“Uh i'm seeing where things go.” you said as he huffed.
“So, you ended our relationship to be with him?” he asked as you shook your head.
“No I didn’t, but I could say the same about you, but i'm not that type of person, but i'm truly happy for you.” you said as he just looked at you.
“Look, I just want an explanation as to why you ended us.” he said as you shook your head.
“I'm not doing this now, we are over and we both found people who understand us and I just want to leave it at that alright. I meant what I said that day, that we weren't going to work out. I know that we were on a break, but it was the best for us.” you said as he had started to tear up and he nodded.
“Yeah you’re right, I am happy and I'm happy for you too.” he said as he left your hotel room and you got ready to meet up with josh. You were happy with Josh and you were happy for Tom. You two just weren't meant to be as much as you two wanted to be. You knew this was a part of heartbreak and you had grown, you both have. Josh was the best thing that happened to you, and you knew Tom was too, but in a way he helped you grow and let you have the chance to meet Josh again and have a future of some sorts with him.
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chayacat · 4 years
Text
Devil’s Sweet Star (1)
Fandom: Dead by Daylight
Ghostface x Female Reader  
Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  
***
Finally. After months and months of searching for a suitable space, you have found it. Even if it means leave Indiana. After all, you no longer have anything to hold you back there and a change of landscape will do the greatest good. You’ve moved to Roseville, Ohio in order to open your own coffee shop and found locals curious but welcoming to you. Your new apartment, big enough for a couple is certainly simple but with all the decorations you have in your boxes, you will make it as comfortable and warm as you can. You get your apartment keys from James Lawson your landlord, an adorable old man who lives with his wife for forty years.  
He warned you about the hot water system that was shared among all residents, so keep it in mind if you don’t want to have some complaint from them. Rent is reasonable and if you have any problem or just want to talk, you just have to knock on his door. 
“One last thing young girl! Be careful outside! With these little hooligans, filthy little scoundrels who give no respect for their elders, smoking their bullshit drugs and...” he said becoming grumpier before his wife puts his hand on his shoulder
“Calm down my dear...think of your heart. But I agree and that’s not the worst. Robbery and aggressions happen often if they saw you weak or alone. Just for...Fun as they said. It's really worrying to see such a thing when they could do something better for everyone.” She said.
“No worries! If someone try to piss me off, I'll just kick his ass! It’s not the first time and I know it wouldn’t be the last. As my father said: hit a man where it hurts! But thanks for warning me anyway. You answer with that smile of yours before going to your car get your boxes.
It was exhausting and you sigh in relief when you put the last box on the ground to close the door behind you. After two hours of household and storage with some music to give you motivation, you decide to go out to take care of what will soon be your coffee shop.  Located two blocks away, the old building, once a diner, was bigger than you thought. Fortunately, the companies you hired to do work have finished the day before, all that remains is to place the material and decorations, tables and chairs and wait for the delivery of coffee.
“Damn it’s much bigger than I expected. But that’s not bad after all! Still...I have to find a name. Not always the easiest part. The Nebula? Galaxia?  Sugar Star?” you said tilting your head thinking of many names as you enter into the shop.  
Everything was as you imagine. From walls to the smallest decorations, everything, without overloading, reminded space. Pleasant, relaxing, a real place to escape after a busy and stressful day while drinking a good coffee and devouring a slice of pie or other pastry. You start to organise everything, placing seats, tables and chairs to maximize space allowing future customers to move freely without getting in the way. Suddenly you hear someone knocking on the door and when you turn to see who it is, you notice a woman, in her forties, wearing an apron adorned with flowers that stood in front of the entrance.
“Wow...I didn’t think this place would change that much. and I love it! Much more than Joe's old dinner. I assume you're the new owner? I’m Lindsey Parson, I own the flower shop” she said with a bright smile offering her hand.
“Yes ma’am! Nice to meet you!” you answer as you introduced yourself shaking her hand.  
“I hope you’ll enjoy Roseville. And that your business will succeed. When do you think you're going to open it?  
“Oh...Well if all goes well, I think I could welcome my first customers on Wednesday! I just have to...find a name.”
“It's always the hardest thing to do when you open a business. I’m sure you’ll find it. And if you want, I can talk about your coffee to my friends. They’ll be delighted to go in a new place to share some news over a good coffee or tea.  
“Thanks a lot! that’s really nice of you! I think I’ll be happy to live here than in Indiana.”
“If he’s not decided to make you his prey...” whispered Lindsey turning her face outside slightly worried.
You tilted you head at her words. His prey? Who? Who is she talking about? She breathes deeply and turn her face again to you with a little smile like she doesn’t want to scare you. Not when you’ve just arrived here.
“You know I'm not afraid about some weirdo punk or pervert bastard. If someone looks for troubles, I’ll kick them where it hurts: nuts or ass they’ll choose.” you reply by shrugging your shoulders.
“You’ve got guts, but it won't stop Ghostface from killing you if he decided to make you his next victim. Since many months, he killed many persons and no one know who is he. He’s a real shadow, stalking you and waiting for the perfect moment to hit his victim. Even if you’re not afraid, you should be careful, because he will not give you time or opportunity to defend yourself or run away.” said Lindsey.
“Great. I always move in at the right moment. Well, I guess I'm cursed or something.” you say with a sigh. “Cops have no leads to find him? he must have left traces, clues! no crimes and criminals are perfect. Except in thrillers.”
“He’s not called Ghostface for nothing girl. With him It’s like you try to catch the air in your hand, he plays and makes fun of the cops. He humiliates them and it pissed them off. So please, take care of yourself. and If you see something weird call the cops immediately. Well, I’m going back to my shop. See you around! And good luck!”
She waves her hand, and you wave back at her before she leaves. A few minutes later, you leave the coffee shop making sure all the doors are closed. Since coffee delivery doesn't arrive until tomorrow morning, you have the rest of the day and tomorrow to find a name. the hardest is yet to come. You make your way at home and once you arrive, you park and read the newspaper you bought on the road. After what you’ve heard from Lindsey, you better know more about that Ghostface guy. If cops don’t have any clues about him, the journalist who made the article on the other hand, named Jed Olsen, seems to make a real investigation work.  
It's real impressive to see how many details he wrote about the last murder and the victim, a young man named Travis Maloney. Maybe he’s an experienced journalist, working for 25 years, in the fifties, dressed surely with old suspender pants, a slightly mis tied tie, dual focus glasses and an onset of baldness. And also, some smell of tobacco that smokes your nostrils. Imagine all this makes you wince, hope you will never deal with this guy, you will be good at disinfecting the whole apartment after. Once in the building you go to your mailbox to pick up the mail you have transferred as well as some advertisements. As you reach your home, you turned the corner and lost in your throughs you met with someone’s nose.  
“Ouch...damn It hurts. I’m so sorry I wasn’t paying attention. Are you okay? “you start to say before raising your head to your unfortunate interlocutor.  
Then you freeze. He was a little taller than you, his coppery blond hair almost approaching red, slightly wavy, came to the shoulders to fits his thin face. He was wearing a black shirt covered by a khaki jacket, black pants and shiny brown dress shoes. But what attracted you the most was his piercing blue eyes hidden behind thin rectangular glasses.  He’s handsome, even if he looks like a nerdy boy. He groaned a little as he rubbed his nose before looking at you.  
“Well...at least I can say it’s a way to say hello. I'm fine my nose is not fallen so...you can breathe you need more strength to broke it.” He laughed putting his glasses back in place. “What about you?”
“I’m okay, my brain still okay...even if sometimes I should use it more often to avoid something like this.” You answer with a nervous laugh as you introduced yourself. “You sure everything is okay? I didn’t break your glasses or anything?!”  
“No worries really.” He assured with an angelic smile. Damn he looks like an angel. “Anyways, I have to change them sooner or later so...it’s doesn’t matter. Nice to meet you, I'm Jed Olsen, it’s seems like you’re my new neighbour, I live the door right next to you.”  
You froze again. Okay. Do you remember what you thought before about him? Forget it. Jed Olsen is not an old man that stinks of tobacco but that handsome nerdy boy right in front of you. More he is your neighbour. You mentally slap yourself to have disfigured him in this way.  
“Jed? I don’t want to be rude but you look very young to carry a name too ... Old. When I hear that name, I feel like we're talking about someone who has fifty / sixty years old...No offence.” You reply a little embarrassed.  
“Let’s just say my parents considered me as a mistake. Maybe that’s why they gave me this old name. To remind me that I was not wanted” said Jed.
“Sorry. But at least they wrong! Look at you! You pull off the nerd look very well! If all the nerds, and more all men were physically like you, this would-be paradise on Earth!”
Oh Shit...did you just say this out loud? Yes, you do, and you mentally slap yourself again to say that JUST in front of him. Jed’s eyes blinked for several seconds, a little surprised about what you say before giving you a little smile scratching the back of his head.
“Well, I got to go! I still have storage to do in the apartment and I have to think about two, three little things! You laughed awkwardly “H-have a nice day! See ya !”  
You walk fast to your home door, quickly open and close it after entering inside. You facepalm yourself many times, cursed you in all languages.  
“Good job, pickle brain! For a first good impression It’s a failure. He's going to think I'm an idiot and pervert as a bonus. What did is done anyway...I should focus on the coffee for now. I will find a way to apologize to him later. But first a shower is welcomed! I smell like a camel...and I'm being polite.”  
You spend the rest of the day thinking about the name of your pastries, in harmony with the theme of the coffee as well as the very name of the coffee shop. If it was easy enough for the first one, you come out empty-handed in your name search for your shop. As Lindsey says, it's not the easier part. And she's right.
