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a-strange-familiar · 4 months

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an angsty idea: f! Reader flinches during a steamy (not THAT kind of steamy) argument (bonus points for subspace) ends in fluff maybe idk, <33 ur work is *chefs kiss* ily ♥︎♡

Awww. ily too. Hope you enjoy, lovie 💗 and sooo sorry for the late <333

A/n : I got this request little over a year back and I wrote half of this and completely forgot. I got a random motivation to write this now. I really hope the anon who requested it will have a chance to read it. ♡

And also I reached a milestone (not a VERY big one, but its special to me) on my followers, thank you for all your love and support ❤️

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It's been more than three weeks since Y/n and Harry spent some quality time together. Harry was really busy with work and Y/n understood that and focused on her university work.

But it's actually bugging her. She can't lie saying that she is not feeling insecure. He is a very handsome man. Beautiful, sweet, respectful and understanding. And Y/n also know for a fact that there are many women out there trying to get in his pants or his life. But she know him, he would never do that to her. But she can't help but worry about it though.

So she kept herself busy with school and work both but she miss Harry, so thought about talking to him and having dinner together.

Today especially she had a worst day, not completely worst but worst day of the month. From the moment she woke she felt off. Something is not good and she had a terrible headache but still she went to college and later to work.

But in college she got a bad grade in a test which led up to her professor calling her to his office and giving her an earful. It's her mistake for not preparing properly for the test. And later she had to face a rude costumer at her work, and her whole mood got even worse.

By the time she came home she was feeling very low and sad. All she wanted was to cry her heart out and have some snuggles from Harry. She misses him soo much, they are living in the same house but lately doesn't feel like that.

She opened the door and stepped inside to find the lights are on, she thanked the heavens that Harry is home early. She just want to see him and kiss him.

She is feeling soo subby, not in a sexual way. She wants to be taken care of and loved. She wants Harry to hug and kiss her tears away. She just wants to be near him.

She went inside and figured that Harry is indeed home and in his office. As every step she takes she hear his voice taking in phone with someone and he is clearly stressed and angry.

She went near the door and contemplated about knocking the door or directly opening it. She decided to knock first, she faintly knocked and the talking stopped for a second and continued.

She waited for a couple seconds and slowly opened the door.

There he is, sitting in his office with his phone in one hand and eyes on the laptop infront him with his brows furrowed and visible tension and tiredness his face.

Y/n sticked her head inside the room without entering completely and called his name.

He looked at her for second, and smiled. It's not his smile. It's not a smile at all. He just made his lip form a thin line and nodded his head to let her know that he acknowledged her presence.

She wanted to call his name again but she didn't. He is busy and that's visible, as much as she wants his attention she knows better that interrupting something important.

She turned back and went into their room. Maybe after a bit he will be able give her his attention.

She showered and wore one of Harry's t-shirt and did her night time skincare. And after a good one and half hour she decided to go to Harry and talk.

She knocked on his office again and but this time she heard a faint 'come in' .

"Hi baby" She said softly

"Hi , love." He said in return and looked at her for a second and got back to his work.

Y/n fidgeted with her fingers and thought of something to talk about.

But Harry broke the silence. " how was your day ? "

She felt relived that he asked about it and that she didn't have to start the topic.

"Um.... not very good actually." She said

He looked at her with his brows furrowed and asked "What happened, baby ?"

"Just not feeling good and didn't have a good day at uni and at work." She shrugged

"Ohh, I'm sorry, love."

"Harry do you think we can watch a movie and talk for a bit. I don't really feel good. I could use some cuddled and a kiss." She asked shyly.

"Um...... " he started .

"I'm sorry but I really can't right now ,baby. I have so much of work. I can give you a kiss though." He said and got right back into his work.

Y/n stood there without moving. She wanted to be understood, all she wanted was his attention and his closeness.

For weeks she has been an understanding girlfriend and gave him space and let him prioritize his work, but she had enough.

"Harry, it's been weeks since we spent some time and shared an actual conversation. I have been patient but I think you should be understanding to my needs too." She ranted all her thoughts inside her head.

He lifted his head for his laptop and looked at her with an unreadable expression.

She really wished to know what was going on in that head of his.

"I know. I'm sorry that I haven't given you any attention in weeks but I have work to do, Y/n. I can't abandon them and look after your needs." He said that last part in a very mocking way that made her wince internally.

She sighed and started "Harry, I think -"

"Y/n, I don't have time for your chit-chat. Can't you see I have work to do ?" He yelled at her with fuming expression on his face.

Y/n was caught of guard by the yelling, and flinched and her face colored with shock and fear.

She was never in an abusive relationship that made her react this way. But seeing Harry yell at her made her pretty sacred and also Harry can be pretty scary when he is angry.

By seeing her reaction Harry's eyes softened and regret was written all over his face.

He was about to open his mouth and get up from his chair when y/n took a step back and murmured a small 'sorry' and left the room in a hurry.