***
(Well, this is the first time I write a fiction and especially an English fiction because I’m a French potato x) Sorry if my English causes headaches XD Do not hesitate to tell me what you think, I take all positive/negative/neutral opinions! This will allow me to improve my writing talent which is at the same level as my talent in drawing (0/20 in fact XD) if you want a better view of Danny aka Jed Olsen, check out @arkkosun ‘s page who allowed me to use his/her version of our Danny boy! i thank him/her again by the way! So as promised @arkkosun @sleepydaydreamz and @horror-ink here’s my first chapter! And i hope not the last 0.0″)   
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jcmorrigan · 3 years
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001 - Tales of Zestiria?
Favorite character: It's a tough call between Maltran and Symonne, and Lunarre is trailing right behind both. I tend to call them the "Heldalf Squad," but make no mistake, Heldalf himself isn't part of it. I just like his swagalicious minions. The dry and sarcastic political manipulator, the sadistic and wordy theater nerd, and the flamboyant cannibal who hates everything. Yes. LOVE. But I have to give a shout to my boy Dezel on the hero side! Angsty/stoic characters are very hit-or-miss with me, but Dezel is the flavor I love - obvious soft spots and quirks, and slowly he builds from being antisocial to showing how big his heart is. When he stops the woman from leaping off the Guinevere tower...that's one of my favorite scenes in the entire game, because you can see when the switch flips, when he realizes that he CANNOT stay aloof any longer when there's a stranger's life on the line. He's still a grump about it but a compassionate grump.
Least Favorite character: Heldalf. His backstory is really clever, and I like the curse on him. But he himself just feels like Ganondorf but more boring. I kinda hate that he's so vanilla when his three lieutenants are in my arsenal of pet villains from the vastness of fiction. Also shout-out to Chancellor BART in the opening Ladylake act, because I distinctly remember liveblogging this to a friend, and I played Zestiria *after* Berseria (I'd loved Berseria and that's why I eventually sought out Zestiria) so here I am just comparing up the corrupt church in Ladylake to the Abbey's suave rogues gallery like "Yeah no BART has nothing on Lady Teresa Linares." Thankfully BART was never seen again.
5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): DezeRose, SorMik, Symonne x Coco Atarashi (The World Ends With You), Alisha Diphda x Sergei Strelka, and...I swear you have to bear with me here...Zaveid x Anna (Frozen). I also kinda wanna note a couple ships I'm on the fence about for my other favies - those being Maltran x Ebony Maw (Marvel Cinematic Universe or Marvel Ultimate Alliance) and Lunarre x Arkham (Devil May Cry).
Character I find most attractive: Dezel. It is a scientific fact that guys with pointy teeth are just hotter.
Character I would marry: Maybe Dezel, maybe Sergei. I wouldn't want to take them from those I see as their wifeys, but at the same time, they are husband goals, both of them.
Character I would be best friends with: Catch me clinging to Maltran's train and she drags me along annoyedly as I yell "PLEEEEAAASE LET ME HANG OUT WITH YOU GUYS" and Lunarre is losing it laughing while Symonne rolls her eyes
a random thought: So I toyed around with basically every accessory I picked up, and I decided to put the sideburns on Rose because fuck gender roles. Well then I just got used to seeing her with facial hair in every cutscene where her 3D model was used, and now I headcanon that she does get it. Maybe nonclassical CAH intersex? Like, I don't necessarily see her as trans (but I support everyone who hc's her as such) but moreso "a cis woman, but I grow this stupid damn facial hair like a dude and I don't get why." And this is why you shouldn't let me play with customizable accessories on RPG characters because I can and will abuse my privilege to headcanon.
An unpopular opinion: That this is actually a very good game. Listen, I think I get it - the initial marketing promised something far different. And that's disappointing. But coming back to it several years after its release, after the release of its PREQUEL, when I never had that hype building up...it actually exceeded my expectations. I held off from it for a while because I thought Eizen's fate would make me too sad, but that didn't end up the case at all. I actually had just come off playing a more recently-released triple-A game that was hyped up for years, and I completed it to my satisfaction in 20 hours. $80 for 20 hours. Zestiria gave me my money's worth in comparison; it took me about 60, and I loved just how MUCH story it had to offer me. I honestly like Rose better than Alisha anyway (Rose was one of the biggest aspects that interested me about playing it in the first place). I've also seen complaints that the characters weren't well-developed enough? Which I just kinda take to mean "They didn't angst enough." Listen. There are PLENTY of games out there if you want angst and sad stories. I don't really like sad stories in my games. I like adventures where the party is a goofy foundfam that jokes around with each other and helps each other work through shitty situations, and that's EXACTLY what I got. (And Berseria really worked on me too because it kinda started at the bottom of the angst barrel, then worked its way up through "The edgy and tortured protag has gained a party of idiots and oh noooooo she's learning friendship and happiness.") Dezel's death is one of the few game deaths that just made me SATISFIED to watch instead of depressed because of the closure he got and the themes tied into his final moments and sacrifice. I loved going on this adventure, I loved the idiots who I went on it with, and I loved seeing what Glenwood had to offer me in world design the further I explored.
my canon OTP: There's not much for canon romance in this game, come to think of it. Just subtext and some flirting. So I'm blanking on if there actually were any canon couples at all.
Non-canon OTP: DezeRose! Which maybe can be considered almost-canon based on the amount of subtext, but still. It's adorable. (And it's the exact same dynamic as EiRoku except M/F and a thousand years later. I need these four to double date...the dual-wielding goofs with their edgy, grumpy Reapers...)
most badass character: Rose! Not only able to wield the Shepherd's Armatization powers, but also to be a dang good assassin on her own, able to hold her own against Heldalf before she even had her eyes opened to seraphim! Though a shout-out goes to Edna because her armatization was my favorite to play with. There's something just satisfying about bashing the enemy in front of you with a pair of GIANT FISTS
pairing I am not a fan of: RoseAli. To be honest, it was at one point something I kinda enjoyed as a third-tier ship for Rose (Dezel first, then Lailah in second). But then...Alisha's Story. I didn't actually purchase it, thank goodness, just watched it on YouTube, and it was the most grating addition that anyone could've made to this game. First of all, I can sum up the issues with Alisha's Story by reminding everyone that it canonized a secret entrance to Camlann that was much easier to get to and wasn't protected by Muse's sacrifice. But the real thing that hurt to watch was how far down they had to knock Rose and Alisha's friendship to get them to rebuild from scratch. Rose claiming she was never Alisha's friend because she's grieving Sorey? The two of them getting into a PHYSICAL FISTFIGHT over it? Nope nope nope. That's not my Rose. Even less my Rose is that whole scene where she...you know...pounces on Alisha to dress her in the silly noblewoman's dress, and it's framed like...let's just say it's really uncomfortable to watch if you don't know the punchline is just a silly outfit. Even though Alisha's Story isn't canon in my head, it still really killed any buzz I had for RoseAli. I will also say I'm not a big fan of Eizavie - first of all, EiRoku or bust in this house, and second, I have a little bit of a hard time seeing Zaveid as mlm due to how much he goes on and on about The Ladies(TM). (Though I could see Eizen as having a tiny crush on him, though. Just like "Oh no he's hot but he's connected to Aifread's disappearance help")
character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Mostly just in Alisha's Story. I was mad about the aforementioned Rose stuff, but also...like...they undid Lunarre's original cathartic death, they did so to team him back up with Symonne and then do a whole fakeout that they had Maltran with them too, but Maltran is just an illusion and immediately after this, Lunarre and Symonne just decide "Yeah, we're not gonna work together anymore, have a nice life." Why does Maltran need to stay dead if LUNARRE somehow survived EXPLODING? And just...look to next question for more clarification:
favourite friendship: I just want to imagine that Maltran, Lunarre, and Symonne were weird evil friends. The kind who'd take artistic selfies and caption them "Murder and mayhem with my besties!". Maybe they even had a sibling dynamic. They were all pretty dang jaded, so I like to think they sat around sometimes talking about the things in this world that did them wrong. The reasons they were drawn to Heldalf. Heldalf himself wouldn't have cared, he would've kicked them around like disposable tools, but the three of them were too entrenched in his dogma to see it. Maybe if they met up again after he was off the board...then they'd sing a different tune. Realize they're all three better than this, and now they're gonna do things THEIR way, because remember when they made a three-point attack on Glenwood and Sorey was barely able to keep up with them wrecking Lastonbell AND Pendrago AND Glaivend? Remember when Lunarre and Symonne had each other's backs the night Dezel died? Now they can do what they want on their terms! And I just - I have many MANY feelings about these three.
character I want to adopt or be adopted by: Okay silly self-insert time but the thing is, Archibald Snatcher (The Boxtrolls) and Roman Torchwick (RWBY) are my two favorite parental f/o's (and also my OTP to end all OTPs), and I have this thing about how they'd be PERFECT crime dads to Symonne in particular because she's like a little, more theatrical Neopolitan. So there's a universe in my head where Symonne is basically already my little sister, and I look out for her - well, okay, she's a seraph with powerful Artes and I am a powerless mortal so really she looks out for me because "I suppose SOMEONE has to make sure you don't die" and I am grateful to her for it.
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kidofthekat · 4 years
Text
The art club and a certain reporter save the day.
               Contrary to popular belief, Marinette, was not, in fact, constantly positive. Sometimes it all got a bit too much and this was one of those days. Her class had grown used to her ‘off days’, having learnt a long time ago not to talk to her during them and just give her some space, which ways easy as these days were few and far between. Or at least they used to be.
               The class were absolutely baffled when Marinette came in for the second time that week, and fifth that month, with her body language screaming ‘leave me alone’ which in itself was unusual as she would normally emanate ‘don’t speak to me’ vibes not those of a frightened animal.
               So when their class president, hunched over and slightly shaking, sat, not in her seat, but right at the back, her eyes glancing around with the air of a paranoid creature, they were more than a little worried. Her behaviour reflected that of a girl on the run, they just had no idea who she was running from.
               “Um, M,” Alya ventured, attempting the hide her hurt from Marinette choosing not to sit together. “Why are you sitting way back there?”
               Jumping slightly when she realised she was being addressed, she avoided eye contact but still answered her friend’s question, “Lila thought it would be good if we switched seats for a bit.” Marinette gave a small and feeble smile before turning her attention to the door, and eyeing it with fierce hope, that faded quickly as Lila sauntered in.
               “Oh Marinette, I’m so glad you agreed to my little idea,” her sickly sweet voice holding an unidentifiable edge, “I hope you don’t mind Alya.”
               Alya wanted to say she did, she wanted to sit next her best friend, she really did, but she only had to glance behind her to see Marinette furiously shaking her head, her eyes pleading with her, for her to agree, determined to get the story later.
               She didn’t. She had posted various friends at each exit for the school, but she still missed the girl at both lunch and after class. Marinette, who had somehow managed to get in and out of school through a route no-one knew, was nowhere to be seen.
               Wondering aimlessly around the school, Alya drooped slightly.
Why had Marinette gone as far as to switch seats with her mortal enemy just to avoid me? Am I the reason she is so terrified?
She slumped against the wall, her head resting on the cool brick. Everything had gone wrong so quickly, and only now was she realising that something was off. More than off. She scrunched her eyes tight, attempting to fight the burning tears, eventually succumbing, and letting them fall, praying to whatever God was listening that Hawkmoth was busy.
Having just been let out, the art club chatted loudly on their way out of the school building, almost missing the saddened reporter.
“Yo, Als, are you okay?” Alya rubbed at her eyes, only succeeding in making them redder, and let out a resigned affirmation.
“Are you sure?” Rose lowered herself to the brunette’s level and gave her a tight hug, refusing to let go.
“I’m just worried about Marinette, you know?” Nathaniel and Marc pulled her to her feat, and Alix led the bewildered girl back to the art room.
“Sit here.” Rose pointed to a stool, and in silence the other’s pulled out stool’s in front of hers so that all four were facing her.
She shivered, remembering Marinette’s cult-like description of the art club, but decided against running. They stayed silent until Alya had taken a seat.
“Marinette missed art club today.” Alix stated observing Alya for a reaction, “She never does that, not even on ‘off days’.”
“Oh.”
“Something is wrong.” Rose narrowed her eyes.
“She is scared.” Nathaniel added.
“Of everything.” Marc’s tone was ominous to say the least.
“We are worried too.” Alix finished.
Ignoring their icy gazes and terrifying synchronisation, Alya nodded in agreement, “What do you think happened.”
Once more Alya found herself deliberately writing off the art-club’s weird actions as they simultaneously lost their creepiness and became their normal selves, not cult members.
They all got up and sat around one of the tables, Alix unrolled a large sheet of paper and gave each of them a marker, writing ‘what happened to Marinette?’ in a big circle and a line off it.
“It has something to do with Lila,” everyone agreed, though Alya was a little begrudging to, as she scribbled ‘Lila’ at the end of her line, “Discuss”.
“She openly hated Lila at first, but then she just stopped,” Nathaniel offered, mainly for Marc’s benefit as he was in a different class than him.
“I thought it was just jealousy and her stopping so suddenly strengthened that for me.” Alya admitted.
Rose nodded, “That does follow her previous actions, it’s logical to think so.”
“Thanks Rose, I mean, she and Kagami are pretty hood friends now and I know the other day Lila came out of the bakery.”
“Really?” Alix added a couple things to the ever increasing spider diagram and looked around for more suggestions.
“Um guys, what if we ask her?” Marc backed down slightly from their collective gaze, but quickly cleared his throat and prepared to say more, “I mean, we are cousins, she might talk to me cause of the whole family thing.”
Relived by their smiling faces and agreement, Marc quickly phoned his cousin, putting it on loudspeaker when asked but adding he will turn it off if she says something private.
“Marc?”
“Hey Marinette, uh, you weren’t in art club today, are you okay?”
“Heh, I’m, I’m fine.”
“So, uh, Marc, what’s up with you?”
“The usual.”
“Oh, so doing something with Nathaniel.”
Marc and Nathaniel blushed as Marinette giggled.
“Why are you calling me Marc? You normally just text.”
Sighing, Marc stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Marinette, please tell me the truth, are you okay?” The silence before she chose to reply lasted too long for either of them.
“No, Marc I’m not. Everything is slipping through my fingers, all of it, both lives, it’s all going to hell and I can’t stop it!”
Marc quickly turned his phone off of speaker. Marinette had accidently revealed her second identity when he had asked to use her as Ladybug’s dual identity for his comic and he wasn’t about to let anyone else know. He gave Marinette a few soothing words and promised to be at the bakery in a couple minutes before hanging up and leaving his confused friends behind.
“Both lives?” Alya questioned, still dazed by Marc’s rushed departure.
Alix shook her head in an attempt to clear it, “I have no idea, but evidently Marc knows something, and we aren’t getting anywhere with this now, let’s meet back up here tomorrow lunch.”
They all agreed, leaving in various states of deep thought and bewilderment.
*
Alya stumbled into the classroom seconds before the bell, surprised to see Marinette still at the back. Actually, she was surprised to see her at all. Once again, Marinette had managed to get into the building unnoticed by her, or any of the art club if the looks on their faces as they too reached the classroom late were of any indication.
Unable to question each other or Marinette due to Mme Bustier arriving, they all took their seats, Alya slightly cringing at the sight of Lila in the seat next to hers.
When class finally finished, Alya tailed her best friend through the halls to the locker room, counting herself lucky that she had managed to hide each time Marinette looked behind her.
“Marinette.” Alya hid behind one of the lockers, instantly recognising Lila’s voice.
“Where have you been,” Lila stared Marinette down as she hunched against her locker.
Alya had never heard Marinette so scared as when she answered, “Please Lila, I just want to get my stuff.”
Alya heard a slap. Followed by a punching sound, though there was no scream of shout or cry, just more hitting. She pulled out her phone and rounded the corner.
Recoding the scene in front of her, Alya was close to tears and ready to intervene.
“Please Lila, please.” Marinette begged.
“I’ll stop if you hit me back.”
“I, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Alya stopped in her tracks shocked, Lila simply sneered, “You? Hurt me?” She laughed tauntingly and kneed the designer in her side, “You’re weak, just like the sheeple you call friends.”
They both saw the moment Marinette snapped, her eye’s narrowing and Alya would always swear that her irises became impossibly bluer. She pulled back her fist and punched Lila dead in the nose. Sweeping her legs around while Lila recovered from her surprise, effectively knocking her down.
From her place on the ground Lila held her bleeding nose, and with a nasally voice, threatened to go to the teacher as she now had evidence. Alya saw one shudder travel through her friend and stepped in, unable to take it anymore.
“I filmed it all, I have proof what Marinette did was in self-defence. You hold nothing over her.” Lila scowled and picked herself off the floor. Growling in Marinette’s direction, she stormed off, not before giving the pair one last dirty look.
Marinette glanced at her best friend and collapsed onto her knees in tears.
“Marinette! Why are you crying?”
“She’ll go after you now, you have to apologise to her, please Alya, please!” Marinette begged, clutching at the bottom of Alya’s shirt and sobbing loudly.
Prying Marinette’s hands off her shirt, Alya knelt beside her and pulled her into a hug, whispering assertions to calm the girl down.
“I’m not scared of that liar, Marinette, we can defeat her together.”
Masterpost.
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Can you write about MJ’s internal thoughts as Peter started clearly flirting with /her/ and liking her back and reciprocating? 😍
Hello!! Sorry this took so long, but YES OF COURSE I can write this!! I have been so excited to write this all week and am so glad I can finally share it with you guys!!
It’s been a bit since I’ve seen the movie, so I may not have gotten some of the exact quotes right, and it’s a little brief, but I hope you enjoy!!
Thank you for the lovely request, anon
Here is about 1.5k of PURE fluff and a teensy bit of angst
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It takes every ounce of strength MJ has in her hormone riddled teenage body not to visibly show any of the emotional whiplash that comes from Ned asking Betty to swap seats with Peter due to a surprising perfume allergy, to Mr. Harrington hijacking the whole switcheroo and subsequently placing her right next to Brad Davis. She doesn’t even have time to imagine What Could Have Been™, no time to feel the slight sting of disappointment of not getting to sit next to her dumb crush, before her teacher basically forces a game of musical chairs onto them, Ned now in her old spot next to Betty, Peter sandwiched between both chaperones, and of course, herself next to Brad. 
It could certainly be worse, she figures. Mr. Harrington could have made her sit next to Flash, or something. Brad’s nice enough. He’s smart, pretty funny on occasion, and she’d be lying if she said that he wasn’t at least a little bit attractive. She had eyes, she wasn’t blind; the boy was more than easy on the eyes.
But she didn’t like him like that.
He didn’t have that same cute, boyish charm.
He didn’t fill her with those same, stupid, bubbly nerves.
And he was no Peter Parker.
It was much more ideal that she wasn’t sitting next to the real object of her affection. Over the past few months, Peter’s been getting progressively weirder and weirder around her, and as observant and perceptive as she was, she couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason for his change in demeanor. This proved to be endlessly frustrating as someone who spent a good chunk of her time watching him from a distance. Numerous times she’d caught him staring at her, that same dopey little expression he’d had when staring at Liz. But sometimes, he couldn’t even look her in the eye when she was right in front of him, instead, his gaze trained on his feet as his hands wring together, his voice a shaky octave higher than normal. 
“I brought a dual headphone adapter.” Brad’s voice cuts through her inner monologue, an easy smile stretched across his face. “In case you wanted to watch a movie, or something.”
She’d once toyed with the idea that maybe, just maybe, it was because Peter liked her back, that his nerves came from feelings of the Romantic™ variety.
See, she’s only about 42% sure– maybe even less than that– that there’s even a possibility that Peter Parker might like her back.
“Only if it’s really depressing.” She deadpans, leaning back against the head rest. “Or hilarious.”
Brad’s smile only widens.