Harry's heart clenched seeing that expression on her face. He wanted nothing more than to take those words back. Seeing tears in her eyes was the last thing he wanted to witness. But he already made her cry.

~~~

Y/n rushed to their room with blurry vision and tears streaming down her face. She wiped her face and got onto the bed and buried her face in her soft feather like pillows.

She cried and let her heart feel the pain for few minutes before she stopped.

She wanted to go somewhere else and give Harry some space, but she can't just go to anyone's house in the middle of the night and crash. So she had no choice but to be in their house.

After few more minutes she heard a faint sound of their bedroom door opening but she didn't open her eyes or peered up at Harry to see what he is doing

He got on the bed beside her and ran his hand down her back slowly.

"I'm soo sorry, love " He whispered.

"I really, really am. Work is hectic and I was going through something at office and took it on you. Im sorry and I know I have been distant lately. It's absolutely my fault and nothing to do with you. Im just an arrogant son of a bitch."

He kissed her head let his lips linger for few moments.

His words sounded sincere and y/n also knew he really didn't mean to yell but it's still hurt her.

"Can you please look at me ,baby ?" He asked her in a pleading tone that she couldn't ignore.

She slowly turned towards him and looked at him, his eyes were sad and regret colored his face. She felt bad for a second.

"I'm sorry baby." He said again as he caressed her face gently with his finger.

"Can you please forgive me, my love ? " He asked her as he looked into her eyes with soo much love.

She nodded her head and gave him a small smile. No matter what happened it's really hard for her to be mad at him for long time.

He returned her smile and kissed her lips softy. "I'll make it up for you , baby. What do wanna do ? You still want to watch a movie?"

She shook her head. "No. I think I want to get some rest."

His smile faltered a bit and he felt disappointed but he gave her kiss and stoked her hair. "Whatever you want , my love"

"Can you can lay down with me for a bit if you are not busy ? " She asked in a soft voice still not wanting to come between him and his work.

His smile grew as he laid on the bed with her and opened his arms wide for her to hug him and cuddle.

Without wasting any time she went into his arms and snuggled with him.

He kissed her head and murmured "I love soo much, love. I will never ignore you again "

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A/n : please let me know if you like this and comment and send me asks and interact with me if you like it.

I have been very inactive on this app, but I'm back. Here is small something for you guys. Hope you like it.

As always lots of love. 💗

°•●°°•●°

Thanks for reading.

Hope you enjoyed.

Please like, comment and reblog of you like it.

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imaginesheaven · 1 year

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Lonely Water (GN!Reader x TF141)

Lonely Water

GN!Reader x TF 141 (platonic)

Summary: You crash into the ocean with a helicopter during a mission. Waiting for your hopefully on time rescue you relive some of your favorite memories of your team. Kind of inspired by the song “Hold Back The River” by James Bay.

Callsign: Phoenix

Length: Around 2.3k words

Warnings: Swearing as always, angst, mentions of injuries, drowning

“Mayday! Eagle 3 is coming down in the middle of the ocean. The pilot is dead and I have no fucking clue how to fly this thing! … Oh, fucking hell…”

There is nothing but darkness around you. The mysterious but dark night sky with thousand shining stars above you and the deadly ocean lurking beneath you. The water is just waiting for you to lose the last of your endurance so you can sink into its cold embrace.

“I’m stronger than you think”, you hiss at the tiny waves of dark ocean water, but you are actually not sure how much longer you will survive. The cold of the sea comes creeping in what feels for hours now. It made itself a home in your bones so deeply freezing that your lips have turned already blue. The feeling in your arms and legs starts to fade just like your will of survival.

The helicopter sunk within minutes after the horrific crash into the water. There was literally nothing left to cling onto. You wouldn’t be Jack clinging for dear life onto a wooden door, while your true love stays safely above the freezing water.

The thought of the Titanic brings a weak smile onto your lips. At least you still got your humor with you to keep you company.

Darkness fills your mind with the sinking dread that your team probably wouldn’t be fast enough to rescue from this death trap. Your form floats on the water like a dead man hoping to delay the bitter end for just another few minutes.

The exhaustion slowly takes over as your eyes flutter shut desperate for a moment of rest. Cold water comes rushing over your face since the ocean was waiting for its chance to drown you in its embrace. The water is merciless. Adrenaline rushes through your vein bringing back your will to fight. You swim with weak strokes back to the surface. How much longer can you keep up against the sea?

“Oi! Not so fast, Phoenix!”, a familiar voice behind you yells out. The dirt beneath your shoes crunches as you jog through a patch of trees. Wait, a minute. The water surrounding you has vanished? This can’t be real, right? It hast to be a memory.

“Too bad you are so slow, Soap. You could easily catch up with me if you would work out a bit more”, you reply to the familiar voice behind you. Soap stares at you speechless for a second before he speeds up to catch you. Laughing you send him a wink and even put more speed on to outrun him more than easily.

Soap grunts with exhaustion ready to bring you down with him. He jumps forward his arms stretched out. This man is an open book for you for years now. Still grinning you make a step to the side completely out of his reach. Soap falls to the ground without you.

Absolutely pumped you start your little victory dance knowing exactly that in the distance Price, Gaz and Ghost are watching the two of you with binoculars. “That was quite a fall Soap took there”, the Captain comments the downfall of the poor Scott, “Pay up, Gaz.” The young soldier lets out a groan but always pays his bet debts.

“Phoenix could outrun us all, Gaz, never think otherwise”, no matter how often Ghost sees you running he is always mesmerized by your endurance.

“How can you be so damn fast?”, Soap can’t believe he lost once again. You give him a half shrug with your shoulder, “I imagine Death chasing me and what do we say to Death?”

“Not today”, you whisper smiling. The thought of your teammates brings you pure joy despite the fact you are probably going to drown. The only family you ever had and ever needed. For a second you close your eyes hoping to see more memories.

“So, your callsign is Phoenix. What’s the story behind it?”, Gaz asks you with a bright smile on his lips. Sometimes he reminds you of a little boy in a candy store. You can’t believe how much happiness his happiness can bring you.

“Well…”, you start your not so exciting story, but Soap interrupts you immediately: “Phoenix survived a car crash with a big explosion and came back out of its ashes like a Phoenix. Tada! The callsign was born!”

The silence in the room is deafening before you burst out with laughter, “What the hell, Soap?! No, that’s not what happened!” Everyone except Gaz gets a good laugh from this story. He looks so terribly confused and kind of intimidated at the same time.

“Poor Gaz is probably traumatized for the rest of his life. I like to burn things and someone else already had the fucking callsign Pyro so I had to improvise”, you explain him the situation with a few words. The young soldier rolls his eyes. Still a tiny smile on his lips can be seen.

“Have you any idea how hard it was to get Phoenix and Soap as both demolition freaks on the team? Explosions. Fires. Laswell was not happy at all”, Price recalls his quite one-sided conversation with her. The only thing she said was “NO!” over and over again. Well, she also said “FUCKING HELL FOR SURE NOT!” once. But Captain Price gets what he wants in the end.

A tiny tear rolls down your face, but you can’t feel anything anymore. The cold crept into every single fiber of your body. In the end it doesn’t matter anyway. You are still surrounded by water so what matters a single tear escaping? It’s the only one. Way too tired you can’t share more than that tiny tear with the ocean.

“Are you fucking serious? You could have died!”, you hiss angrily at Ghost as you patch the bullet wound in his side up. The tough soldier keeps quiet letting you work. “It’s like I’m talking to a brick wall without a single thought behind those eyes. Except for sacrificing himself for someone else”, you keep going with your monologue. No one dares to speak like that to him. Except you. It’s always you.

Ghost can’t see how your hands are shaking. How the fear takes over your already worry-ridden mind. How you blame yourself for not being fast enough in the end. You could have prevented this from happening.

But Simon knows you better than you yourself sometimes, “Not for anyone. Only for you, Phoenix. I’m sorry, but please stop worrying. Stop blaming yourself. In the end it was my decision. That’s what we do for each other. Keeping each other safe, right?”

Not answering you put away the first med kit finally done with patching him up. Ghost isn’t the one with the soft side, but with you it is so easy to feel safe for once. You stand up hoping to run from this conversation. His hand stops you dead in your tracks as he grabs your wrist, “Right?”

A slight smile appears on your lips still not turning around to face him, “Of course… but you are still a brick wall.” Simon can’t help himself but smile too behind his mask.

What have you done? If Simon would be here with you, he would hold this whole conversation against you. It’s the same reason that has brought you into the middle of the ocean. You wanted to keep them safe. Your team. Your family.

The helicopter was loaded with explosive meant to kill. Bombs. Soap’s favorite. There was no time to defuse them. You had not a single second to think about it. Just enough time to act on impulse. What a great idea to bring the helicopter down over the ocean far away to hurt someone else. But what about you?

“No, you are not stronger than me, Gaz”, Soap puts down the money for his bet. There is never a dull moment with those clowns. A tiny smile appears on your lips as you nurse your lonely drink in your hand.

“What’s so funny?”, Price notices your rather happy facial expression. “Nothing, just happy to be alive”, you reply simply. The Captain doesn’t need an explanation what you mean exactly. He just knows. You don’t need to elaborate how they give you a feeling of being home. How they are like the family you never had before in your life. They are everything you need to be happy.

But now it is time to let go.

Tired you keep your eyes closed as the cold water pulls you down into its embrace. You are not scared anymore to give up this time. Only gratefulness and happiness are present in your heart and mind. The joy you experienced is more than enough for a whole lifetime.

For the last time you open your eyes to see the darkness around you. It was the only friend you had the last few hours. The tiny waves trying to lull you into a memories-filled sleep. The cold making it easier to let go. You have been tired for so long already. Tiny air bubbles escape and leave you behind.

The darkness lurks beneath you, but above the water surface shines a strange light. Is that the beacon of hope you were looking for the whole time? There are voices too, but you can’t understand what they are yelling. You are sinking further and further. Far away from the light.

Above the lonely water your team is looking for you desperately.

The thought sends a surge of energy through your body. As hard as you can you wave your arms and legs completely uncoordinated. Still the movement brings you closer to the surface. You can’t give up now. Not so close to them.

Your whole body is numb and hurts at the same time terribly. The ocean gives its best to keep you to itself. The cold clouds your mind. Are you paddling into the right direction? Are you going further down?

Then your arm breaks through the surface. But that’s all you had left in you.

Something grabs your hand so tight you almost screamed out loud because of the pain. Your head is still underwater. There is another tightness in your lungs screaming for just a tiny bit of fresh air.

Slowly you get dragged out of the darkness. Leaving the ocean behind. You take a gasping breath. The world outside the water is so overwhelming. The lights blind you for a moment. The loud noises roar in your ears. Pure chaos. For a moment you miss the calming darkness of the ocean.

A slight smile would appear on your lips as you see the faces of your teammates, but that’s too much for now. Gaz and Soap have their hands tightly on your arms, while Price and Ghost try to heave you into the helicopter by your tactical vest. All your gear got extremely heavy soaked with ocean water to the brim. You wish you could help them out, but you reached your limit of energy a long time ago. They lower you to the ground finally freed of the water.

“We got Phoenix. Go, Nik”, Price gives his order to Nicolai. Your favorite Russian pilot. Ghost and Soap try to get rid of your tactical vest together. Gaz stands ready with a blanket to warm you up. They keep talking to you, but you can’t quite follow their words. Your mind still frozen in place.

“Hey, hey. You broken?”, John puts his hand on your ice-cold cheek to get your attention. This time you can manage a weak smile, “Define broken, Captain.” He lets out a deep sigh full of worry but more than happy to hear your voice once again.

“Don’t ever do this again, muppet. You were out there the whole night. We- … We literally thought you were gone. Want to sit up?”, Price grabs your shoulder softly too scared to hurt you after what you went through. Ghost on the other side helps you too to sit up.

The sun starts to rise on the horizon bringing another day to this earth. Another day you are able to see. Another day to be alive.

“You damn lucky bastard. The endurance from your jogging probably saved your ass out there”, Simon can’t believe he gets another chance to see you again. It breaks his heart to see you beaten up and weak like this, but you are alive.

“What do we say to Death?”, Soap asks you grinning like always. “Not today”, you reply enjoying the little inside joke the two of you have.

Price puts his leg behind your back so you can relax yourself against him. Ghost rests his hand on your shoulder letting himself feel grateful to have you back. Soap sits next to you. Shoulder against shoulder. Just like out in the battlefield. Gaz holds one of your hands in his to get them back to normal temperature.

Your little family.

Lonely Water

Let us hold each other

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triangle-dog · 7 days