Yes, perhaps this was a better idea. A good distraction.
She sees him step out of the jewelry shop, tiny golden gift bag in hand, and there’s a brief glimmer, and entirely unwelcome, hint of wishful thinking at the back of her mind that it’s something for her. But she quickly shakes that thought away. It was impossible. She and Peter were just friends; nothing more than that. 
The way he looks at her as she’s describing the fine inventions of the Italians makes her stomach do these weird Olympian-level back handsprings, and she silently curses him for being so… so… so Peter. This would be so much easier if he weren’t himself. She dares to ask what’s in the bag, and she can’t help but notice the mild panic that flickers in his eyes as he glances between her and the gift in his hand. 
She smiles, nodding in approval as he throws the perfect word, “bo,” right back at her.
Honestly, at this point she’s never been more disappointed in herself for being so damn oblivious. How the hell did it take her so long to figure out that, yeah, maybe Peter does like her back? It’s not a realization that hits her like a truck, nothing like that. It sneaks up on her, little by little, piece by piece until it all comes together, and she feels like a proper idiot for being so invested in her own feelings that she doesn’t even consider that he might have the exact same ones. 
It’s kind of like how she’s only about 67% sure that he’s Spider-Man. It’s something that’s pretty freaking obvious when you think about it, but she doesn’t want to get ahead of herself. 
Her heart nearly bursts out of her chest, butterflies erupting in her stomach when he tells her she looks pretty just before the opera. She barely has a second to react when her brain seems to go on auto-pilot, and the sarcasm just flies right out of her mouth before she can even stop it. 
“Therefore I have value?”
Peter sputters, frantically trying to explain himself in a way that’s not cute in the slightest.
She has to laugh, though it’s quiet, and she shows mercy. “I’m messing with you.”
And now her heartbeat seems to be one of the only things she can hear in this moment as he sighs in relief, smiling up at her, the expression widening when she tells him that he looks pretty, too. 
Okay, yeah, she’s 67% sure that Peter Parker might like her back. 
The pit in her stomach is a concoction of both nervousness and excitement as they walk side-by-side on the bridge. The faintest brush of their knuckles sends those dumb butterflies into overdrive, and she instantly yanks her hand away. She catches his gaze a few times, offering a tight-lipped smile in return. Slowly, she starts to question why she agreed to this… date, walk-thing, evening ambulation, or whatever it was, and the giddiness in her belly gradually melts into dread. 
Truthfully, she’s never had very much luck with relationships, both romantic and platonic. It wasn’t really her area. She was happy just staying on the sidelines, a background character in their daily teenage lives. Getting close to others has never been something she’s been very good at, the idea of putting that much trust into another person only for them to potentially shatter it into a million tiny pieces putting almost the fear of God itself in her. That was the whole reason why she never did anything like this, never pursued anything with anyone. 
She can’t help but feel like Peter’s about to confess something to her. Something big. 
And she doesn’t give him the chance to say it for himself.
“That’s what you were going to say; that you’re Spider-Man.”
The pain didn’t really seem worth it.
Which was why, in a last minute change of heart, she goes against her regular, trademark brutal honesty and lies when Peter asks if him being Spider-Man was the only reason she was watching him. 
“Why else would I be watching you?”
If neither of them said anything, neither of them got hurt.
It was easier just to be alone.
She didn’t have a whole lot of time to admire the necklace the old sweaty guy gave her, but that doesn’t stop the warmth that blooms in her chest when she holds it in her hand. She still thinks of it, burning a hole in her pocket, as they’re all seconds away from what they assume is their imminent demise, and she is instantly filled with regret for never telling Peter how she felt. 
Which is why she doesn’t take a second thought as she sprints from the tower and to the bridge, mace in hand, ready to help her Peter no matter what as the drones fall to the ground. He’s standing there, battered, broken, and limping as she throws herself into his arms, bodies drawn together like two magnets. She can feel him shaking in her embrace, and she tightens her hold, mumbling her worries into the crook of his neck.
She shows him the broken necklace as they pull apart. Her favorite flower, the Black Dahlia, now in pieces. Her heart flutters in her chest as he takes her hand in his, disappointment clouding his features as he stares at the shards of glass, apologizing profusely and going on about some grand plan he had.
And she can’t help but kiss him. 
Yeah, it’s a little awkward and entirely too quick, because again, she’s never really done this before, but she still can’t help but smile at the way his eyes widen in surprise, even if her body feels as if it’s on fire as she waits for his reaction. 
“You kissed me.”
Maybe another time she would have made fun of him for pulling a straight-up, Captain Obvious moment, but she holds back, instead, her voice nearly failing her as she confesses her true feelings, that she lied when she said she’d only been watching him because she thought he was Spider-Man. It’s a scary thing, and she desperately fights against her own flight response at putting herself in such a vulnerable situation, setting herself up for what could be the worst pain in the world. 
But she doesn’t care. 
He apologizes again for the necklace being broken, but she stops him, the corners of her lips twitching upward as she tells him that she likes it better that way. 
His voice breaks as he smiles at her, like she’s the best damn thing he’s ever seen, eyes welling with happy tears, as he says the words she’s always wanted to hear.
“I really like you.”
A breathy, nervous chuckle escapes her as she matches his expression, and she feels as if she might explode into a million, tiny little overjoyed pieces. 
“I really like you too.” 
And after all of this, she can safely say that she’s about 100% sure that Peter Parker likes her back.
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turqrambles · 4 years
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I watched all 26 episodes of an obscure Australian cartoon in one week and I’m not okay - My journey with Wicked! (2001) PART 1
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Here it is, the reason I started this blog in the first place. I need to talk about this cartoon I ran into completely by chance. 
It all started, like you would, with Tubitv.
Good ol’ Tubi, the free streaming service that makes you either an expert at being able to find diamonds in piles of garbage or a connoisseur of said garbage. It’s thanks to Tubi that I put down that I watched Alpha and Omega: Family Vacation on Letterboxd for all to see and judge, but it’s also thanks to Tubi that I finally ended up watching Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Anyhoo, one day I was browsing their family film selection when I ran into this selection. And that was the day my life changed forever.
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What you see before you, posted to a streaming service accessible in the United States, is the movie adaptation of an Australian TV show that never made it to the United States, which is based off a series of Australian children’s books from the 90′s that also never made it to the United States. It made it to other territories like Germany and the United Kingdom (and it apparently did super well in France but don’t quote me on this) but the TV show ran for one year and then disappeared without a trace after one 26 episode season.
How obscure is this franchise? Well, for starters, at the time I’m writing this in 2020, the books, the TV show, and the movie all don’t have a single Wikipedia page to call their own, and the easiest way to get info about this thing is to find the (rather tiny) TvTropes page. 
Let’s just get right into this shall we.
What is Wicked!?
Before you try to be all cute and make any references to the hit musical, there’s a reason I’m putting that exclamation mark there.
Wicked! started out as a series of six children’s books written by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. I actually grabbed a kindle copy of all six books (because I’m in this thing too deep and I wanted to see how the cartoon compared with the source material) and I gotta say, they’re very charming.
The best way I can describe them is that they’re in the kid horror genre, but they’re less Goosebumps and more The Weenies book series by David Lubar in terms of gore and child endangerment. Wicked! has some artful depictions of blood and gore, but in a way that can be digested by the grade school crowd.
Being a former child, I can proudly proclaim that I would’ve adored this series when I was younger. Just look at these covers!
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The plot of the books is that there’s a widower with a daughter and a divorced wife with a son who get married, and the two new step-siblings Rory and Dawn absolutely hate each other. They can’t stand the fact that their parents are getting married! Gross!
But then, on the day of their wedding, creepy things begin to happen after Rory receives an appleman doll in the mail, and then, over the course of six books, a deadly single-minded virus that feeds on hate and is targeting Rory’s bloodline begins to spread across wildlife, creating crazed mutant animals that try to kill everyone in the household. It’s up to Rory, Dawn, and Dawn’s grandfather Gramps to stop this virus before it kills Rory and his mother, and to do so, they have to seek out Rory’s father, who seems to be the mysterious cause and/or the solution to the virus.
I’m not sure how well these books did, on account of the whole “not Australian” affliction I seem to suffer from, but they seemed to do well enough to get a TV show adaptation.
And surprisingly, the TV show is a very close adaptation of the books, only they changed the plot in two big ways so that it fits an animated series with a “monster of the week” setup.
The first big change was that, of course, they toned down the blood and gore and removed the deadliness of the virus, choosing to go with a more cartoony mutagenic approach. Rory gets infected by the virus several times in the show, just like how he does in the books, but unlike the books, he never thinks that he’s going to die from it and it’s definitely treated as a more temporary thing. There’s no race against time either. Everyone is trying to live their lives except every so often, the virus shows up. A wacky cartoon virus with cartoony stakes.
That brings me to the other main change that they make in the show. Unlike the books, where the main villain is a mindless virus that feeds off of hate, an invisible foe that can only be defeated at the end of the last book with the help of Rory’s father, the TV show decides that that’s no fun and instead makes a main villain out of one of the main plot points in the books. Say hello to The Appleman. (Apple-Man? Apple Man? Fuck it, I’m going with the first one from now on)
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Instead of having the virus mutate mysteriously and having the main characters constantly hypothesize what’s going to happen next, the TV show made a main villain who constantly reinvents new strains of virus in a laboratory that he set up in an abandoned refinery.
What then happens is a basic plot set-up that the show follows pretty consistently in every episode. The family is trying to do something, we get the theme for the episode, and The Appleman, who is a spiteful bastard who is trying to ruin this one family in particular (and I’ll get to that), decides to make a virus that will infect the theme of that episode.
Pretty standard cartoon stuff, right? Ah, but then you don’t realize the beauty of this show. But first, I gotta introduce the main stars of this show.
The Characters
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(quick note: this bus is incredibly important to the plot, but only in the books)
First we have Rory (the boy holding up the tin) and Dawn (the mad red head).