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TW pet death

(Not one of mine, don't worry. You won't miss anything if you skip this post.)

I will always and forever be a collar and tags person (or, look, if you are really concerned about strangulation then a harness & tags person or a breakaway collar or whatever). Microchips are great, all my beasts are microchiped, but if one of them gets out I want to be able to find them and bring them home no matter what has happened to them.

Two years ago, almost exactly I think, friends and I were three miles into a beautiful autumn hike with the dogs. The leaves were turning, the wildlife was active, and there was a crisp breeze. We rounded a corner and immediately saw a body floating out on the lake, a dog, its long black fur drifting back and forth in the small waves. After some deliberation on what to do, and if it was safe, I waded out to the dog while the others in the party held our dogs way back from the lake in case the water was bad. He wasn't that far out really, but it felt like it took forever to get there because I was fervently hoping he'd have tags. I could actually feel the relief wash over me when I got there and saw patches of blue collar peeking out between the drifting fur.

I towed him into the shallows by the collar. I'm the most familiar with bodies, which is why I was the one who went out to him, and I know that they age differently in the water but by my judgment he'd died farily recently - less than a day ago. When he's in close enough to shore that I don't think he'll drift away any time soon, I unclip his collar and return to the group. We sit down and strategize for a few minutes. How do you make a call like that without raising their hopes? (Answer: you can't - just the phone ringing will be enough).

"I'm very sorry," I say, "but I found a dog in the lake and I thought you would want to know." She tells me she was half expecting a call like this, that the gate didn't latch correctly and both dogs got out but only one came home. She tells me that they were so worried he wouldn't be able to find his way home in the storm last night. She tells me he was very old, that his mind had been going for awhile now. She tells me that most of his life, until the last few years as his body became less able to manage the walk, they would come down to a beach near here and that he loved to swim. She tells me she hopes he at least got to relive those memories for a bit before he went.

I give her the coordinates, it's not too far from a road if you bushwhack - certainly less than the 3mi we did, and tell her we'll bring him to shore. I pick him up out of the shallows, he feels frail, yet he's so so heavy from the weight of the water in his fur. He's much smaller than Nova, yet lifting Nova has never felt like that. I lay him gently on the rocky beach in what I hope is a natural looking, less-traumatizing-to-the-kids position. I clip his collar back on, with the fur no longer drifting around in the water obscuring it, you can now see the little tag saying "Poochie" on the front. We head back the way we came. That was walk enough for all of us, it would feel wrong to seek a different ending, and it was an out and back trail anyway.

Ever since then, every dead cat or dog I see reminds me of those lakeside discussions. We are all overly dedicated animal people, we're fully aware of microchips and all of our own pets are microchiped, but carrying a waterlogged body 3mi to the car to drive it to the vet's office was just not feasible - I don't think it would occur to most people that that was even an option. Even if they did think of it, most people would be opposed to putting a dead animal in their vehicle. I'm just gonna make it easy on people and put my phone number on my animals.

(Sorry, that post was so much longer than it needed to be, but my brain must have recorded that experience in a different kind of memory than usual because it is so so clear and comes all as a set like that so that's what you got too)

TLDR: OP found a dead dog once and has big feelings about it. Put collars/etc. on your pets

#cw animal death #cw pet death #cw drowning #I speak

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spikeinthepunch · 1 year

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as Craig of the Creek is coming to a close in the near future, i cant help but repeat again and again forever just how fantastic that show was and how i do wish it garnered more attention in tumblr's general cartoon fandom circle. it got little bursts of love when episodes about important topics came out, but it never saw it keep that love consistently- the whole show deserved that high praise.

CotC followed in the footsteps of Steven Universe and did more with that opening to representation and diversity!! this really showed how important SU was for cartoons. CotC has an incredibly diverse cast- in show and out of show. The writers/artists/storyboarders/etc themselves- poc, neurodivergent, and lgbt put their stories into these episodes by writing them into characters. cultures and experiences explored in ways i had never seen so frequently and so deeply in a kids show. i might have some bias but my internship on the show for a summer really let me see even more how that crew as a whole put their hearts into it, and how much that diversity is so important to any piece of art.

poc showing their home lives, unique experiences, and cultures. kids discovering their sexuality and being able to talk with older gays for advice! exploring the struggles and feeling with a kid who heavily implies having autism, genderfluid characters respected and unquestioned (and one being a literal creeksona of the nonbinary board artist Angel Lorenzana!), and overall the wide range of experiences children having with their parents, friends and overall life.

they are children, they write them will and are entertaining to everyone imo. when i saw the show has "serious" plot i mean that these writers care, they care a lot about making these characters mean something in the story, and that being for "kids" wont make them hold back on important messages, deeper feelings, and realistic actions. the world is shown through the lens of "playing pretend" to have those fantastical moments, but they pull back many times to show the reality. sometimes you make mistakes but you learn, you dont agree with your parents but you work it out, you make bad decisions and hurt your friends but you can grow. (in some ways i wonder if tumblr would devolve into old the SU thoughts of 'redemption' on these 10 year olds too and get mad about the 12 year old being redeemed for bullying so, maybe its ok it doesnt have a fandom that big lol). the shows core ideas bring a special kind of nostalgia- one part in the form of seeing myself in the world they made, but also getting to relive a feeling of childhood that maybe i didnt get.

i hope in the future people can discover this show. it was axed (along with its spinoff) in half by the execs. there were at least 7 more episodes ready to be made before they cut it. im so happy they ended up with 181 episodes and a movie, but it deserved to keep going. it got a good 5 years but it shouldve had more, it felt like a timeless show.

#cotc #craig of the creek #short posts from me are never happening huh #but lol yeah im glad we dont have SU era fandom for this #imagine people trying to claim Xavier cant be redeemed bc he was a toxic monarch #the kids like 12. give him a break

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are-you-fucking-with-me-rn · 12 days

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okay so I always wanted to work on a show soundtrack so here's some songs I would put in s2 because since its probably maybe not gonna happen these can be canon in my head

Stupid Cupid by Connie Francis - okay so imagine if you will. The episode starts out jarring, maybe some payneland smooching out of nowhere, makes you go back to the last episode thinking you missed a scene. But then Edwin opens his eyes, he's lying on the ground or something, and is immediately thrust into the middle of a fight scene(this is where the song starts playing). He had just been temporarily knocked out and had some dream sequence or something idk. The fight scene is in a fancy restaurant or smth and it's close to Valentine's day and it's all decorated with hearts and stuff. This song is diegetic, playing in the restaurant.

Flaws by Bastille - I'd probably put it during end credits/end of the episode. It feels very transitional to me. It's a song on the Charles playlist so of course it's gonna play after a scene with Charles heavy lore or something. Maybe Charles's dad dies, and the song starts at the beginning of the funeral scenes. Then, long after everyone's already left, Charles goes and stands in front of the gravestone and his mom is just there kneeling in the grass in front of him and doesn't know he's there and yeah. It's like, the start of Charles's Actually-finding-peace-and-confronting-trauma arc or smth.

Girls on Film by Duran Duran - good for a montage of like Crystal adjusting to having rich, showy parents. She thinks maybe if she helps them out with their big projects, which she assumes the old her didn't do, maybe they'll start seeing her and caring about her like parents should. Going to grand openings and being photographed/interviewed, being in the public sphere all the sudden. Crystal's overcompensating for being a major jerk in her past life and is now bending over backwards to be nice to everyone (which, from experience, isn't exactly healthy either)(aka she's gone the "obsess-over-being-good-enough" route that Charles's gone down)(yikes).

The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen - I honestly have no vivid images for this one. I just like the song, I think it matches the mood of the show. Maybe something about Crystal and David? A final confrontation? Cus I saw someone (I'm sorry I forgot who) say they thought it would be interesting if Crystal's powers get "contaminated" by David cus he's still buried by the tree. So like a final standoff.

Swan Upon Leda by Hozier OR Eurydice by Eugénie - I think s2 would be more about Charles' journey the way s1 was more about Edwin BUT i'm also curious about Edwin's life. Something happens where Edwin maybe ends up at his old house, or relives his memories and it's all in slow motions and more calm than Charles's in ep4. They're not all bad, but Edwin was different and outcasted and the likes. George Rexstrew said himself that he thought Swan Upon Leda described Edwin really well, but also Eurydice gives off a sort of melancholy floatiness that fits with a boy 100+ years dead reliving an upbringing that now seems to foreign to him, and yet is ingrained in every part of himself.

Since listening to music is my #1 hobby, I will probably find more songs down the line and add on, but this is what I got for now.

#dead boy detectives #charles rowland #edwin payne #payneland #crystal palace #wow this is a lot of words i wrote just now #i imagine edwins memories to have willow trees and fog coming off lakes and a big white estate

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earlgreytea68 · 4 months

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i dont actually know the general consensus on I Am My Own Muse but to me it very clearly feels like pete addressing the fans directly - almost like a conversation? like the opening lines "here i am not sure you should take a chance. I like playing dumb letting you figure me out" basically completely summarises petes relationship with us during the early parts of this era. His uncertainty coming back but also the way he likes to keep us on our toes (like hes always done). His constant surprise that even one person appreciates his art. His odd fourth-wall-esque relationship w us - he always knows more than he lets on. like. these are crazy opening lines.

Especially looking at other songs petes addressed to us (namely thriller and our laywer). Those songs still feel like petes putting on a persona for our benefit. Hes talking to us through the mask he thinks we'll like best - but for his benefit not ours. In those songs he still wants to show his appreciation for the fans but hes afraid to be vulnerable about it. He hides behind tongue and cheek self deprecation (put this record down, we are bad news, we're only good to have almost famous friends... that whole song tbh) or like implication of rejection/disaster (we r not making an acceptance speech, car crash hearts, only thing i havent done yet is die) and its all glitz and distraction bc thats what he does. he will tell us their hearts beat for the diehards but not before telling us why its a bad idea. its defensive from the get go but in Muse he doesnt do that. yes he defends himself but his tone is balanced between resigned and resolute. its stripped down to just his own thoughts voiced aloud. it feels so much more genuine despite how much vaguer in address it is.

Also the general theme of this song is feeling hidden/secret (e.g. the angels didnt know his name, him feeling faded, feelings were tucked away) but trying to draw attention anyway(throw the year away, smash all the guitars, drop a bomb on things we care about) even if its hard/painful (twist the knife again, trying to keep it together).

This coupled with the title is a perfect representation of his journey as an artist in this era no? The vulnerability hidden in old songs and spoken word poems that he relives each night of the tour. An amalgamation of every little moment he created and tucked away is reborn on stage. And who has he shared this particular journey with??? The fans. It was us who he finally trusted with his works and words in the shows and we sang them back at him. Patricks journey alongside pete has felt more obvious bc of his whole demeanour but its pete who wrote his heart out to us. I think this song is a way of pete kinda of juggling this idea in his head before it ever took shape in thw real world. A way of connecting back with his audience. Not as an act of nostalgia but as moving on together. its a gorgeous song and it feels like a love letter to us in the very oarticular way a love letter from pete wentz feels like. its not soft or even sweet but it leaves you feeling comforted and stronger anyway. its solidarity yk.

ANYWAYS thats my ramble for today hope it was worthwhile <33 i really had to get that one out otherwise i may have exploded. can you tell smfs as an album and an era is my baby. sorry this is such a long one lol. hope you r having a great day :)

Awwww I *love* this. I *adore* "I Am My Own Muse" and I always have and I love everything you say about it. To write a song that sounds like that and then call it so deliberately "I Am My Own Muse," like, that we are there and ever-present but in the end he's got to come from his own authentic place. And it's like his instinct is to play a little coy and not be so vulnerable, but also he just wants to scream so someone hears him: Smash all the guitars 'til we see all the stars, like, he's screaming so that we will all see. He's trying so hard to keep it together, keep it together, so smash all the guitars 'til we see all the stars, because we are all in it together, and throw the whole year away and start fresh.

Look, i am Peterick all the way, we all know, and I think I've even used lyrics from this song in a Peterick fic, but in my secret heart of hearts, if you really ask me to be serious, what do I think Pete Wentz is writing about........I kinda think he's always writing about us.

#peterick #pete wentz #fall out boy #fob

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dontyoufinditstrange · 4 months

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From Under The Cork Tree Lyrics That Alter My Brain Chemistry

Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued

"the ribbon on my wrist says 'do not open before christmas'" "we're only liars, but we're the best" "its just past 8 and i'm feeling young and reckless"

Of All The Gin Joints In All The World

"i used to waste my time dreaming of being alive, now i only waste it dreaming of you" "we're sleeping through all the memories"

Dance, Dance

"tonight it's 'it can't get much worse' versus ' no one should ever feel like'" "i'm two quarters and a heart down" "and i don't wanna forget how your voice sounds" "these words are all i have so i'll write them so you need them just to get by" "this is the way they'd love if they knew how misery loves me"

Sugar, We're Going Down

"i'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song" "a loaded god complex, cock it and pull it" "isn't it messed up how i'm just dying to be him?"

Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner

"i keep my jealousy close cause its all mine" "hand behind this pen relives a failure every day" "so wear me like a locket around your throat, i'll wear you down, i'll watch you choke"

I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)

"we're the kids who feel like dead ends" "and the poets are just kids who didnt make it and never had it at all" "force our smiles, baby, half dead, from comparing myself to everyone else around me" "please put the doctor on the phone cause i'm not making any sense" "blame everyone but me for this mess" "and my back has been breaking from this heavy heart" "i'm hopelessly hopeful you're just hopeless enough"

7 Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen)

"i keep tellin myself, i keep tellin myself i'm not the desperate type, but you've got me looking through blinds" "trying to forget everything that isn't you" "i'm not going home alone, cause i dont do too well on my own"

Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year

"cause i swear i'd burn the city down to show you the light" "no matter what they say, don't believe a word" "cause i'll keep singing this lie if you keep believing it" "take our tears, put em on ice" "ashamed of the way the songs and the words own the beating of our hearts" "got a sunset in my veins" "i need to take a pill to make this town feel okay" "i need to keep you like this in my mind"

Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends

"you are a getaway car, rush of blood to the head" "we only do it for the scars and stories, but not the fame" "at least everyone is trying, everyone is shining, everyone deserves the flames, but its such a shame" "the sounds of this small town make my ears hurt" "the tide's out, the ship's run aground, we drown traitors in shallow water"

I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me

"you're the only place that feels like home" "i'm the first kid to write of hearts, lies, and friends" "i am sorry my conscience called in sick again" "i've got arrogance down to a science" "they call kids like us vicious and carved out of stone" "but for what we've become we just feel more alone" "so progress report: i am missing you to death"

A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"

"you're just the girl all the boys wanna dance with and i'm just the boy who's had too many chances" "i don't blame you for being you, but you can't blame me for hating it" "write me off, give up on me, cause darling what did you expect?"

Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows)

"we never stood a chance and i'm not sure if it matters" "i'm mailing letters to addresses in a ghost town" "i know this hurts, it was meant to" "it's mind over you don't, don't matter" "it must be said again that all us boys are just screaming into microphones for attention because we're just so bored" "we never knew that you would pick it apart" "i'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts"

"i left my conscience pressed between the pages of the bible in the drawer" "love never wanted me, but i took it anyway" "choose love or sympathy" "loose lips sink ships"

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lgbtlunaverse · 1 year

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I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.

#mdzs #fandom #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #nieyao #? sorta #this was months ago and i have long since worked my way through the whole novel #plus rereading empathy approximately 14 more times #funnily enough the fics that initially got me interested in 3zun don't gell so well with my reading of them anymore #still very well written and i can reread them happily but it's still kind of ironic #it is what i wanted i suppose. Making sure you don't fall for fanon means fanon sometimes becomes less enjoyable #also @helesia if you're reading this yes YOU are the friend and yes that means this is YOUR fault #i'm billing you for my next therapy appointment #not meta not a headcanon but a secret 3rd thing (unorganized rambling)

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salarta · 3 months

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Polaris, Victim or Survivor

I'm about to go into things that I've gone into with other posts, but I hope the way I express it opens some minds and brings new clarity. Before I do, I want to present the inspiration behind this post, the song "Victim or Survivor" performed by Icon For Hire and Citizen Soldier. It's not "required listening" by any means, but it gives an idea of where this post is coming from, and I'll be referencing parts of it as I talk about Lorna.

youtube

Okay, here we go.

Polaris as a character has existed since 1968. She's the second woman to join the X-Men, coming before women like Storm, Rogue, Emma, and others who have been given more of a spotlight and more opportunities over time. Lorna was also much more feminist than Jean Grey at the time she was introduced - an aspect that led to her getting overly punished with loads of regression and sexism that continues to hold her back to this day even as other female characters benefit from her having paved the way for them.

That's 56 years. Fifty-six years of comics appearances. Fifty-six years of lost opportunities, while Marvel put her through things like this. Not in chronological order. And not everything, but a sampling of what I happen to have saved to make my point.

My point? For most of her time from the 70s to the late 90s, Lorna was constantly getting abused. Just one abuse after another. Whether it's being written as terrified of Sabretooth before Malice possessing her (and getting beat up by characters like Storm), or having her powers stolen by Zaladane and given ones that provide an excuse for everyone to hate her, or just an endless parade of mind control and humiliation, Lorna just kept getting treated like a punching bag.

One not allowed to be anything else. Not even allowed to keep her own identity, toward the end of Claremont's run.

A perpetual victim.

But see, then something happened in the early 2000s.

The Genoshan genocide.

In the actual telling of it, not the X-Men 97 version, Lorna was present as a survivor. She had already been there up to that point aiding Magneto in running the island, supporting the concept of a mutant homeland and posing as him with an image inducer on his behalf when he became weakened.

New X-Men 132 showed the aftermath, and came first. It showed how Lorna survived the genocide but had to relive its final moments over and over with her powers until the X-Men found her.

That could have theoretically been the end of it. Just that one issue. But then Chuck Austen, despite all his faults in various areas, did the one thing literally no other writer did before him or since.

He gave a damn.

I'm not here to say Chuck Austen is some black and white caricature of exclusively good or bad writing. Nobody fits that bill. What I AM here to say is that what he did with and for Lorna is, still to this day, the best writing she's ever had in the 616.

Why?

Because under his pen, Lorna was not just a perpetual victim.

She was a survivor.

He wrote Lorna processing her trauma in the wake of Genosha. He wrote the flashback of the actual experience, he wrote her dealing with her mental health in the aftermath, he wrote her personal philosophy and views of the world shaping up to what she experienced. By the end of his run, we had Lorna in a position where she was ready to fight for mutants because she abhorred what she personally witnessed and didn't want any other mutants to go through what she did.

... But this is Marvel. Which loves its nostalgia. Even if that nostalgia is horribly regressive and loaded with untold amounts of sexism.

So after Lorna got depowered by Wanda from Decimation, she got taken down the wrong path again starting with being depicted as a "loony" type of crazy, followed by getting turned into Pestilence. She was rescued from that, left the X-Men, and the next time we saw her after that... we got this shit.

See, a perpetual thorn on Lorna's path to true development has been nostalgia for her forced into relationship with Havok. And throughout, Lorna's victimization often comes paired with her needing to serve that role so Havok can play the role of cis straight Aryan male coming to her rescue. The origins of that relationship also came paired with tearing down her more feminist introduction through Havok.

There's never been a true reckoning with this by Marvel. Because they think Lorna is so under the wire, so "unimportant," that they can keep doing it to her as compared to other characters like Jean or Storm that would rightfully have fans up in arms at such treatment.

That was the case here, when she got sent into space to be a supporting character for Havok. This is how she's been depicted since Genosha as a result.

And since she got sent to space with Havok, we've had repeated cases where Marvel deliberately ignores how Lorna's a survivor of the Genoshan genocide all so they can keep sending her back into victim land. Like so.

Notice how that last example from Prisoner X shows absolutely NOTHING of her surviving the Genoshan genocide. Notice that instead, it felt that showing her kissing Havok back in the 90s was apparently far more important.

Notice how Lorna's apologizing for Rockslide's death when she didn't know him, while never once acknowledging the genocide she survived. Notice Lorna getting mind-controlled for the billionth time, this time by Siryn, AND being called dumb for a scenario concocted purely so she could be called dumb.

Then we have the plane crash. Which, overall I support as part of Lorna's story... but it still fits my point of giving her new traumas and acting like the genocide never happened. And in this case, it hasn't been touched upon since.

Over the decades, Lorna has gone through a LOT of trauma. But simply having gone through trauma isn't the whole story.

It's what comes out of the trauma that matters most. How the character is presented. How they develop. What their experiences mean.

For Lorna, it comes down to two issues.

Is she a victim?

Or is she a survivor?

Marvel from the 70s to the late 90s preferred that she be a victim. Marvel from the late 00s to today also takes that attitude. That she should always be relegated to suffering.

That's not where her future lies. And frankly, Marvel should strive to be a fuckload better about this matter just as a whole. Because trauma is a major issue for just about everyone alive, especially now, to varying degrees.

The Lorna we got by the end of Austen's run was someone who wasn't just a victim of the genocide. She was a survivor.

She didn't let it send her crawling into a dark pit of nothing and hide from the world, afraid she might see more death or experience more trauma. She faced that shit head on. She stayed in the fight, put herself at risk, dealt with the pain of having failed to save people who looked up to her.

Lorna surviving the Genoshan genocide isn't an insignificant plot point that's free for any random character to take from her as some would like to have believed. She has a distinct history of poor treatment where she's been presented as a victimized punching bag, and Genosha was the catalyst for her to finally not be that. It was her transformative moment.

Right this second, what we're dealing with is certain people within Marvel who think Lorna should primarily be in the role of victim and supporting character for Havok.

What we need to do is push back against that and emphasize that she's not a victim. She's a survivor.

As the lyrics of the song I linked at the start say: "Crutch or a crown only you decide."

Lorna more than deserves that crown. And she will only get it when she stops being treated like a victim and starts getting recognized for the survivor she is.

#polaris #lorna dane #x-men #xmen #marvel #trauma #genocide #genoshan genocide

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wraithprint · 5 months

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Housewarming ;

✖ a twisted metal fic

⊱rating: explicit ; minors dni ⊱summary: you handle a knife like the world ended before your parents taught you how to cook and Sweet Tooth loves like the world ending finally gave him the chance to. ⊱pairing: sweet tooth x gn!reader ; primarily sweet tooth pov ⊱wc: 4.3k. help ⊱contains: no beta, no use of y/n, established relationship, age gap - Sweet Tooth is in his late 30s/early 40s and you are a 20something apocalypse baby, no gendered pet names, descriptions of blood + murder, brief mention of child abuse, fluff, yearning, ruminations on codependence, smut, piv sex, creampie but i don't focus on it, kitchen sex, dom needles if you squint, gloves stay on mask stays on, a whiff of yandere if you squint, narrative and tonal delineations between sweet tooth / needles kane / marcus kane, extremely specific early 2000s reference, general inability to write a short and punchy sex scene, sweet tooth can't fuck without being a little annoying about it ⊱a/n: this was supposed to be short. this was supposed to be a bullet list. help. i also dug up my CD + CD player just to relive my cereal box kid's choice awards CD memories. that synth opening on Sometimes is so bad.

Sweet Tooth kind of hates houses.

Not in a gestalt sense — he'll spend all day watching reruns of HGTV if given the chance; he's developed more opinions on farmhouse decor than what should be healthy. No, houses just happen to be the vessel in which household dynamics were inflicted upon him. He feels the same about dollhouses, too: It's less about the house and more about it being the stage upon which Mommy Doll screams at him for not making enough in residuals to afford another trip to the Bahamas this year, and where Not My Daddy Doll ruins the plaster every time he gets upset.