Dawn is the step-sister who lost her mom, a bus driver, in a gruesome bus accident, Rory is the step-brother whose parents got a divorce and then his dad went missing, believed to have run away from his whole family. Both of them are meant to be the dual protagonists, but I feel that there’s just a tiny bit more focus on Rory. There’s a reason for this that I will mention later.
What is interesting to note is that they make Rory the smart, non-athletic little nerd that gets picked on a lot at school for being a dork while Dawn loves sports, is failing science, gets made fun of for not being as girly as the other girls in her class, and likes violent computer games. I wouldn’t exactly call them “fleshed out” but they did enough to make these kids feel like actual kids.
Also, they fight. Constantly. This is the main complaint of anyone who actually looks into this show judging by my brief skimming of Internet comments because these two constantly bicker and insult each other and that makes up like 40% of the dialogue in any given episode. While this is one of the main story conflicts and they’re like this in the books too, it just feels super exhausting to see these two constantly at each other’s throats in every single episode.
They get mean too. Which, surprisingly, makes them both more realistic (I babysat multiple times and kids can be pretty verbally awful to each other) while also making them just a tiny bit unbearable at times. Here’s some actual dialogue.
"My dad sent it to me!" "Gee, he must think a lot of you to send you a doll full of worms." "Your mum thought so much of you she drove this bus over a cliff and into the river to get away from you."
GEEZ, guys...
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Eileen, Rory’s mom.
It feels out of the three adults in the family, she gets the least amount of character development, but she does get a fair amount of screentime, so you can’t really say they’re intentionally ignoring her. She divorced her previous husband and works as a mail courier. Instead of owning a car, she drives a motorcycle, and, in the first episode, even drives it to her own wedding while dressed in a bridal gown. Rory’s mom rules.
She tries to bond with Dawn because she always wanted to raise a daughter, but Dawn clearly doesn’t like her new stepmom very much. Dawn is also afraid of the motorcycle and it comes up a couple times in the show.
Eileen is the adult that gets targeted the least by The Appleman’s schemes. There’s a very pointed reason for this, and I swear, I’m getting to it soon.
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(quick note: yes, the show uses real photos to put in picture frames in the backgrounds and it’s real weird and never addressed)
Jack, Dawn’s dad.
Jack is a sheep shearer, just like in the books, and he’s a big easy-going dope that is hard not to love. Look at him hammer in this carpet. A true champ.
Out of the three adults in the family, he seems to be the one that nearly dies the most, with The Appleman going out of his way to specifically target Jack in some episodes. If you know Appleman’s backstory, this reads as absolutely petty spite and I love every minute of it.
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Gramps, Dawn’s grandfather and Jack’s dad.
He’s an aging WWII veteran (one that has killed people in combat no less) who radiates constant Boomer vibes and, unlike Eileen and Jack, he actually sees some of the crazy shit that happens and will sometimes sense when something is infected with virus when the other two adults can’t.
In the books, he’s suffering pretty badly from dementia, but thankfully the cartoons drop that completely. I’m glad too, because I don’t have the confidence that they would’ve written it with enough sophistication to make it not seem ableist. Instead, he’s just your typical kooky cartoon grandfather.
He’s probably the adult that gets the most screentime because he will actually help Dawn and Rory out. Again, this ties into the books, where he was the main adult ally for the kids.
He says a lot of army-themed catchphrases. It’s a tad overplayed but it never really gets to a point where I would call it “annoying”. Also, instead of living in the house, he lives in a tiny granny flat on the property. Sometimes Rory spends the night there.
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Last but not least, we have the star of the show, and the reason why the easiest way to find information of this show is to google “Wicked The Appleman”.
The Appleman, as explained, is the main villain of the story. Dressed in a very fancy suit complete with dress shoes and a nice blue tie, he lives in an old refinery full of rats, bats, and giant worms (called Slobberers), and he’s rocking a voice that can be best described as “Australian Mark Hamil” with an absolutely heavenly evil laugh. He has gross clawed hands, a rotten apple for a head, and likes making people miserable, because he’s basically the living puppet for a virus that feeds off of negative emotions. The main goal of each episode is to either defeat him or to stop the mess he’s made. Usually both.
Since all of his minions are non-sentient animals, a lot of his dialogue is him lurking behind something while he monologues to himself, sometimes turning it into a creepy little rhyme. He’s a pretty lonely guy, so him hanging out with this family can be seen as a very non-subtle cry for help.
The best episodes are the ones where he tries to lurk about in public with a very poor attempt at disguising his hideous features. Somehow it always works, you know, despite the fact that he has yellow eyes, the skin like a moldy apple, and no ears.
What Makes Wicked! Unique
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(no, The Appleman doesn’t actually use that axe)
The first thing this show does that most of the formulaic shows don’t do is that it does, in fact, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s why this show was packaged into a full-length movie - you can glue scenes together and actually make a pretty decent narrative, even if the resulting movie definitely had a “glued together TV show episodes” feel ala some of the bad Disney sequels like Cinderella II and Atlantis II. 
This show even has some plot-heavy episodes that dive into just why this whole Appleman situation is going on and why he seems to have it out for this one family in order to flesh out the characters more.
Because that’s a thing that this show does. The Appleman is a cartoon-y villain who cackles in his lab and constantly invents new strains of viruses that can mutate things like animals and household appliances, but he doesn’t do it to take over the city or to “destroy the world”. He does it purely to inconvenience this one Australian family, who he stalks pretty regularly. This is a thing that comes from the books and honestly, it’s a thing that elevates Appleman from “ugly-looking cartoon villain” to “pretty damn creepy, if also still cartoony in execution”.
Sure, a lot of cartoon villains target the main protagonist in their evil schemes, but this one is definitely more personal.
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He regularly follows Rory and Dawn to school and, when the family goes on a camping trip, he comes too. If Rory decides he’s going to hang out in the wrecker’s yard, The Appleman will be cackling and hiding behind totaled vehicles. If Gramps takes the kids out to the bay to go fishing, The Appleman will pull an ice cream truck out of his garage and follow them there. That’s how the main conflict is really set up.
I think if a scarier cartoon tried, they’d make him out to be this grotesque stalker, but instead, since this show is kinda goofy in execution, he’s like the shittiest cryptid in the world, constantly crouching behind trash cans and on top of rooftops while constantly cackling about how clever he is and how, miraculously, no one notices anything’s amiss.
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This alone would make this villain interesting, but then they set up something about this show at the beginning if you watch the intro and the first episode and put two and two together.
Right from the start, the opening shows that The Appleman was once human by depicting his transformation by the virus. They don’t even try and pretend that he’s some demon or some sort of supernatural monster - he’s specifically a blue collar worker who had a nasty run-in with fate and mutated into this hideous apple-headed creature that now has to hide out in an abandoned refinery. You see why he’s dressed like that - he’s still wearing his work uniform.
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Right after you watch that intro, the first episode of the show has Rory receiving a mysterious package from his father on the day of his mother’s wedding. It’s the first time that Rory and his mom Eileen have heard from their dad after he mysteriously vanished years ago. 
What’s inside? An apple-headed doll, which contains the first virus-infected monsters, The Slobberers.
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When The Appleman makes his first dramatic appearance, he never says Dawn’s name, but he does know Rory’s name.
And, in case you didn’t pick up the hints from the first episode, the fourth episode really drives it home without spelling it out. Then the last episode of the series decides to say it out loud.
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That’s right. Rory’s father, the man who mysteriously vanished from Eileen and Rory’s lives, is still an important part of the cartoon’s storyline, but instead of being the man who appears in the last book that knows how to cure the virus while also being the first victim of the virus, he’s the main antagonist.
The Appleman is Rory’s father.
And honestly, because of this little plot point, this show becomes a much richer experience once you look at the unhinged appleman who keeps unleashing horror on these kids and realize that he’s a divorced dad who constantly keeps tabs on his ex-wife's unstable dysfunctional family in order to make them more pissed at each other because that feeds the virus that mutated him.
This is a very cool concept. This is where Wicked! shines when, for all intents and purposes, it is otherwise a pretty average turn-of-the-century Australian cartoon that can be best described as “it’s okay, I guess” in terms of quality.
Because that’s really the rating I can give this show. It’s Okay.
It’s a very solid Okay, but I think any adjective more powerful than “Okay” is really pushing it. It’s not Great, it’s not Amazing. It’s Okay. Alright. Kinda Good.
But man, is it a wild ride.
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Next time, I’m going to start discussing the actual episodes as well as this show’s pros and cons. Dividing this up into multiple parts partly because I feel like these things are more easily digested in smaller chunks and partly because I’m pretty sure tumblr now has a size limit on posts soooo...yeah.
Follow this handy link for Part 2 - The Actual Review!
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cyberramblings · 4 years
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Sonic & Tails: Ideas for a new Sonic Plot and Partner System
So, first off, there is a game called Sonic & Knuckles. It is basically just the second half of the overly ambitious Sonic 3. It is not Sonic 4, but it is a standalone game. Anyways, there isn’t a game called Sonic & Tails yet, so let’s make that happen.
Regardless of that, I wanted to talk about my vague conceptualizations of a Sonic game plot. I WANTED to continue my thoughts on other Sonic characters, but my stupid brain can’t stop thinking about “what if Sonic and Tails fought?” Again, this is getting into some borderline fanfiction territory, but I write the blog AND the rules.
Piggybacking off my previous post detailing my thoughts on Tails, I had said that I liked the idea of Tails taking over Robotnik’s lab after he is defeated once and for all (or temporarily, I don’t expect Sonic Team to kill off the main villain, as much as I’d pseudo-ironically love Sonic Adventure 3 to open with Eggman’s funeral while Sound of Silence plays like the overly edgy funeral scene from Watchmen 2009).