But there's something about this house.

Maybe it's the lack of an open concept floor plan. Maybe it's the adrenaline from killing the couple who lived here, still warm in the foyer in their matching tennis outfits. It could be the polished marble floor, which is complimented so well by all that blood right now, or it could be because it's a mansion. Those high ceilings and vacuous rooms feel spacious enough to house his baggage without it piling up against the walls.

Or, he thinks, at the sound of you shrieking in delight from the kitchen, it could be you.

He's cleaning his machete on the wife's tennis dress when he hears you from the room over.

"They've got fucking chicken in here!" Your voice is half-muffled from inside the fridge; back end jutting out from behind its open door.

"The chicken is doing what now?" Sweet Tooth calls back to you.

There's a thunk, then the distinct sound of produce hitting the floor and rolling. You're glowering at him when he rounds the corner. The hair on the back of your head is disheveled; several potatoes roll aimlessly along the glossy tile. He doesn't have to say it. You already know he knows.

"The chicken," you enunciate laboriously, "is about to get chef'ed by yours truly."

"You cook?" he asks, mildly incredulous. "I got the impression you just ate whatever fit in your mouth." And, according to recent sordid memory, some things that don't quite fit—but you're creative. You find a way.

"Well, that's because I haven't had anything worth cooking." You intone as you rummage through the crisper.

"You mean aside from that possum you made last week."

This time, you dip lower before you snap your head out of the fridge and pivot on a heel towards the counter with purpose. He doesn't mind that you're stubbornly avoiding his gaze—he's busy moving behind you to shut the fridge, watching the line of your hips as he does it.

"Aside from that possum I killed and you insisted I try to cook with aerosol and a lighter."

It came out charred on one side and nearly raw on the other. Absolutely abysmal eating. Also sixty percent his fault.

"You listened to me. That's on you, sweetheart."

You shoot him a bird, he shoots one back, and the two of you descend into banter about everything from the tiles to the backsplash to the enormity of the kitchen itself and what all it could be used for (murder, cooking, fucking - in that order). You've got some crushed garlic and pat of butter (real butter!) going on a bougie ceramic skillet and the air sings with the scent of aromatics.

"Hey, Needles?" You call a bit louder than necessary, as if he could ever stop paying attention to you. "Put something on, would you, please?" He follows the nod of your head to a swanky-looking CD player sitting on the counter a safe distance away from the sink. There's a CD rack beside it, the rotating kind, like a seasoning rack for disc jockeys.

"What're you in the mood for?" Asks Sweet Tooth. In two strides he's there and thumbing through the collection. Rock and grunge, mostly. Nirvana, Foo Fighters, The Cranberries. Soundgarden—he'll save that for you—and...Weezer, for some reason. It's completely possible that the previous homeowners put all of their taste points into music rather than interior design. Too late to ask them now, he supposes.

You make a noise just north of indecisive before saying, "You pick. Surprise me."

He gives it another spin, ignoring the ones that feel too easy, rolling his eyes at some others (Loggins and Messina? Really?) until he settles on one that stands out. It's in a ragged paper sleeve. There's a faded General Mills logo on it, and by the look of it, it must've come from a cereal box. The disc itself is glossy, embossed with a clean pattern of rings that feel pleasant to run a thumb over. He entertains himself with the aesthetics of it for a few seconds before reading off the disc to you.

"How about...The Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2003 Volume 2?"

You say nothing for a long moment. Sweet Tooth keeps reading the CD face.

"Featuring music by Britney Spears, Nikki Cleary, Backstreet Boys..."

"...NYSYNC and other hot artists?" You say automatically.

"And other hot artists indeed." Sweet Tooth taps the lid of the CD player and it eases open. You watch him so intently he can't actually tell if you want him to play the CD or snap it in two.

"I ate so. Much. Cereal. To get all four of those CDs."

Sweet Tooth loads the disc and presses play: swears he sees your pupils dilate at the sound of the disc whirring into place. After a few seconds of cheesy synth, the beat kicks in and Britney Spears drifts through the speakers, singing about Sometimes.

"Holy shit." Your garlic is starting to burn, but you can't bring yourself to care about that right now. "This is it! This is the one. I got this on the morning of a spelling test and listened to it all the way to school. It was in a box of Cookie Crisp," You start nodding your head to the music, mouthing words you half-remember, swaying to the back beat. Sweet Tooth falls into rhythm with you, albeit with far more gyrating than necessary for a Kid's Choice Award-winning song.

"Cookie Crisp," Sweet Tooth echoes fondly, voice rumbling through his mask. "A cereal after my own heart. Did you P-A-S-S the T-E-S-T?"

"Dunno." You shrug. "School blew up right before I handed it in."

The rhythm leaves your bodies, then.

He tries to imagine you school-aged; tiny and swallowed up by a uniform that runs too big in some places and too small in others. Hair flying wild after recess, dried spaghetti sauce on your cheek after lunch. Your little hands gripped tight around a pencil, trying to remember your i's before e's except after c's. Did you have a favorite subject? A favorite teacher? A favorite animal you secretly wanted people to ask about?

When the bombs started dropping, where did you hide?

Before you, Sweet Tooth never questioned what it was like to have been born at a different time. Time lined up well for him: old enough to have learned everything he needed before society collapsed, young enough to still enjoy it all when the doors to Blackfield flew open. He'd already seen his 21st birthday in the asylum by the time you learned your times tables. But moments like these get him thinking about if.

If he was born a little later.

If he had a different family.

If he had grown up in your neighborhood .

If he had gone to the same school as you.

Do you think we would have been friends?

Instead he says, "Hey, chef. Your garlic's burning."

And when you say, "Good. That one's yours."

He wonders if this is what a house is supposed to feel like: full of light, music, and the smell of vaguely burnt garlic.

Sweet Tooth has never known what domestic feels like, but he's seen movies. Read books. This—you, gushing about eating something that doesn't come from a can, mocking the leathery tans on the bodies by the door—it's gotta come close. It has to.

Sweet Tooth crosses the kitchen and moves the skillet for you, and it's on his return trip that he sees how utterly wrong you're holding the kitchen knife.

Almost the wrongest he's ever seen it. Cutting way too close to your knuckles, chopping a hapless carrot like you're trying to sever a limb and he's wincing each time the blade comes down like a guillotine. You handle a knife like the world ended before you had to cook for yourself, and it shows. A sense of duty settles itchy between his rubs and Sweet Tooth slots behind you, thick arms framing you as he settles his gloved hands over yours.

"Your knife etiquette is atrocious." He corrects your grip, shows you how to form a claw to protect your fingertips while you hold an onion. "Who taught you how to chop?"

You lean into him, slack and trusting as he guides your hands and Sweet Tooth has to remind himself how to hold a knife. How to cut. How to breathe. He curls himself around your shape and you let him, the both of you twisting into a single being and he likes the idea of that. The two of you, joined, forever. He could chop carrots for the rest of his life with you and he doesn't think he'd mind. Not if he got to be like this.

The question turns over in your head and finally, you answer.

"No one," You say blandly. Like you're discussing gas prices. "I lost my folks in the collapse. I think...the first time I put thought into holding a knife was when I was about to kill someone with it."

A beat.

He sees that same school uniform, sticky and ruined with blood. You probably still had baby teeth. If he had known you then...

Would you have trusted him?

He can't say he knows.

Instead, he holds onto what he does know: how your weight settles in his arms. The smell of your skin, the lye from the bar soap you use, so old that any real scent it had has faded by now. That scar at the base of your neck you got from a fishing accident, and the knowledge that if he kisses it right now, your breath would hitch in that secret, shuddering way he loves. He knows he would die for you.

And he longs to ask:

Do you know?

What he says is,

"I'm showing you, then. It's like this: a rocking motion. Tip to hilt. If you hold what you're cutting like this," he slides his hand under your palm, curls his fingers up into it for yours to rest against. "You won't lose your fingertips. Keep your fingers pinched at the base of the blade and you'll have more control."

You hum, considering this.

"It almost feels like an extension of me." You say more to yourself than the man attached to you. Your weight leans in the direction you're cutting, bringing Sweet Tooth with you like a shadow. He watches you work that thought down to the bone along with the remaining onions and potatoes on the cutting board.

Something about clicking the skillet back on after you add the vegetables puts two and two together for you, like remembering something once you get to the bottom of the stairs.

"Is this what it's like with your machete?"

Sweet Tooth makes a low, thoughtful sound. It reverberates through your bones, settles into the marrow and he doesn't miss it when your pulse stutters into a sprint at the sensation.

"Most good things should feel like an extension of you, I think." His voice is bright, smile wide behind his mask. "Some things feel that way because they're made well. Other things, it's like you grow into it. You take the time to understand it, nurture that bond, and you become..." He stops, then, brain wholly preoccupied by you taking a slice of carrot from the board and bringing it to your lips, taking his hand with it. Something hot braids slick in his in gut. The heat of your breath bleeds through the skin of his gloves and he can't. He can't say it.

Intertwined.

"Want one?" You've already got a slice of carrot up to his chin. He separates from you just long enough to expose his mouth, and in a moment he's eaten it.

In another, his mouth is on you.

His lips find your neck, settles on the sensitive skin of your throat. Feels it contract when you gasp. Gloved hands retreat from yours, take up residence under the hem of your tank top, travel the expanse of soft skin around your navel, the base of your ribs. The ribbed knit of your top sticks a bit when he peels it up, soaked through with arterial spray from earlier that's dried and set into the cotton by now. It leaves a scaly, sticky texture under your bust, and before you can protest the behavior Sweet Tooth's tongue is laving it from your skin in hot, wet stripes.

"Right now, Needles?" You try to keep your tone even, you really do. But he's licking what you know is someone else's blood off of you and the blood in your head is rushing to needier places at the moment. "With food on the stove?"

He ignores you, of course. You pry yourself from him, force yourself to drop the stove to min once again and all the while he's muttering little apologies as he follows you:

"'m sorry. couldn't help it. didn't mean to."

He's not apologetic for very long.

There's no shame in the way he positions you against the sink, bent slightly at the hip, elbows bowed to brace yourself between the counter and the weight of him behind you. That weight lessens a moment, just long enough for the sound of zipper teeth to catch the air. Your nostrils flare at the sound, and Sweet Tooth can't help but admire the way your hips cant back for him on reflex. Your tank top and sports bra are in a bundle at your armpits, your pants are still fully on, but nonetheless you react. Smooth leather slides over the swell of your hips. One hand settles where you've pivoted for him to hold you in place, and the other moves forward to unfasten your jeans. He only opens it enough to fit that hand in, to press the seams of his gloved fingers against your cunt through the fabric of your underwear and like many other things he knows this before touching you: you're already wet.

Sweet Tooth eases your pants off of you. Your underwear comes with it, and he lifts you up with that other hand just enough for you to kick the heap of fabric off your ankles. He lets you reposition yourself on the lip of the sink for all of three seconds before he removes the space between you. That first finger slides in, all the way to the knuckle and in a moment you're folded against the counter. The beveled edge of the granite is cold against your skin, bites into your hips and promises to bruise from the pressure but you don't care.

It's the first stretch you like the most - the sweet tension before your body goes slack and he starts finger-fucking you open in earnest, pressing open-mouthed kisses onto the backs of your shoulders and your neck, dragging his teeth against you until raised marks form. With your weight settled properly against the counter now, that other hand finds your clit. He pinches it just to make you clench around him before he sets a steady pace of rolling it under the pad of his middle finger.

"W-E-T," Sweet Tooth spells. His voice is rough, but you can still hear the chuckle in his throat when he asks, "What's that spell?" And he adds that second finger, curls them both inside you in a way that makes you hiss with pleasure.

"It spells—ah!—fuck you," you snipe back, but it's toothless. Stars swim in your vision. Your lower half tingles and all you can think about is the heat of his cock rubbing against the inside of your thigh each time he ruts against you.

"W-R-O-N-G. Might have to spell 'detention' next, sweetheart." There's just a drop of venom in his voice, the part of him that gets off on having power over you. It's this part of him that dips his head into the crook between your neck and shoulder and bites down hard. Hard enough to pull a strangled cry from you, half-surprised, half-pleasured, wholly addled by lust. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to leave two parallel rows of bruises blossoming under the skin.

Needles catches the white of your eyes flash up at him in the reflection of the glass. You're clever, keen enough to sense that shift in his tone even three fingers deep and he'd reward you for it. If you earned it. His hand leaves your clit to palm himself finally, allowing you just a moment to focus on him. "Next one's a twofer, honey, so pay attention."

You try. It's hard, with his fingers scissoring slow, deliberate strokes inside of you, but you bite down on your lip and you try.

"C-A-V-I-T-Y. What's that spell, hmm?" There's an edge to Needles' tone, like he's testing a blade against his thumb to see how much pressure it takes to pierce. A fresh wave of ache, raw and new from his teeth on your neck, pulls you away from the edge of an orgasm just enough to form a response.

"Cavity," you breathe, and your voice warbles from the effort. You can barely see the whites of his eyes under his mask in the window, pupils blown and locked on you. There's a tacky sound - skin on skin - and without seeing you know it's him squeezing himself faster. Needles shudders against you, some low, animal noise coming from him that makes your blood feel superheated in your veins.

"Clever." And it doesn't quite feel like a compliment when Needles says it so much as it feels like the other shoe preparing to drop. "And what do we do with cavities?" He sounds twice as pointed, voice a ragged thing in his throat and you want to stay cogent, you really do -

but you really need to come.

It's too much. You know the answer but your brain strains to grasp the word and bring it to your lips.

We fill them.

You can't say it. Tears prick your eyes, the apple of your throat bobbing on a wordless cry and that tell-tale tension starts to seize you, just before the dam breaks, just before -

Needles takes his fingers out.

You're almost mad at him for it.

"What do we do?" He enunciates, unimpressed, or...impatient?

Was he...waiting for you to finish his setup? It seems he is, because he lets you get a few breaths in you without punishment before tapping the leaking tip of his cock against your cunt as if begging the question.

"Fill them," You finally gasp. "We—"

Marcus Kane sinks into you.

It's like this: tip to hilt, a rocking motion, like you're an extension of him. All good things feel like an extension of the body, and from this angle he's not sure where you end and where he begins. He likes you like this, wet and trembling and split open on his cock, all the air in your body dedicated to him.

He doesn't let you move at first; he just holds you there, lets you feel the steady and relentless pressure of him spreading you on the length of his dick until he bottoms out so deep inside you that for a moment you can't stop clenching around him, some nerve hit and held down inside you. There's some confusion on what to call him. Sweet Tooth, Needles, Baby, please, rightthere, fuck - he'll answer to any and all of those, but he leaves you hanging on his length until you say his name.

"Marcus—" you finally sob. You're unbearably full. Each time he twitches inside of you, you clench around him like a sympathetic response, your body attuned to him on some synaptic level. "Please."

It's all you have to say.

Marcus breathes your name like it's precious in his lungs, and then he moves. His hips stutter forward, just that much deeper inside of you after having spent so long around him and it hits that spot in you, soft and vulnerable and you finally come undone. It starts with a litany of gasps, your core squeezing and spasming until your whole body feels like a clenched fist. He fucks you through it , relishes the staccato of your voice on the pace of his thrusts until that last moan climbs up and out of you with such volume it echoes off the tiles. He brings his hand down to your clit, circling it with each squeeze you give him, thrusting shallow and persistent against that spot until your legs dangle nerveless over the lip of the sink, until your orgasm rides the road of your body and all that's left is the two of you, intertwined.

You're dripping when he starts moving again.

He's vaguely aware of the CD starting over when he starts pumping in and out of you, filling and hollowing, shaping you to fit the bend and weight of his cock. This is how it's supposed to be—he belongs here. Inside you, with your head turned to kiss him so he can swallow each moan that spills out of you, with your legs hanging slack and open, swinging to the rhythm he fucks into you. Your chest heaves with effort, eyes glassy, already fucked out and touch-wrecked but you still lean into him, seeking his touch like a lizard to a hot stone. He could kill you right now and you'd let him. You could kill him right now and he'd let you, so long as he dies like this. So long as the last thing he feels is you.

Wet, vulgar sounds echo off the counters and the walls, and Marcus absently wonders if the neighbors can hear you. Can hear him, grunting so deep in his chest that his teeth feel like they're rattling. They could show up and moment looking for their tennis partners and neither of you can bring yourselves to care. It's a conscious effort to look at you, to hold you in his mind's eye what for the way his eyes keep rolling back in his head each time your walls press around him. You're both sticky from sweat, your thighs a mess of your own release and his precome steady forming a rope from the join of you to the floor. It's when you start babbling again that Marcus picks up his pace, feeling his own release creeping up in kind.

"Fuck! I'm gonna—" You swallow suddenly, hearing yourself for the first time in several minutes, voice foreign in your throat. "Gonna come." You're secretly glad he doesn't ask you to spell it.

"You're doing so good for me, baby." His voice thrums against the shell of your ear, calm, quiet, breathy. Like he's somewhere else, somewhere only the two of you can go, and only like this. "Almost there, just...hold on."

You hum, or as close an approximation you can get with a raw throat.

"So well."

Marcus makes a low questioning noise, slows just enough for you to say,

"Doing so well."

You can only moan, then, when he shifts his angle and drives into you from a new angle, driving the breath from you, but you hear him chuckle. It's a quick, biting thing, like he didn't mean to let it out but you hear it and Marcus fucks this new pattern into you it's what you focus on when your second, screaming orgasm shoots through you from gut to the space between your eyes and everywhere in between. Marcus comes just after with a desperate groan of his own, hips pumping sans rhythm until he unloads all he has inside you. He thrusts a bit more for good measure, slave to the feel of you tightening obediently around him — or bound by the need to make you utterly his. He can't tell anymore, and he can't care. His only cogent thought is how lovely you look folded over the sink like this, dripping in sweat, chest rising and falling in gasping, labored breaths. You're looking up at him in the reflection, ignorant of the world on the other side of that glass.

The sunlight filters through leaves now, the day landing on your skin from a different angle. Marcus resolves to kiss each dappled spot of sunlight from your skin and he's well on his way to do it until you start squirming desperately. Wordlessly, he lets you down, holds your hips to support your ambitious efforts to stand after such a thorough fucking and it's you who speaks first, after everything.

"The chicken..." Is all you can say. "I forgot the fucking chicken."

And the bubble pops, the music drones back in. Your afterglow is interrupted by the sight of your poor veggies sitting wilted and dried-out on the skillet, not quite burnt, but not exactly Michelin dining, either. Browned patches of butter cling to various spots on the skillet, a few degrees away from scorching. The chicken lies neglected and uncut where you'd left it, never even a contender in the morning's itinerary.

Sweet Tooth laughs. "We got the 'fucking' part down, at least!"

You turn to him, a pout set deep into the lines of your face, and that's all it takes for Sweet Tooth to get roped into cooking while you shower, raid the pantry, and spend the afternoon resting your aching legs on the chaise with Harold. Sweet Tooth doesn't mind. You've got this way of making anywhere feel like home, and even if the two of you won't be sticking around here, he might be convinced to spend a few days. At least until the fridge gets emptied...and definitely after you try out the beds.

And the shower.

And the couches.

There's something he's been meaning to ask you, now that you're stretched out catlike in the other room. He shouts for you, the shape of your name upturned in a question.

"Yeah?" You call back, voice wrecked, but he can hear the smile on your lips.

"What's your favorite animal?"

#.txt #twisted metal #sweet tooth #needles kane x reader #sweet tooth x reader #wraithwrites #twisted metal fanfiction #icon is not white because i am not white and i never see brown skinned ppl in these x reader gfx #slasher x reader

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loveswickedpitch · 2 months

Text

see you in hell you stupid fruits: a rambling reflection on revue starlight relive

revue starlight relive has reached end of service, so i guess i might as well share my thoughts? if you just want the tl;dr, my opinion can be summed up as "good fucking riddance", but you know. might as well talk about it a bit more.

first off, things i liked about relive. i liked most of the new characters it introduced, even if they were pretty flat early on. it was clear that they weren't sure what to do with some of them, but they did expand on them and give them more depth over time. some of the events were cute. the battle system was fun. arcana arcadia had some cool stuff, even if i had already stopped actually playing the game by that point (more on that later). and, uh... that's kind of it, i guess.

none of this stuff was ever really able to overcome the game's flaws. the new characters were fun, but it was pretty clear that they didn't always know how to juggle them, and some characters would go months with no new events or cards (i recall Misora often being neglected). events often had cute moments and occasionally an interesting character tidbit, but a lot of the time they just felt like pointless fluff.

while the basic battle system was compelling, the game never did much with it. PvE stuff was mostly just bland grinding and PvP was a mess full of ridiculous power creep where if you wanted to keep up you had to either get super lucky with your pulls or spend hundreds of dollars. Leveling up and unlocking skills for characters was tedious. in fact, most of the gameplay was an exercise in tedium - eventually, i realized i was going to all this effort to raise characters and do dailies and shit for basically no reason! why bother grinding characters so i can beat event bosses over and over to get the many different types of materials when the only thing to do with them is make your characters better so that you can get more materials??? if you just wanted to experience the cutscenes, you didn't need to engage with the actual gameplay much at all, so why bother? that's not even mentioning the complete lack of variety in basic enemies and bosses that got reused over and over.

arcana arcadia was really cool, but i don't think the story was well-served by the format, and also it took years for them to get to it - the first story arc was pretty much nothing and the second mostly felt like a course correction rather than a compelling narrative arc on its own (especially the first half, imo - the Rinmeikan and Frontier stories were probably the best).

but even if all of this was fine, and the game had compelling gameplay and writing, it would still be bad, because it's just a slot machine with anime girls on it! the entire purpose of the game, the whole reason it exists in the first place, is to grab as much money as possible from vulnerable people. and i kind of debated on whether i would talk about this, but i was one of those people. i spent thousands of dollars on this game because it turns out, surprise, i have a gambling addiction! so it was very frustrating for the bulk of writing for this franchise was locked behind an app i could not safely use.

i think that's basically it. it was a bad game stapled to a slot machine that showed you yuri if you won and i'm glad it's dead.

at least junna and nana kissed.

#not gonna bother posting this in the tag #people don't need to see my whining #fuck gacha games though

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hollandorks · 2 years

Text

shadows in the night

battinson!bruce wayne x f!reader

epilogue

summary: more than a year after the events of middle of the night, y/n and Bruce are happily engaged and working to lower the amount of crime in Gotham. However, a new killer calling himself the Riddler has other plans for their happiness…set during the events of the movie, mostly canonical, some changes made to fit the story

a/n: I literally can’t believe this story is over. I started writing MOTN in March this year, and it has been with me ever since. Almost 9 months straight of MOTN and Battinson. I’m so thankful for this story and the community it brought me and how much fun it’s been over the course of these months! I could write an entire essay on what it means to me and about the people this story brought into my life, but I’ll keep it short and sweet for now.

I’d like to note that I kept this short on purpose--it’s just a glimpse into their future, and I didn’t want to bog it down with too many details. However, I do plan on including at least one more oneshot (maybe more).

(PS: @captain-ariel-rogers you’re welcome)

Series Masterlist

word count: 2807

Every tragedy in his life had led him there, to a home full of love and laughter, even amidst the shadows that came in the night.

The wind on top of the signal tower was unforgiving as Bruce waited next to the spotlight. It was March already, but winter had refused to release its claws from Gotham.

Things in the city had changed, and not all for the good. Not all for the bad, either.

Bella Reál had proven herself time and again to be a more than capable mayor. She thrived in the chaos, in the uncertainty, and had whipped Gotham into shape so quickly it had made Bruce’s head spin. Despite all of the crime, despite how many nights his signal shone in the dark, the new mayor had wrestled control of the city back into the hands of the good.

The trial had started in December as planned, despite the flooding and the wreckage of the city, mostly due to Bella Reál’s firm hand. It had taken weeks, draining them all, but in the end every single man had been convicted on multiple counts and been sent to prison for decades if not the rest of their lives.

For a while, as y/n was forced to relive her trauma on the stand, she had become a shell of herself. She had been withdrawn and quiet throughout the ordeal, the weight of the world holding her down despite Bruce and Alfred and even Gordon doing their best to share her burden. Her nightmares had worsened and Bruce had forced himself to come home earlier and earlier each night simply to be there for her.

But the closer the trial got to its end, the more fiery she became. Her shoulders had straightened and she had thrown herself into rebuilding not only the Gotham Project, but the Renewal Fund as well, and even several other smaller projects that went hand in hand with helping the city.

And she had planned their wedding. She wanted to get it done right, as Bruce had requested, but she also didn’t want to wait.