Now, this is also getting into some serious Marvel Civil War or Batman v. Superman territory, but stick with me. I feel like one of the most underutilized aspects of Sonic as a series is the cast of characters. Maybe it is just me, but I feel like Sonic fans want to see their favorite obscure character return or see as many characters as possible. Even the most trivial characters have a cult following in the weird Sonic fandom. It was really cool to see the obscure Sonic the Fighters characters return for a boss fight in Sonic Mania, even if they were just an illusion. I am proposing a Sonic game where nearly every characters returns to make up the boss fights.
Now, the first issue with this idea is that typically the “rival” battles in Sonic are a bit hit or miss. Fights against playable characters in the Adventure IMO felt pretty flat and uninteresting. Now, 2D Sonic has some better boss battles against the likes of Metal Sonic and Knuckles and the same goes for Generations, so maybe those could be emulated. Regardless of gameplay, I’d like to see all the weirdies like the playable cast of Sonic Heroes, The Fighters, Emerl, Blaze, Gamma E-102, etc. return at least as boss fights, if not as playable characters, even if they are just piloting the mechs that would typically be piloted by Eggman. I get zero excitement from fighting Eggman anymore, but just put Rouge’s model in the cockpit and suddenly its way cooler with more potential for unique boss dialogue.
So far I have proposed a Civil War-style plot where Tails goes a little bit off the deep end and a Sonic game where the boss fights are all the beloved recurring characters. It should be obvious how these two parts fit together. Perhaps the dual story structure of Adventure 2 is overplayed by this point, but obviously it would fit in with these ideas.
To get into the nitty gritty and provide an example of what I am imagining, consider Metal Sonic. I can easily see a plot that starts with Tails reconfiguring Metal Sonic to be “good”. This bring back a classic character in a new way and allows for a lot of angles for the plot to go, of course borrowing from various Iron Man plots and the Buffy-bot from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
One idea from Sonic Adventure that I would really like to see return is the ever-evolving nemesis concept. Even if Sega never really brings back Chaos, I’d love to see a rival that increases in power as the game goes along. This could totally tie in with my previous idea, with Metal Sonic becoming more powerful over the course of the game, possibly with the acquisition of the Chaos Emeralds like Chaos does. Metal Sonic already has been shown to take on a few different forms, such as at the end of Sonic Heroes.
Another story beat that I’d like to see replicated is the end of Adventure 2 where Sonic and Shadow have to team up. Now, in this hypothetical Sonic & Tails game, that would obviously be Sonic and Tails teaming up, but I’d also love to see them bust out Mecha Sonic as a kind of retconned prototype of Metal Sonic from Sonic 2/3 as a last resort too.
I also love the story beat of all the playable characters at the end of Sonic Adventure bringing the depleted Chaos Emeralds to Sonic for the final fight. I would love to see something like this but a little more weighty. I have a clear mental image of something like the Breath of the Wild loading screen that shows your level of progress though the game, but instead with Sonic endlessly walking towards the camera as the game loads, surrounded by more and more characters walking towards the screen as you rescue/recruit them.
Personally, it seems like Sonic games struggle to balance multiple playable characters, so I’d settle for something like Advance 3 where you pick a partner that enables new moves. I would prefer to find a way to include every possible character as playable, but I would settle for a 3D Sonic game where Sonic (and maybe characters that control near identically like Metal Sonic, Shadow, Silver, Blaze, etc.) is the only playable character, with characters like Tails, Knuckle, Amy, Big, etc. are relegated to the partner role, but swappable.
Playable Characters:
Sonic: Everything normal
Metal Sonic: Just make him control like he does in Adventure 2: Battle, so faster than Sonic but with less moves. I don’t think Metal Sonic has ever been canonically playabe, only appearing as a boss fight or playable in racing games or bonus modes, so that would be my biggest request.
Shadow: Just Sonic but slipperier and please give him a teleport instead of a homing attack
Silver: Again, just Sonic but make his double jump more offensive to represent his telekinetic abilities
Blaze: Her name is BLAZE and she has FIRE POWERS in Rush and Rush Adventure, so please just make her control like Sonic but with a fiery homing attack or her fire hover from Rush
Espio: Just give him some kind of limited invisibility or maybe the tornado attack as a reference to Heroes
Mighty: He could probably be thrown in with his moves from Mania, but this is reaching
Jet: Probably asking too much, but he’s never been playable in non-racing game, so even seeing him with his board in a main game as a kind of joke would be cool
Assist Characters:
Tails, Cream, Charmy: Obviously, limited flight with slightly different characteristics. Cream could alternatively have the Chao attack from Advance
Knuckles, Rouge, Tikal: Either a limited glide or the digging
Amy: Piko Piko Hammer as an attack or as a big jump. She could also maybe be a Sonic-like characters, but I feel like she was shoehorned into the speed role in Heroes
Big: I just like seeing this dumb idiot return. It seems like asking a lot for the fishing rod to be used as a grappling hook, so maybe he could just have a big area attack
Fang/Knack, Bark, Bean: I mean, maybe just show up and fistfight some enemies?
Vector: Something music based, realistically
Chaos: Again, this is reaching, but maybe this ties into Tails taking over Eggman’s research
E-1XX Alpha, Gamma, Omega, etc: It is asking a lot to have all the robots return, but I’d love to see them all as slight variants of “shoot a bunch of missiles” or limited hovering
Omochao: Personally I’d love to see this little guy as an assist who just never shuts up, maybe with some hidden secret-unlocking potential
Vanilla: She doesn’t have a lot of game appearances, I’d take anything
G.U.N. Commander: Again, I just think this would be kinda funny. He could summon robots or just fire missiles
Eggman Nega: Not sure why he would help the main characters, but I’m always rooting for weird stuff like this
Wave, Storm: They could function like Tails/Knuckles or grant a temporary board for tricks or whatnot, maybe like the skateboard powerup from Sonic Generations
Tails Doll: This is dumb, but it would be fun to see as a little throwaway easter egg
So, that was a bunch of random nonsense directly from my brain, but you probably get the idea: find a way to include a lot of characters in the plot and the gameplay. Do I expect any of this to ever happen? No. And honestly, I’d prefer to see another game where I can actually play as characters like Rouge, the robots, Amy, and Cream.
ONE LAST THING: There should really be a Sonic rhythm game. They have so much music, both the classic songs as well as the Crush 40 songs, with tons of remixes of both already existing and even more possible. It would fit perfectly with the gameplay of Sonic, you could just have the notes appear as obstacles or powerup boxes. There are a million different ways to slice it, but it just makes too much sense to ignore. I don’t have enough ideas to make a separate post, though. Maybe I’ll make a playlist sometimes of songs I’d like to see included, but the issue is that it would be way too many songs. As with the main point of this post, I would love to see many different playable characters with very slight changes to their properties.
ONE LAST LAST THING: Since Sega hates localizing Puyo Puyo games, they should just make a new Mean Bean Machine with HD graphics and all the various Sonic characters represented somehow and then release it internationally either as Mean Bean Machine or just Sonic Puyo Puyo. Again, I didn’t have enough ideas for a whole post.
FINAL FINAL FINAL RAMBLES: I kinda wanna play Sonic 06 since I actually just recently found out that Rouge, Omega, and Blaze are playable, but the disc is 20 bucks at gamestop for 360. I also kinda wanna play Unleashed, but not enough to buy it. I really get more excited when more characters are playable, which makes me wish I enjoyed playing Sonic Battle more. I also have my eye on Chronicles if I can ever get the patience to actually sit down and play it. At this point, I should just make my own dang original game or story inspired by the things I like about Sonic.
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medea10 · 5 years
Text
Medea Plays Pokemon Sword: Part I
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So the long-awaited Pokemon game has finally hit the shelves. And you know my dumbass had to get me a copy. Actually, this time I wound up getting the dual pack (since my mother thought it would be cool to give that to me for my birthday present). I know, weird to have a birthday present two months later, but here we are.
Now these games came with some massive baggage of controversy. With cutting at least 60% of the pokemon listing and complaints of Game Freak reusing designs from the Nintendo 3DS games. You know what, I’m sick of people complaining about shit before they even try the game. I know I’m going to enjoy this regardless of some obvious glitchy moments and lack of Dragonite, Ampharos, and Poliwraths.
With that said, shit post begin!
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This guy.
I know he’s gotta be a shady-ass. I don’t care if he’s giving the “Welcome to the world of Pokemon” speech like all the professors in the past, I do not trust this guy right here. Prove me wrong, I’ll wait.
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Before I forget, feel free to add me as a Switch buddy if you want.
SW-8454-1538-4501
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Okay, they managed to get one thing right about my mother.
But Game Freak totally missed the opportunity to have Stand By Me showing like in every other Pokemon game in the past. It’s the little details, yo.
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Okay, my mother has a Munchlax. Also, somewhat accurate.
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Okay, they kept a random guy marveling at science. Some things will never change, but technology will always change.
Time to go meet my rival, Hop.
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Dude, your brother is like 6′ 7″. How the holy hell is he gonna fit in one of those dinky-ass cupboards?
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Champion Leon has got quite the collection of hats. As long as none of them say MAGA, I’m quite okay with this. Speaking of Leon, let’s meet him...
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This fool trying to act like he’s the best thing since Freddie Mercury.
Hey dummy, you’re signing the number 3 right there. That means you’re only the third best. Possibly after Dianthe and Cynthia.
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This guy is just totally full of himself compared to some of the other champions of the past. While he’s not on Mr. Satan levels of hammy, he still can get a little showboaty in front of the peanut gallery.
Time to pick my first pokemon and...yeah, you know what I picked from the first picture.
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I picked Scorbunny. His name is Sonic. Because what is creativity?
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In a very similar scenario from the Diamond and Pearl games, you and your rival do run into a rare beast.
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Don’t worry, all of your attacks are worthless in the eyes of legendary doggo here and he leaves you in the fog.
After all that mess and a rival battle, time to meet the professors/researchers of this...
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AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!
CUTIE BREADLOAF! OOH I WANT ONE SO BAD!