He was, to put it plainly, in awe of her.

And now, as March started to draw to a close, still wrapped in an unseasonably late winter, their wedding day loomed.

Bruce wasn’t sure what he was more nervous for–the meeting he was about to have with the newly appointed Commissioner Gordon, or the wedding day itself.

He fiddled with a hair tie he kept looped on his utility belt, a habit he had developed in the past year and a half.

It wasn’t too long before the elevator in the tower started rattling its way upwards.

Bruce inhaled sharply and fought against nervously tapping his foot or pacing back and forth. He forced himself into stillness as the doors slid open and Gordon stepped out. The man cursed and burrowed more deeply into his coat.

“Couldn’t we have done this inside?” Gordon called out.

“Light’s warm,” he said softly. It was true–the giant spotlight radiated warmth, more and more the longer it was on. Gordon shivered as he came to a stop next to Bruce. He rubbed his hands together to warm them. Bruce was glad for his own gloves, a newer pair that y/n had made him get that were thicker and lined with fleece. She’d forced him to winter proof his suit, for which he was grateful even if he had grumbled about it at the time.

“Been a while,” Gordon said as they both looked out over the city. It had been a while–things had died down over the past several weeks to the point where the signal was rarely needed. Bruce mostly patrolled on his own and used police scanners to find out where he was needed. “How you been, man?”

Bruce almost frowned. He didn’t realize that they made small talk now. “Fine,” he said.

“Good, good.” Gordon rubbed his hands together again almost absently, then glanced up at Bruce. “So, what have you got for me?”

Bruce couldn’t help shifting slightly from foot to foot. He hoped Gordon didn’t notice. But he was a good detective, a good cop–he likely did notice even if he was pretending otherwise.

Finally, Bruce said, voice gruff and nonchalant, “I have to…step back for a couple of weeks. I wanted you to know, in case you needed me and I didn’t show.”

He’d wavered back and forth, over and over again, between telling Gordon he was leaving and simply disappearing. But he cared for the city too much and had eventually decided that he couldn’t leave without telling someone. Y/n had agreed that Gordon was the best choice–he was trustworthy and likely wouldn’t press for information.

“I figured as much,” Gordon said. Bruce’s eyebrows drew together behind his mask. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll look out for things here, even turn the light on and off and spread some rumors. Make it seem like you’re still around.”

Bruce opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Why?” he said, the only question he could come up with that wouldn’t sound suspicious.

Gordon gave him a sly look then shrugged. “I want you to enjoy your honeymoon.”

The world fell away from Bruce’s feet. How could Gordon possibly know that was Bruce’s reason for leaving? He had no idea who Bruce was. Or at least, he shouldn’t.

“Wh-what?” Bruce said. He silently cursed the stammer in his voice that likely gave it all away. His heart thundered in his ears. Everything went utterly quiet in his mind, every thought wiped out by a wave of pure shock.

Gordon spread his hands innocently. “I’m just saying, man, if you were getting married this weekend and if you were about to go on your honeymoon, I don’t want you worrying about the city. I can take care of things for a couple of weeks.”

Bruce struggled to remain still, to control his breathing, to reign in the panic building in his chest. It was as if he’d just taken a dive over the side of the tower, the world rushing past him as his stomach swooped up towards his throat and his heart pounded with fear and adrenaline.

All the while, Gordon simply stared out at the skyline of Gotham all around them, his breath fogging in front of him as he breathed deeply and evenly.

Bruce silently warred with himself. Did Gordon actually know, or was he guessing? A cold sweat started at his spine and worked its way upwards.

But then he thought back to all the small interactions he’d had with Gordon, especially the ones where y/n had been around. The looks Gordon sometimes gave them, the small comments here and there. Gordon had even joked about y/n being taken and Batman having feelings for her, more than once.

Gordon knew.

Gordon had known for a while.

“How?” Bruce said after a long silence had stretched and warped between them. How did Gordon know, how was he sure, how long ago had he figured it out? That one word encapsulated everything Bruce wanted to ask.

“The gala,” Gordon said, which was the exact opposite answer of what Bruce had anticipated. “Your butler was there. She told the two of you to go home and, well…wasn’t hard to connect the dots after that. Especially with the way you looked at her. You tried to hide it, but…” Gordon chuckled.

Bruce swallowed hard. The roaring had quieted in his ears, but he still felt panicked, unsure. He had always known his feelings for y/n would be what led someone to connect his identity to Batman. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Gordon finally turned to face him. His expression was light, almost amused. “No offense, but I don’t really care who you are.” He shrugged. “You and me, we have the same goals. We want to keep the city safe. It doesn’t matter to me who you are. It never mattered to me.”

Bruce felt something odd in his chest at the words. He opened and closed his mouth several times.

Gordon had known for a year and a half and had never said anything. Had never cared.

“Like I said, man–enjoy your honeymoon.” Gordon winked, slapped him on the back, and left without another word.

Bruce could only stare after him, utterly stunned.

Finally, when he was so cold it hurt, he flipped off the light and left.

His thoughts churned all the way home. He couldn’t get past it–Gordon had known this whole time. He had never revealed Bruce’s secret, had never even gotten close, not even to Bruce himself.

Another person in his life that he didn’t deserve. Gordon had been a truer friend than he had ever realized.

Bruce changed in the abandoned subway station, shivering from the cold. It was later than he’d thought. He’d been frozen–literally and figuratively–atop the tower for much longer than he’d planned to be.

Upstairs, he found Alfred asleep on the couch, the cat Vinny curled up on his lap. Bruce smiled to himself. The butler always acted like he didn’t like the cat, who was now twice as big and twice as fluffy as he’d been when Selina had dropped him off. But toys always mysteriously showed up for the cat, ones that Bruce certainly hadn’t purchased and y/n swore she hadn’t gotten either.

Bruce quietly turned off the lamp and left them to sleep before turning towards his room.

That last little bit of anxiety finally melted from his chest.

The city was in Gordon’s capable hands. He knew he didn’t have to worry while he was gone. And as an added bonus, he didn’t even have to worry about anyone connecting the absence of Batman with Bruce Wayne’s absence. Gordon had taken care of that, too.

Bruce slid into bed next to y/n and sighed as she immediately curled up close to him.

He couldn’t wait for her to be his wife.

–

“Stop fidgeting,” Alfred murmured as he fixed Bruce’s bowtie. “You’ve no reason to be nervous.”

Easy for Alfred to say, Bruce thought a bit bitterly. Bruce hated having the spotlight on him. There were so many ways he could mess things up. And he didn’t want to mess a single thing up–he wanted it all to go perfectly.

“It’s y/n,” Alfred said as he smoothed the bowtie into place again. “Just you and her. No one else.”

And somehow, the words worked.

It’s just y/n, Bruce repeated silently to himself. He thought of her smile, her laugh, her warm hand in his, that little furrow between her eyebrows when she was concentrating. His nerves ebbed and settled. They were still present, but they were no longer choking him.

“Alright,” Alfred said as he stepped back. “That’s your cue, my boy.”

“Right,” Bruce said. The music had indeed shifted. He was supposed to go out to the altar. They’d practiced it the night before and everything.

“Now I have to go get the bride,” Alfred said with a wink.

Bruce swallowed and nodded. He made to step away, to go take his place, but Alfred caught him by the arm.

“I know neither of us are much for words,” Alfred said. He swallowed hard. Were those…tears in his eyes? Bruce was suddenly nervous again for a completely different reason. “But I love you like my own. You and y/n both.”

Bruce nodded because the lump in his throat wouldn’t let him speak. “I love you, too,” he finally managed, barely a whisper.

Alfred hugged him quickly, then shoved him none too gently towards the door.

“See you soon,” Alfred said with a watery smile.

And then Bruce was standing in front of the crowd, palms sweating, all alone except for the woman who would be officiating. He saw Gordon in a smart suit, his wife at his side. There were Bryn and Ollie, sitting with Lena and her son. The lone reporter they had invited to document the event with several incredibly thorough contracts. Bruce’s old housekeeper, Dory, whom y/n had replaced when she’d retired. Even Selina was there, dressed in black and sitting near the back. She caught his eye and winked.

It wasn’t really a crowd, only their closest friends and acquaintances. But it felt like hundreds of people to Bruce.

His only stipulation, besides doing the wedding the right way, was to get married in the same church where his parents had gotten married. He’d worried y/n would be disappointed, that it wouldn’t fit with her vision of the wedding, but she’d been enthusiastic about the idea.

His parents and her mother also had seats reserved for them, and he felt their eyes on him more than anyone else’s.

The music shifted again, and every single thought eddied from his mind.

The doors at the end of the aisle opened, and there she was.

His breath caught in his chest.

She was perfect. Her smile was wide and bright and the sight of it was like an arrow slicing through him.

Her eyes met his and the rest of the world faded away.

Emotion swelled, choking him, blurring his vision.

He had never expected to find a love like this, a love like hers, and here she was, moving towards him and looking at him like he had hung the moon.

Distantly, Bruce felt wetness on his cheeks.

But all he could see was her–the woman who was going to be his wife.

As she got closer and closer every last bit of nervousness he’d felt disappeared under her brightness. He was simply an object in her orbit, following her sun, helplessly caught by her gravity. She eclipsed everything else, utterly radiant and so perfect he could never believe she was going to be his.

Belatedly, he fumbled for the handkerchief Alfred had given him that morning. It had been Bruce’s fathers and still bore the initials T.W. He wiped at his eyes only because the tears were blurring the perfect vision of the woman in white before him.

He shoved the handkerchief back in his pocket, eyes never straying from her, and held out his hand as she stepped up to him.

Her hand was warm and fit perfectly in his own.

“Hi,” she whispered with a soft laugh as the officiant told everyone to be seated.

They faced forward and Bruce whispered, “Hi,” back to her, his smile so wide it hurt.

Now that she was close, he took in the small details, the world slowly fading back in at the edges. He was still focused on her, but it was no longer a total eclipse.

Her dress wasn’t quite white–ivory, he was pretty sure they called it, which he only knew from their many conversations about dress shopping–and had a long train. Her veil was long, too, making her look regal beside him, a queen at her coronation. The material of the dress was almost silky, unadorned but not boring. Nestled at his throat were his mother’s pearls, matching the delicate pearls on her veil. His breath caught again at the sight.

Y/n heard the small noise and turned her face to him to smile.

This woman was going to be his wife.

She nudged him gently and with a jolt, he realized that he was supposed to be paying attention to the officiant. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the woman at his side for long, stopping every few seconds to look at her in awe.

The ceremony was flying by without him hardly noticing. He vowed to love her, protect her, be beside her always. He vowed that they would never be parted, even in death. He reminded her that she was everything he’d ever wanted, the words choking him on the way out.

He had written the vows in an almost fugue state the night before, the words pouring from him. He meant every single thing he promised.

Then y/n vowed to love him, support him, be with him in all things. She laughed when she repeated that she would protect him and that not even death could part them. He was crying again, but he didn’t care.

They exchanged rings and then–

Then they were pronounced husband and wife.

Bruce kissed her fiercely. She was so warm against him, soft in all the right ways, and he never wanted to let her go. He wouldn’t ever let her go.

There were cheers around them. Y/n was still smiling, her eyes wet.

“My husband,” she murmured for his ears only. Was it his imagination, or did she glow even more brightly as she said the words?

“Mrs. Wayne,” he said back teasingly, enjoying the way her breath hitched at the name. “Extraordinary woman.”

Y/n was finally his wife. She was his, in every way.

He was never letting her go.

taglist:

@pop-rocks-and-skittles @calumspupils @n1ght5h4d3-24 @keepingitlokiii @11mb0 @illicitghosts @cat-purrsonified @blue-aconite @junggoku @ohheyitsrowan @angxlictexrs @avengersgirllorianna @brynhildrmimi @twilightdollie @p-writes @lady-x-red @xingqiusliegee @scxrletwitches @justine-en @philiasoul @srryxmate @thecherrybombcom @zaminoo

#bruce wayne x reader #battinson x reader #the batman x reader #batman x reader #bruce wayne fic #batman fic #battinson fic #the batman #the batman 2022 #robert pattinson #battinson #shadows in the night #sitn #brb crying because it's over

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lollytea · 1 year

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fuck yes worldbuilding for the Huntlow Neverland AU. FUCK yes. love everybody's deals they're so interesting. question: what's the deal with Hunter and Belos? and do you have any backstory ideas for Willow beyond her history with Amity (which i love)? it's interesting that her main friends seem to all NOT be fairies

I dont really know about Belos I don't care about him all that much. What I imagine is that he and Caleb visited Neverland as children. They were orphans and didn't have any other sanctuary besides each other but Neverland seemed like their safe haven. Caleb eventually met a wild and rowdy Lost Boy named Evelyn and he decided that he wanted to return to the mainland with her and grow up. Philip was hurt that his brother wanted to leave the life they had made for themselves here but he reluctantly returned home with them. Real life adult problems commenced, years and years of tension and built up resentment on Philip's end, maybe he got really into religion (???) Caleb and Evelyn got pregnant out of wedlock (???) I dunno, blah blah blah blah stab.