Sonia has this cute little thunder-butt! Granddaughter to Professor Magnolia and...
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Oh-ho-ho. I wonder if these two could be something more. In fact...
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I’m seriously teetering on supporting Leon x Sonia.
So then, this happened.
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Alright lady, in 10 months, I expect to run into a legendary pokemon. I’ll take Mew, Arceus, or Diancie.
In the meantime, let’s get to catching pokemon.
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GETTO DAZE! Everybody, meet my...
Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf
(Winston for short)
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He hangs with Piki
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He plays with toys
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Aw, mommy’s little breadloaf likes to hop around in the rain.
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Behold my Winston. I will spam the fuck out of this cute doggo until I start catching Clefairys.
But seriously, I have been catching a lot of pokemon. And that wild area has been fun with camping, dynamaxing, and catching lots of different pokemon in different areas. It’s just that I had to do a lot of running away.
Sometimes it’s just annoying little nuisances like Electrike that follow me around. But then there are those pokemon that are insanely stronger than you and you have no business catching them right now.
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LIKE THIS FUCKING BEAST!
Oh hell no! Get the fuck out of there!
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Still better off than this poor git.
Pokemon Sword & Shield: Rated E for EVERYONE
Okay, what else? Oh yeah, gym “challenges”. Whatever, we’re doing gyms again and I’m down with that.
Before you can even challenge the gyms, you have to get an endorsement from Leon (or in some jerk’s case, Chairman Rose). Now as for the...
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JESUS H. FUCK! WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?!
WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS GAME FREAK?!
No, I’m not digging Pokeball Man. He’s got a face only a flamethrower can love.
Let’s move away from that trainwreck to the gym leaders. Only 7 of them are shown because one of them is a *spoiler* and I’ll probably talk about Alister and Big Tits Sally Melony when I start playing Pokemon Shield.
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Hmm...I’ve got two stupid things to say here.
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For some reason, I hear George Takei’s voice whenever this guy is on the screen.
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*spit-take*
Is this chick one of the Triplets of Belleville?
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Legitimately asking here.
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Well, it’s about that time for me to run into some trouble.
With the Yelling Hooligans.
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And this snot rag!
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You know what, he’s got that uppity arrogance of Drew’s. But instead of him being awesome like Drew, he’s just a Psychic User knock-off with the personality of Trip.
In short, Medea no likey Bede.
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Boy, you’ve got the face only a clenched fist could love.
Ugh...let’s get away from this fuck face and catch more pokem...
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WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
MA! MA, THERE’S A WEIRD, FUCKING STRAY CAT IN MY VIDEO GAME!
BLINK MOTHERFUCKER!
It’s like if Meowth fucked the cat-bus from Totoro and got shit out through Captain Caveman’s anus!
Let me get to my gym battle before I have a heart attack from creepy-ass things.
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Go away Ball Man. I know you give me balls, but your ball face scares me.
First gym challenge...
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Chase 20 Wooloos through an obstacle course.
Oh good, I think all of us were thinking there was no way Game Freak would give us a task that’s as daunting as finding Farfetch’d in G/S and Furfrou in X/Y. But they said, hold my sake and chase twenty wooly bastards.
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Needless to say, I took out Milo, no sweat.
Good time to stop for this shit-post.
To be continued.
75 notes · View notes
ageofevermore · 4 years
Note
1-96
(1) Do You Sleep With Your Closet Doors Open Or Closed?
it’s a dual sliding door, so usually one sides open. but preferably, both doors are closed. 
(2) Do You Have Freckles?
sometimes in the summer, not often though. 
(3) Can You Whistle?
yes! 
(4) Last Song You Listened To.
well for some reason there’s a guy on my TV singing God Bless The USA
(5) What Is Your Favourite Colour?
purple
(6) Relationship Status.
single because my favorite omegle guy won’t answer me 
(7) What Is The Temperature Right Now?
48F / 9C
(8) Did You Wake Up Cranky?
i woke up wishing i was still asleep
(9) How Many Followers?
835
(10) Zodiac Sign.
Sun: Capricorn, Rising: Aries, Moon: Aquarius 
(11) What Is Your Eye Colour?
brown / hazel 
(12) Take A Vitamin Daily?
no
(13) Do You Sing In The Shower?
obviously, i’m not completely insane
(14) What Books Are You Reading?
whatever fucking book my english class assigned...
(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.
i literally only have a text book by me and opening it is triggering
(16) Favourite Anime?
i don’t watch anime
(17) Last Person You Cried In Front Of?
my mom...about greys anatomy...but still my mom about christmas and my birthday. i cry alot, but i like REALLY cried about those two topics
(18) Do You Collect Anything?
chapstick, trauma, candles 
(19) What Did You Have For Lunch?
it’s only 10am and i haven’t even thought about breakfast 
(20) Do You Dance In The Car?
yes, and then my mom yells at me because i do nothing “subtly” and the entire car shakes
(21) Favourite Animal?
white siberian tigers, snow leopards, dolphins, and now elephants
(22) Do You Watch The Olympics?
unfortunately. i love gymnastics, but like, i’m not trying to watch men in toboggans and swim caps 
(23) What Time Do You Usually Go To Bed?
anywhere between 12pm and 3am
(24) Are You Wearing Makeup Right Now?
no, i never wear makeup because it makes me look more ugly
(25) Do You Prefer To Swim In A Pool Or The Ocean?
ocean
(26) Favourite Tumblr Blog?
besides my friends i don’t really have a favorite blog, i stick to my circle and don’t venture very far 
(27) Bottled Water Or Tap Water?
bottled. 
(28) What Makes You Happy?
i couldn’t tell you...
(29) Post A Gif Of What You’re Currently Feeling Right Now.
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(30) Do You Study Better With Or Without Music?
without, but i always start with it on. it never lasts more then two songs.
(31) Dogs Or Cats?
dogs
(32) If You Were A Crayon What Colour Would You Be?
a shade of purple from the crayola 200 pack
(33) PlayStation Or Xbox.
wii
(34) Would You Swim In The Lake Or Ocean?
ocean
(35) Do You Believe In Magic?
hell mothering fucking year i do baby, lets take that train to hogwarts 
(36) What Colour Shirt Are You Wearing?
its a friends pj crop, so black and white stripped with the central perks logo
(37) Can You Curl Your Tongue?
yup
(38) Do You Save Money Or Spend It?
save money 
(39) Is There Anything Pink Within 10 Feet Of You?
my cup 
(40) Do You Have Any Obsessions Right Now?
stranger things ig
(41) Have You Ever Caught A Butterfly?
no, those assholes scare me, but i’ve grown + released them 
(42) Are You Easily Influenced By Other People?
um chile, i would follow my best friend off a cliff with no hesitation
(43) Do You Have Strange Dreams?
all the fucking time 
(44) Do You Like Going On Airplanes?
ITS MY FAVORITE FORM OF TRAVEL 
(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry.
the hannah montana movie
(46) Peanuts Or Sunflower Seeds?
peanuts 
(47) If I Handed You A Concert Ticket Right Now, Who Would You Want The Performer To Be?
one direction 
(48) Are You A Picky Eater?
yes 
(49) Are You A Heavy Sleeper?
yes, but it takes me forever to fall asleep 
(50) Do You Fear Thunder / Lightning?
yea, depends on the day and the level of scardy bitch i feel like being 
(51) Do You Like To Read / Write?
i love both 
(52) Do You Like Your Music Loud?
hell yeah, let me feel the beat in my kidneys 
(53) Would You Rather Carve Pumpkins Or Wrap Presents?
carve pumpkins 
(54) Put Your Music On Shuffle, What Is The First Song That Came Up?
no tears left to cry by ag
(55) What Season Are You In Right Now? (Weather)
fall
(56) What Are You Craving Right Now?
a churro + peppermint mocha frap
(57) Post A Screenshot Of Your Tumblr Feed.
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(58) What Is Your Gender?
female (she/her)
(59) Coffee Or Tea?
iced coffee / sweet tea
(60) Do You Have Any Homework Right Now? If So, What Is It About?
yeah, i have environmental homework and US I homework and Algebra II homework
(61) What Is Your Sexuality?
bruh, idk 
(62) Do You Make Your Bed In The Morning?
no, that shit’s never made 
(63) Favourite Pokemon?
jigglypuff 
(64) Favourite Social Media?
pintrest 
(65) What’s Your Opinion On Instagram Stories?
they’re okay
(66) Do You Get Homesick?
no. i don’t miss thins very easily, i’m away from home for a week and i have no doubt that i could spend the rest of my life without going back. 
(67) Are You A Virgin?
yes sir
(68) What Shampoo And Conditioner Are You Using Right Now?
idk, some really thick and heavy in hydration set 
(69) If You Were Far From Home And Needed To Sleep For The Night, Would You Choose To Rent A Crappy Motel Room For $60 Or Sleep In Your Car For Free?
sleep in my car, though both options scare me 
(70) Are Both Of Your Blood Parents Still In Your Life?
i have a strained relationship with my bio dad, but unfortunately i still have to associate myself with him a few times a year 
(71)  Whats The Next Movie You Want To See In Theaters?
black widow or spiderman 3, but i’m willing to see anything just take me back! 
(72) Do You Miss Your Ex?
i’ve never had an ex, but i do wish krystian would stop ignoring me. stupid scotland boys 
(73) What Is Your Favourite Quote Right Now?
“friends dont lie”
(74) What Eye Colour Do You Find Sexiest?
green / brown 
(75) Did You Like Swinging As A Child? Do You Still Get Excited When You See A Swing Set?
i loved swinging, but a few years ago it started making me dizzy so i don’t swing very often anymore. but tire swings especially are my shit 
(76) What Was The Last Thing You Ate?
chicken flavored ramen 
(77) What Games Do You Have On Your Phone?
yes 
(78) Would You Give A Homeless Person CPR If They Were Dying? Why Or Why Not?
yeah...because they’re dying and if i have the skills to save them...why wouldn’t i?