Philip returns to Neverland to hide from his guilt (and the police) and relive his glory days but all it does is fuck up his sanity and now he hates this stupid fucking place with all his heart and soul. Its no longer his escapist fantasy from his boyhood. Its a vile abomination. Its Hell and he needs to destroy it somehow.

He and the Collector have a very weird relationship. It's not really as personally antagonistic as Peter Pan and Hook but rather, Belos is the "bad guy" in the Collector's games, which he obediently plays along with (keeps him alive). However, the Collector is very insistent that games be fair and so, he grants Belos' requests that he always have a Special Player on his team so his chances of winning are better. It makes the games more fun that way anyway.

And so, every few decades, the Collector returns to the mainland to bring Belos his Special Player. Upon his request, its always a baby or young boy that he steals from the nursery of the Wittebane family.

(A family which now believes themselves to be cursed because they so frequently have their children stolen in the night.)

The boys never last long. Belos isn't careful with his playthings and they often die before they even make it to manhood. Sad.

(Also. For reference. The subject of "growing up" on Neverland is kinda slippery. In some variations, Peter was actually the only one capable of remaining young forever, while Lost Boys aged and died all around him. In some variations, everybody who lives on Neverland remains in an ageless state. What we are gonna do in this case is make aging a state of mind. You grow old if you feel old. And honestly, most Neverland dwellers do as time passes. Except King and the Collector. Although, time is very weird here. Sometimes a few years in Neverland is just a few weeks back in the human world.)

As for Willow, I imagine her backstory BEGAN with the fight with Amity. But after that she became a lot more meek and less confident because she felt discarded and unloved. This made it very easy for other fairies (Boscha) to make her a bullying target. Willow is clumsy, Willow can't always control her magic, Willow isn't as fast at flying as Boscha, Willow is this and that and whatever.

Things are tense when Amity appears in Neverland and Willow does not want her there. And then she actually becomes kinda friendly with Boscha which hurts even more cuz Oh. So you don't hate fairies? It's just Willow you hate?? Huh. Good to know.

Her confidence begins to gradually build again after some time spent with Luz, Gus and eventually patching things up with Amity. And then Hunter comes along and he makes her feel like the most wonderful fairy in Neverland.

#neverland au

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hoonieyun · 7 months

Text

we can't be friends...

“we can’t be friends...”

pairing: johnny suh x reader “y/n”

genre: angst/toxic relationship

plot: your relationship with johnny is complicated, if the word relationship is even a word you could call what the two of you have. maybe it’s better if you two weren't in a relationship… or even friends.

warning: profanity and mentions of sex - MDNI

notes: haven’t written something in a while and ariana grande’s new album has me in my feels TT - parts in italics are lyrics from ariana’s song “we can’t be friends” copyright goes to her and the writers of that song

word count: 2186

these days your carpet floor is a lot more comfortable than your own bed. your bed harbored so many memories and laying in it only intensified those memories running around in your head. you constantly thought about the good times with johnny; whenever he’d show up at your apartment in the middle of the night with your favorite takeout after a boy broke your heart, or when he’d pretend to be your boyfriend whenever some asshole at the club would get touchy. the good times were good, but the bad times were… terrible.

you don’t know how you got here. everything was so normal a few days ago but suddenly it boiled over into the mess that it is now. imagine a time where you had everything you wanted, but you still weren’t happy. you and johnny have known each other for 6 years, since college, but it never went anywhere; although you hoped it would.

the two of you tried dating during your senior year of college but it got so stressful that after 3 months you called it quits; deciding that being friends would be a lot better. the two of you occasionally would still sleep with each other, but you strictly kept it with no strings attached. which leaves you wondering; who caught feelings first and when?

me and my truth, we sit in silence

you’ve been on the floor for a few hours now. changing your position from laying on the floor near your bed to sitting up leaned against your nightstand. your neck was starting to ache but it didn’t compare to the splitting migraine you had. you rubbed your neck to your temples when you realized your throat hurt a bit. not sure if it was because you had been crying all night or because you haven’t spoken all day. scared that if you said something it would solidify the circumstance you found yourself in; afraid that you’d never recover from this. you didn’t know who to turn to, when you grabbed your phone to find someone to call, your fingers instinctively made its way to johnny’s contact in your phone “big bear” but you couldn’t bring yourself to press call or even send a text, just staring at the last message you sent, “we can’t be friends anymore”.

a part of you wants to blame johnny, that it’s all his fault for treating you the way he did. he always confused you. he’d take you out on fancy dates, tell you to dress pretty, and surprise you with a candlelight dinner; everything a loving boyfriend would do, but then he wouldn’t talk to you for a few days then he’d show up out of nowhere, drunk and talking about the girl he just fumbled and how he was never going to find someone to spend the rest of his life with.

it wasn’t always like this. you used to be best friends, something like from a movie, but the last few days it’s felt like the two of you were complete strangers. you toss your phone after staring at his contact and release a deep sigh. deciding to get up from your spot and find something productive to do. it took so much out of you to stand up, the floor had been your safe space and leaving it meant only to relive the trauma of last night.

you walked out of your bedroom and made your way to the living room, spotting the broken picture frame at the end of the hallway. you bent down to pick up the pieces of glass but got distracted at the photo. it was a photo of you and johnny at your sister’s wedding. he stepped up as your date when you found out your ex boyfriend wasn’t actually abroad studying medicine but was taking care of his wife and child you knew nothing about. the memory brought a smile to your face because you remember walking out of your apartment, trying to suck in all of your tears, when you saw johnny. there he stood in a suit and tie, he’d never looked so good and all you did was run into his arms and continue crying. he held you and in the moment nothing mattered or existed besides the two of you.

you placed all of the broken shards of glass into the trash and left the photo on your coffee table. it didn’t feel real, there was a hole in your wall next to the front door, a glass of wine spilt on the carpet, and the memories of last night flooding in even harder than before.

-last night-

i didn’t think you’d understand me

“are you fucking kidding me, y/n?” johnny yelled from outside your front door. he had been out there for 10 minutes, trying to get you to open the door after you sent him that text message.

“just go home johnny, it’s almost 1am!” you yelled back but all it did was make him slam his fist into the door. “go home-” you were in the middle of your sentence when he yells back “open the fucking door!”. a part of you knew that you shouldn’t, you knew that opening the door would only cause more problems, and that opening the door would be the end of everything you loved with johnny. *click* and the door swung open to a drunken johnny, leaning his head on his arm over your doorframe. he slowly looks up at you, making eye contact. “what?” he asks. you scoff at him and turn around, “all that bullshit and all you have to say is what?” he follows you into your living room, lazily shutting the front door.

“come on, don’t be like this.” he says, almost begging. “like what?” you respond, knowing that his next words would only anger you further. “like this! emotional but never using your words! you expect too much out of me, how am i supposed to know what you want!” he yells. you stare at him, johnny’s chest rising up and down, faster with each breath as if he ran here. “you know what your problem is johnny?” you question him. “you don’t know how to take accountability for when you fuck up. and all you do is fuck up!” you start walking towards, pointing your finger up towards his face.

“you want me to communicate better? well here! you’re an asshole! i hate when you act like you know everything, especially about me, because guess what! you don’t know shit!” your voice was now higher than it should, not a care in your mind if you wake any of your neighbors. your face is inches closer to johnny’s, close enough to feel his breath. you pressed your finger into his chest with every word, backing him up against the wall. “you don’t care about me, you care about having me around so that i’m there for you whenever you need someon-”

“what the hell are you talking about? of course i care about you!” he cuts you off. “if i didn't care about you would i be here right now?” he questions you. “you’re only here because you know you fucked up not because you care about me. you care that i’m angry at you not because you care about my feelings but because you can’t stand to know that you’re the reason i’m upset and you don’t even know why. you never know why because you’ll do whatever it takes to change my mind, you’ll kiss me, get in my pants, buy me gifts, just so that i won’t be angry at you anymore but you never apologize and you never know what you did. so don’t ever, for a second think, that you care about me. you may have cared about me then but you don’t now. and you haven’t for a while.” tears were pouring down your face, throat sore from yelling, and all johnny could do was look at you. look down at you.

the two of you stand in silence for a few moments before johnny grabs your face and brings you into a kiss. flipping the two of you over so that your back was against the wall. you push him off of you, johnny almost tripping over the coffee table; knocking over your glass of wine. “i don’t get it, we used to be best friends. we did everything together” johnny finally speaks.

“how did we get here? why did you have to text me that? i thought we agreed no strings attached?” you sloppily wipe the tears off your face, mascara smearing, and after a deep breath, you respond. “you don’t treat a “friend” the way you treat me. you’ve said it yourself in the past.” and the memory of that night replays in both of your heads.

the night of your sister’s wedding, at the reception, the two of you were outside in the garden watching the stars. “you know i could probably be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had, i already treat you way better than those dickheads and i’m only your best friend” he says and it makes you question what the two of you are. you chuckle, “yeah right, we tried that and we were both too stupid to understand each other outside of our favorite alcohol and sex.” you playfully slap his chest. you were going to look into his eyes when a shooting start catches your eye, “look!” you point towards it. you slap his chest a couple more times excitedly, “make a wish!”. you close your eyes and clasp your hands closed together, like a child making a wish on their birthday before blowing out the candles.

what you didn’t see was that before you essentially rejected his subtle offer to date again, he was looking at you instead of the stars in the sky. now he watches you fondly from behind, smiling and admiring your eagerness to make a wish on the shooting star. you begin to turn around and he quickly shuts his eyes to make it seem like he was wishing upon a star the whole time. you skip towards him and wrap your arms under his, “so what’d you wish for?” you ask. johnny scoffs, “like i’d ever tell you, then it won’t come true” he says while playfully rolling his eyes.

it may seem like he didn’t make a wish in that short time but he wished that the two of you would end up together, spend the rest of your lives together, and grow old together. unfortunately, for johnny, he should’ve known better to wish upon a star.

the memory of that night, under the stars, leaves you in tears again. johnny explains that he’s always wished the two of you ended up together, that even if he said jokingly, he meant it wholeheartedly, but if only you knew that.

“i can’t do this anymore.” johnny breaks the silence. you look up at him and he’s walking towards you. “tell me now, what do you want to do? i know you love me y/n and you know i love you, but if this is going to happen between us we need to…” you cut him off. “no…” your back pressed up against the wall again, noses touching in your close proximity. “we can’t be friends… not when the two of us are like this.” you respond. you feel johnny’s warm breath leave his mouth and for a moment everything was silent and there was a ringing in your ear. only to realize johnny had punched a hole in the wall right beside your head. tears begin to spill out of your eyes, almost uncontrollably. you slide down the wall and hug yourself, at this point your bawling your eyes out. johnny releases his hand from the cavity in the wall he created.

without saying anything… he leaves.

you spend a few more minutes crying before you get up to continue crying in your room. you pass the framed photo of the two of you in the hallway, hastily grabbing it off the wall, sending it crashing behind you into the dark hallway. almost like saying goodbye to the idea of you two.

-present-

your eyes have become glassy, after recalling the moments of last night. you're shaken out of your thoughts when your phone rings. a short one, indicating it’s a text. dreading to know who it may be from, you make your way back to your room. reaching under your bed to grab your phone after you threw it under there.

a text from “big bear” shines bright on your phone: i’ll wait for your love.

if he had sent that text a day earlier he wouldn’t even have to wait for your love, you were ready to give it to him and only him. but after the events of the last few days, maybe the only person you should be giving your love to is yourself.

so for now it’s only me, and maybe that’s all i need…

all writing here is fiction & not in any association with characters mentioned.

#kpop #kpop au #nct #nct au #kpop fic #nct johnny #nct 127 #nct u #johnny suh #fanfic #fic #ff #fan fiction #au #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic

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