(79) Been On The Computer For 5 Hours Straight?
honey, i do full virtual high school. we stan a pandemic (we don’t)
(80) Stalked Someone On A Social Network?
social media stalker is my middle name. not anymore though, i haven’t been asked to find a boy in a while 
(81) Do You Like Meeting New People?
no. i hate it. anxiety city man. 
(82) Do You Wear Rings? If You Do, Take A Picture Of Them.
i don’t wear rings, but i really want to.
(83) Do You Sleep With Your Bedroom Door Open Or Closed?
closed
(84) What Are Three Things You Did Today?
woke up, watched stranger things, made ramen 
(85) What Do You Wear To Bed?
whatever i fall asleep in. 
(86) List All Of Your Different Beauty Products You Have Right Now.
are beauty and skincare the same? because i don’t own much makeup. 
(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person?
i used to be a night person. but this pandemic has hit hard with depression and i’ve become a stay in bed all day person
(88) List All Of Your Video Games On Your Phone, Console Etc.
2048 balls, among us, ball sort puzzle, bubble shooter, bubble sort, color roll 3D, drag n merge, fit and squeeze, hole.io, mario kart, match 3D, nonogram.com, paint the cube, roof rails, solitare, spit, stacky dash, stair run, timber run...
(89) Tell Me About A Dream That You Had And When It Happened.
After my moms fiance died, I had a dream that he was able to come see my fifth grade play (he died just before it happened) and when we were walking out he got into the white car from fast and furious (we watched the movies together) and said he would see me again soon, then he drove off...like talk about weird 
(90) Favourite Soda Drink?
rootbeer 
(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite?
i like a good clicking sound 
(92) Do You Wear Jeans Or Sweats More?
sweats everyday all day 
(93) How Do You Look Right Now?
like a fucking wreck 
(94) Name Something That Relaxes You.
netflix 
(95) What Tattoo Do You Want?
i want a bunch of little symbols, and i think it would be cute if i got a T for my mom, but i can’t tell her that because she might think i’m going soft and exploit my show of affection (jfc why am i like this lmao)
(96) Favourite YouTuber?
colleen ballinger 
1 note · View note
doomedandstoned · 4 years
Text
An Evening With EMBR
~By Shawn Gibson~
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Continuing his two-and-a-half-years' journey into the deepest, dankest corners of the heavy underground, Doomed & Stoned's intrepid sludge reporter Shawn Gibson continues his series of fun and lively interviews with bands in our still blooming and booming doom-stoner scene with this interview with founding member and drummer Eric Bigalow, whose partner Crystal Bigalow fronts the Alabama band EMBR. We hope you enjoy getting to know the band as much as we did, especially in light of their new album '1823' (2020) which was released recently on New Heavy Sounds.   [Editor]
Eric, how ya doin?
Good. I am on my daily walk. Watching my “conspiracy videos.”
Ah!
How are you?
I'm good.
Glad to hear it! Were you able to listen to that album?
I did. Last night two times in a row!
Really?
Back to back.
Possible Album Of The Year? (laughs)
I would say it's up there, a contender for sure! I definitely like it alot!
Thank you.
In the song "Where I've Been," Crystal's vocals are amazing, beautiful, and haunting. At the end of the song Crystal has that growl!
She learned how to scream a month before we got in the studio and freakin' knocked it out! You know the song "Powder," where I'm singing to the verses?
Yes, that's definitely another one I like on '1823' (2020)
We are going to do a song where she's taking the reins on [vocals] instead of me doing it.
Is she doing dual vocals on that track? Clean, then a bit harsher vocals.
Yeah, she'll kind of mirror some parts. When I'm done singing, she will come in and sing.
"Vines" is another good one from 1823. Who's doing those growls?
That would be me. I pull it off live while I'm playing drums, too. I'm glad you dig it! It's weird when you come out with songs, as far as what you think will be people's favorite and what the band's least favorite is. You know what I mean?
Oh yeah.
"Vines" was kind of ours. We were kind of, "I don't know about this one." It seems that the people that have heard it like it.
You and I are friends on Facebook and I see good reviews for your songs and the whole album '1823.' You guys have gotten a great response!
Seems like we're getting good responses [on that song especially]. The count on our Facebook has been doing wonderful! Almost a hundred thousand views!
Very nice!
One thousand likes and four hundred and seven shares. Thats crazy, man!
Glad to hear that! You guys deserve it!
Thank you! It's always nice to hear that. In your opinion, buddy to buddy, do you think the response from the album will be as good as one song?
Definitely. I would envision praise and a very warm welcome from doom metal fans. Tell me about recording '1823.'
We went to Ledbelly Sound studios in Dawsonville, Georgia. The owner and engineer's name is Matt Washburn. He has worked with Mastodon, Royal Thunder, Artimus Pyledriver. We are real big fans of Artimus Pyledriver! They broke up years ago and it kinda hit us hard. We worked with Matt multiple times. He mastered 261. He recorded 271 and he recorded Spiritual Dialysis.
We always got along with Matt really well. He pushes you hard, but is also kind of laid back. It's a little hard to explain how that works. He has the same kind of sense of humor as we do, so it's always a good time there. We recorded this album 1823 in six days over the course of two weekends. As far as recording, we just plugged right in and Mark and Alan recorded the scratch tracks for guitar and bass while I was playing drums. I got my drums recorded pretty much on the first day.
Damn!
Yeah! Then we went back and tracked over the drums. We had the music pretty much done in the first weekend. The second weekend was pretty much a few overlays on guitar and Crystal laying down her vocals. Everybody knocked it out pretty quick, especially Crystal. Crystal goes in the booth and knocks out a song in one or two takes then moves on to the next one.
Glad to hear that!
She is really good at recreating what she does. She does the same exact thing live. She's talented that way.
Crystal has some angelic vocals, while the music is heavy as hell!
(laughs) That's what we are going for.
That is a beautiful contrast and compliment at the same time.
Thank you! She is good at finding the right notes to accompany dropped tuning. We are in drop A. The recording was awesome -- working with Matt is always awesome. We are scheduled to go back and see him in a couple months. Can't tell you why yet!
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That shows you guys are working hard.
We are trying! We are trying to make a video for every song on 1823.
That's a great feeling to have plenty of songs written and recorded, always having material to put out there. You guys work hard and practice hard, so it is easier to record and lay down tracks quicker. If you're knocking a good chunk out on a weekend, that's good! If you're paying for studio time, I'd imagine you've practiced and are ready. Studio time can be expensive.
Yeah, you don't want to go in there and dick around. You don't want to figure out the song in the studio.
Right! Tell us about your backend.
At the moment we are using Orange amps. Crowbar is using those, too. We have two Orange heads and Mark tunes one mostly to mids and lows and the other one is mids to high's. The secret sauce -- well, it's not a secret now that I'm going to tell you -- I bought an old 1969 tuck and roll bass amp. It's three 15 inch speakers. It's only two hundred watts, but you crank it all the way to where it's just breaking up. He is running two guitar amps plus a bass amp to get his guitar tone.
Wow!
That's how we achieved our guitar tone. Our bass player Alan uses really good equipment, too. He uses a dark glass amp that sounds really awesome. Matt told me he loves recording my drums because my drums are the John Bonham version that Ludwig makes, so it's all really big sizes.
Damn.
Yeah, you get a huge sound out of it. To get the shells for that kit is $1200.00 bucks, which isn't that bad. You get monster sounds out of these things and I love em! I actually have two sets!
Awesome! Listening to '1823,' "Powder, "Vines," and "Where I've Been" are my faves. I love at the end of "Where I've Been" when Crystal screams, "Where I've been!" That is badass! "Vines" fucked me up with Crystal's singing and then those male growls!
That was good, huh? Thank you! We are hoping that the next one will be a little bit heavier. A lot of our older stuff we have seven and nine minute songs. We are trying to reel that back, where we are three to five minutes. Doing stuff that is memorable, not necessarily technical.
Are you guys going to try to get back to playing shows in the fall or winter if things open back up?
Yeah, we will start booking heavy when everything opens back up. Right now we are not doing anything because nobody knows what's going on right? When stuff opens back up we will hit it hard.
You should!
We have a business plan in place to do certain shows in certain months or so many shows each month. Certain states we want to go to. We all have full time jobs, so we are trying to figure out some four day runs to kind of "tour" for the album. It is just up in the air right now. We have thought about doing some Facebook live videos or videos of us jamming in the practice space. We talked about how to get a quality recording with the footage.
On that note, what do you see in the future for EMBR?
We are planning on releasing an EP sometime soon. Right now, we are focusing on writing riffs and songs for the next actual album. In the future, we want to play a lot more shows. Right now, we are focused on material. We are putting stuff in the bank like we did for 1823. Mark will send me a riff and show me how to play it. Then I'll record it on GarageBand and write more to it then put it into Google Drive so everyone can hear it. We have about nine song ideas right now for the next one. Some might not come to fruition. What the future holds for EMBR is more work! Keep working and keep truckin'! We are all a bunch of work horses.
Hell yeah! I think you have three or four EP's before '1823.'
Yeah.
That's why EMBR has such a great response. You guys work your asses off! Do you guys have shirts or any other merch?
Oh yeah.
Where can we find this stuff at?
Our shirts are made by a company called Amplified Tee. On album 271 we had a guitarist named Craig who worked at Amplified Tee. Basically you go online and order whatever you want. I think we have five or six different designs. You can get regular shirts, girl's style tees, or a hoodie. You can go on amplifiedtee.com/EMBR. We have that available right now.
I will have to check that out!
I am actually working on a newer design right now. There might be a new design soon.
Well that's about all I have for you, Eric. I hope that you and Crystal and the other guys in EMBR are well and staying safe!
Oh yeah, definitely.
Until next time I will talk to you later, Eric.
Alright. Thank you, I appreciate it!
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